Faster-than-light effects?

I've often read that going faster than light results in travelling backwards in time.

Where does that come from? Does Special Relativity actually predict that? I thought that Special Relativity is undefined once we exceed luminal speed.

 

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SR is undefined when something travels exactly the speed of light. But, if something was faster than the speed of light then instead of getting undefined you get an imaginary number. An imaginary number means that it is in a higher dimension. So imaginary time wouldn't travel normally forward in time. I am not sure why this is thought to be just backwards in time and not "sideways" through time. But I guess it is because it is thought that there is only one time dimension.

 

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An imaginary number doesn't mean a higher dimension, just that no real values exist.

A Minkowski diagram supports the equation \(u'=\frac{u-v}{1-\frac{uv}{c^{2}}}\) if u and v do not exceed the speed of light.

Beyond that, the equation still churns out real values, but the Minkowski diagram fails.


That notion comes from the Superman film. But I don't know where the directors got it from. Even that dumbass Kaku Michio quoted it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjgsnWtBQm0

 

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The distance between point A and point B is 1 light second. That is, light travels for 1 second from A to B where it hits a mirror and returns to A once again, arriving at A one second later, and two seconds total round trip travel time. The one-way light travel time was the same in each direction of travel.

Traveling faster than light means for instance that an object would travel from A to B and back to A again in less than 2 seconds total round trip time, and that each direction of travel was at the same velocity and took the same amount of time.

So an object that travels at 2c makes the journey A-B-A in one second, a half second in each direction. Time did NOT reverse, it continued at the same rate as usual. Light took 2 seconds and the 2c object took 1 second! Time never missed a beat!

 

The speed of light applies to the limits of space-time, where space and time are interconnected and defined by SR. If you separate space from time, so each can act independently, you can now move in space, without time, or move in time, without space.

For example, say we take a quantum step, we move finite distance in zero time. There is only potential in distance but not time. Whereas a synchronized pair of particles are moving in time, but in a way that there is no distance lag for the signal to travel. This does not exceed the speed of light since it is not being generated with space-time but either in space or time acting alone.

If you wished to create the impression, in space-time, you are exceeding the speed of light; you take giant quantum steps. The giant quantum steps allow you skip most of space-time, since you only touch space-time, at the end of each step. These points of contact are consistent with C, so there is no violation in space-time. Alternately if we need to communicate with the mother ship we transmit in time, instead of space-time. There appears to be no distance of separation like synchronized particles. This is easier said than done.

 

Imaginary numbers do imply higher dimensions. When you learn about imaginary numbers in school they say that imaginary numbers cannot be on the positive or negative axis. There would have to be another axis where if you multiply them by each other that it gives you a negative number. So then there is another imaginary number line where the numbers on it give you a negative number when you square them. That is just purely mathmatics, that is how they are dealt with in mathmatics. So then if something traveled faster than the speed of light it wouldn't even travel faster than the speed of light, it would be sent in this other imaginary dimension where numbers squared is negative, from a purely mathmatical viewpoint. In a way even SR prevents FTL travel without even considering addition of velocities, it will no longer gain normal distance forward through time. No superman needed...

 

If special relativity is correct and one can go faster than the speed of light (relative to any given reference frame coordinates), then it is possible to pursue a trajectory that will go to a spacetime position such that you can then reach points prior to your starting position in any reference frame. I believe that this also results in a contradiction, but my brain fails me this morning.

It is possible in SR to go faster than the speed of light relative to some object. The separation distance between two objects heading away in opposite directions from a common point at 0.75 times the speed of light grows at 1.5 times the speed of light. The separation distance between two photons heading away from each other grows at twice the speed of light. The speed of light rule is only relative to a set of coordinates.

 

You have failed to note the difference between the time measured by an observer travelling at 2c and an observer at rest relative to the mirror.

 

I've done nothing of the sort.

The observer at rest relative to the mirror measures 1 second round trip time for the 2c object to travel to the mirror and back. The traveling observer fully understands that the distance he is traveling per unit of time is twice that of light. That means that the time the traveling observer travels to complete the A-B-A journey is equal to the time it takes light to travel the A-B journey, which is one second.

 

Based upon this tachyon analysis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon#Mass

This might work for comparing -dTau_tachyon to dt_remote bkkpr [just a guess].

-dTau_tachyon/dt_remote bkkpr = -[1- -(v^2)]^1/2

Setting v_tachyon = 2

-dTau_tachyon/dt_remote bkkpr = -[1- -(4)]^1/2 = -2.236068

The tick ratio

-dTau_tachyon/dt_remote bkkpr = -2.236068/1

Maybe rpenner can 'fix it up'.

 

Why do you insist on trolling and arguing with the universe?

 

Trolling it is. Thanks to the Mods for fixing the ban list.

 

Ah, tachyons, the tackiest particles ever invented.

