- #1
AdrianMay
- 121
- 4
Hi all,
I've heard it said that if I could send a message faster than light, then another inertial observer would think it was going back in time. If the message was to hire an assassin to kill me before I sent the message, we'd have a paradox.
I'd like to understand the details of this. Suppose I ask some Italian to drive a bunch of neutrinos to Mars at e.g. 2c with my suicide note. Major Tom is also driving to Mars at .99c and sees the message arrive before I sent it. But this Martian assassin can't do much to me from there. He's going to have to bounce the neutrinos back to Earth to ask one of his human friends to do it.
Tom now has a choice. If he keeps driving in the same direction, he'll perceive the return message as incredibly slow. If he turns around, he's encroaching on the twins paradox. I'm not sure where the latter option leads to, but his erratic driving certainly casts doubt on his validity as an inertial observer. As far as I'm concerned, the assassin arrived when I expected him to, long after I sent the message.
So what's the problem?
Anyway, wouldn't it be nice if we had zero-energy tachyons to go at infinite speed - that would solve Einstein's biggest objection to QM, namely that observations are presumed to change the wavefunction at all points in space instantaneously.
Adrian.
I've heard it said that if I could send a message faster than light, then another inertial observer would think it was going back in time. If the message was to hire an assassin to kill me before I sent the message, we'd have a paradox.
I'd like to understand the details of this. Suppose I ask some Italian to drive a bunch of neutrinos to Mars at e.g. 2c with my suicide note. Major Tom is also driving to Mars at .99c and sees the message arrive before I sent it. But this Martian assassin can't do much to me from there. He's going to have to bounce the neutrinos back to Earth to ask one of his human friends to do it.
Tom now has a choice. If he keeps driving in the same direction, he'll perceive the return message as incredibly slow. If he turns around, he's encroaching on the twins paradox. I'm not sure where the latter option leads to, but his erratic driving certainly casts doubt on his validity as an inertial observer. As far as I'm concerned, the assassin arrived when I expected him to, long after I sent the message.
So what's the problem?
Anyway, wouldn't it be nice if we had zero-energy tachyons to go at infinite speed - that would solve Einstein's biggest objection to QM, namely that observations are presumed to change the wavefunction at all points in space instantaneously.
Adrian.