Uh, no shit? That’s how light works once you’re able to travel at relativistic speeds - communication over interstellar distances using light is going to take ages.
Even within our own solar system interplanetary travel will have significant communication time delays.
Edit: also, we already know that matter and light can’t exceed c, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we discover that other forces (gravitation, or another that we haven’t understood yet) can transmit information at speeds >c. I wouldn’t be surprised if we turned to quantum entanglement for instantaneous communication over extreme distances either.
Gravity travels at c. The Alcubierre drive tried to use bubbles in spacetime to “bend the rules” in order to result in apparent >c velocities but recent simulations indicate the bubble becomes unstable when attempting to exceed c.
C is more than just the speed of light. It is the speed of Causality. No information can travel faster than C in a vacuum. Gravitational waves already reach us faster than the light from events that cause them (i.e. neutron star collisions) Because small particles slow down the light over long distances, as they absorb and then re-emit the photons.
Quantum entanglement is like ripping a photo in half, putting both halves in seperate envelopes and carrying them to opposite ends of the world.
As soon as you open your envelope, you instantly know which half of the photo is on the other side of the planet - Faster Than Light Information Transfer!
No, measuring one particle collapses the entanglement and they no longer affect each other. It is a one time thing. You can’t modify them after they have been observed.
Jerry Pournelle’s “CoDominium” books work like this. The ships are FTL, but can only use the FTL drive at a certain point to leave a system. There isn’t a way to send messages faster than light, other than a ship. There is mention of “message sloops” which are small ships with high acceleration wich can move from the jump point to the inner system faster than one of the battleships.
It’s a different part of the universe, separate from normal space where things like baryonic matter exists. In subspace certain of our universe’s fundamental rules as seen in normal space don’t apply or constants are different.
How much of this is based on reality and how much is based on Star Trek wanting a mechanism to be able to communicate between star fleet and the Enterprise?
I think entirely Star Trek on this one. Although, if we ever want to move* faster than light, it’ll almost certainly require a science or an understanding of nature which we don’t even have theoretical concepts of in 2023.
We use ions for a bunch of stuff like Li-ion batteries and various other chemical engineering marvels on a daily basis. I wonder how new is the idea of ions anyway?
Wikipedia has this to say:
“Svante Arrhenius put forth, in his 1884 dissertation, the explanation of the fact that solid crystalline salts dissociate into paired charged particles when dissolved, for which he would win the 1903 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Arrhenius’ explanation was that in forming a solution, the salt dissociates into Faraday’s ions, he proposed that ions formed even in the absence of an electric current.”
We’ve built so much on top an idea that’s only about 139 years old. Before that, it must have been pretty difficult or even impossible to explain large parts of chemistry we use every day.
I wonder how would you imagine the future of chemistry in the early 1800s? Could you imagine that nowadays we leach gold from a mineral that doesn’t even look golden at all? Could you imagine that we can pull aluminium from rocks that don’t even look metallic in any way? Could you imagine that we use it to build all sorts of things like cans, door frames and airplanes? What about surface coating of materials to give them corrosion resistance, different colors or scratch resistance. In the past 139 years we’ve done all sorts of absolutely wild things with ions.
If you start studying chemistry in 2023 you’ll probably hear about ions during the first lecture and later you’ll build all sorts of wonderful things on that bit of information.
The thing is, we don’t know is the speed limit is a hard problem.
Maybe will struggle with it for centuries or maybe we’ll find a way to avoid the problem within the next 130 years. Maybe we’ll find a way to bend space so that you don’t really need to travel very fast. Maybe wormholes become a viable option. Maybe we’ll build hyperspace gates or something like that.
Or maybe none of that is viable and a thousand years later we’re still struggling with the speed of light wishing there was a way around it.
At some point, microbes and immunology were a complete mystery. People dying after surgery was a hard problem and nobody knew how to fix that. Turns it, all you need is ethanol and penicillin, but we couldn’t even imagine it at the time.
I mean space is pretty empty yea but I feel like it would be a pain in the ass to prevent a ship travelling at light speed from bumping into small to mid sized space debris. On the other hand, I am imagining with this much drive on energy techs we will be at some point able to come up with a solution to the energy requirement to power such a vessel.
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Subspace interference.
Who would have thought that Doppler could apply to communication equipment, too! Shocking!
Next they are going to tell us that messages might take some time due to c!
Quantum Entanglement
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trash site
Uh, no shit? That’s how light works once you’re able to travel at relativistic speeds - communication over interstellar distances using light is going to take ages.
Even within our own solar system interplanetary travel will have significant communication time delays.
Edit: also, we already know that matter and light can’t exceed c, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we discover that other forces (gravitation, or another that we haven’t understood yet) can transmit information at speeds >c. I wouldn’t be surprised if we turned to quantum entanglement for instantaneous communication over extreme distances either.
Gravity travels at c. The Alcubierre drive tried to use bubbles in spacetime to “bend the rules” in order to result in apparent >c velocities but recent simulations indicate the bubble becomes unstable when attempting to exceed c.
Then we need the Tim (Allen) Taylor solution.
