A serious discussion on warp drive technology

[JEDIYoda]

So the way I understand all this is a factual idea based on a solution of Bugs Bunny`s field equations in general relativity as proposed by Country Physicist Yosemite Sam, by which a spacecraft could achieve apparent faster-than-light travel when a configurable energy-density field lower than that of vacuum (that is, negative mass) is created.
Rather than exceeding the speed of light within a local reference frame, a spacecraft would traverse distances by contracting space in front of it and expanding space behind it --( that is according to George Jetson and space Ghost!), resulting in effective faster-than-light travel. Objects cannot accelerate to the speed of light within normal spacetime -- (according to Marvin the martian); instead, the warp drive shifts space around an object so that the object would arrive at its destination faster than light would in normal space without breaking any physical laws.

 

[Paratus]

A serious discussion?

Read this: Alcubierre Drive
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive

And then this: White Juday Warpfield Interferometer
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White–Juday_warp-field_interferometer

You can also read these: Warpfield Mechanics 101
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20110015936

These are about as serious as it is possible to get currently.

 

[cbrunny]

Wikipedia is the best place to get real factual information on warp drive. Everyone knows this.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Everything is covered by the ACME copyrights and trademarks. Any discussion and ACME will file suit.

 

[Ichinisan]

We should just bump this thread:
Whoa! New type of space drive discovered

 

[Ichinisan]

Wikipedia is the best place to get real factual information on warp drive. Everyone knows this.

Paratus will correct the misinformation he finds there.

 

[Paratus]

Paratus will correct the misinformation he finds there.

 

[brianmanahan]

Wikipedia is the best place to get real factual information on warp drive. Everyone knows this.

i've always found this book to be my most useful source:

 

[IronWing]

If warp is feasible it stands to reason that somebody, somewhere already invented it and we should be able to detect warp wakes spreading across the universe.

 

[brianmanahan]

If warp is feasible it stands to reason that somebody, somewhere already invented it and we should be able to detect warp wakes spreading across the universe.

unless we live in a no wake zone :awe:

OR a slow zone of thought where warp doesn't work, like in vernor vinge's universe

 

[cbrunny]

unless we live in a no wake zone :awe:

OR a slow zone of thought where warp doesn't work, like in vernor vinge's universe

OR that whatever species out there has invented it did so when the universe was much much younger and are now extinct. Or super far away and realize space is boring. The most unlikely think about Star Trek, in my opinion, is that all species they come across are pretty much at the same point technologically. Even a relatively miniscule difference of 10,000 years in terms of dates between two species discovering/inventing warp drive would amount to a massively different technological array.

 

[brianmanahan]

Even a relatively miniscule difference of 10,000 years in terms of dates between two species discovering/inventing warp drive would amount to a massively different technological array.

yeah, unless there are millions or billions of civs, you'd think the likelihood of seeing one at a similar technological level would be slim to none.

many of the civs in vinge's books got to a point where they transcended into they singularities. then they'd last for about 10 years or so, then vanish.

 

[Darwin333]

If warp is feasible it stands to reason that somebody, somewhere already invented it and we should be able to detect warp wakes spreading across the universe.

Why would it leave a wake? And what if they live thousands of light years away and just invented it a hundred years ago or so?

 

[renz20003]

She can't take anymore captain!

 

[BoomerD]

Serious conversation about an imaginary thing...woot!

 

[mizzou]

That's all well and good, but what happens to my body as you pass through another spacecraft or a space rock that happens to float in your path?

 

[brianmanahan]

Serious conversation about an imaginary thing...woot!

imagination is the essence of discovery

 

[IronWing]

imagination is the essence of discovery

Pain works pretty good too.

 

[Paratus]

So for the TLDR set here's why a warp drive is technically possible but why it probably won't ever be built.

It started with Miguel Alcubierre a physicist and Star Trek fan. He decided to look for a solution in Einsteins Theory of General Relativity.

A lot of the time physicists are taking real arrangements of matter and energy (stars and galaxys) and using GR to solve for the curvature of space. In this case Alcubierre started with a special curved space and back solved for arrangement of matter and energy to make it work.

Why it's awesome:

• The ship doesn't violate the speed of light locally because it's space that is moving FTL and carrying the ship with it.
• Area 2 is a region of flat spacetime where the ship resides. The crew feels no acceleration and clocks on board stay synced with mission control - no funky time-dilation
• Area 1 expands spacetime behind the ship
• Area 3 compresses spacetime in front of the ship - together with area one this curvature of space moves FTL
• Inflation theory which has evidence from the Big Bang says the universe actually did this right after the Big Bang

Why it's not going to work

• Alcubierre's solution required more energy than exists in the universe
• His solution also required exotic matter to create negative gravity which likely doesn't exist in the real world
• Even if it did work some physicists think the ship would unleash a massive amount of high energy gamma rays cooking everything at the ships destination (although maybe this is a feature )

Why it still might work:

• NASAs Harold 'Sonny' White and others relooked at the Alcubierre solution and found a few things.
• Oscillating and changing the thickness of the "warp bubble" drastically lowered the energy requirement until it was only several orders of magnitude more energy released than the largest nuke.
• It's possible that using negative pressure which is seen in some quantum mechanics experiments like the Casmir effect could replace the need for exotic matter

At any rate Dr White and Eagleworks are using a laser interferometer similar to but much smaller than the one used to detect gravitational waves to test some devices looking for microscopic warping of spacetime.

So technically Warp Drive Engineer is currently a real job at least until they prove it's impossible.

 

[brianmanahan]

Why it's not going to work

• Alcubierre's solution required more energy than exists in the universe
• His solution also required exotic matter to create negative gravity which likely doesn't exist in the real world
• Even if it did work some physicists think the ship would unleash a massive amount of high energy gamma rays cooking everything at the ships destination (although maybe this is a feature )

see, this is why i think no aliens from other worlds contact us

sufficiently advanced civs get to a point where one defect means the destruction of the world, and someone eventually does something wrong, and boom

 

[Paratus]

see, this is why i think no aliens from other worlds contact us

sufficiently advanced civs get to a point where one defect means the destruction of the world, and someone eventually does something wrong, and boom

Well that would be a version of the Great Filter answer to Fermi's Paradox.

Maybe all those gamma ray bursts astronomers keep finding are prototype FTL ships annihilating their systems.

 

[brianmanahan]

Well that would be a version of the Great Filter answer to Fermi's Paradox.

Maybe all those gamma ray bursts astronomers keep finding are prototype FTL ships annihilating their systems.

perhaps FTL travel is like war games... the only way to win is to not play

 

[nakedfrog]

https://thedebrief.org/darpa-funded-researchers-accidentally-create-the-worlds-first-warp-bubble/

 

[olds]

That's all well and good, but what happens to my body as you pass through another spacecraft or a space rock that happens to float in your path?

Nothing happens to your body if I pass through anything.

 

[Charmonium]

I jumped around a bit then lost interest. There was however a reference someplace on that site about using Casimir effect devices. I think these are technically considered a source of negative energy. But that might be a misnomer.

Such devices have 2 microscopically perfectly flat and perfectly parallel plates that are mounted so close together that the space between is shorter than the wavelength of some of the virtual particles constantly popping in and out of existence. And you always that was just a descriptive tool. Nope. See Hawking Radiation.

But can you really call the absence of SOME vacuum radiation (aka zero point radiation), "negative" in some meaningful sense? No f***ing clue. But it has just enough "truthiness" that any competent grifter can definitely find "gold" between those plates.