| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| specfiction |
Posted - 02/11/2008 : 08:52:08
It has always amazed me how (hard) Sci-Fi fans often consider Faster-Than-Light (FTL) travel in a SF story "impossible," then go on to embrace nano-tech, space elevators, etc. I think this approach to science underlies a basic misunderstanding about what science is. It is not a mystery that most people treat science like religion: you have these "unequivocal" facts and "laws" that form a "science bible" and that's that. Well, in fact, that's not that, and what's more, that's not science.
Science is man's (people's) study of nature in a systematic experimental way that requires measurement and statistically valid reproducible results--period. Nature makes the rules and we try to figure out what they are. And right now, and in the foreseeable future, we try to understand what little part of the universe we have access to. We may never get it right--but at least we get a statistical glimpse.
Back to FTL. Who knows, maybe it's possible. Many scientists out there are constantly looking. Agencies such as NASA and Boeing have looked and perhaps still are. In my story "One Way Ticket" in "Worlds in Transition," I offer my two cents on the subject.
Here's an interesting article into scientists looking at Warp Drives. And here's another article in Slate about searches for Antigavity. And here's a much more resent article about a new theory of Dark Energy/Matter that might require modifications to General Relativity.
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