# Einstein, ESP, and the special relativity theory
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einstein-esp-and-the-special-relativity-theory/554644
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [September 22, 2010, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einstein-esp-and-the-special-relativity-theory/554644 "2010-09-22T14:39:29Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2010, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einstein-esp-and-the-special-relativity-theory/554644/1 "2010-09-22T14:39:29Z")
I just finishished [del]slogging through[/del] reading _The Whole Shebang_ by Timothy Ferris. In one chapter, he is discussing Andrei Linde’s work on quantum genesis and quotes him as saying:
> [@](#):
>
> “When I was in high school, I developed a nice theory of how extrasensory perception might work. But then I learned that it violated the special theory of relativity.”
Einstein also stated that ESP could not meet the conditions of his special theory because of the spacetime barriers (or something of that sort) and was therefore not possible.
Can anybody explain why the special theory of relativity would prevent the possibility of ESP? In terms a non-physicist can understand? Thanks.
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### Author:  [@Reno\_Nevada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reno_Nevada)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2010, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einstein-esp-and-the-special-relativity-theory/554644/2 "2010-09-22T14:55:26Z")
Well…a mechanism of ESP that works via electromagnetic radiation would not violate special relativity. When we advance to embedding wifi units IN YOUR BRAIN you will have access to a form of ESP, and it is easy enough to imagine an alien race that has that naturally.
On the other hand, if the ESP is communicating instantly, then it does violate special relativity, and I assume that is what Ferris is talking about. If two espers were traveling relative to each other at a significant fraction of the speed of light, then instantaneous communication between them would allow message to pass backwards in time.
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### Author:  [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2010, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einstein-esp-and-the-special-relativity-theory/554644/3 "2010-09-22T15:16:57Z")
Define ESP more clearly. Precognition? That might violate relativity but maybe the precog is picking up a tachyon transmission that is running backwards in time (there was some horror movie awhile back where people in the future were trying to warn people in the past of impending doom and the people in the past would see the transmission in their dreams if they slept in a particular building). Yeah I know, tachyons are made up…just saying.
Telepathy I suspect would adhere to standard EM wave transmission speeds so no violation of relativity. If we presume that transmission is instantaneous then yeah, violation of relativity.
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### Author:  [@BlueOhio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlueOhio)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2010, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einstein-esp-and-the-special-relativity-theory/554644/4 "2010-09-22T15:33:24Z")
“Prince of Darkness”? A late 80’s John Carpenter film.
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### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2010, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einstein-esp-and-the-special-relativity-theory/554644/5 "2010-09-22T17:38:29Z")
I’m not seeing the “why” answered in these posts, but perhaps I’m missing it. It won’t work if it has to be instantaneous, but WHY won’t it work? Why does that violate the SToR? Please pretend I’m 10 years old.
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### Author:  [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2010, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einstein-esp-and-the-special-relativity-theory/554644/6 "2010-09-22T18:02:29Z")
> [@Chefguy](#):
>
> I’m not seeing the “why” answered in these posts, but perhaps I’m missing it. It won’t work if it has to be instantaneous, but WHY won’t it work? Why does that violate the SToR? Please pretend I’m 10 years old.
The foundation of relativistic physics is the axiom that nothing can travel faster than light (or radio waves, or electromagnetic radiation, same thing.) So if I’m here and you’re on the moon and I send a radio message to you, it takes a few seconds for you to get it. If you’re on Mars, it takes a few minutes. So if one assumes that telepathy transmits information “instantly,” then this would violate the laws of physics. There’s no way a message could get from Earth to Mars instantly, because it would be traveling faster than light.
That’s assuming we’re talking about telepathy, of course. “ESP” can mean other things, like precognition. Precognition requires the ability of someone (or some thing) to transmit information about the present to someone in the past. Sending information back in time is also something that seems to be impossible, so there is no known way that precognition could be possible.
Of course, you could always get a wizard to do it.
