Mod Idea: Simulating surfaces -> Borg Technology -> Twinkie Physics -> Worldviews

[Suicide Junkie]

With those FTL energy packets thing;
Imagine a giant ringworld, with a circumference of one light second. So a little smaller than the orbit of the moon.
Put one of those spinning emergency lights in the middle.
Set the light to spin ten times per second.
The spot of light hitting the ringworld will also go around ten times per second.

Now, that ringworld was one light second in circumference, so that spot of light was moving 10 light seconds each second, or 10 times the speed!

No laws of physics broken, no info of physical object moves faster than light.

With the energy pulses thing, you use a bunch of lasers to interfere with each other, and the pattern shifts faster than light.
Its like you had a big crowd of people on the ringworld, and had them stand up to do "the wave" like it was a giant sports arena as the light goes by. Then tell 'em to keep it up and turn off the light. Then unroll the ringworld into a beam.
"The wave" is still moving 10x the speed of light, but really, the movement is an illusion.

[ December 07, 2002, 19:29: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]