Warp Drive May Be More Feasible Than Thought, Scientists Say • Hacker News Board

Re: Warp Drive May Be More Feasible Than Thought, Scientists Say

#31

Post by huffman » Mon, Sep 17, 2012, 9:47 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #27

andrewflnr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming the other species is non-spacegoing. It seems more likely to me, and at least hypothetically possible, that they've been in space as long or longer than us. And probably if you can bend space enough to make a warp drive, deflecting an incoming piece of matter isn't that hard. But I agree we're more likely to end up at war with each other.

> It seems more likely to me, and at least hypothetically possible, that they've been in space as long or longer than us. Statistically, that's a near certainty. In the timeframes of galaxies and evolution, the chances that all the other intelligent species are also just a few hundred years into the industrial revolution is essentially zero.

Are you trying to tell me that Stargate has been lying this whole time?

Re: Warp Drive May Be More Feasible Than Thought, Scientists Say

#32

Post by TeMPOraL » Mon, Sep 17, 2012, 9:47 PM UTC

debacle wrote: post #26

Ygg2 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seeing how if we use our warp drives to 'colonize' space, other creatures would have far more to fear from us than we from them (think Independence day with roles reversed). If a space faring species encounters non-space faring species, the one with warp is probably (not necessary) in the better position. Even without the weapons, FTL drive implies a magnitudes greater technology than anything a non-FTL race would ha…

It's very hard to aim and fire from a far distance, though.

In space, not so much. It's basically what we're doing all the time - literally throwing projectiles around the solar system.

Re: Warp Drive May Be More Feasible Than Thought, Scientists Say

#33

Post by chernevik » Mon, Sep 17, 2012, 9:53 PM UTC

anonymouz wrote: post #24

CWIZO wrote: post #10

As much as it pains me to say this, but I think we have to invent some more advanced weapons before we start poking our heads out of our galaxy. Don't get me wrong, this is fantastic and I'm all tingly from excitement (this is the first time I've read about warp drives in the context of real science) ... but like I said, taking a stroll trough the galaxy with our bombs and finding a hostile alien world. Well we'd be…

There are a lot of challenges we have to overcome to travel to the stars, but this is certainly not one of them. What weapon system would be "good enough" anyway? A potential other civilization could be completely primitive, or it could have faster-than-light travel for millions of years by now. To me it seems entirely absurd to consider this as one of the major problems.

Maybe not weapons development. But doesn't the whole problem bear some thought?

The strategic problem postulated here would be defending planets, presumably from collisions with masses moving faster than light. Warheads aren't more than an afterthought, right? I don't see how anyone spots the inbound attack, never mind puts enough energy on it to change its vector.

Which suggests that the only balance comes from deterrence. But how would any actor know who originated such an attack? Or where they come from?

If that's the battlespace, then "here I am!" might not be a great opening move. And given the importance of information in this battlespace, deliberately avoiding knowledge of who lives where might be the only way of signalling you won't be a problem.

It's all speculation but it's one plausible scenario. Maybe we should have this figured out before we start wandering around.

Re: Warp Drive May Be More Feasible Than Thought, Scientists Say

#34

Post by rickmode » Mon, Sep 17, 2012, 9:56 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #12

heyrhett wrote: post #9

Warp speed is only 1/10th the speed of light. As far as some news about faster than light travel, refer to: http://xkcd.com/955/

Well if you read the paper the effective speed is 10c, not .1c. They postulate 'boosting' the effective speed by contorting space-time around the craft, see this quote in the paper: "assume the spacecraft heads out towards Alpha Centauri and has a conventional propulsion system capable of reaching 0.1c. The spacecraft initiates a boost field with a value of 100 which acts on the initial velocity resulting in an appar…

So if I understand right, the warping does not affect the "internal" speed of the spaceship in relation of the universe outside of the warp bubble.

Maybe someone much better with maths and physics can answer this: will the 0.1c speed have a noticable relativistic age-slowing effect for the travelers compared to their Earth-bound friends?

Re: Warp Drive May Be More Feasible Than Thought, Scientists Say

#35

Post by nessus42 » Mon, Sep 17, 2012, 10:03 PM UTC

You can't have faster than light travel without violations of causality. And while the equations of General Relatively allow for universes where causality is routinely violated, the probability that we are in such a universe seems vanishingly small. E.g., just because you can violate causality does not mean that you can go back in time and kill your grandfather. If you were to try, something would stop you, as a universe in which you kill your own grandfather is not consistent with General Relativity.

A universe that gives you the means to go back in time and try to kill your grandfather, but then somehow always thwarts you, would be a very strange universe indeed.

Edit: To whoever down-voted me, have you taken any classes on General Relativity? I have.

