Being able to transfer information faster than light would drastically change the way we think about causality. I'm pretty sure relatively would also stop being valid.
Generally speaking, 'new discoveries' in physics are just extensions of old ones. Relativity doesn't conflict with Newtonian mechanics, for example, because Newtonian mechanics is merely a statement of special relativity at low velocities. Any 'new discoveries' today are going to be consistent with relativity, not violating it. There's a huge difference between a belief and a theory with measurable results. Nothing in physics said atoms had to be the smallest division of matter, it was just a belief that turned out to be wrong.
As would the discovery of evidence of the 11 dimension universe or of branes or evidence of multiverses, and none of those discoveries would necessarily invalidate special relativity. My horizon may be broader than yours but I'm comfortable with it.
See above post. I don't see the distinction you are making between current scientific fact and new discoveries altering said facts that you call beliefs. If we found one could fold space and travel through the tunnels, would that extension of current knowledge be any different than discovering protons contained more space than mass? You're just bending definitions to support your position with semantics.
If information could travel faster than light, then yes, that would invalidate special relativity because special relativity hinges on the speed of light being what it is.
With Relativity, aren't we talking about the speed of light traveling through a vacuum in normal space-time? It seems to me if you transfer information from point A to B at what appears to be FTL, using wormholes or whatever, you aren't really violating that prohibition. I'm not saying that will ultimately be possible, but it seems to me that if it was, then basically using some kind of shortcut that circumvents normal space-time doesn't violate the prohibitions of relativity.
Right, but we would still understand these mechanisms. I'm talking about going faster than the speed of light without any tricks or shortcuts. If we could do that, then relativity would go out the window.
Wormholes don't violate special relativity, any more than an underpass violates Newtonian mechanics. You may get from A to B faster than light would through a direct route, but you're not taking a direct route, you're taking a shortcut. There's also some question as to whether a wormhole that would allow you reach the destination faster than light taking a direct route could be stable enough to traverse. No, there's a vast difference between 'I believe atoms are the smallest pieces of matter' and 'I've measured the speed of light in all directions and it's always constant, so something funny must be going on.'
But that's not what I was talking about. Quantum tunneling is not "about going faster than the speed of light without any tricks or shortcuts".
Quantum tunneling isn't about going faster than the speed of light, period. If you could give us a link or something to the results you're talking about, maybe someone here can make sense of them.
OK, let's start again. The idea of the atom as the smallest component of matter is a philosophical one, going back at least as far as ancient Greece. It had little to do with testable theory or experiment -- after all, ancient Greece didn't have particle accelerators -- but was just something they made up because it sounded good. So nothing changed when we discovered that it wasn't true. Relativity is a mathematical construct which explains real-world observations that contradict Newtonian mechanics. Physics would have to radically change if we discovered it wasn't true.
Unless the story you are writing hinges on an involved discussion of this form of transportation or is actually about the form of transportation itself, you may be better off leaving it as vague as possible. Present it as a fact in the universe you are writing about and the reader likely won't question it. It just is. If the specifics of the form of transportation in question are vital to the story, then I think the realm of quantum mechanics is sufficiently esoteric that your average reader won't be able to call BS unless you really go off the deep end. If you get into trouble, just say "string theory" and everyone will be like, "Oh okay. Now it makes sense."
Exactly! The reader needs to know how your FTL travel behaves. He or she does not need to know how it works. And if you try to explain how it works, you will probably pin the reader's bullshit meter - at least your technically savvy readers, and many of your s-f readers are effing brilliant. Many have more letters after their name than in it.
