4 ms·

the physics were the same 5000 years ago, the people just didn't know it yet. Everything we've built so far, obeyed physics, and I expect that to remain true i

the physics were the same 5000 years ago, the people just didn't know it yet. Everything we've built so far, obeyed physics, and I expect that to remain true in perpetuity.

lostmsu 4y ago
There are already highly theoretical schemes for FTL travel. For example, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive
- _ZeD_ 4y ago
  I would call them "science fiction", but whatever
  - shepherdjerred 4y ago
    Think of everything we’ve discovered even in just the last 50 years, and how impossible it seemed from the perspective of the past. You can always argue that we know more now, that there are fundamental limits, etc., but there’s always more to learn and revise.
    - tsimionescu 4y ago
      Nothing we've discovered in the last 50 years seemed impossible from the perspective of the past. They did seem much farther away, and some had just not been thought of, but no one in the 1970s would be completely incredulous at anything that exists today. Instead, many things that seemed possible 50-150 years ago have turned out in the meantime to be impossible - speeds faster than c (before Maxwell's equations and SR), arbitrary precision measurements (before Heisenberg's uncertainty principle), uniquely determining the future state of a system based on a previous state (before wave functions), arbitrary amounts of matter and energy (before quantization of these and other properties) etc. The history of physics is usually one of discovering new constraints, not one of discovering new possibilities. Before physics, we used to believe in unconstrained magic. Not only have we always believed we can reach the stars, we used to believe we could do it by finding the right magical formula or praying hard enough. Of course there are some exceptions - electricity and quantum computing come to mind.
      - mdiesel 4y ago
        50 years ago is not 500 years ago is not 5000 years ago. In the last 50 years we've had some incremental improvements to our understanding, in 500 you're going to before Newton. 5000 and we were just developing complex farming societies and the first civilisations. 5000 years is before Ozymandias. Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
  - IntelMiner 4y ago
    Why bother advancing science at all, then? If everything is forever the way it will be, clearly we know everything
    - mr_mitm 4y ago
      There are tons of things in physics that we are unsure about or know nothing about. The fact that the speed of light is the ultimate speed limit is not one of them.
    - Aperocky 4y ago
      advancing science is trying in places we know we don't know about, not repeatedly trying to overturn something that we know about and observation (what do you think those spacecraft do) all agreed on. It's like complaining on why people don't try to build a perpetual machine - it's because it is not possible. You're welcome to keep trying though.
  - hoseja 4y ago
    Until we figure out how to pull spacetime from adjacent timelines or whatever wacky thing the Unified Theory turns out to be.
  - MattPalmer1086 4y ago
    Certainly the Alcubiere warp drive requires exotic matter which may not exist. There's now a scheme that doesn't require negative energy. https://newatlas.com/physics/ftl-warp-drive-no-negative-energy/ https://newatlas.com/physics/ftl-warp-drive-no-negative-ener... It may be almost impossible to build due to the energy required, but it isn't prohibited by the physics we currently know.
shaky-carrousel 4y ago
But our model of physics was different 5000 years ago. And I'm pretty sure it'll be different 5000 years from now.
- computerfriend 4y ago
  Physics doesn't care what our model of it is.
  - theonemind 4y ago
    that's good news, because our current model suggests that we can't exceed the speed of light. since physics doesn't care about our model, we might find out that we can somehow.
  - stevenhuang 4y ago
    That's the point. Stating that our current models of physics preclude X neglects to mention it's our current understanding of physics which preclude X. Our models may change to better match reality in the future.
  - colordrops 4y ago
    Physics is our model. There may be something that exists outside of our model, but we can't claim to know with certainty the limits of whatever that is. And whatever it is, it's not physics. Is a statement that nothing can go faster than the speed of light not a model? And if not, how did we arrive at that knowledge? God? Direct experience of the speed of light?
stevenhuang 4y ago
The physics were the same, but you assume our current understanding of physics is complete. At least until we solve general relativity vs quantum mechanics (theory of everything), I would be hesitant to claim we know enough to state definitely what is or isn't possible.
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  One thing that both GR and QM agree on is that the speed of light (well, the speed of massless particles) is a constant of nature. We also know this very clearly from relatively simple direct measurements: there never was and there never will be a way for matter to accelerate to speeds greater than c.
  - colordrops 4y ago
    But even these current laws allow for non-euclidian space configurations and wormholes that leave the possiblity of quick trips around the galaxy.
    - tsimionescu 4y ago
      They allow for the galaxy to essentially possibly be shorter than seems visible - they don't really allow for these to be created if they don't already happen to exist.
  - Already__Taken 4y ago
    Or plot twist, the year is 4765. Turns out physics is deterministic, the universe still may or may not be a simulation, but that hardly matters because the only variable in it is human experience. While interstellar travel remains impossible, we can perfectly simulate any point in spacetime to enter as our reality. We create our own multiverse out of curiosity, powered by other verses we simply run backwards to restore entropy. We no longer know what's a simulation, nor do we care and choose difference experiences for lifetimes for infinity.
    - 4y ago
colordrops 4y ago
Are you claiming that we finally found a perfect and complete description of reality in modern physics? This is such a glaring and huge blindspot in western scientific thought process - a blindness to the human element of the scientific process. As if "physics" is something that has been around forever and we just found it in perfect form like some ancient artifact in a cave, rather than the truth of the matter, which is that it is a human creation that is modified with time and is a complex communal phenomenon with many different facets and pieces that not everyone agrees upon. In fact many of the most fundamental elements of physics are under revision and without consensus.

