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From: bsa@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: FTL Travel
Message-ID: <813@ncoast.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 26-Jul-85 12:20:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: ncoast.813
Posted: Fri Jul 26 12:20:06 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 29-Jul-85 07:23:14 EDT
References: <2702@topaz.ARPA> <1622@orca.UUCP>
Reply-To: bsa@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery)
Followup-To: net.sf-lovers
Organization: North Coast Xenix, Cleveland, OH
Lines: 61

Expires:

Quoted from <1622@orca.UUCP> ["Re: FTL Travel"], by andrew@orca.UUCP (Andrew Klossner)...
+---------------
| >> Actually, according to Special Relativity, faster-than-light travel
| >> is just plain impossible.  All the sqrt(v^2 / c^2) terms turn
| >> imaginary...
| >
| > I'm sure this shows a shocking naivitee on the subject of relativistic
| > physics, but this argument never made much sense to me.  So what if
| > the multiplier turns imaginary.  Imaginary numbers have rights too.
| 
| .....................................................It wasn't so long
| ago that many of the best brains in aerodynamics were convinced that
| no aircraft would ever reach the speed of sound.  Now to the math ...
| 
| FTL problems predicted by special relativity don't center on objects
| going faster than light, but rather are concerned with objects
| accelerating up to and through the speed of light.  The mass equation,
| for example, is
| 
| 	m = m0 / sqrt(1 - (v^2)/(c^2))
| 
| where m is mass, m0 is rest mass, v is your velocity as perceived by
| some observer, and c is the speed of light.  If an observer sees you
| achieve the speed of light, that observer would also see your mass
| become infinite (m0 / 0).  I think it's legitimate to throw up my hands
| and say that infinite mass is impossible.
+---------------

But one message on here said that the mass equation was just a way of keeping
F=ma legit at high speeds.  So?  What if it isn't so?  What if the physicists
did it to themselves again -- preserved their prejudices and thereby got the
wrong result?  (The alternate ways to balance the equation are to have the
acceleration increase, or thr force to decrease.)  But who said that either
had to happen?  Maybe F=ma is just plain FALSE at high speeds, and the work-
around is only approximately true, like approximations to functions which
disappear at some points when the real function doesn't; I remember seeing
some in my calculus courses, but I don't remember what they were any more.

Question on a similar subject:  What is ``seen'' by sonar when a supersonic
plane goes trans-sonic?  There are two possibilitis; one, which appears to
match the facts we see, sounds suspiciously like what the Special Relativity
guys say happens at lightspeed...

One possibility is that the sonic record just fades out as the plane crosses
the sound barrier.

The other is that the record has less and less gain as the plane increases,
then suddenly jumps to a maximum, then disappears.  The maximum is the
``sonic boom''.  I suspect this is similar to the idea that lightspeed
particles (i.e. photons) are ``primarily'' energy (i.e. can't hit like a
bullet, but CAN refract), and, if so, may say that S.R. is wrong from the
start.  (And ships going trans-light would cause a ``light boom''; shades
of ST:TMP! :-)

Any comments?

--bsa
-- 
Brandon Allbery, Unix Consultant -- 6504 Chestnut Road, Independence, OH 44131
decvax!cwruecmp!ncoast!bsa; ncoast!bsa@case.csnet; +1 216 524 1416; 74106,1032
========================> Trekkies have Warped minds. <=======================