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From: js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: Re: Could someone explain why FTL is illegal?  In small words?
Message-ID: <333@mhuxt.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 2-Nov-84 09:24:17 EST
Article-I.D.: mhuxt.333
Posted: Fri Nov  2 09:24:17 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 3-Nov-84 03:29:37 EST
References: <327@mhuxt.UUCP> <8130@watarts.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 25

>   to put it short:   Einstein assumed that nothing could move faster than
> the speed of light.  From there he deduced his theories.  He redefined

    I thought that he concluded, on the basis of the results of the M-M       
experiment, that observers in ANY inertial frame of reference would measure
the same value for the speed of light.  Am I totally wrong?

> simultanuity to the measurable simultanuity, meaning that two events happen
> at the same time for an observer if he receives the information at the same
> time at the speed of light.
>   Thus, if something moved faster than the speed of light, it would
> effectly move backward in time according to Einstein's universe, since 
> the observer could now know something before the event occured in his
> reference frame.  (I'm not going to go into the mathematics of his

    Why would an observer knowing something about an event before he received
the information via a slow medium like light imply that something had moved
backward in time?  
    Could I hear from some other people on this one?  The above explanation
sounds rather circular:  Einstien assumes that nothing can move faster than
the speed of light, and is then able to prove that  nothing can move faster
than C.             

Jeff Sonntag
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