Hyperspace Travel

[Uldin]

I was thinking alot about this idea and I think that hyperspace travel is impossible... although i havent researched anything (yes sorry) I think it would be impossible because how can you maintain a hyperspace route (im guessing a straight line cutting through space to your destination)? You'd have to make sure that the path would be clear of any debris or anything that you would crash into in high speed right? Because space is ever changing how does someone make sure that every kilometre of the route is clear? Just a thought...

 

Yes, yes... I know. History tells us that nothing is impossible.

[Darth Tratious]

i know something it is possible we just don't have the technology or something like that to reach past the speed of light without crumbling

[grphiw]

I was thinking alot about this idea and I think that hyperspace travel is impossible... although i havent researched anything (yes sorry) I think it would be impossible because how can you maintain a hyperspace route (im guessing a straight line cutting through space to your destination)? You'd have to make sure that the path would be clear of any debris or anything that you would crash into in high speed right? Because space is ever changing how does someone make sure that every kilometre of the route is clear? Just a thought...

 

Yes, yes... I know. History tells us that nothing is impossible.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Well, here's the optimistic, anything's possible view from a basic physics standpoint:

 

Conventional travel through space at a speed faster than light is impossible; it is a fundamental idea of Relativity, which, for the most part, has turned out to be very true. Very simply nothing can travel faster than pure energy in a vacuum; to even match its speed, matter needs to be converted to energy (a stream of photons, in this instance).

 

HOWEVER, there is increasing evidence from quantam mechanics that space-time (yes, it is a real term that describes the fact that an object can occupy the same space twice, but never at the same time or at two different places at the same time; think of a function on an X-Y plane to get a rough idea) is not as solid as we think. Relativity backs this up, telling us time is a very relative idea (no pun intended). Thus it stands to reason that space as we know it in three dimensions, is not so out of reach. And we find this true in large gravity sources, such as red giant stars or black holes. The potential energy created by gravity alters time, and also space. Using a pseudo-image, imagine a flat surface, and call it space. A huge, dense gravity source such as a black hole would create a dent in that flat surface, drawing objects towards it. Thus space is altered, effected by that large energy source.

 

Now this is where it starts getting into the sci-fi realm... if space can be bent, and space-time is really not that solid, then why can't space be bent to pass through space-time? While there is both science that indicates this is imposible and possible (think worm holes), if one could pass through space-time and emerge at another location at the same time, then infinte travel across this universe could be possible. However, this is all highly theoretical...

[Uldin]

Reaching the speed of light i think is very possible... It's just the part of how to use that speed safely from point A to B... A line the length of 100's of light years will be impossible to maintain i think..

[grphiw]

Reaching the speed of light i think is very possible... It's just the part of how to use that speed safely from point A to B... A line the length of 100's of light years will be impossible to maintain i think..

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Again, the problem with conventionally traveling at even just the speed of light (say, rocket thrusters, gravity slingshots and even distant gravity sources), what type of energy could move faster than the fastest form of energy known in this universe? One could argue that communcation by string theory is faster, because it is, as far as we know, instantaneous. But that delves back into quantam mechanics, and once more alters the shape of the universe that we imagine it to be.

[alanschu]

According to Einstein's Theory of Relativity, reaching the speed of light is not possible, since as our speed increases, it's functionally equivalent to our mass increasing (good ol' E=mc^2). Since for all intents and purposes our mass is increasing (and it increases at a higher rate the faster we go), you essentially need an infinite amount of energy to achieve the speed of light.

 

 

Also, I don't think Red Giant's are very massive. Our sun will become a Red Giant at one point, but I suppose I'm just being picky. :D

 

 

 

As for hyperspace....I'm not sure. I have vaguely heard of bending space-time to create wormholes.....but the classes I have taken just glanced over the issue.

[AnakinSolo2002]

Just a quick reply/thought.

 

When did George say that "Hyperspace travel" was at the speed of light? Let alone anywhere near that speed. If he did, then I'm mistaken.

