Faster-Than-Light Travel/Analysis: Difference between revisions

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But, all in all, suffice it to say that having the protagonists' rocketship outrun a beam of light will always require some serious [[Hand Wave|hand waving]] by the author.<ref>It should be noted that in relativistic physics it ''is'' possible to get arbitrarily far within an arbitrarily short time ''from the perspective of the person doing the moving''. Time itself is relative, and stationary observers see the flow of time for the person traveling ''slow down'', so that in the time it takes the traveler to get to their destination, he or she experiences less time passing than the stationary observers do. The person making the journey sees the distance to their destination contracted along their direction of travel, so they have less distance to cover than they did when they were stationary. This makes it ''theoretically'' possible for an astronaut to cross great distances in a single life-time, but FTL travel is still required if you don't want the journey to take eons from the perspective of those the traveler left behind on Earth.</ref> See also [[Time Dilation]].

Even outside of Einstein's flavor of Relativity <ref>Not only because it got [[Real Life]] physics issues of its own. It's ''already'' implicitly thrown away if the 'verse in question has "gravitons" or "antigravity".</ref>, other theories tend to impose limitations just as strict or more <ref>Those without Riemannian space and "gravity is effect of space curvature - it's the same as inertia" axiom that needs it are likely to eliminate even the loophole of "Alcubierre drive", such as it is.</ref>, because they all are intended to describe the same effects of matter moving at significant portion of lightspeed in the first place. Thus what it may take to make a "warp drive" believable is to remove "gravity as space curvature" concept and then add ''another'' [[Mohs_Scale_of_Science_Fiction_Hardness/Physics_Plus|Physics extension]] that brings space curvature back in some other way. <br/>

Even outside of Einstein's flavor of Relativity <ref>Not only because it got [[Real Life]] physics issues of its own. It's also a gravity theory and is ''already'' implicitly thrown away once the 'verse in question has "gravitons" or "antigravity".</ref>, other theories tend to impose limitations just as strict or more <ref>Those without Riemannian space and "gravity is effect of space curvature - it's the same as inertia" axiom that needs it are likely to eliminate even the loophole of "Alcubierre drive", such as it is.</ref>, because they all are intended to describe the same effects of matter moving at significant portion of lightspeed in the first place. Thus what it may take to make a "warp drive" believable is to remove "gravity as space curvature" concept and then add ''another'' [[Mohs_Scale_of_Science_Fiction_Hardness/Physics_Plus|Physics extension]] that brings space curvature back in some other way. <br/>

Of course, any space curvature intense enough to have such use by definition must have much the same "little side effects", like refraction and tendency to cause deformations trying to rip apart most things passing through it if they are more complex than a simple gas molecule. Note that once the gravity is ''not'' the same as spatial anomalies, it's most likely to be ''affected by'' them - which may be bad news for massive objects close to even-more-massive objects. Then again, usually it's good news for the authors seeking an excuse to have [[No Warping Zone]]s around anything potentially important.

Of course, any space curvature intense enough to have such use by definition must have much the same "little side effects", like refraction and tendency to cause deformations trying to rip apart most things passing through it if they are more complex than a simple gas molecule. Note that once the gravity is ''not'' the same as spatial anomalies, it's most likely to be ''affected by'' them - which may be bad news for massive objects close to even-more-massive objects. Then again, usually it's good news for the authors seeking an excuse to have [["No Warping" Zone]]s around anything potentially important.