Scientific Problem. Or philosophy one.

[moongumery 0]

I gave you nice problem to solve (it's not really solvable, because we can't check it).Can we send information with speed higher than speed of light?Take that:One guy stands somewhere in universe, the other dude stands 1 billion miles away from the first man. We tighten between them a rope (which have got 1 billion miles length). Than the first person pull his end of that rope. When he pulled it, the other end of rope will also move, so we basically send information that we've pulled a rope with a speed faster than speed of sound (300 km per second).But - is it possible to tighten 1 billion milies long rope? Or maybe we shoud use metal stick with that length? Who knows?Ok, so it's a problem and you can solve it, or not. Until we check it we can't prove it.

[k_nitin_r 8]

That is a rather interesting problem. Although it may seem that you are sending information at a speed faster than sound, you have to consider that the parts of the rope move a rather small distance whereas sound or light has to travel from one end of the rope to the other. It is similar to comparing the cases of walking over to push a light switch and using a long stick to flip the light switch - in the first case, you are moving from your seat to the light switch whereas in the second case, your hand moves a small distance, as does the stick (assuming that the stick was at the same level as the switch and placed on a table a little distance away from the switch) so you cannot really say that you have travelled much faster in the second case than you did in the first case.To move a length of rope that is a billion miles long, it would take quite a bit of effort. Consider the weight of a box full of clothes. Now consider several such boxes stacked upon one another. One cannot just pull such a long length of rope by hand as it would be physically impossible for a person to do so.

[eInfiniti 0]

It is an interesting idea to use an end-to-end rope to send information over a long distance. Actually, if you only transfer information over a short distance, e.g., within a room, the rope can definitely transfer faster than the speed of light! So, theoretically you can transfer information faster than the speed of light with an end-to-end long rope.

[Quatrux 4]

You can't do that, when you will pull the rope, it will take much longer for the other person to feel it than speed of light, it's simple physics as matter, whenever you move it, moves. Like when you change the position of a pencil from one side to another, even if it would be possible to have such a rope, when you would pull it, you would need to wait billion of years for the other person to feel it.

It's something I saw on troll physics though, for example:

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

Or this:

http://www.spacerat.meteornet.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/ftl.png

Usually troll physics is really funny

[k_nitin_r 8]

The link to the S3 Amazon server seems to be broken, but the SpaceRat image seems to tell you how one can work around an actual problem to get to the end result.Science is about making statements that are verifiably true so any marketing statements that people might make are not science. Comic strips often can use logic in a way that it seems right when you think about it but there is usually a logical fallacy somewhere in there. If one can verify that sound is transmitted slower through one material than another, that is a scientific statement. If one moves a solid object with no elasticity and by virtue of the transfer of energy from one end to another calls it a transfer of energy faster than the speed of sound, one has to determine what aspect of the transfer is being considered faster. If the same rod were tied to a bell at one end, it would seem that one has transported sound at a speed faster than known before. Through logic deduction, it is possible to say that x leads to y, and y leads to z, therefore x must lead to z, but this is not always true and cannot be treated as true unless proven through science.

[Bikerman 2]

In fact the 'pull' will travel down the cable at the speed of sound (for that cable, which will depend on its construction).