 

Also the whole vaccum thing and space has never made sense to me. How can space be a vaccum? Saying Space is a Vacuum would make me assume that there is a central force pulling everything in a certain direction. This is obviosly not the case. However, there are 'objects' in 'space' that do 'pull' other smaller objects, but they have nothing to do with it being a 'vaccum.' About Black Holes, if the 'things' that eventually pass through, to keep physics, they would have to end up somewhere, whether or not they are identical to what had entered will be up to debate untill someone gets the gutts. Hey, I'd do it, Sounds like a whole hell of a lot of fun. I postulate that since you cannot really constiture space as a 'vaccum,' becaue a vaccum has to be held in something and with space being infinite as far as we know, that when something enters a black hole it just comes back out another one somewhere else in space exactly as it was before. If it didn't then the black hole by it's own deffinition couldn't exist, because the hole would, in theory have to be identical at both "ends" if it wasn't it would not be able to sustain it's self.

 

Also about "the speed of light in a vaccum"

 

There's no way for time travel to work with light speed, it's too damn slow, just think about it. Black Holes may but no quicker than that same instant.

 

More about "HyperSpace"

 

If you noticed in the movies, it took time to travel in, so 1 it's not time travel, but I don't know if it's light speed or faster, you would think it would have to be faster though.

 

And about runing into "things" in space, I don't know, or can't think up anything to answer that, But when they came in to The Alderaan System they were being hit by asteriods at the time.

 

FYI: I like to talk out of my ass a lot, so if any of that is true or correct, it was pure luck.

[simply yellow]

Are you mental? A black hole isn't just a hole, it doesn't lead anywhere. At its centre is supposed to be an object of infinite density, hence the massive gravitational force surrounding this collapsed star>> creating the 'hole', dumbo. Any object entering the hole would eventually break up as it neared this object, forming matter to be compacted.

[Guest Fishboot]

I'm thinking this is somewhat outside of the scope of an internet forum for a sci-fantasy licensed video game.

[Ekkest]

I think it works a bit like this. Say space is a sheet of paper. It's not, but say it is. Stick a moderately heavy ball on it, and it makes a dent. This dent represents a distortion of gravity, which is affected by mass. A white dwarf has a large mass, so it forms a steeper dent. A black hole has infinite mass, so it has an infintely deep dent. However, the immense gravity of a black hole doesn't affect energy (which has no mass) and this is why black holes emit X -rays and other electromagnetic radiation as the superheated gas which surrounds a black hole breaks apart under the gravity of the black hole.

 

Of course, space is in 4 dimensions, so my example probably doesn't work.

 

Faster than light travel is technically impossible because as speed increases so does mass. Therefore, at the speed of light you have infinite mass. There are, however, several different theories how to bypass this. Wormholes are one, while Alcubierre's Drive (where space is contracted in front of a ship and expanded behind) is another idea. Hyperdrive is indeed meant to be faster-than-light, as it would be impossiible to cross the galaxy without it (which is done numerous times - Darth Mauls trip from Coruscant near the center of the galaxy to Tatooine in the Outer Rim, for example).

[AnakinSolo2002]

Are you mental?  A black hole isn't just a hole, it doesn't lead anywhere.  At its centre is supposed to be an object of infinite density, hence the massive gravitational force surrounding this collapsed star>> creating the 'hole', dumbo. Any object entering the hole would eventually break up as it neared this object, forming matter to be compacted.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

If by mental you mean actually use my brain, then yes.

 

A black hole isn't just a hole, it doesn't lead anywhere.

If that had actually made any sense I would have asked, "and you would know this how?"

 

I don't really agree at all with anything you said, so answer these...

 

If the "hole" doesn't lead anywhere, and the object broke up, where did the peices go?

 

With it being a collpsed(imploded) star, yes true, but it's not of infinite mass, not mass really at all, it's of the exact opposite mass that the star had. Since a star is energy, when it's imploded it's made negative, so if something is pulled into it and the object is converted into energy, where does the energy go? (since a black hole is the opposite of energy)

[AnakinSolo2002]

energy (which has no mass)

 

at the speed of light you have infinite mass.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

If light(form of energy) has NO mass, and say you are travelling at that speed, how do you have a mass at all, let alone an infinite one? Infinite mass makes no sense to me, however having a negitive mass would allow you to travel faster than the speed of light.

[simply yellow]

Are you mental?  A black hole isn't just a hole, it doesn't lead anywhere.  At its centre is supposed to be an object of infinite density, hence the massive gravitational force surrounding this collapsed star>> creating the 'hole', dumbo. Any object entering the hole would eventually break up as it neared this object, forming matter to be compacted.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

If by mental you mean actually use my brain, then yes.

 

A black hole isn't just a hole, it doesn't lead anywhere.

