OT: Handwavium-low methods of FTL travel?

[Makinus]

Renegade 13 said:
One possibility for FTL travel is other dimensions. Many theories of quantum physics predict several other dimensions, besides the 4 we know and interact with every day. If it would be possible to use those other dimensions for travel, it could be possible that distances are closer in those dimensions than in our familiar three, which doesn't actually break the light speed barrier in that dimension, but has the effect of seemingly breaking the light speed barrier in our own dimensions.

Your talk about dimensions made me remember a low-tech FTL method described in an old Sci-FI novel... I can�t remember the name of the novel or the author, but the method was very ingenuous (even if scientifically ridiculous): Mirrors!

You noticed that images in mirrors are always in opossite alignment with the real images being reflected? Something right-handed is left-handed in the mirror and vice-versa... while this have a very simple explanation in optics, in this sci-fi novel it was stated that this happened because mirrors, beyond our three physical dimensions, also reflected one additional dimension, not perceptible by any other means, and in this novel, by combining several hundred mirrors with minute adjustments among them, you can generate a "composite reflection" (in the book it was decribed as an "apparently solid block of light, floating in midair in the center of the mirrors arrangement") that would allow a physical object to transverse this "additional dimension" and appear instantly in a place light years apart... the only needed basics would be the correct alignment of the mirrors and that at least a single beam of light reach the mirrors from the place you wish to travel for... in the book they used the light of distant stars to travel to the vicinity of these stars... also, the mirrors needed to have all the same size and format and the "composite reflection" would be the exact size of the mirror, only in 3d instead of 2d.

If i remember the title of the book or even the author i�ll post here, but it was a long time ago (like 12 or 13 years ago) that i read it, and the story was a little crappy, but the FTL travel idea was what i found most interesting about the book.

Edit: some spelling errors and additional memories that i had from the book.

[Puke]

not impossible, just harder and with more casualties. if you dont have a stopper for your ship, then you have a planet that acts as a stopper for your projectile.

or maybe the slinger creates a field that dies before it reaches the target, and the ship "falls out of warp"

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Puke said:
not impossible, just harder and with more casualties. if you dont have a stopper for your ship, then you have a planet that acts as a stopper for your projectile.

or maybe the slinger creates a field that dies before it reaches the target, and the ship "falls out of warp"

Hmm...I think that second method would be more desirable. So invasions would be possible, just slower.

[Glyn]

You all are still thinking within the box.

Don�t worry about moving the ship. Just relocate the galaxy relative to your ship. Simple?


There is a theory that some time in the future computers will be powerful enough to simulate reality. Sometime after that point there will be more so many simulated realities that the odds of an individual actually being a member of the one true reality will be vanishing small. Now the neat thing about existing in a simulated reality is that by making a small change or patch to the simulator reality you could relocate an object such as a ship to a new location within that simulated reality. All you need is a way to hack reality. (The �Well of Souls� used a method where they patched the equations of reality to move the supper computer moon about.)