Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site qubix.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!decwrl!sun!qubix!steven From: steven@qubix.UUCP (Steven Maurer) Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers Subject: Re: Sure we can! Message-ID: <850@qubix.UUCP> Date: Fri, 17-Feb-84 05:43:08 EST Article-I.D.: qubix.850 Posted: Fri Feb 17 05:43:08 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 18-Feb-84 10:34:49 EST References: <16018@sri-arpa.UUCP> Organization: Qubix Graphic Systems, Saratoga, CA Lines: 30 >> If we can discuss the likes of Deryni, Darkover, Terry Brooks, and Tolkien >> in SF-Lovers, we can damned well discuss speculative physics relating to >> space travel. I should point out that there is one difference between "speculative physics relating to space travel", and "Deryni, Darkover, Terry Brooks, and Tolkien". And that is this: In all cases, the books that you have mentioned are internally self-consistant (i.e. there is no place where you can say "This part of the novel disagrees with this part"). That is not true with "FTL" drives. What most authors misunderstand about Einstein's theory of relativity is that it is not the ACT of moving through space that "makes time go slower", but rather that space and time are two components of the same thing. "Going through Hyperspace" would do absolutely nothing, because the very ACT of ARRIVING at a location before light would (given any frame of refrence), is the very ACT of going backwards through time. Thus, though is is possible for "Psychism" to exist, even "magic" (as long as it is in another universe), FTL cannot. This fact will not go away. Period. You might as well write 1000 novels based on Perpetual Motion machines, and have the same degree of truth in them as Star Wars, Star Trek, etc, etc, etc. Steven Maurer