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From: JAFFE@RUTGERS.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Discrepancies (ftl travel and so on)
Message-ID: <2523@topaz.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 8-Jul-85 16:30:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: topaz.2523
Posted: Mon Jul  8 16:30:47 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 9-Jul-85 07:17:57 EDT
Sender: daemon@topaz.ARPA
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
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From: peora!joel (Joel Upchurch)

> The use of faster-than-light travel in almost all SF is pretty assinine,
> because almost no SF story considers the full effect that a
> faster-than-drive would have on the world that is described in the
> story.  According to Special Relativity, faster-than-light travel is
> exactly equivalent to traveling backwards in time: there is no
> difference.  (This is similar to the way in which Special Relativity
> equates mass and energy as being exactly the same thing.)  Thus, if
> faster-than-light travel is possible, time travel is possible, and thus
> causality is violated.  But how many SF stories that have
> faster-than-light travel, consider these extremely important
> ramifications?
> 
> 			 Doug Alan
> 			  nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (or ARPA)

Actually Heinlein used exactly that premise in 'Time Enough for Love',
but most 'FTL' drives in SF don't literally  assume you can go faster
than light. They use 'warp drives' through 'Hyperspace', which is
usually defined to be an alternate universe of some sort which has
a one-to-one mapping onto our universe, but is much smaller. There
are many variations on this theme, of course. So there is no violation
of Relativity.