Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!security!genrad!grkermit!masscomp!clyde!floyd!harpo!seismo!hao!hplabs!sri-unix!duntemann.wbst@PARC-MAXC.ARPA
From: duntemann.wbst@PARC-MAXC.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: FTL
Message-ID: <15702@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 18-Jan-84 16:13:25 EST
Article-I.D.: sri-arpa.15702
Posted: Wed Jan 18 16:13:25 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Jan-84 06:21:24 EST
Lines: 53




----------

Subject: Undelivered mail
From: BacoNoir.ms (a Grapevine mail server)
To: duntemann.wbst
Date: 18-Jan-84 15:42:21 EST

The message sent by duntemann.wbst at 18-Jan-84 15:41:35 EST could not
be delivered to the following recipients because they were rejected by
the MTP server "Maxc".  The reason given was: Domain missing in ARPA
recipient name "JAFFE&RUTGERS"

JAFFE&RUTGERS.ARPA

----------------

From: duntemann.wbst
Date: 18-Jan-84 15:37:40 EST
Subject: FTL
To: JAFFE&RUTGERS.ARPA

The beauty of special relativity and time dilation is
that it does NOT completely outlaw FTL travel.  It only outlaws FTL
with respect to an external reference frame.  If you abandon external
reference frames, you can travel as quickly as you like.  With the
exception of Anderson, few SF writers have picked up on this, and
none that I know of treat it as a normal, useful effect.  For example,
assume you have a total conversion drive which accelerates all
particles within a given volume equally--no stresses are placed
on the substance of the starship or the people inside.  With
total conversion of matter, accelerations of 2000 or 3000 G should
be easy enough to achieve.  This violates no physical laws that I know
of; obviously we don't know how to do it yet nor will we for some
time.

But that magnitude of acceleration would make a trip to the nearer
stars a matter of weeks or months rather than centuries.  So who
gives a damn if the universe ages a millenium in the process?  If
the idea is to get a boatload of colonists somewhgere, timeslips
like that are trivial--the planet won't change noticeably in the
meantime.

If we can ever perfect a "thruster" as Niven called them, we will
travel as fast as we like--as long as we never look back.

Godspeed,

Jeff Duntemann

duntemann.wbst@PARC-MAXC