Timeline for What would be the least physics breaking way to travel at light speed or faster?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
41 events
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| Jun 27, 2022 at 17:27 | comment | added | Robbie Goodwin | @vsz Look back where Vakus Drake high-lighted "additional" handwaving, which is what you're calling "explanation". I don't at all fail to understand the difference between ignoring relativity… and using concepts designed for dealing with it; I ignore that difference for what it's worth. it's only relevance is that it's helping to mislead you, to think that what amounts to listing someone's favourite thought conjecture, is an explanation. It isn't. Nor is this anything to do with Star Trek, except as an obvious example. That concepts have names doesn't make them explanations. Again, sorry. | |
| Jun 27, 2022 at 14:20 | comment | added | vsz | @RobbieGoodwin : telling me I should ask for lessons in English is condescending. And you still seem to fail to understand the difference between completely ignoring relativity (by thinking one could go faster than light by simply accelerating), and using concepts which are designed explicitly for dealing with these issues. This is not even only about Star Trek, it's about basically any sci-fi setting which has some form of FTL travel. Using one of these established methods (or thinking up a new one) is much better than the Newtonian approach which will be dismissed by most modern readers. | |
| Jun 27, 2022 at 14:11 | comment | added | Robbie Goodwin | @vsz Sorry. Clarity is not condescension. Star Trek never more than vaguely starts to "explain" FTL travel. "Wormholes, hyperspace, and Alcubierre drives" are not explanations; they're theoretical concepts which roughly translate as "they go faster than light by using special gizmoes with names that sound scientific…" Because we can look up Alcubierre or other warp drives in scientific dictionaries doesn't explained anything. If you still can't grasp that, test your confidence by Posting your precis of trekker lore. | |
| Jun 27, 2022 at 13:49 | comment | added | vsz | @RobbieGoodwin : there is no need for you to act so condescending. And it doesn't matter whether you personally like or dislike Star Trek, it's still a fact that instead of them ignoring relativity and naively "just traveling above the speed of light" as if the universe was Newtonian, they do use one of the 3 main and established sci-fi ways of FTL travel. (wormholes, hyperspace, and Alcubierre drive, they use the latter). If you couldn't understand even that much, it's on you. | |
| Jun 26, 2022 at 21:11 | comment | added | Robbie Goodwin | @vsz That's not what I said, though it leads to the same conclusion. You're welcome to ask for lessons in English or logic, or both in Chat. Sorry to spoil your illusion and in effect, Star Trek does have the naive approach of just traveling above the speed of light. By definition that requires an FTL drive and is it my fault if some Trekkies don't accept that boils down to "they go fast by having a fast drive?" Star Trek has had decades to try to justify how its warp drives work and if it had got anywhere with that, you would now be able to give a useful precis. Why not try that? | |
| Jun 26, 2022 at 15:43 | answer | added | Justin Thyme the Second | timeline score: -1 | |
| Jun 24, 2022 at 19:56 | answer | added | Sojourner1983 | timeline score: 1 | |
| Jun 24, 2022 at 15:15 | answer | added | Justin Thyme the Second | timeline score: 0 | |
| Jun 24, 2022 at 14:00 | comment | added | Justin Thyme the Second | @vsz Technically ,it is not an FTL drive.it is a warp speed drive. | |
| Jun 24, 2022 at 8:07 | comment | added | vsz | @RobbieGoodwin : because you claimed that Star Trek simply says "things can travel above the speed of light", and I replied that it's not the case, as Star Trek doesn't simply have the naive approach of just traveling above the speed of light, they do have an FTL drive and to try to justify how it works. | |
| Jun 24, 2022 at 2:00 | comment | added | Justin Thyme the Second | There is no absolute reason in physics why c has to be the number it is. In fact, astronomy posits that c is different in different parts of the universe. So if somehow you could change the constant c to something else, in your own bubble, you could travel with respect to that different c. | |
| Jun 23, 2022 at 23:23 | answer | added | Goodies | timeline score: 0 | |
| Jun 23, 2022 at 19:55 | answer | added | Trioxidane | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jun 23, 2022 at 19:14 | answer | added | Mike Serfas | timeline score: 1 | |
| Jun 23, 2022 at 18:45 | comment | added | Robbie Goodwin | @Vsz Thanks and why are you telling me that, please? | |
| Jun 23, 2022 at 4:04 | comment | added | vsz | @RobbieGoodwin : Star trek doesn't just have a Newtonian universe where a rocket can simply accelerate to speeds faster than c, they also have an "FTL drive", and it's even in my list as "some device which distorts spacetime". | |