If that had actually made any sense I would have asked, "and you would know this how?"

 

I don't really agree at all with anything you said, so answer these...

 

If the "hole" doesn't lead anywhere, and the object broke up, where did the peices go?

 

 

 

With it being a collpsed(imploded) star, yes true, but it's not of infinite mass, not mass really at all, it's of the exact opposite mass that the star had. Since a star is energy, when it's imploded it's made negative, so if something is pulled into it and the object is converted into energy, where does the energy go? (since a black hole is the opposite of energy)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

a star isn't just energy, it is material. Atoms are normally spaced out, but here they are squeezed togethor closer and closer into an object supposedely the size of a few grains of sand with massive gravitational potential, pulling other material surrounding it into itself, creating what appears to be a hole. Matter pulled into it doesn't 'go' anywhere, it forms part of this object. Its in an encyclopedia.

[AnakinSolo2002]

hmm, thought it was in space, and well, it's speculation, cuase we don't know, and don't have anyway to find out.

[w666tvr]

Current black hole theory implies the existance of their "evil-twin", the white hole. According to this theory a black hole can be linked to a white hole, to create a worm hole. If the black hole can be moved, the worm hole could even become a time machine. The problem? The energy requirement exceeds the energy content of the known universe. Also entering the black hole without being destroyed means missing the singularity which requires faster than light travel which is a conventional no-no. You would need a black hole with a singularity ring (which is believed to exist in rotating black holes I think) to avoid this problem.

 

Warp drives are similarly possible in relativistic theory. The idea is that matter cannot travel faster that light, but space can. Don't move the ship, move the space the ship is in, so that the ship is travelling at zero velocity with respect to the surrounding space and isn't breaking any laws. If this sounds silly, it is and it isn't. Current theory indicates it is possible to create a bubble of spacetime around an object, which would allow you to accelerate that bubble independant of the surrounding spacetime. Problem? Energy again. More energy than that produced by a billion stars. And the more space you want to enclose (the bigger your ship) the worse it gets. Exponentially. Also the leading edge of the bubble would become disassociated with spacetime outside. You couldn't see where you were going, and you couldn't even switch your warp engine off.

 

Hyperspace is the great sci-fi "cop out" clause. We aren't moving faster than light in spacetime under relativistic laws at all. We entering a different realm were different rules apply and which can be mapped onto normal spacetime at least at the point of entry and exit. We travel here however fast we need, however long we need, and emerge at our intended destination. Let's not worry about whether such realms exist, or how we could get into them or leave them - everything is dictated by the requirements of the narrative, not science.

[Centaur]

I think they could be a much more simple way of traveling, we could just break atoms of our body at point A and assemble them at point B. You don t need to travel anywhere, just duplicate yourself. As for hyperspace we could assume that the information about the body takes some time to reach the destination (I haven t realy figuered out how though :D ), furthemore the reassembling of molecules might take some time, that way we might obtain the delay we have in star wars during large distance traveling.

[Musopticon?]

Reassembling of molecyls would be essentially cloning? How would we transport our sentience, or, I dont know, that which makes you you?

[sys64739]

some more speculations:

 

google "tachyons".

[metadigital]

A black hole isn't just a hole, it doesn't lead anywhere.

If that had actually made any sense I would have asked, "and you would know this how?"

 

I don't really agree at all with anything you said, so answer these...

 

If the "hole" doesn't lead anywhere, and the object broke up, where did the peices go?

 

With it being a collpsed(imploded) star, yes true, but it's not of infinite mass, not mass really at all, it's of the exact opposite mass that the star had. Since a star is energy, when it's imploded it's made negative, so if something is pulled into it and the object is converted into energy, where does the energy go? (since a black hole is the opposite of energy)

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'll step in here.

 

The point of singularity at the heart of a black hole (and cosmologists have observed a couple, and it is postulated there are loads of them -- including a massive super-black hole -- at the centre of our Milky Way galaxy) slows down time, as matter approaches it. So matter is basically "frozen" in the last nanoseconds of time at the periphery of the black hole, just before entering the point of singularity. The mass of the star is converted to energy, which we see in the radio and microwave spectra (it's too long a wavelength for visible light).

 

As an object approaches the speed of light, it gets heavier and time slows down. This is called Time Dilation and is described in Einstein's "special" case -- i.e. no gravity effects -- of Relativity. (Relativity of motion was introduced by Galileo, who overturned Aristotle's theory of absolute motion.)

