Is faster-than-light (FTL) travel possible? In most discussions of this, we get hung up on the physics of particular ideas, such as wormholes or warp drives. But today, we take a more zoomed out approach that addresses all FTL propulsion – as well as FTL messaging. Because it turns out that they all allow for time travel. Join us today as we explore why this is so and the profound consequences that ensue.
Written & presented by Prof David Kipping. Special thanks to Prof Matt Buckley for fact checking and his great blog article that inspired this video (http://www.physicsmatt.com/blog/2016/8/25/why-ftl-implies-time-travel). Please abide by our rule of courteous and respectful interactions with one another in the comments section.
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::References::
► Alcubierre, M., 1994, “The warp drive: hyper-fast travel within general relativity”, Classical and Quantum Gravity, 11 L73: https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0009013
► Pfenning, M. & Ford, L., 1997, “The unphysical nature of Warp Drive”, Classical and Quantum Gravity, 14, 1743: https://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9702026
► Finazzi, S., Liberati, S., Barceló, C., 2009, “Semiclassical instability of dynamical warp drives”, Physical Review D., 79, 124017: https://arxiv.org/abs/0904.0141
► McMonigal, B., Lewis, G., O’Byrne, P., 2012, “Alcubierre warp drive: On the matter of matter”, Physical Review D., 85, 064024: https://arxiv.org/abs/1202.5708
► Everett, A., 1996, “Warp drive and causality”, Physical Review D, 53, 7365: https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.53.7365
► For a more rigorous breakdown of the axis flipping in Minkowski spacetime, see Chapter 3 of “Special Relativity” by Valerio Faraoni (Chapter 3 is also available here https://williamsgj.people.cofc.edu/Minkowski%20Spacetime.pdf)
::Music::
Music licensed by SoundStripe.com (SS) [shorturl.at/ptBHI], or via Creative Commons (CC) Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), or with permission from the artist
► Hill – An Interesting Retirement [https://open.spotify.com/album/3S2hu2EP1lYOXHzwEHcclb]
► Joachim Heinrich – Stjärna
► Falls – Life In Binary
► Chris Zabriskie – Cylinder Two
► Chris Zabriskie – Cylinder Five
► Chris Zabriskie – Cylinder Four
► Falls – Ripley
► Caleb Etheridge – Always Dreaming
► Joachim Heinrich – Y
► Indive – Trace Correction
::Film/TV clips used::
► Interstellar (2014) Paramount Pictures
► Contact (1997) Warnes Bros.
► The Imitation Game (2014) The Weinstein Company
► Star Trek: Generations (1994) Paramount Pictures
► Cosmos: Possible Worlds (2020) National Geographic Fox
► Stephen Hawking’s Favorite Places (2016) Curiosity Stream
► Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) 20th Century Fox
► Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993-1999) Paramount Television
► The Day The Earth Stood Still (2008) 20th Century Fox
► Stargate (1994) MGM/UA Distribution Co.
► Star Trek: Beyond (2016) Paramount Pictures
► Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) Paramount Pictures
► The Expanse (2015-2022) Legendary Television Distribution
► Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994) Paramount Television
► Avengers: Endgame (2019) Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
► Star Trek: Enterprise (2001-2005) Paramount Television
► Back To The Future (1985) Universal Pictures
► Passengers (2016) Sony Pictures Releasing
► The Time Machine (Dreamworks)
► Alien: Covenant (2017) 20th Century Fox
► Star Trek (1966-1969) Paramount Television
► Tenet (2020) Warner Bros. Pictures
► Loki (2021-) Marvel Studios
► Somewhere In Time (1980) Universal Pictures
► The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) Warner Bros. Pictures
► Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013) Paramount Pictures
► Logan (2017) 20th Century Fox
► Star Trek: First Contact (1996) Paramount Pictures
::Subtitles::
► German by Frischholz Christian
::Chapters::
00:00 Introduction
06:52 Space Time Diagrams
12:51 Causality Violations
17:01 Paradoxes in Time
24:28 Outro and Credits
#FasterThanLight #Alcubierre #CoolWorlds
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I'm watching SGU right now on tv. I'm on the episode where they go to an alien planet and find out they time traveled accidentally. And then I get on YouTube and this pops up 🤔
Omega Beings: We made the perfect simulation, Nothing should break this version of reality.
