Weber interview

As Nicholas suggested, perhaps light does not move any faster in the multiverse than in real life. Only that something CAN go faster.

tinfoil wrote:If the speed of light was truly infinite, the first time ANY particle experienced radioactive decay, the release of energy due to the tiny loss of mass would be AN INFINITE AMOUNT of energy.

Clearly, that cannot be happening billions of times a second all over the planet.


This suggests no radioactivity.

In turn, this suggests no big bang, no fusion-powered stars, and no changing of atoms from one element to another.

No radiation means no mutation or evolution, or a new mechanism to cause it.

There a WHOLE LOT of unintended consequences if the first premise is true. Therefore, I suspect it will be quietly dropped as non-canon.

PeterZ wrote:As Nicholas suggested, perhaps light does not move any faster in the multiverse than in real life. Only that something CAN go faster.

tinfoil wrote:If the speed of light was truly infinite, the first time ANY particle experienced radioactive decay, the release of energy due to the tiny loss of mass would be AN INFINITE AMOUNT of energy.

Clearly, that cannot be happening billions of times a second all over the planet.


This suggests no radioactivity.

In turn, this suggests no big bang, no fusion-powered stars, and no changing of atoms from one element to another.

No radiation means no mutation or evolution, or a new mechanism to cause it.

There a WHOLE LOT of unintended consequences if the first premise is true. Therefore, I suspect it will be quietly dropped as non-canon.

This would probably make more sense. Light normally travels at its normal speed but unlike our universe it is not a hard cap and it can be manipulated into going faster to be instantaneous.

Certainly not. If c is infinite but still the same in all frames, the arguments leading to E = mc^2 are inapplicable, as they are for example in Newtonian mechanics. There could still be a conversion equation E = mP, where P is of course the Phillies constant. (8^))

tinfoil wrote:If the speed of light was truly infinite, the first time ANY particle experienced radioactive decay, the release of energy due to the tiny loss of mass would be AN INFINITE AMOUNT of energy.

Clearly, that cannot be happening billions of times a second all over the planet.


This suggests no radioactivity.

In turn, this suggests no big bang, no fusion-powered stars, and no changing of atoms from one element to another.

No radiation means no mutation or evolution, or a new mechanism to cause it.

There a WHOLE LOT of unintended consequences if the first premise is true. Therefore, I suspect it will be quietly dropped as non-canon.

kaid wrote:This would probably make more sense. Light normally travels at its normal speed but unlike our universe it is not a hard cap and it can be manipulated into going faster to be instantaneous.

Keep in mind, light (from its perspective) has no speed. It only appears to travel at c from the viewpoint of an observer in the same reference frame. The photon, from its perspective, is emitted and arrives at it's destination, no matter how distant, instantly. No time elapses. This is why going faster than C is such an incredibly difficult problem, and why physicists will tell you an FTL drive would be like inventing a time machine. C, in our universe, is literally the propagation speed of cause and effect itself. For you to personally go faster than c would mean getting somewhere faster than instantly. You'd have to get there before you left.

You have to figure out how to break some pretty fundamental rules of our universe to go faster than c or enter some state not governed by spacetime (hyperspace? Fold Space? There are as many ideas as there are sci-fi writers), and if you change the definition of c you change how cause and effect itself works. Things get really, really wonky then.

It would be better if it were just... magic.

NervousEnergy wrote:

kaid wrote:This would probably make more sense. Light normally travels at its normal speed but unlike our universe it is not a hard cap and it can be manipulated into going faster to be instantaneous.

Keep in mind, light (from its perspective) has no speed. It only appears to travel at c from the viewpoint of an observer in the same reference frame. The photon, from its perspective, is emitted and arrives at it's destination, no matter how distant, instantly. No time elapses. This is why going faster than C is such an incredibly difficult problem, and why physicists will tell you an FTL drive would be like inventing a time machine. C, in our universe, is literally the propagation speed of cause and effect itself. For you to personally go faster than c would mean getting somewhere faster than instantly. You'd have to get there before you left.

You have to figure out how to break some pretty fundamental rules of our universe to go faster than c or enter some state not governed by spacetime (hyperspace? Fold Space? There are as many ideas as there are sci-fi writers), and if you change the definition of c you change how cause and effect itself works. Things get really, really wonky then.

It would be better if it were just... magic.

Or...experience such speeds just as light does. Since we are talking about mental activity, it makes sense. Cause and effect are instantaneous for light as well as mental activity. Telepathy, teleportation and the sort. Also, all mental activity might well share a common reference. All mental activity is instantaneous for anyone that can observe such mental activity.

I am sure this has more problems with it than a Microsoft Alpha stage program. Still, not very busy in forum recently, so have at it.

NervousEnergy wrote:

kaid wrote:This would probably make more sense. Light normally travels at its normal speed but unlike our universe it is not a hard cap and it can be manipulated into going faster to be instantaneous.

Keep in mind, light (from its perspective) has no speed. It only appears to travel at c from the viewpoint of an observer in the same reference frame. The photon, from its perspective, is emitted and arrives at it's destination, no matter how distant, instantly. No time elapses. This is why going faster than C is such an incredibly difficult problem, and why physicists will tell you an FTL drive would be like inventing a time machine. C, in our universe, is literally the propagation speed of cause and effect itself. For you to personally go faster than c would mean getting somewhere faster than instantly. You'd have to get there before you left.

You have to figure out how to break some pretty fundamental rules of our universe to go faster than c or enter some state not governed by spacetime (hyperspace? Fold Space? There are as many ideas as there are sci-fi writers), and if you change the definition of c you change how cause and effect itself works. Things get really, really wonky then.

It would be better if it were just... magic.

In Einsteinian mechanics the *local* speed of light measured in all reference frames is the same. c. A hypothetical observer traveling with a photon at c would observe no elapsed time for his travels.

Local? In general relativity, as confirmed experimentally, the speed of light at points distant from the observer can be less than or greater than c. Radar observations of Venus as it passes behind the sun confirmed this close to 50 years ago.

In a universe that obeys general relativity, any FTL spaceship that also has a normal space drive is also a time machine that can arrive before it leaves.

The usual statement that FTL is impossible is that an infinite amount of energy is required to go FTL. OK, now prove you can't access an infinite amount of energy, other than 'that's absurd'.

phillies wrote:In Einsteinian mechanics the *local* speed of light measured in all reference frames is the same. c. A hypothetical observer traveling with a photon at c would observe no elapsed time for his travels.

Local? In general relativity, as confirmed experimentally, the speed of light at points distant from the observer can be less than or greater than c. Radar observations of Venus as it passes behind the sun confirmed this close to 50 years ago.

In a universe that obeys general relativity, any FTL spaceship that also has a normal space drive is also a time machine that can arrive before it leaves.

The usual statement that FTL is impossible is that an infinite amount of energy is required to go FTL. OK, now prove you can't access an infinite amount of energy, other than 'that's absurd'.

I agree with your post. I believe the original contention was about C being observed to be instant in the multiverse. That's a lot different than small variations of observed C in distant objects.

I'm a science fiction fan, so that (to me) also means I'm an eternal optimist when it comes to technological progress. I'm hopeful we will one day achieve super-luminal travel. I don't think we'll be doing it by figuring out how to expend infinite amounts of energy, but by covering vast distances without breaking local C, such as the classic 'warp' of spacetime - warping it so that local sublight speeds move you at FTL speeds relative to other frames of reference.

And if we never figure it out... well, the stories are still good.