🚀 go-pugleaf

I can't believe I'm doing this...

In article <56qb18$s...@hpavua.lf.hp.com>,
Bruce Kitchin <kit...@dca.net> wrote:
>[...]
>Einstein assumed that
>
>  The speed of light is constant in a vacuum
>[...]
>One thing that bothers me a lot is that so many people don't realize the proof
>is based on assumptions.  If there is any problem with the assumptions then
>the proof is worthless (except as an exercise or demonstration of logic)[...]
>The only justification that I'm aware of for this
>assumption is that the results that depend on it have been verified.

Sorry, this is science.  The only way any theory can receive general
acceptance in the scientific community is through experimental verification.  
And no theory can ever be truly 'proven'; only its validity can be gauged
against the real world.

BTW, all logical proofs rely on assumptions.  Even math has its axioms.

>[...]
>Back when I studied quantum mechanics I was taught some weird stuff and it is
>not just theory but is used in electronics every day.  If you have a particle
>in a place and state and there is a barrier that the particle cannot overcome
>(it would take infinite energy for the particle to exist at the barrier), it
>is possible for the particle to get to the otherside by a phenomenon known as
>tunnelling.  It only works if the barrier is infinite.
>[...]

Just a couple of points here.  Tunneling does not work if the potential
barrier is infinite; in fact, the probability decreases with increasing
barrier height.  Tunneling probability is nonzero if the particle does
not have the energy to overcome (classically speaking) a *finite* barrier.

Your statement 'it is not just theory but is used in electronics every
day' is an interesting one.  Quantum mechanics, like all scientific
theories, is based on assumptions (although they're usually called
"postulates" in the field.)  The only justification for these assumptions
is that that the results that depend on them have been verified.

I suppose my questions to you are these: "What constitutes scientific
proof to you?" and "When does a theory ever become proven?"

None of this addresses faster-than-light travel, which is speculation,
not science (not to say that speculation can't be useful, but to point
out that it is often confused with science.)  So far there hasn't been
a need for such a theory (AFAIK!)--no ultraviolet catastrophe, no
inconsistency in the treatment of electricity and magnetism.  By 'need'
I mean scientific need: science is ultimately descriptive and predictive
and FTL theories describe nothing we can't already describe and predict
nothing we can see.  Which brings up a serious problem with such theories:
there is no current way even in principle to test the validity of any
such theory.  We can give no such theory a reality check.  So far.

Until the day arrives (if ever) that a need arises for such a thing,
and there becomes a way even in principle to test its validity,
a FTL theory will remain "an exercise or demonstration of logic" or
fantasy.

So here's a challenge for all you FTL folks who are serious about it:
find a problem, an inconsistency, a contradiction in the descriptive
or predictive abilities of current theories that can *only* be reconciled
by a FTL theory.  Hey, a patent clerk found himself confused by classical
E&M and look where that got us!  OK, that's glib; but the point is that
if there is no need for FTL, no one will devote any resources to it.
But keep your day job, and stay away from palladium electrodes in 
heavy water!

Dave Tan