Moar Power! Uhh uhh uhh uhh uhh
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C is more than just the speed of light. It is the speed of Causality. No information can travel faster than C in a vacuum. Gravitational waves already reach us faster than the light from events that cause them (i.e. neutron star collisions) Because small particles slow down the light over long distances, as they absorb and then re-emit the photons.
Oh, you already know about it. No one else should bother reading then.
Quantum entanglement is like ripping a photo in half, putting both halves in seperate envelopes and carrying them to opposite ends of the world.
As soon as you open your envelope, you instantly know which half of the photo is on the other side of the planet - Faster Than Light Information Transfer!
For a variety of reasons, no information is actually transferred. Quantum entanglement can not be used to get around the limits imposed by relativity.
That’s what I was trying to illustrate.
So it’s not like: when I affect the hue (some attribute) of my half, the other half will change too? That has always been my understanding of it
No, measuring one particle collapses the entanglement and they no longer affect each other. It is a one time thing. You can’t modify them after they have been observed.
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Well since we are talking about the time when light speed is possible maybe we have invented superluminal communication
Or superliminal communication
Why is this even an article? It’s obvious.
Somebody just watched the Expanse for the first time and thinks it’s a neat new thing to explain to the Earthers
i knew the expanse would pop up somewhere in the comments! been working my way through the books and it’s great!
Is it weird that I’ve only ever read the books? I didn’t even know there was a show until recently. Is it any good?
Also Passengers, starring Chris Pratt, has a mention of this too.
Duh.
how could that be surprising??
_ /\ _
It’s not a surprise, it’s just a concern being presented because it’s not a thought for the average person.
isn’t developing light speed spacecrafts a far more direct concern?
why even concern about communications when travelling such distances isn’t even possible.
I don’t see the point of the article.
Jerry Pournelle’s “CoDominium” books work like this. The ships are FTL, but can only use the FTL drive at a certain point to leave a system. There isn’t a way to send messages faster than light, other than a ship. There is mention of “message sloops” which are small ships with high acceleration wich can move from the jump point to the inner system faster than one of the battleships.
Have they never watched Star Trek, subspace relays people.
What exactly is subspace anyways?
It’s a different part of the universe, separate from normal space where things like baryonic matter exists. In subspace certain of our universe’s fundamental rules as seen in normal space don’t apply or constants are different.
How much of this is based on reality and how much is based on Star Trek wanting a mechanism to be able to communicate between star fleet and the Enterprise?
I think entirely Star Trek on this one. Although, if we ever want to move* faster than light, it’ll almost certainly require a science or an understanding of nature which we don’t even have theoretical concepts of in 2023.
We use ions for a bunch of stuff like Li-ion batteries and various other chemical engineering marvels on a daily basis. I wonder how new is the idea of ions anyway?
Wikipedia has this to say: “Svante Arrhenius put forth, in his 1884 dissertation, the explanation of the fact that solid crystalline salts dissociate into paired charged particles when dissolved, for which he would win the 1903 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Arrhenius’ explanation was that in forming a solution, the salt dissociates into Faraday’s ions, he proposed that ions formed even in the absence of an electric current.”
We’ve built so much on top an idea that’s only about 139 years old. Before that, it must have been pretty difficult or even impossible to explain large parts of chemistry we use every day.
I wonder how would you imagine the future of chemistry in the early 1800s? Could you imagine that nowadays we leach gold from a mineral that doesn’t even look golden at all? Could you imagine that we can pull aluminium from rocks that don’t even look metallic in any way? Could you imagine that we use it to build all sorts of things like cans, door frames and airplanes? What about surface coating of materials to give them corrosion resistance, different colors or scratch resistance. In the past 139 years we’ve done all sorts of absolutely wild things with ions.
If you start studying chemistry in 2023 you’ll probably hear about ions during the first lecture and later you’ll build all sorts of wonderful things on that bit of information.
Thanks for this. I have similar thoughts as to some people’s definitiveness about our understanding of the universe and its speed limit.
The thing is, we don’t know is the speed limit is a hard problem.
Maybe will struggle with it for centuries or maybe we’ll find a way to avoid the problem within the next 130 years. Maybe we’ll find a way to bend space so that you don’t really need to travel very fast. Maybe wormholes become a viable option. Maybe we’ll build hyperspace gates or something like that.
Or maybe none of that is viable and a thousand years later we’re still struggling with the speed of light wishing there was a way around it.
At some point, microbes and immunology were a complete mystery. People dying after surgery was a hard problem and nobody knew how to fix that. Turns it, all you need is ethanol and penicillin, but we couldn’t even imagine it at the time.
Space is like a rainbow, subspace is equal to ultraviolet and hyperspace is infrared. At least inmy head cannon.
Okay just a hot take here, but I don’t think this is the biggest barrier to interstellar travel.
I mean space is pretty empty yea but I feel like it would be a pain in the ass to prevent a ship travelling at light speed from bumping into small to mid sized space debris. On the other hand, I am imagining with this much drive on energy techs we will be at some point able to come up with a solution to the energy requirement to power such a vessel.
The worst thing about interstellar travel: no internet
Buddy can you imagine all the new alien pron in the new system though?
Also, I don’t think this is anything particularly new. It’s pretty logical of you think about it for a few minutes.