Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!henry From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) Newsgroups: net.space Subject: Re: Unified Field Theory and space travel Message-ID: <6084@utzoo.UUCP> Date: Sat, 26-Oct-85 21:05:06 EDT Article-I.D.: utzoo.6084 Posted: Sat Oct 26 21:05:06 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 26-Oct-85 21:05:06 EDT References: <1024@decwrl.UUCP> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology Lines: 34 > I'd be interested to know if any of the new theories will cause > reconsideration of some of Einstein's theories of relativity. I'm particularly > interested in the speed of light being a limiting factor for space travel. Reconsideration of the General Theory of Relativity is virtually certain, partly because it appears to be incompatible with quantum mechanics and partly because it contains major internal anomalies like the possibility of the Tipler time machine. [Briefly, intense rapidly-spinning gravity fields can be used to build a time machine with unlimited range into both past and future.] Alas, General Relativity is just basically the current theory of gravitation. The Special Theory of Relativity, which sets the various speed-of-light limits, is on much firmer ground and is unlikely to be invalidated by new theorizing. Of course, it is always possible that some subtle way to bypass it may be found. > Most people agree that as long as speed-of-light restrictions apply, it is > impractical for intelligent life forms to travel to different star systems > (unless, of course, their solar system is about to blow up). Fortunately, wrong. Within relativity, starships are slow and expensive, but they are neither impossible nor impractical. In recent years the literature on interstellar travel (notably the JBIS "Interstellar Studies" issues) has contained dozens of starship and starprobe concepts. For example, if you ignore a couple of decades of engineering development and the associated funding delays, we have the technology to build antimatter rockets right now. There are any number of ways to reach tens of percent of the speed of light, which suffices for interstellar flight within human lifetimes. Not for interstellar commuting, mind you; near-term interstellar trips are likely to be long enough that you could not make many in one lifetime. For that, we need either highly-relativistic travel or (preferably) faster-than-light travel. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry