# What would be the ramifications of knowledge of a superluminal event? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 25, 2009, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-ramifications-of-knowledge-of-a-superluminal-event/487352 "2009-02-25T11:53:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-ramifications-of-knowledge-of-a-superluminal-event/487352/1 "2009-02-25T11:53:46Z")
Suppose we suddenly had proof of a super-luminal event - something going faster than the speed of light. I’ll leave the details of the event deliberately obscure but assume that we have absolute proof. What would be the ramifications of this be to science? To humanity? ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-ramifications-of-knowledge-of-a-superluminal-event/487352/2 "2009-02-25T12:26:02Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Suppose we suddenly had proof of a super-luminal event - something going faster than the speed of light. I’ll leave the details of the event deliberately obscure but assume that we have absolute proof. What would be the ramifications of this be to science? To humanity? We already have the ‘spooky’ action at a distance quantum entanglement and that doesn’t seem to stop people claiming the speed of light as an absolute barrier to interplanetary space travel forever and ever. I’d hope it would make people realise that we don’t know anything like everything. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-ramifications-of-knowledge-of-a-superluminal-event/487352/3 "2009-02-25T13:33:02Z")
Well, we’d have to find a way to deal with losing that nice ‘effect follows cause’ relationship most of us are pretty fond of, for starters… ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-ramifications-of-knowledge-of-a-superluminal-event/487352/4 "2009-02-25T13:43:34Z")
It would be great for science. Suddenly, physicists could rule out any theories that flatly forbid FTL travel, and concentrate on the ones that have loopholes that allow it. It adds more point to the Fermi Paradox; FTL being possible adds more point to the “where are they ?” question. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-ramifications-of-knowledge-of-a-superluminal-event/487352/5 "2009-02-25T14:54:04Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > We already have the ‘spooky’ action at a distance quantum entanglement and that doesn’t seem to stop people claiming the speed of light as an absolute barrier to interplanetary space travel forever and ever. It doesn’t stop people because it isn’t the loophole you seem to think it is. No information can be transmitted in this manner, which is what the speed-of-light barrier really signifies. Moving a spaceship–or, indeed, any mass at all, is transmitting quite a bit of information ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-ramifications-of-knowledge-of-a-superluminal-event/487352/6 "2009-02-25T15:13:35Z")
> [@Q.E.D](#): > > It doesn’t stop people because it isn’t the loophole you seem to think it is. No information can be transmitted in this manner, which is what the speed-of-light barrier really signifies. Moving a spaceship–or, indeed, any mass at all, is transmitting quite a bit of information In all the books I’ve read on quantum stuff I’ve never seen that claim made. It’s all about infinite mass and energy although I’m aware of it as weaseling about quantum tunneling. And I don’t believe no information can be transmitted by QE. Just that by currently accepted theories it can’t. I do believe that the universe is way weirder than we have any concept of and any iron clad laws we believe, such as the ‘light barrier’ will eventually be side-stepped. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-ramifications-of-knowledge-of-a-superluminal-event/487352/7 "2009-02-25T15:30:28Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > In all the books I’ve read on quantum stuff I’ve never seen that claim made. It’s all about infinite mass and energy although I’m aware of it as weaseling about quantum tunneling. > > And I don’t believe no information can be transmitted by QE. Just that by currently accepted theories it can’t. > > I do believe that the universe is way weirder than we have any concept of and any iron clad laws we believe, such as the ‘light barrier’ will eventually be side-stepped. Okay - I’m checking and Einstein said it too. Still think the universe is too weird to be pinned down like that though, mainly because it would be so boring. And stuff like the [Rochester experiment](http://www.rochester.edu/pr/Review/V69N1/inrev06.html) gives me hope. > [@](#): > > In the past few years, scientists have found ways to make light go both faster and slower than its usual speed limit, but Robert Boyd has gone a step further. > > The Rochester professor has pushed light so far forward that it goes into reverse. > > And, as if to defy common sense, the backward-moving pulse of light travels faster than, well, light. > [@](#): > > The reversed pulse not only propagates backward, but it releases a forward pulse out the far end of the fiber. In this way, the pulse that enters the front of the fiber appears out the end almost instantly, apparently traveling faster than the regular speed of light. > > To use the TV analogy again—it’s as if you walked by the shop window, saw your image stepping toward you from the opposite edge of the TV screen, and that TV image of you created a clone at that far edge, walking in the same direction as you, several paces ahead. > > So, wouldn’t Einstein shake a finger at all this? After all, the results seem to violate Einstein’s tenet that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. > > “Einstein said information can’t travel faster than light, and in this case, as with all fast-light experiments, no information is truly moving faster than light,” says Boyd. “The pulse of light is shaped like a hump with a peak and long leading and trailing edges. > > “The leading edge carries with it all the information about the pulse and enters the fiber first. By the time the peak enters the fiber, the leading edge is already well ahead, exiting. From the information in that leading edge, the fiber essentially ‘reconstructs’ the pulse at the far end, sending one version out the fiber and another backward toward the beginning of the fiber.” Now where’s my DeLorean? ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-ramifications-of-knowledge-of-a-superluminal-event/487352/8 "2009-02-25T16:05:53Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Well, we’d have to find a way to deal with losing that nice ‘effect follows cause’ relationship most of us are pretty fond of, for starters… I don’t see how this follows. Just because some effect seems to happen before the seeming cause doesn’t mean that it did. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-ramifications-of-knowledge-of-a-superluminal-event/487352/9 "2009-02-25T16:07:14Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > And I don’t believe no information can be transmitted by QE. Just that by currently accepted theories it can’t. It’s just so _tempting_, isn’t it? Surely we ought to be able to make something of this – if one entangled quantum particle can tell the other ‘collapse now!’ instantly regardless of distance, then surely there’s a possibility for us to send a message via that channel, if we just try cleverly enough… But actually, the reason that we can’t isn’t some deep and speculative quantum mechanical theorem, but rather simple logic – if each of two parties gets one part of an entangled quantum pair, that’s not in principle any different from two parties each getting a sealed envelope randomly stuffed with a card showing either a ‘0’ or a ‘1’, each of which only exists once (so that a ‘1’ in one envelope means there’s a ‘0’ in the other). Thus, if they both open their envelopes at some point, while they will instantly know what number is on the other’s card, there has been no information transfer – indeed, each of them can’t even know if the other is still alive, or has opened his envelope yet. It’s the same with entangled particles, since you can’t pre-determine the outcome of any measurement – while your own measurement coming up ‘1’ for example instantly tells you that the measurement of the other party must come up ‘0’, there’s no way to actually instantaneously transfer information using that scheme; your measurement appears completely independent of anything going on on the other side – you can’t know if they’ve already measured or not, or if they’re all wiped out by an alien facehugger invasion, or have flown their spaceship into a black hole. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-ramifications-of-knowledge-of-a-superluminal-event/487352/10 "2009-02-25T16:16:57Z")
[Quantum Memory Leap](http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/22013/) > [@](#): > > In recent years, physicists have devised numerous ways to use the oddities of quantum mechanics to transmit and process information. > > Now a team of researchers has announced an important step toward using this quantum information: the ghostly transfer of the quantum state of a single ion to another one a meter away. Since ions can store a quantum state for many seconds, this scheme for “quantum teleportation” could buy enough time for manipulations that allow long-distance communications that are immune to eavesdropping, or for computations that exploit the quantum mechanics to perform blazing fast calculations. > > \ > > To transfer persistent quantum information over longer distances, Chris Monroe and his group at the University of Maryland teamed with Luming Duan at the University of Michigan to trap and cool two individual ytterbium ions.The team encoded quantum information by mixing two states that differ only by the angular momentum of the nucleus. Unlike the “0” or “1” value of a bit in ordinary computing, the researchers can create an arbitrary mixture of the two nuclear states, known as a qubit, by subjecting the ions to microwaves. Once formed, an ion retains this mixture for several seconds–long enough to perform calculations that act on both values simultaneously. > > Extending a technique that Monroe’s team demonstrated in 2007, the researchers exposed both ions to an ultrashort pulse of light, knocking each to a higher-energy state. Each ion then returned to its original state by emitting a photon. Measuring the color of this photon would have left the ion in one of the two nuclear states. But instead, the researchers just tested whether the two photons were different colors. Since they didn’t determine which color came from which ion, seeing this result left the ions in an entangled state that included both possibilities. So isn’t this effectively using QE to transmit information? ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-ramifications-of-knowledge-of-a-superluminal-event/487352/11 "2009-02-25T16:22:28Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > I don’t see how this follows. Just because some effect seems to happen before the seeming cause doesn’t mean that it did. FTL entails time travel, because of what’s called the relativity of simultaneity: as long as everything travels only at c or below, events in causal contact with each other appear in the same sequence in all frames of reference; if some influence is propagated faster than light, in some reference frames, they also move backwards in time, and thus, effects can precede their causes. [Here’s](http://www.theculture.org/rich/sharpblue/archives/000089.html) some explanation of the whole thing. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-ramifications-of-knowledge-of-a-superluminal-event/487352/12 "2009-02-25T16:24:11Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > So isn’t this effectively using QE to transmit information? It is. It’s also slower than light. 🙂 (You have to transmit additional information over a classical channel in order to recover the transmitted quantum state.) ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-ramifications-of-knowledge-of-a-superluminal-event/487352/13 "2009-02-25T16:30:32Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > It is. It’s also slower than light. 🙂 (You have to transmit additional information over a classical channel in order to recover the transmitted quantum state.) But .. but .. what if a wizard did it? Okay - I’ve got nothin’. Nothing but my faith in human ingenuity coupled with the unknown weirdness of the universe that is. One day we’ll find all that we think we know is just a special sub-set of something totally off the wall. Only the other day I was reading in New Scientist how we’re all just holographic projections from the edge of the universe. Which makes sense of a whole lot of things really. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-ramifications-of-knowledge-of-a-superluminal-event/487352/14 "2009-02-25T16:34:44Z")
