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- From: dinda@cae.wisc.edu (Dinda Peter)
- Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.skeptic
- Subject: Re: help needed with a thought problem
- Message-ID: <1992Jul31.100115.26757@doug.cae.wisc.edu>
- Date: 31 Jul 92 15:01:14 GMT
- Article-I.D.: doug.1992Jul31.100115.26757
- References: <1992Jul28.235824.18389@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com>
- Organization: U of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering
- Lines: 20
-
- In article <1992Jul28.235824.18389@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com> chesky@squirrel.austin.ibm.com (Bill Chesky) writes:
- >Suppose there is this gigantic rod floating out in space. Just for
- >fun, says its, oh, 1,000,000 miles long. Further this rod is made
- >out of some super-duper-futuristic-space-age-pleiadian-uri-geller-
- >don't-even-think-about-it type material and is thus perfectly rigid. Now
-
- Here's the problem. It can't be "perfectly rigid" and thus any impeled
- action would propagate along the rod at much slower than the speed of
- light.
-
- >suppose you have some mechanism on one end whose purpose is to push and
- >pull (longways) on the rod. Is this not a FTL communications device
- >since when you push on one end it is going to instantly move at
- >the other end, thus sending a signal to the other end in 0 seconds
- >wheras it would have taken 5 or 6 seconds if you were using radio or
- >light?
-
- Here's another one for you: A pair of scissors is in fact an FTL
- device - a perfect demonstration of the FTL propagation of phase waves.
- Think about it.
-