Haha you should just change "viva voce!" to "The Universe"

 

My not infallible memory tells me there is a relativity equation for time which indicates that FTL speed implies moving backwards in time.

 

I also remember that many decades ago, there was some experimental group attempting to create tacyons. It was described in a Scientific American in the Mathematical Games column authored by Martin Gardner.

Martin Gardner pointed out that the tacyons could be observed prior to turning on the experimental device. This would allow the experimenters to decide not to turn on the device, resulting in a pardox. The paradox strongly supports the notion that tacyons cannot exist & the experiment was abandoned either due to Martin Garner or due to somebody else who thought of the paradox.

BTW: There was a SciFi short story about the invention of a time machine. In the story, a machined block of uranium was inscribed with identifying data & put into the time machine sceduled to be turned on at noon. At 11:45 the block was observed & the experimenters decided to see what would happen if they did not turn the device on at noon. Space travelers in a parallel universe noticed some energy phenomenon in our universe & decided to investigate. They discovered a universe empty except for a block of uranium with some marks on it & conisdered the situation a mystery.

 

I read about an experiment many years ago that described it, and they tried to detect tachyons by filling a dome with water and then detecting the interaction between the tachyons and the electrons in the molecules of water. Years later I then served on a military base where there was a dome behind my school. One of the students asked the instructor what it was and he said it was a antenna that was filled with water. I thought what could they possibly need that for? So then I asked him if it detected tachyons, and he said yes! I was then interigated about what I knew about the device and I told them I didn't know anything about it. They then leaked information to me that we where going to war soon, so then I got myself kicked out of the military because I had medical problems. I was then discharged Sept. 10, 2001 the day before 9/11. I figured that it didn't create a spacetime paradox because the message they sent was independent of my actions, and they didn't warn anyone of this attack because of this message so then it was still sent. So then the message was still sent even though I changed my fate getting kicked out of the military Sept. 10, 2001. Looking back on it I wish I had done things differently since I could have ended up working on the machine since I knew some things about it, but I didn't know what they would do if I told them that I then knew what it was used for. But they also did mention they where told not to discharge me at that time, but they did it anyways because they didn't see the importance of having to keep me there.

The experiment was cut short because it was a government cover up to take this technology. From my experience the experiment obivously did not fail. I think this is the reason why they claim there was knowledge of the attacks before 9/11, but then the people that received this message from the tachyon antenna didn't relay that message to anyone. So then our base was at the highest stage of alert before the attacks, and that is how they knew it was going to happen. But, then they for some reason decided to let it happen anyways, I am not sure if they took it upon themselves to make that decision but then I wouldn't have put it past them from my experience there.

 

Check out my new thread on FTL. It is a thought experiment that intends to use coherence between two downconversion signals. Alice prepares the idlers with manipulation of the "which-path" info, which determinis the interference/coherence between Bob's signals.
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...ignals-from-two-sources&p=3034375#post3034375

 

There is no indication otherwise.

No, such closing/separation speed is an artifact of a third reference frame in which neither object moves faster than c relative to this observer. And the two objects can never move faster than c relative to each other.

 

To create such an experiment you'd need to have a model of how tachyons would interact with matter and then you devise an experiment to look for that signature. Using giant tanks of water or some other ultra pure liquid (or ice for the one at the South Pole) is how we detect neutrinos because we know they create a certain photon signature when they interact with a particle making up water. No models of tachyons which would allow for the design and implementation of similar experiments currently exist so I am inclined to think wires have gotten crossed somewhere.

I'm inclined not to trust the particle physics knowledge of a military instructor. As I said, no such models exist and so the proper design of an experiment to search for them can occur. Either the instructor was pulling the student's leg, mixed things up with neutrinos (but the detectors for neutrinos have to be HUGE and buried deep on the ground to avoid being swamped by background radiation) or was just plain wrong. The alternative would be that the US military has developed a model of tachyons without anything remotely close to it being in the particle physics literature, experimentally confirmed it and constructed detectors, which they keep in plain sight and openly tell service men about, and yet none of it has gotten back to the particle physics community? I'd say the instructor was mistaken.

Oh wow, please please please tell me you're joking. You think there is a government conspiracy about foreknowledge about 9/11 and that knowledge was obtained through tachyon based devices which can communicate backwards in time using physics completely unknown to the particle physics community and which, despite service men openly telling one another about its technology base and people like yourself talking about it to non-service men, hasn't gotten back to the particle physics community or had a whistle blower talk about it or foreknowledge of 9/11 or a secret government tachyon based temporal communication network?

I didn't think I'd be saying this but your delusion you could have helped on a particle physics research and development project because you 'knew some things about it' is actually the least batshit insane thing you said. Seriously?! Seriously!? SERIOUSLY?!

 

From the light's reference time = zero so if it was faster than light, so what is quicker than no time at all?