[Physics] No FTL information implies no FTL travel

causalityfaster-than-lightinformationrelativitywarp-drives

The general consensus in the scientific community is that it is impossible to transmit information faster than light.

There is also speculation that it might be possible to open wormholes or travel faster than light with an Alcubierre Drive.

Wouldn't the first point render the second impossible? If both were valid points, you would get a contradiction because you could encode a message in the Alcubierre Drive payload (or send a messenger through a FTL spaceship) and therefore transmit information faster than light? Or is this a misunderstanding of the impossibility of transmitting information faster than light?

With wormholes, this is pretty much sidestepped because nothing is actually traveling faster than light, but rather moving through a shortcut in spacetime. You're essentially cheating, so this isn't particularly interesting and doesn't really break any laws of physics from what I understand.

Best Answer

Note that I am far from an expert in this area, so sorry if I do not go as deep as you would like.

The general consensus in the scientific community is that it is impossible to transmit information faster than light.

This idea comes from special relativity. If information traveled faster than the speed of light, then causality becomes all messed up. This doesn't take into account the solutions of general relativity equations of things like wormholes.

There is also speculation that it might be possible to open wormholes or travel faster than light with an Alcubierre Drive.

The idea of wormholes or an Alcubierre Drive comes from solutions to equations in general relativity. We do not currently know whether or not these things are physically possible, but they do not violate the first point because within the local space-time of the object nothing is is actually traveling faster than the speed of light. Space-time itself is manipulated in order for this "faster than light travel" to occur.

As mentioned in the comments, the main "obstacles" to producing wormholes or Alcubierre drives isn't from your first point, but rather it comes from not having yet observing the means necessary to produce them (negative mass, infinite energy, etc.)

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