Yes. Here it is. I seem to remember a thread on it. [Our world may be one gigantic hologram](http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.300-our-world-may-be-a-giant-hologram.html?full=true) For the past seven years, this German set-up has been looking for gravitational waves - ripples in space-time thrown off by super-dense astronomical objects such as neutron stars and black holes. GEO600 has not detected any gravitational waves so far, but it might inadvertently have made the most important discovery in physics for half a century. > [@](#): > > For many months, the GEO600 team-members had been scratching their heads over inexplicable noise that is plaguing their giant detector. Then, out of the blue, a researcher approached them with an explanation. In fact, he had even predicted the noise before he knew they were detecting it. According to Craig Hogan, a physicist at the Fermilab particle physics lab in Batavia, Illinois, GEO600 has stumbled upon the fundamental limit of space-time - the point where space-time stops behaving like the smooth continuum Einstein described and instead dissolves into “grains”, just as a newspaper photograph dissolves into dots as you zoom in. “It looks like GEO600 is being buffeted by the microscopic quantum convulsions of space-time,” says Hogan. > > If this doesn’t blow your socks off, then Hogan, who has just been appointed director of Fermilab’s Center for Particle Astrophysics, has an even bigger shock in store: “If the GEO600 result is what I suspect it is, then we are all living in a giant cosmic hologram.” In a universe this weird just about anything is possible. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-ramifications-of-knowledge-of-a-superluminal-event/487352/15 "2009-02-25T16:42:26Z")
The Universe had a show where they struck a metal apple with a laser beam. The beam showed up in 4 different spots. They used it as a steppingstone to multiple universes. Not that there may be other unis but there has to be. Then of course they are looking for other dimensions and hope the new particle accelerator will prove they exist. There is much weirdness left in science. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-ramifications-of-knowledge-of-a-superluminal-event/487352/16 "2009-02-25T16:50:39Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > But .. but .. what if a wizard did it? Wizards are rather unreliable for communication – they’re often old and cranky, hard of hearing, many have hidden agendas, and a surprisingly large portion for such a presumably complicated subject matter appear actually rather dim, so that I’d suppose that the fidelity of the transferred information is not significantly better than random noise (and worse, in some cases). > [@tagos](#): > > Yes. Here it is. I seem to remember a thread on it. Yeah, [here’s](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=501989) the other thread on it. Personally, I’m not too fond of the whole ‘hologram’ analogy, but by now it’s out there and we’ll have to deal with it. > [@](#): > > In a universe this weird just about anything is possible. The weirdness just means that different things than we’d think should be possible are possible, not necessarily more of them – a few quite reasonable things have turned out to be impossible, such as simultaneously knowing both momentum and location of an electron, or straightforward addition of (sufficiently great) velocities. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-ramifications-of-knowledge-of-a-superluminal-event/487352/17 "2009-02-25T17:00:24Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > The weirdness just means that different things than we’d think should be possible are possible, not necessarily more of them – a few quite reasonable things have turned out to be impossible, such as simultaneously knowing both momentum and location of an electron, or straightforward addition of (sufficiently great) velocities. 😉 Not with the Heisenberg Compensators engaged. Or outside the Copenhagen Interpretation? Or if light turns out to be made of spaghettios? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-ramifications-of-knowledge-of-a-superluminal-event/487352/18 "2009-02-25T18:57:33Z")
Heck, relativity didn’t utterly destroy Newtonian mechanics: Newton is still useful for just about everything we do. It’s only when considering objects that are very massive or very fast that we have to add the extra _v_[sup]2[/sup] / _c_[sup]2[/sup] factor. Similarly, the existence of a superluminal will just mean some minor adjustment to applied physics, though theoretical physics might go nuts for a while. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-ramifications-of-knowledge-of-a-superluminal-event/487352/19 "2009-02-25T19:53:45Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > FTL entails time travel… [Here’s](http://www.theculture.org/rich/sharpblue/archives/000089.html) some explanation of the whole thing. That link doesn’t work for me, but I don’t buy it. If I place a transmitter at Proxima Centauri, then travel FTL to Earth in a day, I can with confidence say that in 4.3 years less a day that a signal will be received from Proxima Centauri. But my OP makes no assumptions about the type or manner of superluminal event. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2009, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-ramifications-of-knowledge-of-a-superluminal-event/487352/20 "2009-02-25T19:55:17Z")
Quoth **tagos** : > [@](#): > > And stuff like the Rochester experiment gives me hope. As an excellent rule of thumb, whenever you read anything in the popular press about any supposedly faster-than-light experiment, your first assumption should be that the newspaper’s popular science writer got the details horribly confused and that the experiment in question doesn’t show anything remotely resembling what the article says that it does. Actually, this is a pretty good rule of thumb for science articles in the popular press in general. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-be-the-ramifications-of-knowledge-of-a-superluminal-event/487352.md?page=2)