Warp travel.

[Lucius]

Warp travel, it's present in many a sci-fi book and in several movies/series. The ability to fold space and jump from one point in the universe to another, or travel in another dimension to reach far away galaxies far quicker, pick your version.

 

So, anyone know if there's any research on this at all? How do we do it and when can we create a warp drive?

 

I wanna go to Amazon world where 'death by snu-snu' is a capital punishment.

[LadyCrimson]

A google on warp drive yields quite a few topics about the current theory/research into interstellar speed.

 

But I can't understand any of them....

[LadyCrimson]

I like this link tho....

 

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/research/warp/socanwe.html

[Lucius]

Yeah I know, but I'm more interested in if anyone here knows something that I might actually understand.

[WITHTEETH]

It was rumored for awhile that black holes would be the key to warp through space, but alas if you did come to the event horizon your mince meat. When I die i want my body to go into a black hole. :cool:

[metadigital]

What's not to understand?

 

Warp Travel: possible?

Is a nonfictional warp drive possible?

 

As many Star Trek fans know, many of the futuristic technologies featured on Star Trek have actually been created (such as the hypospray) or are currently being researched (e.g., the VISOR). In 1996, NASA established the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program, which sponsored some speculative work on warp drives. This program was discontinued in 2002.

 

While thought experiments on the wilder shores of theoretical physics continue, no scheme that may allow "warp speed" travel has yet been devised that has been accepted by mainstream science. Some physicists have proposed a model of FTL travel, formulated in the context of Lorentzian manifolds, which are used in general relativity to construct spacetime models. However, contrary to a common misunderstanding, these models are in no sense solutions to the Einstein field equation, and they give absolutely no hint of how to actually make a warp bubble. These models do however show that while it is indeed impossible to go faster than the speed of light, in principle it might be possible to circumvent the problem by suitably "warping" spacetime itself. The best known such, known as the Alcubierre drive, has the amusing feature that its terminology is in accord with Trek jargon: "warp factors" measure the warping of space (or rather spacetime), not actual speed.

 

The physics of FTL travel

...

2.1.2 Warping space

 

Special Relativity postulates that no object may move locally faster than that of light in a vacuum, that is approximately 2.997925*108 ms-1. However, general relativity tells us that space-time is curved by mass and that the whole universe is curved. Instead of a flat Euclidean geometry we must think in terms of non-Euclidean surfaces where the trajectory of particles are geodesic about the space time distortions created my mass. These theories have been supported quite accurately by the discovery of wrinkles in space-time. The famous COBE image can be found at the early universe section of this site. This means that the local markers need not be seen as necessarily be considered preventive to faster than light travel. (Krauss 1995). Space itself has had periods of faster than light expansion when matter was created forcing the space to expand faster than light even though no particle possessed a speed in excess of c. Therefore, bending or creating space would allow apparent speeds that are very high. Unfortunately, the energy requirement to do either is prohibitive. That is not simply a problem that can be solved if we could develop a method of creating more energy, as the total mass of the universe if annihilated could not create enough energy to propel the Starship Enterprise.

 

Here enters a discussion on the use of zero point energy or zero point motion. First and foremost the above statement, that we do not have enough mass, is based on a false assumption. The assumption being we know how much mass is in the universe. Quite simply this is wrong as you will see in the page dedicated to dark matter the mass of the universe has a margin of error so large that we can not at present make any predictions about the energy available. Even so, collecting enough mass to warp space to allow "rapid" movement between the stars seems unlikely. This brings us back to zero point motion. Heisenberg

[Moose]

I like this link tho....

 

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/research/warp/socanwe.html

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[Craigboy2]

I like this link tho....

 

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/research/warp/socanwe.html

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Atleast they have a sense of humor...

[Lucius]

What's not to understand?

 

SNIP

Interesting, but now my head hurts.

[Gabrielle]

What's not to understand?

 

SNIP

Interesting, but now my head hurts.

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Ah yes, my brain was overloaded. Thank you Mr. Know It All.

[metadigital]

[Walsingham]

Metadigital ftw!

[metadigital]

It's back to M

[astr0creep]

Try some Stephen Hawkings books.

 

I heard he's been researching warp drive tech for a while now.

 

his writing is easy to read and he usually includes some easy analogies for us smallbrainedandpathetic humans.

[Gorth]

What's not to understand?

 

 

While crossing a road in the 1940

[metadigital]

When the chicken comes back in time, riding on tachyons, to run you over in her quantum gravitron powered vehicle, then you'll be sorry!

[Gabrielle]

It's impossible to go faster than light speed. In order to reach a distance place in a short order of time is to warp it, which the only thing that is powerful enough to do that is a singlarity.

[Archmonarch]

Actually, Einstein says it is impossible to accelerate an object to light speed as its mass would become infinite. His work says nothing of particles already traveling faster than c, i.e. tachyons.

[SteveThaiBinh]

If it were possible to travel faster than light, wouldn't it be happening naturally in the universe anyway? There's all these black holes and nuclear reactors floating around, you're bound to get something like this happening where we could see it.

[metadigital]

There is a school of thought that says the scientists operating particle accelerators are taking an unconscionable risk with our civilisation because, so the reasoning goes, they may create a singularity as a by-product of an experiment ... causing the immediate and total destruction of the planet and solar system.

[SteveThaiBinh]

There is a school of thought that says the scientists operating particle accelerators are taking an unconscionable risk with our civilisation because, so the reasoning goes, they may create a singularity as a by-product of an experiment ... causing the immediate and total destruction of the planet and solar system.

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Again, if it were that easy for a singularity to come into existance, it would probably be happening naturally all over the place. I personally don't lie awake at night worrying about imminent devouring by a man-made black hole - not so long as I remember to take the little orange pills, at least.

[metadigital]

There was a cover of New Scientist a few years ago that illustrated the postulate whereby there are mini-singularities everywhere all the time, just not stable.

 

I think it's a good risk to take, anyway, because one "risk management" becomes "total risk avoidance" we have ceased to be human. Just point that particle accelerator over there, please.

[Gorth]

It's impossible to go faster than light speed. In order to reach a distance place in a short order of time is to warp it, which the only thing that is powerful enough to do that is a singlarity.

So, what exactly is it entangled photons do ? :)"

[astr0creep]

This thread is deep...

 

So what if we, the solar system, are already travelling through space? Are galaxies fixed in the universe or do they move, like debris on the ocean?

How long is our galaxy's lifespan relative to the universe? Is it an hour in a day or a second in a century?

If FTL events happen all the time but our galaxy's life in the universe is like a grain of sand at the bottom of the pacific ocean, wouldn't we simply miss it?

 

Too deep or too dumb?

[Gabrielle]

There was a cover of New Scientist a few years ago that illustrated the postulate whereby there are mini-singularities everywhere all the time, just not stable.

 

I think it's a good risk to take, anyway, because one "risk management" becomes "total risk avoidance" we have ceased to be human. Just point that particle accelerator over there, please.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Cool! Better than a nuclear holocaust, death by a baby black hole.