In any case this is from Wikipedia:

Causality is not required by special or general relativity[citation needed], but is nonetheless generally considered a basic property of the universe that cannot be sensibly dispensed with. Because of this, most physicists[who?] expect that quantum gravity effects will preclude this option.[citation needed] An alternative is to conjecture that, while time travel is possible, it never leads to paradoxes; this is the Novikov self-consistency principle.

The "Novikov self-consistency principle" is the the one that states that you could try to create a time paradox, but that you would never be able to succeed. I.e., the universe would be a very strange place!

Re: Warp Drive May Be More Feasible Than Thought, Scientists Say

#36

Post by rbanffy » Mon, Sep 17, 2012, 10:08 PM UTC

Ygg2 wrote: post #15

CWIZO wrote: post #10

As much as it pains me to say this, but I think we have to invent some more advanced weapons before we start poking our heads out of our galaxy. Don't get me wrong, this is fantastic and I'm all tingly from excitement (this is the first time I've read about warp drives in the context of real science) ... but like I said, taking a stroll trough the galaxy with our bombs and finding a hostile alien world. Well we'd be…

Seeing how if we use our warp drives to 'colonize' space, other creatures would have far more to fear from us than we from them (think Independence day with roles reversed). If a space faring species encounters non-space faring species, the one with warp is probably (not necessary) in the better position. Even without the weapons, FTL drive implies a magnitudes greater technology than anything a non-FTL race would ha…

> a space faring species encounters non-space faring species

Any non space faring species either lives on a very boring neighborhood (one where rocks never fall from the sky and other kinds mass-extinction events never happen) or is extinct and we may find their fossil remains.

Re: Warp Drive May Be More Feasible Than Thought, Scientists Say

#37

Post by MBlume » Mon, Sep 17, 2012, 10:24 PM UTC

hooo wrote: post #25

cryptoz wrote: post #2

> The only problem is, previous studies estimated the warp drive would require a minimum amount of energy about equal to the mass-energy of the planet Jupiter. Uh, no. The "only problem" is that the concept relies on exotic matter, a hypothetical matter with 0 evidence for its existence (so far). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exotic_matter

> Uh, no. The "only problem" is that the concept relies on exotic matter, a hypothetical matter with 0 evidence for its existence (so far). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exotic_matter There are multiple routes here though. They could also find an "exotic spaceship" that already has a warp drive.

Find one with a halting oracle on board and you're set.

Re: Warp Drive May Be More Feasible Than Thought, Scientists Say

#38

Post by goldfeld » Mon, Sep 17, 2012, 10:24 PM UTC

johnnymonster wrote: post #18

How about we first build a space ship that travels anywhere near the speed of light?

I assume travelling near speed of light with conventional physics is impossible, since the ship's mass would crush itself as it increased infinitely.

Warp drives, on the other hand, seem to work by moving space-time, not the ship. So in theory the ship is left intact, without the people inside feeling any acceleration whatsoever.

Re: Warp Drive May Be More Feasible Than Thought, Scientists Say

#39

Post by soup10 » Mon, Sep 17, 2012, 10:33 PM UTC

csense wrote: post #28

CWIZO wrote: post #10

As much as it pains me to say this, but I think we have to invent some more advanced weapons before we start poking our heads out of our galaxy. Don't get me wrong, this is fantastic and I'm all tingly from excitement (this is the first time I've read about warp drives in the context of real science) ... but like I said, taking a stroll trough the galaxy with our bombs and finding a hostile alien world. Well we'd be…

1000 years is the blink of an eye compared to the lifetime of our galaxy or the amount of time it took life to evolve intelligence on Earth. There's no good reason to expect that humanity's age will be within 1000 years of an alien race's. Consider how little chance an army behind 1000 years technologically would stand against a modern army. Computer strategy games (I'm specifically thinking of Master of Orion and Ga…

It's absurd anyway. Advanced tech will(and already has, to an extent) put extremely destructive power in the hands of normal people. If we haven't learned to get along by then, we will certainly kill ourselves off.

Re: Warp Drive May Be More Feasible Than Thought, Scientists Say

#40

Post by wheels » Mon, Sep 17, 2012, 10:35 PM UTC

CWIZO wrote: post #10

As much as it pains me to say this, but I think we have to invent some more advanced weapons before we start poking our heads out of our galaxy. Don't get me wrong, this is fantastic and I'm all tingly from excitement (this is the first time I've read about warp drives in the context of real science) ... but like I said, taking a stroll trough the galaxy with our bombs and finding a hostile alien world. Well we'd be…

Such an investment would almost certainly skew the probabilities in the other direction. So far we know of exactly one species that has both taken the initiative to develop weapons that could exterminate humanity and has made threatening gestures with said weapons: us.

If the human race gets destroyed by mega-weapons, it'll almost certainly have been a human that pulled the trigger.