General Relativity – Is Sending Information Faster Than Light Possible?

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If I could ever send my friend any information faster than light it would violate causality. If he just guesses the information and acts on it before he could ever receive it, everything is fine. What is different here?

I can understand that nothing can ever move faster than light but I can't understand why causality would be violated if something did. Or does it really have to? Since wormholes are mathematically sound, is it only a question of traversing faster than light? Is it ok if I find a way of transferring information faster than light as long as I don't move anything faster than light?

Best Answer

What is different here?

In some reference frames, your friend guesses the information and acts before you send it and in others, he guesses and acts after you send it.

But there is no causality problem since his action is caused by his guess rather than the received information.

In all reference frames, the guess precedes the action.

Now consider the actual effect of receiving the information. Perhaps a tone is sounded or a light is activated.

If the information propagates faster than $c$ from the transmitter to the receiver in some frames of reference, there are other frames of reference in which the event that the tone is sounded occurs before the event the information is transmitted, i.e., the cause and effect are reversed.

This is clear if you draw a spacetime diagram of two events, E1 and E2, with spacelike interval and note that, in some reference frames, t(E1) < t(E2) and, in others, t'(E2) < t'(E1).