Warp Drive May Be More Feasible Than Thought, Scientists Say

Re:Warp Drive May Be More Feasible Than Thought, Scientists Say by lmm on Thursday September 20, 2012 @05:54AM (#4547816)

So as far as B's concerned, when he sends the FTL courier to A that courier will goes slower than a light-speed message? He could send a message at tB=53,tA=26.5 and it would reach A well before tA=106.

This only works if you assume the FTL drive is fixed to some sort of absolute reference frame (which happens to be the same as A's frame). At which point you've given up on relativity, and I'll bet it's possible to come up with some cute paradoxes

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Re:Warp Drive May Be More Feasible Than Thought, Scientists Say by SolarNet on Monday September 24, 2012 @07:24PM (#4567646)

I realize how this violates relativity, but I don't understand your counter example (if it was one?) because I wasn't talking about absolute time frames, I'm talking about going forward in time when going FTL. And at no point in my example could B reply before A sends a courier.

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Re:Warp Drive May Be More Feasible Than Thought, Scientists Say by lmm on Wednesday September 26, 2012 @07:16AM (#4575045)

It's not a counterexample as such, but it seems obviously absurd (and violating relativity) that B's FTL message to A arbitrarily goes a lot slower than A's FTL message to B, given that the situation is completely symmetrical (you can even have them both send their messages at tA=100,tB=100, which is simultaneous from the point of view of an observer C who stayed behind on the asteroid where the two spaceships initially met up).

The point I was trying to make was that your example description makes sense if the FTL drive is somehow fixed to A's reference frame, i.e. A's reference frame is some kind of absolute reference frame and therefore the situation is not symmetrical between A and B. But that introduces its own problems.

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