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From: guy@rlgvax.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Why we complain; a statement of principles
Message-ID: <1975@rlgvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 31-May-84 23:59:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: rlgvax.1975
Posted: Thu May 31 23:59:10 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 2-Jun-84 11:49:03 EDT
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> 	Alas, Einstein discovered much more than that.  He discovered
>     that the very nature of the Universe, is considerably different
>     than what we imagine.   Travelling FTL, is absurd, because the
>     entire concept of "faster" depends upon what frame of reference you
>     are in.    Speed, in and of itself, does not exist -- thus, one
>     cannot be travelling "close to the speed of light", one can only
>     be almost C out of synch with another object.   The universe is
>     warped in the fourth dimension, so that everything, at every
>     velocity, is in the exact center of the universe.

> 	There are a lot more discoveries than this, but I won't bother
>     to go into detail.  Suffice it to say, that space empires, and
>     FTL drives, derive their origin from the refusal to believe in
>     a non-NEWTONIAN universe.  But again, not all the future science
>     in the world, is going to change the univewrse back to a newtonian
>     one.

The most one can say is "FTL travel is ruled out by Einsteinian mechanics";
Einsteinian mechanics will never be "proven" (nor will the Second Law of
Thermodynamics) correct and unbreakable in a mathematical sense.  It may
be, however, that no theory permitting FTL travel which fits current
observations can be constructed; it's already been shown (to take another
example) that no "hidden variable" theories of a certain kind can be
constructed that will exactly reproduce the predictions of quantum
mechanics.  No future theories that correctly describe the universe
will describe a Newtonian one, to be sure.  And frankly, if I were given
the opportunity to bet a large sum of money that FTL won't be discovered
within the next 1 million years, and offered the chance to collect on that
bet, I'd make it.  But I wouldn't claim it was absolutely a logical
impossibility.  It's just damn unlikely.

	Guy Harris
	{seismo,ihnp4,allegra}!rlgvax!guy