this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2023
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[–] [email protected] 78 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (30 children)

Uh, no shit? That's how light works once you're able to travel at relativistic speeds - communication over interstellar distances using light is going to take ages.

Even within our own solar system interplanetary travel will have significant communication time delays.

Edit: also, we already know that matter and light can't exceed c, but I wouldn't be surprised if we discover that other forces (gravitation, or another that we haven't understood yet) can transmit information at speeds >c. I wouldn't be surprised if we turned to quantum entanglement for instantaneous communication over extreme distances either.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago (2 children)

The problem with information traveling ftl is, that you're very quickly running into paradoxes. So just by logic wanting to keep intact, I feel like ftl communication will be impossible

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

If you actually calculate the maximum speed at which information can travel before causing paradoxes, in some situations it could safely exceed c.

For two observers who are not in motion relative to each other, information could be transmitted instantly, regardless of the distance, without causing a paradox.

The faster the observers are traveling relatively to each other, the slower information would have to travel to avoid causing paradoxes.

More interestingly, this maximum paradox-free speed correlates with the time and space dilation caused by the observers' motion.

From your own reference frame, another person is moving at a speed of v*c. The maximum speed at which you could send a message to that observer, without causing a paradox, looks something like c/sqrt(v) (very simplified).

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