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Monster gravitational waves spotted for first time

nature.com

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Re: Monster gravitational waves spotted for first time

#21

Post by ben_w »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #8
sidcool wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theoretically it's impossible to travel through space at or more than speed of light. But space itself can move faster than light speed, and a warp drive would help something similar that you mentioned. That is possible theoretically. But the amount of energy or mass it needs is very high and no current technology (or in foreseeable future) can achieve it. So FTL remains a dream. My hunch based on nothing is that we…

Yeah the only energy source that can produce enough energy to power an Alcubierre drive (warp drive) that humanity has ever even conceived is a matter-antimatter reactor. But we don’t even fully understand matter, much less antimatter, and are pretty far from that. 2250 at the earliest is not an unreasonable estimate.

Antimatter wouldn't be even close to powerful enough, and both matter and antimatter have got the wrong sign for every (or almost every, depending on which headline I trust) warp drive variation.

As antimatter is as powerful as one can get, it not being powerful enough is a good reason to think it's not going to work.

Re: Monster gravitational waves spotted for first time

#23

Post by psychphysic »

edgyquant wrote: post #20
psychphysic wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The energies involved are stupendous. It would be like being hit by a tsunami and wondering if a cruise ship caused it. But on a galactic scale.

Are not the energies required for a theoretical warp drive also stupendous?

Quite likely. I'd say it's at present beyond our comprehension.

A big enough cruise ship, accelerating fast enough, could cause a tsunami but it'd be far beyond anything we could reason about sensibly.

If they control that much energy, maybe it's waves from their equivalent of a microwave oven.

Re: Monster gravitational waves spotted for first time

#24

Post by dylan604 »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #5
anonym29 wrote: post #3

EDIT as a commenter below has kindly pointed out, our current models indicate that the answer to this question is "no", per https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMFLcmsjOBg ------ This is all firmly outside my technical discipline, but aren't there some theories that faster-than-light travel might be achieved by bending spacetime around a spacecraft, as opposed to trying to propel the spacecraft through space? I really wa…

> Whereas the original discovery spotted waves originating from the collision and merger of two star-sized black holes, the most likely source of the latest finding is the combined signal from many pairs of much larger black holes — millions or even billions of times the mass of the Sun — slowly orbiting each other in the hearts of distant galaxies. These waves are thousands of times stronger and longer than those fo…

>with wavelengths of up to tens of light years.

from a layman's perspective, this sounds crazy cool that they were able to "see" this in the data. seems like one of those things that would be easy to miss from being scoped in and only discoverable after zooming back out. waaaaay out.

Re: Monster gravitational waves spotted for first time

#25

Post by QuadmasterXLII »

edgyquant wrote: post #20
psychphysic wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The energies involved are stupendous. It would be like being hit by a tsunami and wondering if a cruise ship caused it. But on a galactic scale.

Are not the energies required for a theoretical warp drive also stupendous?

We’re working with numbers with 30s and 40s in the exponent- plenty of room for stupendous things to be stupendously different

Re: Monster gravitational waves spotted for first time

#26

Post by davrosthedalek »

time0ut wrote: post #13
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My hunch based on nothing is that we will achieve FTL no earlier than 2250. I see you too have been forced to give PMs estimates when you don't understand the problem.

Is this before or after the estimate is rejected and arbitrarily cut in half?

Yeah, we really should have had FTL by 1125! You'll have to work overtime for the next sprint.

Re: Monster gravitational waves spotted for first time

#27

Post by akiselev »

edgyquant wrote: post #20
psychphysic wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The energies involved are stupendous. It would be like being hit by a tsunami and wondering if a cruise ship caused it. But on a galactic scale.

Are not the energies required for a theoretical warp drive also stupendous?

The original Alcubierre paper came up with the energy equivalent of the entire mass of Jupiter, if I remember correctly.

Re: Monster gravitational waves spotted for first time

#29

Post by TechBro8615 »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #2

More reporting, for a more pedestrian overview: In a major discovery, scientists say space-time churns like a choppy sea https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2023/06/28/gravitatio... (Archived: https://archive.is/AmRvg )

That WaPo article was also discussed [0] on HN yesterday (although most of the comments were about the garbage quality of the reporting).

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36514521

Re: Monster gravitational waves spotted for first time

#30

Post by TechBro8615 »

mjburgess wrote: post #17
sidcool wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theoretically it's impossible to travel through space at or more than speed of light. But space itself can move faster than light speed, and a warp drive would help something similar that you mentioned. That is possible theoretically. But the amount of energy or mass it needs is very high and no current technology (or in foreseeable future) can achieve it. So FTL remains a dream. My hunch based on nothing is that we…

'space' isnt a substance that can move at any speed. What's meant by the claim that 'space moves faster than light' is that extremely distant objects are moving away from each other, relative to each other, 'faster than light' -- which is permitted, so long as that distance can never be bridged by light. The claim amounts to, in other words, that the universe is so large that we can compare objects at distances great…

Here's an article that explains this distinction in detail: https://medium.com/the-infinite-universe/why-galaxies-recedi...
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