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No argument? She has shown that within widely accepted theory FTL could be possible. You need to poke a hole in that to say that she has no real argument. I thi

by comboy 4y ago

No argument? She has shown that within widely accepted theory FTL could be possible. You need to poke a hole in that to say that she has no real argument. I think many physicist may dismiss it as, well, yes, given certain assumptions.. but it's a really good argument. Personally my biggest question would be why didn't we observe anything FTL in the Universe yet. But it could be, just like with many scientific discoveries, what has been a great data point has been dismissed as some measurement problem.

superposeur 4y ago
The form of argument "maybe X invalidates theory Y, so we shouldn't trust prediction of Y" isn't terribly useful since it could be applied to any prediction of science; "Maybe quantum gravity so let's not worry about conservation of energy." "Maybe comoving frame, so maybe we can build antigravity devices", etc. Of course, it could be true. Most anything could be true. It's just not a useful basis for adjusting one's priors.
- voxl 3y ago
  Actually it is. There is no good reason scientists should all follow the same course of action. In fact, per your own appeal to statistical reasoning, such reasoning is only meaningful if you have an actualization of the samples. If no scientists ever try the unlikely scenarios then you will always reach local optimum. What is at stake is "Some scientists should consider FTL travel possible, and give it a go." for such a statement, the argument definitely holds water.
Maursault 4y ago
> Personally my biggest question would be why didn't we observe anything FTL in the Universe yet. If something was FTL, and we need light to see things, how could anything FTL be seen, as light could not move fast enough to reach it then reach our eyes. Further, assuming we could travel FTL, while traveling we'd be nearly blind, and anything we did see wouldn't make any sense.
- comboy 3y ago
  Imagine a triangle from points A B C. If I'm at C, and I know distance between A and B, then if something is at A then at B and I measure time between these events in my frame of reference..
- havnagiggle 3y ago
  I just saw a fun YouTube video on this: https://youtu.be/vFNgd3pitAI https://youtu.be/vFNgd3pitAI (at 13m). I don't know how sound their reasons are, but it seems pretty well put together. Basically you'd see the same thing from multiple locations, as the light emitted closest to you will hit you at the same time light emitted in the past from further away reaches you. It would construct as two objects going in opposite directions.
- sublinear 3y ago
  I don't know much about physics, but cameras take pictures of things faster than their shutter speed all the time. What occurs is blurring and bright spots. Just because something is moving faster than the speed of light doesn't mean the light reflected from it never reaches our eyes. I think another way to perceive it is as if you have a buffer that is beginning to overflow because you can't empty it faster than the speed of light. That overflow is how I'd imagine you'd detect FTL objects. It's like the visual equivalent of a sonic boom. Again idk what I'm talking about, but it was nice to think about :)
- CorrectHorseBat 3y ago
  Yet we have no problem hearing things going faster than sound
dreamcompiler 3y ago
> Personally my biggest question would be why didn't we observe anything FTL in the Universe yet. We have observed at least one FTL phenomenon -- sort of. We know entangled particles communicate with each other FTL because of the Bell inequality. We just don't have any influence on what message they communicate (and we probably never will).
- ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
  Isn't it just due to specific interpretations of QM that particles communicate? The Many-Worlds interpretation (also pilot-wave theories) wouldn't require any FTL communication between particles.
ActorNightly 3y ago
All of the arguments for it being possible are essentially equivalent to "it could be that we are all just a simulation program, and within that program its possible to pause/change properties/unpause and make something appear as FTL travel within the simulation". This could be the case in reality. But its utterly useless information, because it doesn't really give you a direction in which you can even begin to investigate it. Saying that something is possible in this regard is saying that our knowledge of our reality has holes, and "anything" can be in those holes, nothing about the specifics of what could be in those holes.

by comboy 4y ago

superposeur 4y ago

The form of argument "maybe X invalidates theory Y, so we shouldn't trust prediction of Y" isn't terribly useful since it could be applied to any prediction of science; "Maybe quantum gravity so let's not worry about conservation of energy." "Maybe comoving frame, so maybe we can build antigravity devices", etc. Of course, it could be true. Most anything could be true. It's just not a useful basis for adjusting one's priors.

voxl 3y ago
Actually it is. There is no good reason scientists should all follow the same course of action. In fact, per your own appeal to statistical reasoning, such reasoning is only meaningful if you have an actualization of the samples. If no scientists ever try the unlikely scenarios then you will always reach local optimum. What is at stake is "Some scientists should consider FTL travel possible, and give it a go." for such a statement, the argument definitely holds water.

Maursault 4y ago

> Personally my biggest question would be why didn't we observe anything FTL in the Universe yet. If something was FTL, and we need light to see things, how could anything FTL be seen, as light could not move fast enough to reach it then reach our eyes. Further, assuming we could travel FTL, while traveling we'd be nearly blind, and anything we did see wouldn't make any sense.

comboy 3y ago
Imagine a triangle from points A B C. If I'm at C, and I know distance between A and B, then if something is at A then at B and I measure time between these events in my frame of reference..
havnagiggle 3y ago
I just saw a fun YouTube video on this: https://youtu.be/vFNgd3pitAI https://youtu.be/vFNgd3pitAI (at 13m). I don't know how sound their reasons are, but it seems pretty well put together. Basically you'd see the same thing from multiple locations, as the light emitted closest to you will hit you at the same time light emitted in the past from further away reaches you. It would construct as two objects going in opposite directions.
sublinear 3y ago
I don't know much about physics, but cameras take pictures of things faster than their shutter speed all the time. What occurs is blurring and bright spots. Just because something is moving faster than the speed of light doesn't mean the light reflected from it never reaches our eyes. I think another way to perceive it is as if you have a buffer that is beginning to overflow because you can't empty it faster than the speed of light. That overflow is how I'd imagine you'd detect FTL objects. It's like the visual equivalent of a sonic boom. Again idk what I'm talking about, but it was nice to think about :)
CorrectHorseBat 3y ago
Yet we have no problem hearing things going faster than sound

dreamcompiler 3y ago

> Personally my biggest question would be why didn't we observe anything FTL in the Universe yet. We have observed at least one FTL phenomenon -- sort of. We know entangled particles communicate with each other FTL because of the Bell inequality. We just don't have any influence on what message they communicate (and we probably never will).

ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
Isn't it just due to specific interpretations of QM that particles communicate? The Many-Worlds interpretation (also pilot-wave theories) wouldn't require any FTL communication between particles.

ActorNightly 3y ago

All of the arguments for it being possible are essentially equivalent to "it could be that we are all just a simulation program, and within that program its possible to pause/change properties/unpause and make something appear as FTL travel within the simulation". This could be the case in reality. But its utterly useless information, because it doesn't really give you a direction in which you can even begin to investigate it. Saying that something is possible in this regard is saying that our knowledge of our reality has holes, and "anything" can be in those holes, nothing about the specifics of what could be in those holes.