To Star Ship Design Institute on Internet-site 
http://128.194.15.32/~dml601a/ssd

Geometry of the light cone #1.
by Jack Sarfatti, Ph.D.
sarfatti@ix.netcom.com

ABSTRACT (Version 2.0)
This replaces the original "Summary" of Version 1.0

Special relativity is for the flat spacetime of zero curvature 
everywhere which is the limit of general relativity in which 
energy density and momentum flows bend spacetime.  

Einstein developed special relativity by 1905 because of a 
disharmony in the Maxwell theory of electrodynamical induction 
when forced into the frame work of Newton's space separated from 
absolute time.  We begin here a discussion of special relativity, 
general relativity, causality, tachyons and quantum nonlocality 
that profoundly impact on real-life Star Ship design engineering 
parameters and fundamental limits - or lack thereof.

Special relativity is based upon two ideas: first, that all the 
laws of physics have the same mathematical form in every 
"inertial" frame of reference moving in the "straightest" path 
(i.e., "geodesic") possible.  Second, that the speed of light c in 
classically empty space is the same number for all inertial 
observers moving uniformly relative to each other.  

The axiom of classical causality, that effects must be after their 
causes in all inertial frames was also part Einstein's 1905 
theory.  However, this causality axiom is in conflict with the 
nonlocality of quantum mechanics as expressed in Bell's inequality 
and confirmed in a series of experiments culminating in Aspect's 
(1982).  

While the present purely statistical interpretation of the quantum 
wave function (e.g. Asher Peres' new textbook and Eberhard's 
theorem) does not allow quantum nonlocality to be tapped as a 
practical causality-violating faster-than-light communication 
channel, recent work by: 

1 Yakir Aharonov on quantum time machines and the observability of 
the complete wave function by protected measurements; 

2 by David Albert on self-measuring quantum systems transcending 
the Heisenberg uncertainty principle by photographing other 
worlds;  

3 by Kip Thorne et-al on global self-consistency around closed 
timelike curves; 

4 by Miguel Albucierre on globally faster-than-light (but locally 
slower-than-light) free-float starship drive with no time dilation 
by controlled mini-inflation fueled by exotic matter; 

5 by others on the quantum Zeno effect in which a continuously 
measured quantum system cannot jump (e.g. mind as
a continuously self-measuring mesoscopic quantum state)

taken as a whole point to the practical implementation of David 
Bohm's 1952 idea that the epistemological Born statistical 
interpretation of the quantum wave function is only a limiting 
case for ensembles of independent simple non-self measuring 
quantum systems, and that a deeper ontological meaning for the 
wave function exists in which there are real particles and real 
local gauge fields in addition to real nonlocal quantum potentials 
and super-potentials, respectively.

Since the Born statistical algorithm is only a fact-like initial 
condition that is conserved in the quantum time evolution, one can 
formulate more general models of quantum mechanics in which the 
Born algorithm is irrelevant so that complex self-measuring 
"conscious" quantum systems can be described.

Such a theory beyond present quantum mechanics, will be strongly 
causality-violating though logically globally self-consistent, and 
will also (as shown by Asher Peres) allow Maxwell Demons to win in 
violation of the classical limit of the second law of 
thermodynamics. 

The latter possibility would allow the controlled release of zero 
point quantum fluctuation vacuum energy enabling us to realize the 
controlled inflation captured in Miguel Albucierre's warp drive 
field equations based on Einstein's general relativity combined 
with quantum mechanics.