Faster than light travel or "jumping"

[James Heard]

What I'm asking is that aren't several observed events out there that rely on negative mass to make them work mathematically? I don't know, I'm only going by what other people have suggested to me. If that's the case then it's not about if negative mass exists, but rather how long it exists and in what form - right?

 

[bolen]

What I'm asking is that aren't several observed events out there that rely on negative mass to make them work mathematically? I don't know, I'm only going by what other people have suggested to me. If that's the case then it's not about if negative mass exists, but rather how long it exists and in what form - right?

Do you mean recient observation of the acceleration of the universe. One possible answer is a negative energy density. Also quantum field theory gives some negative energy solutions so maybe those could be used to stablize the solution. It seems far fetched to me but everyone thought Black holes did not exist in the 1950's, so what do I know?

 

[genshou]

I've always been more of a fan of "realistic travel times" as outlined in the table of the same name in the d20 Future book. However, in a campaign I'm currently planning (but can't run due to a lack of available players), I am utilizing FTL drives as presented in the book. Hyperspace is fun, but it just didn't fit the campaign idea. The current PL is only 6, so the issue of how FTL travel is possible hasn't shown up yet. Currently, the fastest "engine" available is a photon sail, which I have stated as capable of accelerating a ship to 99.99% light speed in order to avoid the "actual light speed" complications. Since an interstellar fleet would travel at 99.99% light speed at the fastest (where laser drive stations are set up in a chain to further the "boost" a photon sail needs to maintain top speed), but most fleet ships are equipped with only fusion torches (1/2 light speed), governments tend to be located in only one star system, with interstellar battles almost unheard of. By the time the President's order to declare war has gotten a fleet to another system, and they have sent light-speed communications back to deliver a report of the status of the war, that President is no longer serving his term, and the President after them might not be in office either. Personally, I don't mind trading a bit of realism for the increased difficulty it gives humanity in spreading their foul progeny across the galaxy

Sorry if I've hijacked the thread back from you physicists

 

[Shadowdancer]

Cowboy Bebop/2001 Space Odyssey: No or Slow FTL, campaign takes place in a single star system or characters are very long-lived. Maybe characters' minds are downloaded into a computer and transmitted at lightspeed to a receiver which creates a copy/robot body at the destination (read John C. Wright's Golden Age series for more ideas).

While it is in a single star system, Cowboy Bebop uses jump gates within that system to get from planet to planet.

 

[Ranger REG]

Long answer We have a good model of three forces of nature (except gravity) at low energies (lower then a couple of TeV) String theory tries the same approaches that worked for the standard model but instead of particles (1 d objects) it uses strings (2 D objects). Unfortunately it has to invent other dimensions the latest is 12 spatial dimensions with 1 time. It seems to have all the ingredients needed for a final theory

Except
- It has no testable predictions
- You end up with hundreds of free parameters
- It is not clear why one should begin with flat spacetime at the fundamental plank length
- Many other more technical questions

I work in Loop quantum gravity in this we do not try to unite the forces we just try to understand how to create a quantum theory of gravity. In some ways it is less ambitious then strings but I think we are on more solid mathematical ground.

This is the first time I've heard of "loop quantum gravity." Is this derived from Einstein's Theory?

BTW, why not try to unite the forces into one singular theoretical equation? Doesn't all these forces interact and effect one another, even as we speak?

 

[Ranger REG]

Travel between jump gates was instantaneous, and safe.

How so? I mean what happened to you and your ship between the point of origin and the point of destination? I mean, if we were to slow down the timeline event, where does your ship go in mid-jump?

 

[James Heard]

A lot of the time, when someone says "instantaneous jump travel" in science fiction they're postulating that somehow space might fundamentally be foldable. You don't "jump" anywhere, you simply move normally from one point to the other only across a crease or fold in space that makes Point A much closer to Point B than logic might demand.

In Dan Simmon's Hyperion those "jumps" and "folds" are stable enough that people literally have houses that are on several different worlds and the rivers that are diverted seamlessly across the galaxy so that you can achieve interstellar riverboat traffic.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

A while back, I read something about the differences between fantasy and sci-fi.

In fantasy, magic is just accepted as "OK, it's there."

In Sci-Fi, FTL travel is picked apart and naysay'd.

Just do the FTL, make up some speeds, make up some hazards, add engines, and have fun.

Don't let hard science stand in the way of having fun with it. I don't see anyone quoting the laws of energy conservation regarding a spellcaster in D&D...

And no, I'm not throwing rocks at the tech-majors in here. The posts were a fascinating read, but honestly, didn't change the fact I use FTL travel in eight different formats in my d20 Future game.

 

[James Heard]

*shrug* At some point physics start becoming an issue for just about anything, because while "it's magic" is perfectly ok for some things (for some people) it's another beast entirely for others. I'd kick any GM who tried to give me a gobbledeegook physics answer about flying dragons for instance, because a bad explanation is much, much worse to my personal enjoyment and suspension of disbelief than no explanation at all. If you're going to make an inscrutable explanation for something outside the bounds of normal experience (or against the grain of logic and education), you should be prepared to defend it - even if you're just going "it's magic."

 

[tomBitonti]

Don't think that quantum tunnelling gets you > c

Hi,

Slight hijack.

(IMHO), I don't think that you can use quantum tunnelling effects to move
information/energy/mass faster than the speed of light, at least as far as
is currently known. Using that for faster than light travel is still magic.

In the case of coupled events, there is an apparent exchange of information
between the events that would seem to travel faster than light, but, once you
factor in the time taken to move the coupled particles, you lose the apparent
gain. (Seems to me as if the particles 'lazily evaluated' their final state, but
with consistency with the state having been evaluated earlier on, with the
caveat that interference still occurs, which means the evaluation can't have
happened until the particles were apart. It ... seems ... that information has to
travel faster than light, but only in a way that cannot be used to physically
transfer information faster than the speed of light.)

Most non-technical writings on quantum effects aren't really going to tell what
is happening. Too many analogies with everyday experience, which cannot
work. Best to go read Feynman's third series of lectures.