You should keep in mind that if you want your protagonist to whip around the universe and get where he's going very, very quickly, you don't need FTL travel. All you need is a sufficient power source and steady acceleration. That's the beauty of special relativity. One mustn't forget time dilation and length contraction. The nearest star, Alpha Centauri, is about 4.5 light years away. If I were to blast off in a rocket and accelerate to a sufficient fraction of the speed of light, I would see my clock, on the ship, ticking normally. And then, depending how close to the speed of light I am traveling, I could arrive, as measured by my ship clock, at my destination in a few months, a few days or even a few minutes. It would be a milk run. Of course, the catch is that for people on earth, your journey would still take a little more than 4.5 years as measured by earth time. If they were able to watch your clock on your ship as you were traveling, they would insist it is ticking much more slowly than earth clocks, and this, they would say, accounts for your idea that you arrived at Alpha Centauri in a few months, days or even minutes. They would attribute your quick arrival to Alpha Centauri to time dilation. You, on the other hand, would insist that your clock is ticking normally, and that the reason you arrived at the star so quickly is because of length contraction. And both you, and the earth observer, would be correct, but only correct within your own respective frames. At an astrophysics site somewhere, it is pointed out that a steady acceleration of one gee over a sufficient period of time would take a traveler all the way to the Andromeda Galaxy, as measured by his ship clock, in a mere twenty years, even though the galaxy is 2.5 million light years distant. Quicker, if the acceleration is greater. Of course, 2.5 million years will have passed on earth, and if you returned with the same velocity as you traveled to the galaxy, you would return to earth as it is 5 million years in the future, though you yourself would have aged only 40 years. If this sort of disconnect isn't a problem for your story, you can have your protagonist whipping around the universe in a few days as measured by ship time, provided you have sufficient energy for the necessary near-light acceleration. I reckon, though, it's still better to take a wormhole, a shortcut through space-time. That way you don't need the extravagant power for constant near-luminal speeds.
Another, more fundamental way, to look at it is this: to ask for FTL travel by any means is not to ask for the physically impossible, but rather the logically impossible. This is because, from the point of view of a photon -- if a photon could be said to have a "point of view" -- it takes zero time to go anywhere. It takes zero time to go to Alpha Centauri. It takes zero time to go to Andromeda. It takes zero time to go to the farthest reaches of the universe. The photon, if it were sentient, would experience neither the passage of time nor space. It would be everywhere and everywhen, and would simply "be" as a world line from its birth (emission) to it death (absorption). It wouldn't move at all, as measured in its own frame. The time as measured by the photon (if a photon could measure time) or anyone else in any frame, is called the "proper time." This means that a photon, on its proper time, travels infinitely fast. The fact that in our own frame we measure it as traveling finitely, is irrelevant. So now what this reduces to is asking: Is it possible to travel faster than infinitely fast? Logically, this is impossible.
This is a widely known subject. I think there's even been a NOVA program delving into it including the controversy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCnter_Nimtz The Wiki entry goes on to discuss the critics of Nimtz's conclusions and Nimtz's rebuttal. Like I said, I am aware there is a debate about Nimtz's conclusions. I am not impressed by someone on a forum who says the critics are right or that only people who don't understand physics believe Nimtz's conclusions. Seems to me Nimtz's knows his profession just fine. Actual controversies (as opposed to fake ones like global climate change and evolution theory deniers) exist in every science. I see a controversy here, but I don't see evidence that Nimtz's critics with their absolutism positions are clearly right.
Sometimes, you don't need to go into the details of how it works, but rather, it's affect on people. My own scripted story is not going into the details of how its FTL works, other than the say it uses Alcubierre's warp drive or Worm holes, depending on the distance traveled and the circumstance of need for arriving or leaving the scene.
Only in so far as they haven't figured out how to overcome the energy requirements. NASA thinks it may be possible to finagle the laws, so they are working on it.
My understanding of the Nimtz claim is that it boils down to a misinterpretation of what is going on and what is being measured. From what I gather from physicists I know, that's pretty much the consensus, and Nimtz didn't show any FTL transmission of information. Even the Wikipedia article says only a minority of researchers agree with Nimtz. Doesn't mean he's wrong, but it is worth knowing that his interpretation isn't generally accepted.
Regardless, the assertions in this thread that "We do know what's going on. Which is why we know that people continually misuse group velocity vs phase velocity, even when they should know better. "was undeservedly pretentious. The words "misuse" and "should know better" are condescending to anyone who isn't certain Nimtz was wrong. And I think Nimtz has more cred than an anonymous person on a forum.
Nevertheless, his conclusions aren't generally accepted by others his own field, and that's worth considering when thinking about his work. There are climate scientists who don't agree with the idea of anthropogenic climate change, but they don't stand with the majority of their peers.
