Why Going Faster-Than-Light Leads to Time Paradoxes

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).

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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
Alcubierre & Lobo (2021), Warp drive basics, https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.05610
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 (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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