Okay so, I stumbled upon this whole argument, read the first 2 or 3 slides, do i’m not sure if what i have to say has been fully addressed but here we go.
The whole “neighboring atom interaction” stuff, that would propagate the information down the pencil are called phonon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonon
In solids there are branches of propagation, Generally described as 2 branches, an acoustical and an optical branch. The acoustical branch being the type of motion that would propagate a knock on 1 side of a door to the other. The optical a little more complex, but higher energy branch with faster interactions with light and such.
They are described in different modes of motion, generally with 1 longitudinal and 2 transverse modes, so, yes, the person who in the argument who first said that pulling the atoms would create a wave of sorts, which would travel slower than the speed of light, is indeed 100% correct. Regardless of if its pushing motions, sliding left and right motions, any of these motions need to propagate using one of these modes, and therefore in that sense the information cannot travel faster than light.
Now: for the transmission of information faster than light: quantum entanglement,
while it works, the biggest problem with it is, essentially after you mess with 1 side, the information happens on the other side instantaneously for “1” property. as in, you can only affect the properties of 1 side 1 time, and transfer that information before it becomes useless.
If we break it down into “bits” like computers or something, then you can transmit 1 bit, but then that bit that u used to transfer the info is lost. So, it is impossible on a large scale use such as space travel, unless a continuous ‘beam’ is sent to both parties and manipulated in that way.
Now that second part, that whole quantum entanglement argument, I’m not 100% sure of, i’ve never really specifically went out and researched it to a large extent or studied the true properties of it. - so don’t take my word 100%, but i’m pretty sure that’s the case.
Edit: read some stuff about the ‘circuit’ idea. Figured I’d add a bit there.
in circuits, such as wiring and stuff (if we weren’t using superconductors first), The electrons are moving around very, very fast in all directions (still not speed of light though). Now, these electrons bouncing around are pushed by an electric field down the wire, inducing a ‘drift’ velocity. It’s the same as say, Air down a tunnel. All the air around you right now is moving at 100s of miles per hour (not sure of the number, I’d have to go look at my stat mech notes) but still, very fast. If you ‘blow’ on them, put a fan up or something, you create a drift velocity. While they are still moving very fast, the motion of the wind created is still very small compared to their speeds. Same thing with electronics, even seemingly ‘instant’ switches and electric currents, are still governed by that. Now, in superconductors where there is no internal resistance or anything, (Not 100% sure of this, but…) I would assume that the electrons would not bounce around, instead would align perfectly with the electric field kinda, and therefore travel very fast (accelerating towards the positive terminal) but still, even if accelerating infinitely, would never reach speed of light.
I’ll check back later and answer any questions about what I’ve said, hopefully Ive made sense.
Edit2:
About the whole, spinning universe all that deal.
Lets look at it from Sun - Earth system, We all know we rotate around the Sun~ Okay, so interesting fact is that, if you were to “remove” the sun, instantly, just get rid of it, we would still continue orbiting the sun, keeping the same path we were heading until the ‘7-8’ minutes, when the gravitational waves have met us, and ‘relieve’ the curve of space pulling us towards the sun. After which we would then shoot out in a straight line, rather than the curved path. (assuming no other interactions with other planets and such.) But even the force that makes things orbit, and spin, travels at the speed of light (Einstein’s stuff goes into that) (I think i’ve hit upon most of the discussions in this topic now) again, hopefully its helpful / understandable.
