# 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:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![groman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/73ab20/32.png) [@groman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/groman)\
**Post date:** [September 23, 2010, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einstein-esp-and-the-special-relativity-theory/554644/21 "2010-09-23T14:07:48Z")

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> [@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.

Well, transmitting images doesn’t have to involve actually transmitting images. Here.

“Brown Horse”.

If you know what a horse looks like I just transmitted an image of a brown horse to you using 80 bits of information (less with a more efficient encoding). Now, this isn’t necessarily cheating because I’ve never actually heard any ESP proponents claim that anything more than symbols/concepts was transmitted.

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**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\
**Post date:** [September 24, 2010, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einstein-esp-and-the-special-relativity-theory/554644/22 "2010-09-24T04:25:57Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> 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.

Not sure the cheerleader types that Jay interviews would do any better with Einstein:

\*\*“Ummm, he was like a really smart guy…”  
\*\*_“Yessssss…”_  
\*\*“Who didn’t comb his hair.”  
::chuckle:: \*\*_“OK, a really smart guy who didn’t … comb … his hair ::chortle:: .”_  
\*“Oh, and he made bagels!”  
\***“He [haha] made bagels!”**  
\*With his brother!“”  
\*

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**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\
**Post date:** [September 25, 2010, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/einstein-esp-and-the-special-relativity-theory/554644/23 "2010-09-25T00:32:31Z")

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> [@groman](#):
>
> Well, transmitting images doesn’t have to involve actually transmitting images. Here.
> 
> “Brown Horse”.
> 
> If you know what a horse looks like I just transmitted an image of a brown horse to you using 80 bits of information (less with a more efficient encoding). Now, this isn’t necessarily cheating because I’ve never actually heard any ESP proponents claim that anything more than symbols/concepts was transmitted.

I thought Honorton claimed that his subject could transmit the images of distant locations, which was why the CIA was supposedly interested. How this would be encoded would be an interesting thing to discover if we actually ever found someone who could do it.  
I actually heard Honorton speak, but I don’t recall all the claims. It was at a meeting of the MIT Alumni club of Princeton, so he was probably on his best behavior.

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