3 ms·
I thought we were in their light-cone, if we can see them.
by Prrometheus 18y ago
I thought we were in their light-cone, if we can see them.
- mechanical_fish 18y agoWe are in the light cone of the light that they emitted several hundred years ago. The light that they are emitting "now" [1] is still a few hundred years outside of our light cone, just as they still a hundred years or more away from learning about our discovery of radio. It's theoretically possible that they know about Earth's IP laws as of a few hundred years ago. But in Dickens' day England couldn't manage to enforce their IP laws in the United States, let alone the rest of the Milky Way. These days I'm sure that many lawyers wouldn't hesitate to sue Pluto for misappropriating the name of a Disney character, but that news has yet to reach many of our extrasolar neighbors. [1] Keeping in mind that, in a discussion involving relativity, you have to be very careful with the word "now".