OT Faster than light was: Hollywood OS wars 3314

On Monday 06 March 2006 21:53, Ray Ingles stood up and spoke the following words to the mbuttes incomp.os.linux.advocacy...:

No, but it is hard for us to conceive what exists beyond the lightspeed barrier. We can't possibly know everything, and it is possible - I'm not saying it is necessarily so - that even GR doesn't cover everything. Most likely it doesn't, or quantum mechanics and general relativity would not be so contradictory and at the same time so empirically correct - i.e. for what we know of it.

It's not a matter of consciousness, but rather of construct. For reasons we can only speculate, the Universe seems to make it impossible for usable information to travel back in time, through its very construct.

Hawking postures that certain timeloops etc.couldexist, but only in an isolated reference frame. Similarly, there are no naked singularities anywhere in the Universe, but there may be naked singularities in isolated reference frames.

In Dutch, we have a saying that roughly translates as "The exceptions are what confirm the rules."

I don't know. So far, the Universe doesn't seem to be all too friendly

I've only skimmed the page so far, but I'll go back later to read it more in full. It's certainly interesting. ;-)

Hawking believes - and I share that belief - that both may be part of a much bigger picture; that which Hawking calls "the M-Theory".

So far, there seems to be nothing to prevent time traveling from happening, but - again, according to Hawking - if timetravel exists, then it will rather be "traveling into the future", without the possibility to turn back.

I've read a webpage a while ago about traveling through hyperspace - hyperspace being a 5-dimensional environment, in which our spacetime is curved and distances are physically shorter.

However, traveling such a distance through hyperspace would yield no benefit versus traveling through space, as one would arrive in the future. I'm not an expert on mathematics and formulas - it's been ages since I was in school ;-) - but the formulas were shown alongside with the text, and there were lightcone diagrams and everything.

I think it's too soon for me to comment on that. I'm thinking along other lines, but I have yet to fund my theory with sufficient background knowledge.

One of the main reasons for my interest in the subject of FTL - aside from my general interests in science - is that I'm planning on writing a science-fiction novel, which will of course feature a lot of fiction, but also a lot of science.

Aside from the storyline, I hope to tie-in the fiction with the science in such a way that the fiction will extend the science imagination-wise, instead of contradicting it. Basically, what I mean is that I intend to leave room for scientific possibilities not yet verified or thought of.

The above does not only apply to FTL traveling, but also to the biological, physiological and socio-cultural characteristics of the many alien civilizations that will either be spoken of or become part of the storyline.

As I said, I'll do that later. I've been up since 03h00 (AM), and my eyesight is getting really blurry by now. ;-)

-- With kind regards,

*Aragorn* (Registered GNU-Linux user #223157)