On Thu, 06 Feb 1997 Michael Lorrey <retroman@tpk.net> Wrote:
>>Me:
>>I have just changed one "random" state in the receiver to another.
>>The results are not really random but it would sure look that way
>>to the receiver. It's only when the receiver compared his results
>>with the records of what I did, and that can only be done at the
>>speed of light or less, would it become obvious that what I did
>>instantly changed what happened in the distant receiver.
>Michael:
>But what if you start out by transmitting some sort of "Rosetta
>Stone" type code set ahead of time via STL radio, such that as the
>wave front of the signal passes radio capable worlds who receive
>the signal, they have some sort of decryption apparatus that can
>then decipher the "random" FTL signal as it is transmitted from its
>source?
The trouble is that the Rosetta Stone would have to be as big as the message
you want to send, and much worse, there is no general Rosetta Stone. Before
I can write the decryption instructions I must know what the message I want
to send is. Thus, I can instantly send a "message" to somebody a billion
light years away, but until he gets the unscrambling instructions he can't
even tell a message was sent much less know what it said, it would all look
like the same old random noise to him. The unscrambling instructions can only
be sent at lightspeed so it will be a billion years before he knows about the
information I sent. It would be just as fast and much easier to forget about
the Quantum effects and just sent the information by radio.
John K Clark johnkc@well.com
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