Third Dimensional beings human: Hold my FTL.
The reference to light speed as "the" unit on which all these theories such as time travel are based seems arbitrary. What makes the speed of light so significant? Why not 1.25 the speed of light?
it all depends on if string theory is true or not
if string theory is a fact time paradoxes will never exist
but if stringtheory is false then we are in a paradox already
You have details wrong with your charts….
This video did not age well. I am writing from august 2024 to tell you he se so wrong. In 6 months there will be astonishing mathematical breakthrough, followed by physics and engineering constructions. Authors will read this comment and it will inspire them in the said mathematical breakthrough.
Our understanding of the physics of our universe is rudimentary, at best. People once truly believed that it was impossible to break the sound barrier.
A lot of these same type of thoughts were associated with traveling at the speed of sound. Once we wrapped our heads around the sound barrier and what it would take to overcome it, we simply wanted to go faster. Of course, we did! The speed of light is just like the speed of sound. One day we will finally get past this amazing feat. Our technology must propel forward in unison because our object sensory array ( RADAR for lack of a better term) must become much better. Time is a separate entity. That is the key to understanding travel speed.
Just understood most part of STELLARIS!!!
How does the STL space ship knows of the message received? Another message would have to be sent to them… add that to the diagram? I kinda get the interception thing but time might be bent on space when you respond from a different time frame
Your point of origine is wrong. It is not at the bottom from the time line. But at the time earth sees the super nova.
If the politics of demoralization continue, we will never discover this code
Who does the visuals on your vids please?
Am I the only one who spots the problem with his explanation? The angle of experience from the perspective of Earth follows their world line. But when he adds the world line of the space travellers it's suddenly 90° perpendicular to their own world line. Is that due to bending of the space time continuum or did he just make a mistake? 🙈🙉🙊
There are no paradoxes if the FTL particle has escaped from Minkowski spacetime into another kind of spacetime and the line on the graph at 45 degrees represents the new FTL maximum speed.
Who can give me a brief explanation on why the representation of the speed of light MUST BE 45 degrees angle on the time/space graph ? The 45 degree representation itself, for me, it "feels" like we are already defining the speed of light like the maximum speed possible drawn on the graph !
Time paradoxes are only possible if we can escape the bounds of time, God created our earthly minds to work within the bounds of time which is why we he had made is it so hard for FTL and even same speed as light travel to exist. When traveling light speed, you experience instantaneous travel, for example, if you were shot of the earth with infinite acceleration going the speed of light then looped back around and landed on the earth (with infinite deceleration), it would have seemed instantaneous to you but on earth time would have passed. How ever far a distance you traveled(in miles)/6 trillion miles times one year is how much time would have passed on earth. Slower than light= you experience moving forward in time, Same speed as light= you are stationary in time relative to yourself, faster than light= you move backward through time but those not going your speed continue to advance through it, impossible for my mind to comprehend. As of right now, God is the only one that can move outside the bounds of time and I hope one day on the new heaven and new earth, he will allow us to do the same or at least allow us to understand and utilize FTL Travel.
why does making a graph in microsoft paint establish rules of the universe? You're giving answers to an unexplained question. Its by no means possible to understand something never witnessed in our short era of space travel with are only accomplishment is a metal porta-potty in low earth orbit I personally think its dumb to write off something we know so little about
It's also possible that a unified theory could tell us something about reference frames. It could for example be that travel faster than light is only possible in a shared reference frame. In other words it might be possible to move instantaneous between two points if and only if you don't change the angle of your space time axis. Using the example in that video it might be possible to move between Earth and a hypothetical Vega sharing the reference frame, but it would be impossible to reach the ship moving relative to Earth. Because you importantly don't generate paradoxes if you stay in your reference frame.
Can you travel slower? Is there any speed more slow than we know of and is it possible to travel that slow?
So you say the FTL is only a concept,. I guessing you haven't heard of the TR-3B, a patent release by Donald Trump that exists right now, and would surely exceed your expectations of interstellar faster then light travel ,