One thing I admit to believing without proof is that the universe is meant to be explored by intelligence, this requires faster than light travel- but FTL seems to be forbidden in many ways by relativity- it leads to paradoxes, and requires infinite energy to approach the speed of light.

I like to think up interesting sci fi plots- I love well written sci fi, especially those that stick with known physics. So I tried to think up a way that FTL (in a fashion) would be possible without violating the laws of physics… I want to stress that the following has no scientific validity- It is not a hypothesis or theory- it is only a way to work FTL into a story in a somewhat plausible manner…

Relativity says 2 important things regarding FTL
1) Information traveling FTL implies violation of causality
2) To accelerate to C requires infinite energy…

But, quantum theory can be interpreted as implying “many worlds”, ie if you flip a coin there are many different split universes that are created- one it lands heads, the other it hits tails, another it lands on edge, another it bounces to the right two inches then lands heads…. Etc, etc…essentially infinite possibilities….

Whatever the outcome of this coin-toss the “splitting” travels outward from the event at the speed of light. The point being that if you flip a coin see it land heads and send out a radio message saying “the coin landed heads” then immediately transported a light hour away and sat in your ship waiting to receive your broadcast, you might receive a broadcast that said “the coin landed tails” . The reason being that the point in space time you teleported to hadn’t made the heads/tail split when you got there…

Hope this makes sense- the implication is the further you “teleport” from the earth the more different a universe you end up with… The more different an earth you may return too….

Sound reasonable? Causality isn’t violated, and no real violation of relativity is invoked, because information has not traveled FTL in the same space-time….

It means the further you travel, the greater the cost when you return....

Travel 45 LY and maybe you come back to a world where JFK wasnt assasinated...

Apollo 13 was lost....

Travel 100 ly you could come back to a world that the nazis won...

What do you all think?

The argument that has been raised is that by tranporting yourself FTL then you carry the info FTL and thus end up in the "coin landed heads" universe- my argument is that you have ended up in a universe that hasnt "decided" how the coin landed, and quite frankly doesnt give a damn what you think about the coin...

Any way, its just a way to get viable FTL, albeit at a high cost... but it could still have great use....

You send a ship instantaneously 100 Ly to another star, it finds an earthlike planet that orbits it... The 'coinflip' that determined that the planet was habitable was made 100's of millions of years ago, so it was a fact in the universe you left, and will be a fact in the universe you return to... however you may be delivering the news to an earth that has a history that diverged 100 years ago from the one you knew, Roosevelt died young, Archduke Ferdinand was only slightly injured, WWI happened in 1960, and involved nukes....Nixon was a bhuddist monk.... (or any one of more than 10^67 other possibilities)