Paging Mr. Cochrane

[blacknblue]

I can't find some of the details you're referring to... like, the article I see doesn't mention Hilbert spaces? Is there a more complete version somewhere?

Not that I know of. I was deliberately using a gross oversimplification for the purpose of illustration to people who don't care about the math.

I get what you are saying though. One thing that struck me is that, if we can't adapt it to transporting solid objects maybe we can at least adapt it to sending information. Thus, subspace communications.

Ironically, that has always been the single most difficult part of Trek Science for me to believe. Instant communication of the range of thousands of light years? When it took the ship weeks or months to travel that far? It didn't ring true to me. But from the way that article reads it may actually be possible.

Fascinating...

[Elessar]

yeah, I know what you mean now. I always thought totally the opposite for some reason, that it seemed MORE likely to be possible than moving actual objects that fast. I don't know why. There has been a theoretical debate in physics for awhile now about whether or not it would be possible to send information in a tachyon field... the hilarious thing is, this is a debate that has gotten so in-depth while, at the same time, tachyons are a completely hypothetical particle! So here these physicists are, arguing and debating about whether something "would" be able to do something, "IF" it existed. I mean, I don't critisize, cuz it's a very important thing to do, to hypothesize what the properties of something WOULD be if it existed because that's exactly how we predicted and observed things like the proton and electron, but it seems funny. The last word I saw on the subject was that information could be encoded into the global tachyon field, but not the local tachyon field, and global tachyon fields cannot be localized. Or something.

Imagine a kind of space exploration composed entirely of subspace messages... not of moving matter... but moving patterns, information. Sending the consciousness of explorers, via FTL data stream, to another alien civilization...

[JadziaKathryn]

We need a smiley with a spinning head for this stuff.

[Entilzha]

It's not that hard to wrap your mind around it

[Rigil Kent]

I wonder if my lifelong fascination with space and sci-fi allows me to comprehend some of the more esoteric elements of this, and compensates for my atrocious math skills...

I'm actually with BnB in that the FTL communication thing always seemed to be more difficult for me to buy than the FTL vehicle...