the physics were the same 5000 years ago, the people just didn't know it yet. Everything we've built so far, obeyed physics, and I expect that to remain true in perpetuity.

lostmsu 4y ago

There are already highly theoretical schemes for FTL travel. For example, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive

_ZeD_ 4y ago
I would call them "science fiction", but whatever
- shepherdjerred 4y ago
  Think of everything we’ve discovered even in just the last 50 years, and how impossible it seemed from the perspective of the past. You can always argue that we know more now, that there are fundamental limits, etc., but there’s always more to learn and revise.
  - tsimionescu 4y ago
    Nothing we've discovered in the last 50 years seemed impossible from the perspective of the past. They did seem much farther away, and some had just not been thought of, but no one in the 1970s would be completely incredulous at anything that exists today. Instead, many things that seemed possible 50-150 years ago have turned out in the meantime to be impossible - speeds faster than c (before Maxwell's equations and SR), arbitrary precision measurements (before Heisenberg's uncertainty principle), uniquely determining the future state of a system based on a previous state (before wave functions), arbitrary amounts of matter and energy (before quantization of these and other properties) etc. The history of physics is usually one of discovering new constraints, not one of discovering new possibilities. Before physics, we used to believe in unconstrained magic. Not only have we always believed we can reach the stars, we used to believe we could do it by finding the right magical formula or praying hard enough. Of course there are some exceptions - electricity and quantum computing come to mind.
    - mdiesel 4y ago
      50 years ago is not 500 years ago is not 5000 years ago. In the last 50 years we've had some incremental improvements to our understanding, in 500 you're going to before Newton. 5000 and we were just developing complex farming societies and the first civilisations. 5000 years is before Ozymandias. Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!
- IntelMiner 4y ago
  Why bother advancing science at all, then? If everything is forever the way it will be, clearly we know everything
  - mr_mitm 4y ago
    There are tons of things in physics that we are unsure about or know nothing about. The fact that the speed of light is the ultimate speed limit is not one of them.
  - Aperocky 4y ago
    advancing science is trying in places we know we don't know about, not repeatedly trying to overturn something that we know about and observation (what do you think those spacecraft do) all agreed on. It's like complaining on why people don't try to build a perpetual machine - it's because it is not possible. You're welcome to keep trying though.
- hoseja 4y ago
  Until we figure out how to pull spacetime from adjacent timelines or whatever wacky thing the Unified Theory turns out to be.
- MattPalmer1086 4y ago
  Certainly the Alcubiere warp drive requires exotic matter which may not exist. There's now a scheme that doesn't require negative energy. https://newatlas.com/physics/ftl-warp-drive-no-negative-energy/ https://newatlas.com/physics/ftl-warp-drive-no-negative-ener... It may be almost impossible to build due to the energy required, but it isn't prohibited by the physics we currently know.

shaky-carrousel 4y ago

But our model of physics was different 5000 years ago. And I'm pretty sure it'll be different 5000 years from now.

computerfriend 4y ago
Physics doesn't care what our model of it is.
- theonemind 4y ago
  that's good news, because our current model suggests that we can't exceed the speed of light. since physics doesn't care about our model, we might find out that we can somehow.
- stevenhuang 4y ago
  That's the point. Stating that our current models of physics preclude X neglects to mention it's our current understanding of physics which preclude X. Our models may change to better match reality in the future.
- colordrops 4y ago
  Physics is our model. There may be something that exists outside of our model, but we can't claim to know with certainty the limits of whatever that is. And whatever it is, it's not physics. Is a statement that nothing can go faster than the speed of light not a model? And if not, how did we arrive at that knowledge? God? Direct experience of the speed of light?

stevenhuang 4y ago

The physics were the same, but you assume our current understanding of physics is complete. At least until we solve general relativity vs quantum mechanics (theory of everything), I would be hesitant to claim we know enough to state definitely what is or isn't possible.

tsimionescu 4y ago
One thing that both GR and QM agree on is that the speed of light (well, the speed of massless particles) is a constant of nature. We also know this very clearly from relatively simple direct measurements: there never was and there never will be a way for matter to accelerate to speeds greater than c.
- colordrops 4y ago
  But even these current laws allow for non-euclidian space configurations and wormholes that leave the possiblity of quick trips around the galaxy.
  - tsimionescu 4y ago
    They allow for the galaxy to essentially possibly be shorter than seems visible - they don't really allow for these to be created if they don't already happen to exist.
- Already__Taken 4y ago
  Or plot twist, the year is 4765. Turns out physics is deterministic, the universe still may or may not be a simulation, but that hardly matters because the only variable in it is human experience. While interstellar travel remains impossible, we can perfectly simulate any point in spacetime to enter as our reality. We create our own multiverse out of curiosity, powered by other verses we simply run backwards to restore entropy. We no longer know what's a simulation, nor do we care and choose difference experiences for lifetimes for infinity.
  - 4y ago

colordrops 4y ago

Are you claiming that we finally found a perfect and complete description of reality in modern physics? This is such a glaring and huge blindspot in western scientific thought process - a blindness to the human element of the scientific process. As if "physics" is something that has been around forever and we just found it in perfect form like some ancient artifact in a cave, rather than the truth of the matter, which is that it is a human creation that is modified with time and is a complex communal phenomenon with many different facets and pieces that not everyone agrees upon. In fact many of the most fundamental elements of physics are under revision and without consensus.