Re: Speed Of Light Slowing Down.

[Rick Tarara <rbtarara@SPRYNET.COM>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Green" <JMGreen@SISNA.COM>
To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, December 11, 2002 4:40 PM
Subject: Re: Speed Of Light Slowing Down.


> Why couldn't Jon Luc travel faster than c?  The Enterprise clearly did --
I
> know because I was a Scientific Officer aboard for a few months.
He and you could because the warp field surrounding the Enterprise was able
to warp 3 dimensions into four so that you could travel a shorter distance
in 4 dimensions from point A to B than you would normally travel in 3
dimensions.  You never exceeded c, but you traveled a shorter distance.  The
2 dimensional analog can easily be seen with a piece of paper.  Imagine 2-D
creatures confined to that paper and wishing to travel from one corner to
the opposite corner.  Their speed limit is also some value of 'c' so there
is a minimum time in which they can make the trip.  However, if the two
dimensional paper is warped into 3 dimensions, so that the two corners are
brought very near to each other (in 3-D) and the 2-D people travel the path
in 3-D, then they can travel a much shorter distance to get from corner to
corner and seemingly have moved faster than c.  All we need for this to work
is the ability to warp 3 dimensional space into a 4 dimensional space (no
not the normal 4-D space of x,y,z,t but 4 spatial dimensions) and the
ability to travel along a line in 4 dimensions.   It will happen within the
next couple centuries--see Star Trek-First Contact for details.  ;-)

Rick

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Richard W. Tarara
Professor of Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN 46556
rtarara@saintmarys.edu
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