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### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2010, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einstein-esp-and-the-special-relativity-theory/554644/7 "2010-09-22T19:02:19Z")
> [@friedo](#):
>
> > [@Chefguy](#):
> >
> > I’m not seeing the “why” answered in these posts, but perhaps I’m missing it. It won’t work if it has to be instantaneous, but WHY won’t it work? Why does that violate the SToR? Please pretend I’m 10 years old.
>
> The foundation of relativistic physics is the axiom that nothing can travel faster than light (or radio waves, or electromagnetic radiation, same thing.) So if I’m here and you’re on the moon and I send a radio message to you, it takes a few seconds for you to get it. If you’re on Mars, it takes a few minutes. So if one assumes that telepathy transmits information “instantly,” then this would violate the laws of physics. There’s no way a message could get from Earth to Mars instantly, because it would be traveling faster than light.
>
> That’s assuming we’re talking about telepathy, of course. “ESP” can mean other things, like precognition. Precognition requires the ability of someone (or some thing) to transmit information about the present to someone in the past. Sending information back in time is also something that seems to be impossible, so there is no known way that precognition could be possible.
>
> Of course, you could always get a wizard to do it.
That brings up whole other train of thought that was keeping me awake. We can actually see back through time to observe objects in the universe as they were many light years ago, since the light takes so long to reach us from those distances. So if we were able to somehow create a telescope that would allow us to see down to the surface of a planet in a distant galaxy, we would theoretically be able to see life going on in the past (or is this logic haywire?). So in order to send anything to those past civilizations, it would seem that we would have to be able to transmit is excess of lightspeed in some fashion, which Einstein’s theory forbids. Is this a correct interpretation?
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### Author:  [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2010, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einstein-esp-and-the-special-relativity-theory/554644/8 "2010-09-22T19:14:36Z")
> [@Chefguy](#):
>
> That brings up whole other train of thought that was keeping me awake. We can actually see back through time to observe objects in the universe as they were many light years ago, since the light takes so long to reach us from those distances. So if we were able to somehow create a telescope that would allow us to see down to the surface of a planet in a distant galaxy, we would theoretically be able to see life going on in the past (or is this logic haywire?). So in order to send anything to those past civilizations, it would seem that we would have to be able to transmit is excess of lightspeed in some fashion, which Einstein’s theory forbids. Is this a correct interpretation?
Basically, yes.
Think about it this way: We look through a telescope at a planet 100,000 light-years away. At the same time, they look through a telescope at us. We’re seeing 100,000 years into their past, and they’re seeing 100,000 years into ours. There’s no way for either of us to know that the other is looking at us, and therefore the whole concept of “at the same time” is pretty meaningless over relativistic distances. The hardest part about relativity is that there is no privileged reference frame. There’s really no way to say “right now” and have it be meaningful to someone traveling at high speed relative to us, or very far away.
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2010, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einstein-esp-and-the-special-relativity-theory/554644/9 "2010-09-22T19:23:34Z")
Nothing to do with relativity, but it would be interesting to compute the energy requirements for the kind of transmissions supposedly involved with ESP. If you transmit a few bits it probably wouldn’t be an issue, but supposedly pictures (or even movies) are sent over long distances using a high bandwidth channel. This would take a lot of power. Nobody to my knowledge has proposed dieting through ESP.
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### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2010, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einstein-esp-and-the-special-relativity-theory/554644/10 "2010-09-22T20:03:27Z")
> [@friedo](#):
>
> > [@Chefguy](#):
> >
> > That brings up whole other train of thought that was keeping me awake. We can actually see back through time to observe objects in the universe as they were many light years ago, since the light takes so long to reach us from those distances. So if we were able to somehow create a telescope that would allow us to see down to the surface of a planet in a distant galaxy, we would theoretically be able to see life going on in the past (or is this logic haywire?). So in order to send anything to those past civilizations, it would seem that we would have to be able to transmit is excess of lightspeed in some fashion, which Einstein’s theory forbids. Is this a correct interpretation?
>
> Basically, yes.
>
> Think about it this way: We look through a telescope at a planet 100,000 light-years away. At the same time, they look through a telescope at us. We’re seeing 100,000 years into their past, and they’re seeing 100,000 years into ours. There’s no way for either of us to know that the other is looking at us, and therefore the whole concept of “at the same time” is pretty meaningless over relativistic distances. The hardest part about relativity is that there is no privileged reference frame. There’s really no way to say “right now” and have it be meaningful to someone traveling at high speed relative to us, or very far away.
