Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Jimmy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive

Interesting reading, for sure.

Of course, we're still waiting on the exotic matter with a negative mass to make it reality. I heard they sold out on Black Friday.

[10ebbor10]

Math's just a language, one that allows models that don't neceseraly reflect reality. It's physics you need. I'm mostly curious as to how these scientists are doing their measurements rather then their theorizing.

For now, they didn't. This entire idea is completely theoretical. So either the warp drive works, or our understanding of physics is wrong (again).

They're currently working on very small scale lab tests. (with lasers and stuff)

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Regardless, this is worth looking into even if we don't get results for a long time. FTL is the technological holy grail and we'll never have an interstellar civilization without it.

[Starver]

From my understanding (for which I haven't yet perused OP's linked article, so may be off from the current expectations) Warp Drive wouldn't be too brilliant for getting off planet, or even generally through an atmosphere, but it might well aid actual space travel and (taken to a high-enough art) either mitigate relativistic effects (when they start to be inconvenient) or even 'cheat' the universe into giving us FTL, pretty much as that old Wagon Train In Space series had us believe it might...  But with practicality at the lower levels, even, still being theoretical and that old exotic matter problem (as already mentioned) may be the sticking point.

Hmmm... I wonder if we do get Warp Drive devices zipping around in Earth orbit (and even out into the solar system), whether their passage could be detected by LIGO, or similar?  I suppose it depends on what ripple effects 'leak' from the drive's sphere (or 'lozenge') of influence...  But that effective energy dispersion would mean inefficiencies, to my mind, so perhaps sewing it up tight (at the boundaries of the required effect) ought to be the aim of whatever mystical warp technology they'd be employing.

(Or....  there's also the possibility of existing 'gravity gradients' across compressed/expanded space giving a localised effect on the gradient beyond the travelling device, detectable as a difference from the unperturbed 'background' gravity, at least within a short enough distance on the opposite side of the hypothetical spacecraft to be effectively within the 'umbra' of the gravity-effect 'shadow' concerned...  Hmmm....)

[10ebbor10]

I find it fascinating that, according to wikipedia, Star Trek 's warp drive predates the alcubiere drive, and in fact directly inspired it.

The Alcubierre theory, or anything similar, did not exist when the series was conceived, but Alcubierre stated in an email to William Shatner that his theory was directly inspired by the term used in the show,[17] and references it in his 1994 paper

It's highly unlikely that the drive can be used in athmosphere, as the exotic matter bubble would collapse due to friction.
Also, Hawking radiation at FTL speeds might fry the entire thing

[RedWarrior0]

Still, it would be sweet.

PTW, by the way

[Twiggie]

Linky

this seems really cool, would be nice if i actually had the time to read through that link. im sure someone can summarise for me

[Neonivek]

By "science" you mean "cracked" right?

This is gonna be sweet until the first ship comes back full of demons.

I wish Cracked was more accurate... I stopped reading it a while ago after I noticed how far its credibility was stretched in my head.

[MagmaMcFry]

PTW

[RedKing]

It's highly unlikely that the drive can be used in athmosphere, as the exotic matter bubble would collapse due to friction.
Also, Hawking radiation at FTL speeds might fry the entire thing

Not to mention "severe tidal forces" at the edge of the bubble. Basically, anything caught along the edges of the warp bubble would be literally stretched out or compressed along with space itself. I'm guessing that the faster the bubble's travelling, the more severe the "tilt" of the field, and the more severe the tidal force. In atmosphere, I'm thinking this would do bad things (like turning air along the compression edge of the bubble into compressed plasma, and along the expansion edge of the bubble into supercooled liquid). Plus, if this operates as I think it does, it would do this while boring a tunnel through the atmosphere in the direction of travel. So yeah....not good.

In space, not so big a deal. Although I'm wondering if you'd want to be out of orbit first....not sure what mucking about with the fabric of space-time at this scale would do to planetary gravity and magnetic fields.

I'm wondering too if you'd have the classic problem of "you need a clear lane between you and your destination". Thinking it through, any debris in your path would be compressed (and superheated) before entering the warp bubble. So a stray chunk of rock would be turned into a spurt of plasma, then ejected into the warp bubble around your ship. Problematic. Anything ejected out the back of the bubble would be supercooled and stretched out like the event horizon of a black hole. In theory, exiting the bubble directly perpendicular to the axis of travel and center of the field would be safe, although the truly safe "exit point" would be a mathematical singularity. Anything larger than that is going to have some tidal forces. With a large enough bubble (and/or slow enough travel), the effects would be minor. With a small bubble going really fast, you could step out to the right and find your left arm melted and your right arm turned into a mile-long thread of frozen goo.

[TheBronzePickle]

Presumably, as long as nothing 'fell out' of the bubble prematurely, anything you passed by would be left roughly the same as it began, since the compression and dilation would (or at least are supposed to) cancel each other out.

[Descan]

I dunno about you peeps, but I'm excited to see the results. :3 Which ever way they turn.

[MagmaMcFry]

Presumably, as long as nothing 'fell out' of the bubble prematurely, anything you passed by would be left roughly the same as it began, since the compression and dilation would (or at least are supposed to) cancel each other out.

Well, the passing stuff would still spend some time inside the bubble as superheated plasma, which may or may not have severe effects on its chemical and/or physical structure. Also, what happens if something only passes through the bubble with one side?

[RedKing]

I think that's correct, given the wireframe models of the bubble. Anything not directly in the path of the bubble would be unaffected. However, I'm not so sure about things that get swept up in the bubble then ejected. They might be the same size, but things would go through a state change like this:

Tidal shock (rapid compression while entering through the picometer-thick leading edge)
Stable equilibrium (inside the bubble)
Tidal shock (rapid expansion while exiting through the trailing edge)

In the same way that flash-heating something to 200 degrees, then flash-cooling it by 200 degrees != no effect, I'm thinking that this process would be extremely violent and traumatic to any kind of matter that passes through the bubble, including atmospheric molecules. You *might* be able to use this in atmosphere at very low coefficients of speed, with the result that you'd just have air entering the bubble rather hot and then exiting out the back and cooling back down rapidly as it does so. Given that you'd have some natural cooling (and thermal transfer to the ship) while in the bubble, things should exit the bubble slightly cooler than they went in. Still could be dangerous in atmosphere to things/people nearby, just from the shockwave created. I'd think it would make one hell of a racket, too -- like a continuous thunderclap.

I can see now why some theories hold that at high energy levels, the leading edge of the bubble could create a naked singularity -- the compression would be ridiculous. Unfortunately, the compression would make it more likely to encounter debris...unless you had a true singularity in which case it might work because it would literally implode all matter in your path into the singularity before it could enter the bubble.

That would be a hell of a thing -- a superluminal freight train with a pocket black hole for a cowcatcher. Woe unto anything in its path.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

It isn't like we really need to use an FTL drive in atmosphere in the first place.