Really? Do you hear yourself? I hope you're taking down badge numbers because I'm not sure that all these guys are qualified to address the consequences of faster-than-light travel.
Also, doesn't quantom entanglement imply that data travels faster than light?
Take two indistinguishable envelopes. Put a green card in one and a red card in the other. Shuffle the envelopes so that you do not know which card is in which envelope. Have a friend take one of the envelopes many kilometers away. Your envelopes are now entangled.
If you now open your envelope, and it contains the red card, you instantly know your friend's envelope contains the green card. Did information travel faster than light? No, it did not, since in order to communicate by this method you still need to tell your friend what it means to have the green card.
You still need to send slower than light information that Red is 1 and Green is 0 which you can only do once you've measured your own envelope, after which you've destroyed the entanglement of your envelopes.
Quantum entanglement is a phenomenon where you can tell something about the other part of the entangled pair by measuring one part. Just like with the entangled envelopes, you cannot communicate anything by this since you don't know in advance what you're going to measure.
So consider the events A=point 1, time 0; B=point 2, time 0; C= point 1, time 1 hour. As long as points 1 and 2 are more than 1 light-hour apart, it is legitimate to say that A is simultaneous with B, or that C is simultaneous with B. And so if you have a device that lets you travel from point 2 to point 1 in less than an hour (i.e. faster than light), you leave at B and arrive after A but before C. Then from the perspective of some observers (and the point of relativity is that all observers are equally legitimate), you arrived before you left.
The collapse of quantum entanglement can be confusing, which is part of why I prefer to follow many-worlds (i.e. no collapse postulate). You can construct quantum wavefunctions such that they're consistent with SR; for two entangled but spatially separated particles, you simply have a wavefunction that's a superposition of two states. When you as an observer observe one of those particles, you entangle yourself and your own state becomes part of the superposition. Of course "from the inside" it feels like you measured the particle and got one result or the other, but the actual wavefunction is just an ordinary superposition. From this perspective it's obvious no data was transmitted - you just became entangled with this distant particle without communicating with it, which is kind of odd, but no danger of violating causality.
Can that prevent causality? Or does it prevent relativity?
Now assuming we accept that FTL-traveller really did arrive before they left, if that's all they do it's a matter of language as to whether they have violated causality by so doing. But it would take some very perverse physics (again, basically discarding relativity) to say they couldn't simply jump back, again going backwards in time, and arrive back at their starting point before they left it, at which you definitely have causality violation.
General Relativity is much much more difficult, but once you understand Special Relativity, a lay-person's understanding of GR gets the job done for most purposes.
Re quantum entanglement, no it doesn't imply that data travels faster than light. The versions of QM where the probability waves collapse might, but in the Many Worlds interpretation, which is probably the most popular interpretation now among physicists and philosophers of science, the probability waves never collapse, and so there is nothing to transmit.
In the Copenhagen interpretation, one might argue that the probability wave collapsing transmits information all along that wave instantaneously, but if so, this happens under the covers of the universe. There's no way for anyone to use this feature of QM to transmit usable information from one place to another at faster than the speed of light.
This is the clearest place explaining it I'm aware of, but I bookmarked this a while ago and maybe now some video or animation explains it better: http://www.theculture.org/rich/sharpblue/archives/000089.htm...
I imagine a 100 km long and 1km high brick wall, you're in the middle but want to get to the other side of the wall.
Option #1 is to travel as fast as you can 50km to one end and then 50km back to the spot on the other side.
Option #2 tunnel through the wall.
Option #1 is fast but the option #2 is faster although you didn't exceed the speed of option #1.
You're still effectively traveling faster than light, however, and you'd still be able to use this to travel backwards in time.
Edit: I can't believe people down-vote irrefutable facts, so let me state this ONE MORE TIME:
It is an irrefutable fact of Special Relativity that if you can transmit any information from point A to point B faster than light would travel from point A to point B in a vacuum, then there are inertial frames of reference in which the information arrived at point B BEFORE it left point A.
THAT'S JUST A FACT OF SPECIAL RELATIVITY.
People can bitch and moan about whatever they want to, and come up with all sorts of creative ways to try to work around this FACT, but YOU CANNOT.
c, it's not just a good idea--IT'S THE LAW!
But aside from all that it seems a little short-sighted to howl about how people can't do something. Time and time again nay-sayers have been proven wrong.
It is an irrefutable fact of Special Relativity that if you can transmit any
information from point A to point B faster than light would travel from point
A to point B in a vacuum, then there are inertial frames of reference in which
the information arrived at point B BEFORE it left point A.
