Re: Faster Than Light Travel

Excerpts from FT: 13-Sep-97 Re: Faster Than Light Travel by Samuel
Penn@bifrost.demo 
>	    "Chris McCurry" <CMCCURR@vastar.com> wrote:
> > But thinking about it, I can only think of three truly different
ways to
> > travel at high speeds in S.Fiction.  Every thing else is just a
variation
> > of one of those themes:
> > 
> > 1) hyperspace / warp space / worm holes / etc.
> > 2) Folding / warping (changing the reality of space time)
>  
> I'd say wormholes fall more into category 2, and
> how is 'warp space' different from 2 as well (it's
> name suggests it's warping spacetime at any rate).

I think he's referring to an actual change in space (like the Navigators
in Dune, who caused two points in space to coexist briefly) vs. a
different dimension which happens to have a 1-to-1 correlation with the
'normal' universe, like GW's Warp, Pournelle's Alderson Drive, and
Niven's Known Space hyperdrive.  Though I do think worm holes would go
in the warping of space time, not the hyperspace section; I thought
transit time in a wormhole was basically zero?	(Which seems to be a
common factor in the second method....)

> To add:
>  
> 4) Time machine
[snip]
> 5) Newtonian physics. E.E. Smiths inertialess drives are
> an example. Ignore relativity altogether, and just keep
> on accelerating to really fast speeds.

Or the Gateway ships, which had mass dampeners... though I'm still not
sure how that equated to FTL travel.  Sure, you can bring the ship's
mass to zero, but that still doesn't let you go faster than light.  Hmm,
gotta go back and see if he explains that... well, maybe. ^_^

		    Aaron Teske
		    Mithramuse+@cmu.edu