Physicists Theorize New Method for FTL Travel

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New method would not break Einstein's Theory of Relativity (http://www.dailytech.com/Physicists+Theorize+New+Method+for+Faster+than+Light+Travel/article12739.htm)

Virtually all science fiction that involves intergalactic travel or convenient travel between planets in our own solar system revolves around faster than light travel. One problem with many theories for faster than light travel is the proposed methods would violate Einstein's Theory of Relativity.

Two physicists from Baylor University have theorized what they believe to be a method of faster than light travel that would not break the Theory of Relativity. Einstein's Theory of Relativity states that objects accelerating to the speed of light require an infinite amount of energy.

The physicists -- Gerald Cleaver and Richard Obousy -- have theorized a new idea for faster than light travel that involves manipulating dark energy to propel a spacecraft. According to Space.com the universe -- in theory -- moved faster than light for a short time after the Big Bang, propelled by dark energy which represents about 74% of the mass energy budget in the universe. Space.com goes on to say that, 22% of the mass energy budget consists of dark matter and what remains of the mass-energy budget in the universe being made up of stars, planets and other things we see.

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Source: DailyTech (http://www.dailytech.com)

[CJames]

Interesting, but any form of FTL also allows for time travel, which suggests to me, anyway, that it is very unlikely.

[K.J.Healey]

Interesting, but any form of FTL also allows for time travel, which suggests to me, anyway, that it is very unlikely.

Why? I never understood that connection.

[CJames]

As I understand it, if you can travel outside of your own future light cone, than from some reference frame you are traveling backward in time. And if you can travel backward in time in one reference frame, you can do it in all of them.

[humanino]

Why? I never understood that connection.It's kind of obvious if you think about it properly. Imagine looking at a distant star. You see it as it was long ago in the past. Now imagine somebody would leave this star at a certain time in a frame where both you and the distant star are at rest, and travel faster than light towards your planet. He would reach you before the light carrying the image of him leaving even made it. When he would look back, he would see that distant star as it was before he even left ! Therefore, he could also come back to the distant star at another point in space on his planet at the moment he left. Faster than light travel would thus amount to both time travel and also to teleportation. All those are somehow equivalent.

[Coin]

Where is their paper? The only source I see is space.com and in a quick search I didn't have a lot of luck with finding any of their actual work. Whatever they're doing I doubt it is the way space.com depicts it, or if it is I doubt that they actually have proposed a mechanism for performing the act they want to perform (i.e. maybe this is just another case of "if you can do N impossible thing, you can travel faster than light". The revelation that if you can do one impossible thing you can do other impossible things also is not surprising...)

[cristo]

Where is their paper?

Here is a link to one of their papers: http://arxiv.org/abs/0712.1649. There is also a more popular one, posted to the popular science section of the arxiv.

[Coin]

Here is a link to one of their papers: http://arxiv.org/abs/0712.1649. There is also a more popular one, posted to the popular science section of the arxiv.
Thanks!

[shoehorn]

New method would not break Einstein's Theory of Relativity

Dead on arrival, I'm afraid. If it's faster than light it implies closed, or nearly closed, timelike curves in a spacetime. And global hyperbolicity doesn't jive with those curves.

[BenTheMan]

Rich is floating around these fora, although I haven't seen him lately.

You might send a PM to robousy and see if he will join the discussion :)

[Questman]

What would happen if I threw in the hypothetical tachyon? any response/explanation from someone far more experienced than me? From what I have heard, it arrives at its destination before departure, but what property would allow it to do that that the massless photon has not? charge?

[LukeD]

What would happen if I threw in the hypothetical tachyon? any response/explanation from someone far more experienced than me? From what I have heard, it arrives at its destination before departure, but what property would allow it to do that that the massless photon has not? charge?

non-zero imaginary-valued mass

[Questman]

So the tachyon has imaginary mass, and the photon has no mass, ergo no volume. Why isn't it a point particle? and if I i am right (which I most likely am not) if it has no volume, how can it be real?