 

When you look at the night sky and pick out the fourth brightest star, Alpha Centauri (actually it is a triple star system: Alpha Centauri A is a binary with the red dwarf Alpha Centauri B; plus Proxima Centauri, which is the closest, but not as bright) -- at four (4.36) light-years distant, (9.46

[metadigital]

Reassembling of molecyls would be essentially cloning? How would we transport our sentience, or, I dont know, that which makes you you?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You are referring to the mind/brain seperation.

 

I.e. the "brain" is the physical mass of fat, endocrine glands & secretions, and axions & dendrites that make up the corporeal structure including the spinal cord. The "Mind" is the soul or spirit. (Some people suggest that only people have a mind, regardless of the animals that are more intelligent.)

 

Is the Mind a part of the Brain?

 

Knock yourself out: you've just hit the philosophical boundary of experimental neuroscience!

 

[Saint]

This is something I have often struggled with in regards to teleportation technology. What is being experimented with currently is a system that perfectly copies (and in doing so, destroys) the original object and then perfectly re-creates (aka duplicates) the object on the other side. It is in fact very much like cloning in a way because the ORIGINAL object is not being transported at all, but is being broken down, recorded into a code and then the code is being transmitted to a receiving station which constructs a new object from that code.

 

It may look, talk and think exactly like you, but for all intents and purposes your unique conciousness (call it a soul if you like, but it basically comes down to conciousness) would be dead and gone with that original body and theoretically a new conciousness would show up on the other side.

 

I believe in Star Trek, the teleporter technology is similar but different in that the object (or person) is not destroyed and then duplicated but is actually converted into energy and that energy is then transmitted through the transporter beam. On the other side, the SAME energy is then converted back into the original matter and put back together. In that case the conciousness (presumably) would be intact because the energy has actually be transmitted rather than copied.

 

Personally I think the only way for teleportation to actually be done without destroying the original object would be some kind of micro worm-hole technology that would not attempt to deconstruct the object at all, but simply create a "gateway" of sorts to another place in space-time that the person go through into the new area.

[Plano Skywalker]

nothing new here but a summation of hyperspace travel.

 

we can assume that we want our science fiction to be based, at least in part, on real science. if that is the case, then the speed of light is, in fact, the unapproachable horizon....men and machines will never travel at the speed of light.

 

however, the idea of folding space time and manipulating the folds that are presumably already there, has at least some basis in real science and must be the idea behind hyperspace (even if it was originally thought of differently).

[metadigital]

You've hit the nail square on.

 

The whole problem with teleportation is keeping the integrity of the object. Literally, the process is mapping the entire object, atom by atom, converting the mass to energy, then transporting this energy to a destination, then reconstituing the energy back to mass according to the map originally made.

 

Even if you make the map of the atomic structure of the object instantaneously, there are still problems to overcome: think about all the chemical processes taking place in the brain, stomache, etc. (It would be reasonable to expect any live creature to be in a state of suspended animation.) Nevertheless, the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle states that it is impossible to know both the location and velocity (a vector of speed in a direction) at the same instant.

 

Teleportation

Star Trek tranporter

Treknobabble

Science of Star Trek:

FTL travel

Transporters

 

Super Conductivity occurs in certain new artificial substances at high temperatures (i.e. approx. 100

[jedipodo]

And the amount of energy which has to be transfered is also unimaginable huge, even for a single person.

[metadigital]

And the amount of energy which has to be transfered is also unimaginable huge, even for a single person.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yeah, I think the calculation is all the energy produced by our sun for a few minutes just to power the transporter: that's a lot of juice!

 

Other impracticalities are the focusing mechanism: obviously Heisenberg's Uncertainty makes it very difficult with any modern technology, however there is a possibility of using quantum "twin particles" and identifying one twin from each pair ... of course that means you have to create a pair of quantum particles for each existing single one, then use the copy particles to work out the map of particles, then convert and send the other particles to the target site (not overloading it with all that energy) and then re-create the creature using the map ... and the map would probably be larger than the beam of energised matter, as it would need all the administration data (like location and order and such).

 

Phew. I think I'll walk.

 

Incidentally, I forgot to mention that Gene Roddenberry only threw in teleportation in Star Trek as a device to avoid spending the entire episode landing the space craft and taking off again (remember this was before the Gemini test flights and Apollo Moon landings).