At 04:53 AM 6/12/99 , John McPherson wrote:
> Here is a article referring to a paper by Chris Van Den Broeck
> who claims to have discovered a feasible method of FTL drive.
> Do any of you have the math-physics background to check this?
> And ... just what the heck is "negative mass" anyways? :-)
>
>=====> Warp speed ahead
>Source: Wired
> Country: United States
> New research indicates that travel faster than the speed of light may
> be possible after all. (6/11/99)
>URL: http://www.wired.com/news/news/technology/story/20152.html
>
>
> The paper abstract is available for download at:
> http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/gr-qc/9905084
>
> The Wired article also has a reference to quantum teleportation.
The biggest problem there, as I see, is fitting macro objects into micro-volumes.
But why do we want to send macro-objects, in the first place?
If we just want to have them on the other side, there may be other
options.
One: if the destination has sufficient intelligence, just send
them a stream of FTL information packets with instructions how
to assemble the needed object, and an acceptable security assurance
and payment protocols.
Two: if the recipient site is not intelligent enough, send the minimal
data sufficient for building a bootstrapping core for the desired
object, and then rely on this core for further construction and negotiation
with the locals.
If the recipient site is absolutely dumb, you may have to send a larger- oscopic GenericBootstrappingCore there, which can take some effort. Hopefully, after a little while, the Universe will be covered with a grid of intelligent recipients, and this problem will no longer arise; all new universes can be constructed that way too. (Maybe, ours already was?)
Finally, we are left with the problem of a functional object confined in a specific material carrier that cannot be separated from it for vanity (original art work), engineering (a human) or identity-perception reasons. These issues should be largely resolved by the time the FTL communication system is launched, and should certainly not be a problem for any agencies worth of possessing such technology :-)