If faster than light travel will ever be possible, what would the experience be like? Years ago I decided to perform the special relativity equation for twice the speed of light and beyond. Time, space and distance all took on the square route of -1 as a factor, this number is referred to in math as an imaginary number and represented with the symbol i. The number is impossible but in a universe with faster than light travel it would have to represent some actual reality.
If the number were not negative it would represent both a positive and negative number. It occurred to me that the negative of positive and negative numbers are negative and positive numbers, in effect there was no difference. It also occurred to me that a positive number combined with the same value of negative number equals zero. I realized that the reality beyond the speed of light for the moving object is strange beyond the human ability to understand or cope with. It is a place where time and space move simultaneously forward and backward, where length grows and at the same time inverts, a place where the space traveler experiences it all in a nothing of a second because it all also councils itself out. Such an experience would drive even the most stable individuals stark raving mad. Thus the idea for the i factor was created.
Over the next several months I will be presenting my novel a chapter or two at a time, I hope you enjoy it.
R.W. Van Sant 