I enjoyed (sort of) wrestling with the concepts in the book. Does anybody know of a book that might reduce things a bit more? Ferris is obviously a bright guy, but you need the cosmology edition of the thesaurus to understand a lot of his explanations. At least I think I have a handle on Schroedinger’s Cat now, which is a very interesting notion. Or maybe not. 😛
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### Author:  [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2010, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einstein-esp-and-the-special-relativity-theory/554644/11 "2010-09-22T20:04:34Z")
> [@Chefguy](#):
>
> I’m not seeing the “why” answered in these posts, but perhaps I’m missing it. It won’t work if it has to be instantaneous, but WHY won’t it work? Why does that violate the SToR? Please pretend I’m 10 years old.
One thing that confuses 10-year-olds everywhere is the reference to c as “the speed of light.” The reality is that the universe has a speed limit, and it is c. It just so happens that light (in a vacuum) can go c.
Nothing can go faster than c; that includes matter, energy, and information. ESP falls into the “information” category. However, it would only take about 1/6 of a second to travel around the Earth at c, even if you stay on the surface. So that’s probably fast enough for effective ESP.
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2010, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einstein-esp-and-the-special-relativity-theory/554644/12 "2010-09-22T20:15:14Z")
> [@Chefguy](#):
>
> I enjoyed (sort of) wrestling with the concepts in the book. Does anybody know of a book that might reduce things a bit more? Ferris is obviously a bright guy, but you need the cosmology edition of the thesaurus to understand a lot of his explanations. At least I think I have a handle on Schroedinger’s Cat now, which is a very interesting notion. Or maybe not. 😛
You might try books by John Gribbin. I’m not linking to any, because there are a lot of them. I prefer Ferris myself, but Gribbin writes at a slightly simpler level.
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### Author:  [@hdc\_bst](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hdc_bst)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2010, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einstein-esp-and-the-special-relativity-theory/554644/13 "2010-09-22T20:26:08Z")
> [@Voyager](#):
>
> Nothing to do with relativity, but it would be interesting to compute the energy requirements for the kind of transmissions supposedly involved with ESP. If you transmit a few bits it probably wouldn’t be an issue, but supposedly pictures (or even movies) are sent over long distances using a high bandwidth channel. This would take a lot of power. Nobody to my knowledge has proposed dieting through ESP.
This calculation requires a model of the noise associated with communication through the ether. Your revolutionary weight loss program may require an etheric static generator.
In reply to the OP’s topic, one model for ESP could be perfect clairvoyance - the ESPer is omniscient and, as such no message is actually transmitted, the ESPer already knows what message the other party is sending. This does not conflict with Einstein’s relativity, but does require a deterministic universe (Einstein’s preference - ‘God does not play dice…’) which is in conflict with the theories of quantum mechanics.
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### Author:  [@dzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dzero)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2010, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einstein-esp-and-the-special-relativity-theory/554644/14 "2010-09-23T05:41:12Z")
> [@hdc\_bst](#):
>
> > [@Voyager](#):
> >
> > Nothing to do with relativity, but it would be interesting to compute the energy requirements for the kind of transmissions supposedly involved with ESP. If you transmit a few bits it probably wouldn’t be an issue, but supposedly pictures (or even movies) are sent over long distances using a high bandwidth channel. This would take a lot of power. Nobody to my knowledge has proposed dieting through ESP.
>
> This calculation requires a model of the noise associated with communication through the ether. Your revolutionary weight loss program may require an etheric static generator.
>
> In reply to the OP’s topic, one model for ESP could be perfect clairvoyance - the ESPer is omniscient and, as such no message is actually transmitted, the ESPer already knows what message the other party is sending. This does not conflict with Einstein’s relativity, but does require a deterministic universe (Einstein’s preference - ‘God does not play dice…’) which is in conflict with the theories of quantum mechanics.
