3 ms·

I'm probably showing my ignorance of relativity here, but isn't special relativity just a special case of general relativity?

• wolfgke 13y ago
  Under the assumption that panzi's statement is correct (I'm no physicist) in the limited context of special relativity FTL travel is impossible. But general relativity considers a more general context.
• panzi 13y ago
  I'm not sure why general and special relativity are called like that. Special relativity is about movement and how that causes length contractions, time dilations and a change of mass of the moving object. General relativity is about how mass (even at rest) dilates spacetime. So general relativity is about black holes and worm holes and how space itself maybe "moves". There is no speed limit on how fast a region of space itself can move in relation to another region, thus it is ok that the universe expands at a speed where two regions are "moving" away from each other faster than the speed of light. So if you could move space itself you could implement FTL travel, because this is not movement at all in the sense of special relativity. Some scientists say one could do that if you could create matter with a negative energy density, whatever that might mean. I think our understanding of the universe does not exclude the possibility for such matter, but it doesn't predict it either. So unless new discoveries are made that lead to new theories that predict such matter FTL is in the realm of wishful thinking. That's what I could piece together from various (non science journal) news publications and YouTube videos (by PhDs, aimed at laymen).