| Jun 22, 2022 at 23:46 | comment | added | kaya3 | Alternatively, you could just design a fictional world where the planets and stars are close enough together that you don't need to travel faster than light to get between them. Or a fictional world with a much higher speed of light, if you like. | |
| Jun 22, 2022 at 23:06 | comment | added | Robbie Goodwin | In your own reading and research, what might be the best way? Which three or four were you favourite novels? Which your favourite text books about light-speed travel? @Vsz sorry, and clearly it is enough to just simply say "things can travel above the speed of light" else Star Trek would not have been on my TV screen in four or five different versions every single day for years. I agree that should not be acceptable, but it remains a fact. | |
| Jun 22, 2022 at 6:27 | comment | added | vsz | @Tom : The problem is, that as most sci-fi readers have at least some basic understanding of special relativity, it's not enough to just simply say "things can travel at or above the speed of light", like in, just constantly accelerating with a simple rocket until you passed the speed of light. Instead, some kind of "FTL drive" is to be expected. It can be anything, wormholes or switching between alternate dimensions where the speed of light is different, or just some device which distorts spacetime. Even if unrealistic, anything will be more realistic than just accelerating regularly. | |
| Jun 22, 2022 at 3:13 | answer | added | Yakk | timeline score: 1 | |
| Jun 21, 2022 at 23:05 | comment | added | JBH | It's worth noting that the speed of light is a fairly fundamental thing. It's not that things depend on it. It's that it depends on things such that minimally breaking the rules to exceed it, well, it breaks the known universe. Not a little. A lot. For this reason the vast majority of SciFi writers don't make much effort to explain or justify their FTL. Oh, they'll come up with some cool ideas (like those you're seeing below, which appear regularly in questions like this), but in the end, they completely ignore the idea of breaking physics. You should, too. | |
| Jun 21, 2022 at 17:01 | comment | added | ShadowRanger | @PipperChip: That's my question as well. The Old Man's War series, proposes that their skip drives (where you disappear from point A and appear in point B instantaneously, with the only limitation being that point A must be far enough away from gravity wells) are not actually FTL travel, you just shift between adjacent universes to one that's exactly the same as the one you started in, except your ship is at point B instead of point A in the new universe. Is that more or less physics breaking than shifting all of space around? | |
| Jun 21, 2022 at 15:15 | comment | added | RBarryYoung | Become a photon. No physics breaking necessary. | |
| Jun 21, 2022 at 14:54 | answer | added | Daron | timeline score: 8 | |
| S Jun 21, 2022 at 13:02 | vote | accept | Blue Skin and Glowing Red Eyes | ||
| S Jun 21, 2022 at 13:02 | vote | accept | Blue Skin and Glowing Red Eyes | ||
| S Jun 21, 2022 at 13:02 | |||||
| Jun 21, 2022 at 9:07 | answer | added | AmiralPatate | timeline score: 6 | |
| Jun 21, 2022 at 4:21 | answer | added | vsz | timeline score: 17 | |
| Jun 21, 2022 at 3:11 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Jun 20, 2022 at 23:45 | vote | accept | Blue Skin and Glowing Red Eyes | ||
| S Jun 21, 2022 at 13:02 | |||||
| Jun 20, 2022 at 21:33 | answer | added | Nosajimiki | timeline score: 37 | |
| Jun 20, 2022 at 20:15 | comment | added | AlexP | Related: Is it possible to have a Newtonian universe but everything else behave the same way as this universe? What adjustments to physics is necessary?. | |
| Jun 20, 2022 at 20:15 | answer | added | SoronelHaetir | timeline score: -1 | |
| Jun 20, 2022 at 20:12 | answer | added | Cristobol Polychronopolis | timeline score: 43 | |
| Jun 20, 2022 at 19:51 | comment | added | Tom | I think that inventing an FTL solution is your job. So is balancing the trade-offs between alternatives. Trivially: the least physics-breaking way is to simply assert that things can travel at or above the speed of light. If you want more than that, you must imagine it for yourself. | |
| Jun 20, 2022 at 19:26 | comment | added | Blue Skin and Glowing Red Eyes | As in Newtonian physics wouldn’t try and stop you from doing it and mass paradox events don’t happen | |
| Jun 20, 2022 at 19:25 | comment | added | PipperChip | What is physics breaking? If I have some negative mass/energy thing and get the associated time travel effects, I am not really "breaking" physics. It predicted the time travel effects and I got it. Causing irresolvable paradoxes is a concern, though. | |
| Jun 20, 2022 at 19:21 | comment | added | Blue Skin and Glowing Red Eyes | @VakusDrake, does the edit answer your question? | |
| Jun 20, 2022 at 19:20 | history | edited | Blue Skin and Glowing Red Eyes | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jun 20, 2022 at 19:17 | comment | added | Vakus Drake | It depends on how much you want to avoid time travel, because every form of FTL allows for that without additional handwaving, such as rejecting the lack of a preferred reference frame in Relativity. | |
| Jun 20, 2022 at 19:11 | history | asked | Blue Skin and Glowing Red Eyes | CC BY-SA 4.0 |