On Light, Gravity and Inter-Galactic Travel Plans

Conventional wisdom is that light travels in a straight line. It is also wrong. This is not an outrageous claim and has been well known to anyone following Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. The explanation is also rather simple and everything to do with gravity - yes, the same gravity we all were taught in high school.

This post is not to explain General Theory of Relativity (I gather that there are very few who understand it - so I'd imagine I don't). The post is around how we can actually travel across the universe without breaking the speed barrier. Current science puts the max. speed limit of any object at c - the speed of light. Weird things start to happen as an object approaches light speed - its mass becomes close to infinity, but more importantly, TIME STOPS for that object at the speed of light.

Meaning:
1) There is indeed a way to stay young forever and ever - just keep traveling at the speed of light.
2) The old Hindu mythology I read in my childhood often made references to a strange concept - that a second ("ek pal") for the Gods is equivalent of eons and eons of life here at Earth. They probably travel at a speed very close to light.

I digress. The cosmic problem is that the universe is so vast, it would take a near-infinite amount of time to get to its edges (at least 14 billion years traveling at light speed since that's the age of the universe as per the current scientific wisdom). Even to get to Andromeda Galaxy, the nearest galaxy to our Milky Way, it would take 2.5 million years when traveling at the speed of light.

So even if we devise a way to travel at the speed of light (and stop time, i.e. aging for us), it would still take 2.5 million years for a person to go explore Andromeda. That just seems useless.

I do think there is a way - and that we can rely on our old friend Gravity to help us here. You see, Gravity is nothing but a warp in space-time. Bigger the object, bigger the warp. See picture on the right (courtesy  (c) NASA).

The warp is what pulls nearby objects to the bigger object - objects essentially "fall" towards the bigger object. P.S. If you are curious why Earth just doesn't fall into Sun, it's because of the angular momentum Earth has (google for more info).

Here is the important piece though - Light travels along the warp created by gravity.  It doesn't travel in a straight line but along the curve (warp). Now this has some huge implications, one of which is gravitational lensing, allowing us to see galaxies that are hidden behind other galaxies (again, google it).

So how is this relevant to my inter-galactic travel plans. Well, you see, gravity is directly proportional to the mass of an object. So, my gravitational warp is less than that of Earth's, and the Earth's is less than that of Sun's. Imagine the gravitational warp that'd be created by the galaxies themselves - Milky Way and Andromeda. 


And light has to follow the warp to get from Milky Way to Andromeda - in other words, light is taking really the long, curvy route to get between these two galaxies. See picture on the right.




What if we figure out a way for us to travel really using the shortest path, and not along the gravitational warp (i.e. not along the path light takes). Then the distance we'd have to travel will be cut down massively. The reduction in distance will be proportional to the mass of the two objects we are trying to travel between. Given that galaxies are massive, the reduction in distance would also be massive when we travel using the shortest path.

The key issue is that we would be traveling across a completely new (as yet undetermined and undiscovered) vector, since the space-time vectors we know are warped (curved). I imagine it is only a matter of time (?) we find that vector. And then, off we go to Andromeda and beyond.

While on the subject, think about the gravitational warp created by the whole universe itself (meaning all the objects in it combined). I'd imagine the warp to be so deep, and the distance for light to travel from our universe to perhaps an adjacent universe so long, that for all practical purposes, our universe would appear as a block hole to another universe!

Selling FREE STUFF in lieu of FREEDOM - A Perspective on US Presidential Election 2016

There is a place where people can get free food, free housing, free medical services. No, that place is not a utopia. It is called a PRISON!

You see, it is indeed possible to get free stuff just as long as you mortgage your freedom. This is as much true at an individual level as it is at a societal level. It is just that it takes time for this to be realized at a societal level. Thankfully(?) we have seen this numerous times in the recent past. Let's just take two examples:

At its simplest, the entire communist system can be summarized thus - people mortgage their entire decision making authority and freedom to a central authority (party, politician, council whatever). In return, that central authority promises to take care of all the people - food, education, health and so on. Millions of people have found this idea appealing (and millions still do). There is only one problem - it doesn't work as evidenced by Soviet Union, North Korea, Cuba, East Germany and so on (if you thought China, it is one of the most capitalistic economies currently with an exceptionally large private business, with Ali Baba, Foxconn etc. as examples).

Socialism, the half-brother of Communism, is essentially in the same economic boat. It allows politicians to promise everything free but creates a society where nothing is ever available. Look at post-independence India as its biggest example (of failure). Within 44 years of independence, all the free stuff promised brought India to its bankruptcy. India was saved only by the political chutzpah of PM Narsimha Rao and mastery of Manmohan Singh, one of the best finance ministers India has ever seen.

One of the greatest mysteries to me is how people ignore all of these recent events, and want to march towards their next road to serfdom. Just look at the United States and the ongoing political debates. Here is what I see (this is a selective view):

1. A march towards Socialism, big government and in general, FREE STUFF - Of course, we all like free stuff. I'd very much like if government can take care of my medical expenses, my kids' education etc. But I also know(from history) that NOTHING IS FREE. I may not be mortgaging my immediate freedom but I sure would be selling my kid's future to get these free stuff. Do you want your country to become the next Venezuela, or remain the United States.

2. A march towards lawlessness - It is often useful to stretch an argument to its extremes to see if it makes sense there. If it doesn't, one should immediately become suspicious of that argument. And that's what I am - suspicious - of arguments that profess that US must provide a path to citizenship to its 11 million illegal immigrants because it would be too time consuming, too inhuman to take legal actions on them. Really? So, if the numbers of criminals (drugs, sex, murder - pick your crime) become large, we should just forget about them because pursuing all of them would break too many families? Have you ever stood in line, and experienced the frustration when others break the line and get ahead? Well, then you know the frustration of LEGAL immigrants in the US with the current discourse on immigration.

3. A mindset of entitlements - $15/hour minimum wage is a reality in California, promising effectively a 50% raise to many workers over the next six years. Good for all of them. Guess who is not getting a 50% raise - everybody else. So essentially everyone else just had their effective buying power reduced, by government dictum. I have a simple question - why $15/hour? Why not $100/hour or $1000/hour? Imagine some government official sitting at their desk deciding what's the minimum private enterprises should pay to their workers, and you have imagined the stepping stone to road to serfdom.

4. The rise of religious nutcases - For the first time in decades, US is seeing a return of measles, thanks to a sustained anti-vaccine movement by nutcases. States are actively promulgating laws making discrimination to LGBTs legal on the pretext of religious freedom. So if I form a religion that professes slavery, misogyny, discrimination etc, it would be okay? In the same vein, religious fanatics are routinely making it harder for women to control their bodies and health. And these people are allegedly for "less government" except when it comes to women issues.

Freedom is precious. Millions of our ancestors have lost their lives so we can live in a free society. We are privileged to be born and live in a world (at least in most countries) where we can take freedom for granted. We shouldn't. The most important gift we can give our next generations is the gift of freedom. Let's not mortgage our kids' futures for our comfort and political correctness today.