Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!hou3c!hocda!houxm!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!mcewan From: mcewan@uiucdcs.UUCP (mcewan ) Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers Subject: Re: FTL and time travel - (nf) Message-ID: <5802@uiucdcs.UUCP> Date: Wed, 22-Feb-84 22:28:16 EST Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.5802 Posted: Wed Feb 22 22:28:16 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 24-Feb-84 01:27:37 EST Lines: 24 #R:sri-arpa:-1635700:uiucdcs:12500072:000:1260 uiucdcs!mcewan Feb 22 16:16:00 1984 /***** uiucdcs:net.sf-lovers / ihuxs!okie / 6:22 pm Feb 6, 1984 */ Larry Niven has also dealt with this subject. In *A World Out of Time*, a man from the past is awakened from frozen sleep in another body (hmmm -- time travel of another kind?). In his future, he finds that he is in the body of a criminal that must repay his debt to the State. They make him a starship pilot (rammer) and send him out with a ship on a long mission to "seed" worlds for future life. Well, he ends up stealing the ship and heading for the galactic core -- but at one point he has to depend on his ship's computer, which is intelligent. The computer puts him into an FTL course around the black hole at the core (you have to understand a bit about the cosmology of Niven's galaxy for this) and they wind up back on earth a few million years later than when he left. Also, the computer informs the pilot after the fact that they could have arrived home only 70,000 years later had the orbit around the black hole been changed slightly. /* ---------- */ This story does NOT involve FTL travel. The 3 million year time difference is caused by slower-than-light time dialation. Scott McEwan uiucdcs!mcewan