Look, I understand that people want perpetual motion machines. And I understand that people want the Earth to be the center of the universe. And I understand the fact that people want one plus one to equal three. But these things aren't going to happen.
With FTL, you have to pick two out of these three: FTL, Relativity, causality.
It is not a fact of science that you have to pick two out of the three. It is a fact of LOGIC.
Unless you've found a way to transcend the laws of logic, then we have to live within this constraint. So, if you want to have FTL, you either have to give up causality or Special Relativity. Is it conceivable that Special Relativity is wrong? Sure it's conceivable. Is it likely? NOT ON YOUR LIFE. And if you're willing to give up on Special Relativity, when why are we designing space ships based on General Relativity??? When Special Relativity goes out the window, so does GR!
So, are we going to give up on causality instead? Well, who am I to say yes or no. But if we decide that it's okay to give up on causality, then we have to bite the bullet and decide that we're okay with us being in a universe that is really, really strange. E.g., one that will thwart you somehow one way or another in any attempt you might make to transmit certain kinds of information, etc. One that might be perfectly okay with letting you visit your past self, and yet will suddenly give you a case of laryngitis if you try to tell your past self which stocks to buy. Who knows how weird it could get!
Re your space ship being in a vacuum or not: (1) It's still in a vacuum, and (2) it doesn't matter. What matters is if you can use it to transmit information from say Earth to Mars at a speed faster than a laser beam or radio signal would make it from Earth to Mars.
Re galaxies moving away from us at FTL speeds: (1) Yes, galaxies that are very far from us do move away from us at FTL speeds. Can you use this fact to transmit information between two points (e.g. two planets) at FTL speeds? No you cannot! Special Relativity says nothing at all about space itself moving at FTL speeds. It only puts constraints on information traveling from one point to another point at FTL speeds.
Go read the irrefutable fact at the top of this post again. Read it over and over again until you understand it. I can't keep repeating it over and over again for it only to fall on willfully deaf ears.
Edit: By the way. I did read the thing about point A and B and understand it completely. The thing is, it doesn't matter. This is why I'm absolutely sure now that you haven't got a clue as to what the drive actually does. Here let me explain it to you like you are 5. If you send a packet of information from point A to point B, and it goes faster than light, then yes that will screw with causality. But if instead you bring point A closer to point B, it will appear as though it is "traveling" (notice the quotes) faster than light. It is however not traveling. it isn't moving. No movement through space. Freefall. zero movement. Stillness. Think about that for a moment. Absolutely positively no movement. Complete stillness. There is a lack of motion with this drive relative to the speed of light. Mind you this isn't a wormhole because even wormholes can screw with causality. This is a space creator/destoyer. Destroys in the front, creates in the back. No movement is involved. I know it's really hard to wrap your head around but just think about it for a couple of days. think about bringing point A closer to point B instead of going through all the trouble of sending the information. Remember, doesn't move.
It doesn't matter ONE TINY BIT to Special Relativity how it appears to YOU that you got information from point A to point B. What matters is how it appears to an OUTSIDE OBSERVER. If Earth and Mars are still 8 light minutes apart from some point of view, and you managed to transmit information from Earth to Mars in only 4 minutes, then there are frames of reference in which your message arrived at Mars BEFORE it left Earth.
This is just freshman-level Special Relativity. I guarantee you, that no one has found a work-around for that, especially since it is a matter of LOGIC. It follows LOGICALLY from the assertions of Special Relativity. If you wish to deny this conclusion, then you would have to deny Special Relativity.
If on the other hand, you have used your drive to permanently shred up space and time, rapidly crashing Mars into Earth and destroying all life on both planets, leaving the mess like that, and then stating you have successfully transmitted a message at FTL speeds, then more power to ya!
So either he's a laughing stock and nobody is talking about that or (more likely) you are wrong.It doesn't matter that you're warping space to move points A and B closer from your perspective. If an outside observer can see you at point A at time t, and at point B at distance d away at time <t+d, you have violated causality, and an observer moving at a suitable velocity will see you arrive at B before you left A. That is a basic, irrefutable fact of special relativity.
Because the tone of your replies are condescending.
If you can transmit any information from point A to point B faster than light would travel from point A to point B in a vacuum, then there are inertial frames of reference in which the information arrived at point B before it left point A.
It's really just as simple and plain as that. You need consider nothing further once you know the above facts.
This fact, however, does not allow information to be transmitted between two points in space at faster than the speed of light. That's the important constraint here. Causality is only violated when you transmit INFORMATION between TWO POINTS at faster than the speed of light.