From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Mon May 13 2002 - 16:15:39 MDT
Edmund Grech wrote:
>
> Thinking about FTL travel rather randomly a curious mind bender of a thought
> struck.
>
> If two objects in empty space without any available background point of
> reference set off in opposite directions at half the speed. Couldn't either
> one, since there is no fixed relative background, perceive themselves to be
> still while the other travels at the speed of light away from them. One
> could even then appear to be travelling faster than the speed of light; is
> this a cosmological observation that can be made with distant galaxies I
> wonder?
If I go this way at .99 c and you go that way at .99c, neither of us
will be going 1.98 c. We will, though, emit photons with enough doppler
shift to make it appear to each other that the other is.
There are jets of matter being emitted away from us by distant galaxies
which are receding from us at .9c+, thus the matter in the jets does
appear to be superluminal, but isn't. Superluminosity is a matter of
your speed relative to the rest of the matter in your local area (i.e.
this part of the galaxy). Appearing to go over c and actually doing it
are two different things. Warp drive theory rests on this distinction,
depending on a local field that warps time-space around you so that you
can be travelling at sub-light speeds within the field, but appear to
the rest of the universe to be going faster than light speed. Whether
such fields can be generated is another thing entirely.
They essentially bunch up metric in front of you, let you travel through
it at sublight speeds within the field, then let go and let the space
metric zing back into place at superluminal speeds.
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