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1.1 Star Crossed Lovers: Z A Z A SCH Ool Z®home

The document describes a scenario where two people, A and Z, attempt to communicate faster than light using a Relativity Plus Express device. From A's perspective, a note is sent to Z after 4 years, but from Z's perspective the note arrives before it is sent, breaking causality. A second scenario describes two people, B and Y, attempting to use the device to attack each other, also resulting in inconsistent causal order between reference frames.

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57 views

1.1 Star Crossed Lovers: Z A Z A SCH Ool Z®home

The document describes a scenario where two people, A and Z, attempt to communicate faster than light using a Relativity Plus Express device. From A's perspective, a note is sent to Z after 4 years, but from Z's perspective the note arrives before it is sent, breaking causality. A second scenario describes two people, B and Y, attempting to use the device to attack each other, also resulting in inconsistent causal order between reference frames.

Uploaded by

mariyathai_1
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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1.

Star Crossed Lovers

A met Z in person at the New Years eve party (Dec. 31, 2013). A knew there was something special about
Z, not just Zs odd and delightful sense of humor but the effortless back and forth, from A to Z and back
again. But unforseen circumstances forced Z to leave to return home by space transport the very next day.
Zs home, as befits someone at that end of the alphabet, was many light years away, so Z fired up the
rockets, climbed into a cryotube for a deep sleep, and set off at speed 0.6c. Meanwhile, for 4 full years A
persevered in school. Thoughts of Z lingered.
Senior year A was inducted into the secret society Rod & Clock (A had done fabulously well in physics)
and, as part of the initiation, learned of the Relativity Plus Express, a compact device capable of delivering
a small note faster than the speed of light. Ah, A thought, Ill send a note that arrives before Z reaches
home. When Z awakes my note will be waiting.
Although the initiation included some cautionary tales about the use of the Relativity Plus Express and
legends of unintended consequences As mind was too occuppied to pay much heed.
Later, A snuck into the secret storage chamber at Rod & Clock, inserted a note with nothing but a heart
labled From A to Z, set the speed to 3 times the speed of light, and hit the send button. The device
disappeared. I hope its back before someone notices, A thought.
Only later did A do the math which we now do to reconstruct what actually took place.
In As frame, Z traveled at = 0.6 and the Relativity Plus Express at v/c = 3. Use as origin the moment
A and Z first met, an event! Use time units of years and length units of light years.
A dispatched the note at (t, x)1 = (4, 0), event 1! Set the distances covered by Z and by the Relativity
Plus Express equal to find exactly when and where the note is received:
t = v(t 4).

(1.1)

The notes receipt, event 2, is (t, x)2 = (5, 3) in As frame.


Along the way, from A to Z, the Relativity Plus Express had to eat a planet or two to keep up its
tremendous pace. One by one along the path unlucky planets were devoured.
In As frame, after a year, the goal is reached and the note delivered to a dewey eyed Z. All is well, or
is it? A dimly recalls the Relativity class. What would this look like from Zs point of view?
Take the same origin. In Zs frame quantities are primed. The ILT says
t = (t x)

(1.2)

= (t + x)

(1.3)

where is the motion of the primed frame with respect to the unprimed one. In this case, = 0.6. So
(t , x )1 = (5, 3)

(1.4)

(t , x )2 = (4, 0)

(1.5)

In Zs frame event 2 occurs before event 1; the note arrives before it is sent. In fact, as far as Z is
concerned, Z puts a note that says From A to Z into a mysterious machine labeled Property of Rod &
Clock, If lost please return, reward offered. Then Z observes the machine zip off. It occassionally pauses
and belchs out a fully formed planet. The machine arrives at event 1 and the note jumps into As hand.
The entire history of the notes journey is backwards in Zs frame!
Earth frame

=0.6 frame

Dt

Dt

A1

41Z

A
ASch ool

-4

-2

Origin

Z h om e

ASch ool

Dx
-4

-2

Z h om e

Origin

Dx

Who sent and who received the heart? Did A send it to Z or did Z send it to A?
This is the problem with faster than light travel. All notions of cause and effect are upended. Relativity
does not, by itself, dictate that nothing can move faster than the speed of light. But if faster than light
travel actually occurs then the same events occur in different orders in different frames. Causality is broken!

1.2

Star Wars

Had A been paying closer attention during the initiation at Rod & Clock, the story of an ancient attempt
to use the Relativity Plus Express in battle might have dissuaded A from trying to send the superluminal
valentine.
In that story, B and Y explore a planet of an extinct, ancient civilization. But by and by, B and Y have
a falling out, a tremendous fight, insults fly. As a result, Y flees in the only spaceship ( = 0.6) stranding B
who is left with nothing better to do than study the mysterious ruins on the desolate planet and contemplate
thoughts of revenge. After 4 years of study, B unearths the Relativity Plus Express. B carefully inserts a
bomb, sends it to forth to destroy Ys ship. The machine reaches Y, eating a few minor planets along the
way, and delivers the bomb.
In Bs frame: when does the bomb reach Y? 1 year after B hits the send button, 5 years after B is
stranded. Where is Y? 3 light years away.
In Ys frame: The Relativity Plus Express arrives and picks up a bomb (Did I make that? Y mutters),
streaks off to planet that imprisons B, belching out small planets now and then, and arrives on the deserted
planet. The bomb slides smoothly into Bs hand.
Who is declaring war on whom? B attacks Y or Y attacks B?

1.3

To sum it up...

Physical interactions that involve faster than light travel,


Spacetime intervals that transform according to relativity and
Notions of cause and effect
are mutually inconsistent with each other. The second and third items give a reasonable description of our
world.

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