Thanks for bringing up QM. The standard model is the real workhorse of physics but relativity gets all the attention from people who want to learn more about physics. It bums me out because Niels Bohr was every bit a genius as Einstein, maybe more so, but do a Jay walking (Jay Leno) type survey and ask people who he was and you’ll be out there for decades before you get a decent answer.
Actually, with quantum entanglement, you can in fact have faster than light communication - if you want to consider the phenomenon a form of communication, which, at least in theory, you could. Once the first particle of an entangled pair is observed, the state of it’s partner is also determined - instantly and regardless of the intervening distance - 1 mile, 1 mega parsec - no difference.
It definitely violates non-locality and is therefore at least a thorn in the side of relativity, but it seems to get glossed over more often than not.
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### Author:  [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2010, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einstein-esp-and-the-special-relativity-theory/554644/15 "2010-09-23T05:58:27Z")
I do not consider anything a form of communication which I cannot use to transmit information, in the sense of Shannon. That is, unless there’s a way to set up a channel where I, on the one end, can randomly select from a number of choices however I like and you, on the other end, can determine what was selected with better success than blind guessing, then I do not consider us to be communicating. Quantum entanglement won’t allow you to carry out faster-than-light communication in this sense.
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2010, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einstein-esp-and-the-special-relativity-theory/554644/16 "2010-09-23T06:29:04Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#):
>
> I do not consider anything a form of communication which I cannot use to transmit information, in the sense of Shannon. That is, unless there’s a way to set up a channel where I, on the one end, can randomly select from a number of choices however I like and you, on the other end, can determine what was selected with better success than blind guessing, then I do not consider us to be communicating. Quantum entanglement won’t allow you to carry out faster-than-light communication in this sense.
Right, and ESP is generally thought of as transmitting information in the Shannon sense. If there was a noisy channel you’d have to transmit redundant information. I don’t see how the sender could do anything but broadcast, which would require more energy than some sort of directed link (being no obvious antennas in our heads, besides ears, of course.)
In any case, a good evolutionary argument against ESP is that nature would never let us spend energy transmitting something no one (or very few, at best) is able to receive.
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### Author:  [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2010, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einstein-esp-and-the-special-relativity-theory/554644/17 "2010-09-23T06:49:29Z")
It’s maximally bad. Quantum entanglement doesn’t even allow the “sender” to have any influence on what the receiver sees. It’s _all_ noise.
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### Author:  [@ivn1188](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivn1188)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2010, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einstein-esp-and-the-special-relativity-theory/554644/18 "2010-09-23T07:38:46Z")
Of course, the speed limit of the universe only applies in this universe. The theory of quantum computers which run calculations in multiple universes simultaneously could be said to violate ye olde speed limit.
And that’s even if you accept that we have it all correct in our current theories; a condition which history would indicate is probably not reasonable.
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### Author:  [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2010, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einstein-esp-and-the-special-relativity-theory/554644/19 "2010-09-23T08:27:40Z")
If it works (telepathy) through electromagnetism, then it couldn’t transmit faster than the speed of light, and depending on the wavelength, it would be subject to the same limitations as visible light, or radio waves, or whatever in terms of range, as well as signal fidelity. But assuming the ESP doesn’t have to be instant or all pervading, it’s feasible.
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### Author:  [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2010, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einstein-esp-and-the-special-relativity-theory/554644/20 "2010-09-23T11:56:54Z")
> [@Voyager](#):
>
> Nothing to do with relativity, but it would be interesting to compute the energy requirements for the kind of transmissions supposedly involved with ESP. If you transmit a few bits it probably wouldn’t be an issue, but supposedly pictures (or even movies) are sent over long distances using a high bandwidth channel. This would take a lot of power. Nobody to my knowledge has proposed dieting through ESP.
Slight hijack, but IIRC this is the side effect mentioned in passing for the WILD CARDS novels: ordinary people get comic-book superpowers from a weird virus, and the explanation offered for a ton of 'em is yada yada yada E=mc² yada yada yada even a small amount of mass can yield a large amount of energy yada yada yada increased appetite and metabolism noted even for guys with purely mental powers.
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