Re: starship-design: FTL idea - Steve

[jimaclem@juno.com]

On Tue, 26 Aug 1997 09:24:40 -0500 (CDT) kuo@bit.csc.lsu.edu (Isaac Kuo)
writes:


>Don't even talk about FTL frames of reference.  Some of you may have
>played around with space-time graphs and Lorentz transformations in
>the 2D case (1 dimension of space, 1 dimension of time), and gotten
>the impression that FTL frames of reference are pretty normal, even
>though they're "flipped" a bit.  This is utterly wrong!  FTL frames
>of reference in any higher dimension (we live in the 4D case) are
>exceedingly bizarre.  Unless your familiar with the mathematics of
>topology, I'm afraid you probably can't comprehend how bizarre they
>are.  Suffice it to say that there's no way to construct an atom,
>any sort of orbit, any sort of camera, or any sort of person in such
>a frame of reference.  The topology is such that particles and light
>travel infinitely fast in some directions, at finite speeds in others,
>and _can't_ travel in other directions.  If you _could_ exist in such
>a frame of reference, and were sitting in a room, you'd find that
>you could see some of the walls, but not others.  If you got up and
>walked around your chair, you'd be able to see it from some angles,
>but not from others.  An ftl frame of reference would be like this
>from the microscopic level to the global level.
>-- 
Does this mean that we can't navigate in FTL space, or at least not
easily?

JIm C.

I feel the need, the need for expeditious velocity!

Pinky and the Brain