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A new model for faster-than-light travel that uses conventional physics

popularmechanics.com

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Re: A new model for faster-than-light travel that uses conventional physics

#51

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

willis936 wrote: post #50
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Literally any method of getting from A to B faster than light would, has a causality paradox. it does not matter if you cover the miles between FTL, or pop out of a hypothetical wormhole gate: If you end up outside of your own light cone, no matter how, there's a causality paradox.

Warp drives do not violate the speed of causality; they change the geometry of causality.

> Warp drives change the geometry of causality.

Those are all words, and that's about all there is to say about your comment.

Re: A new model for faster-than-light travel that uses conventional physics

#52

Post by TomSwirly »

kelnos wrote: post #43
giantrobot wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's something you can literally demonstrate with accurate clocks and a mountain. This is a mathematical construct that is interesting but it is zero percent closer to any sort of demonstration of the effect let alone an actual implementation. It's frictionless pullies and spherical cows in terms of actual demonstration. Once something requires more energy than fusion reactions can provide you are at energy levels…

Pretty sure when relativity was worked out we didn't have clocks accurate enough. IIRC several of the predictions made by relativity were only able to be tested years later, the Michelson-Morley experiment being the only one performed prior to Einstein's work.

The proposed warp drive requires Jupiter-sized masses organized very precisely.

Can you predict how long it will be before humanity can move that much mass around?

Re: A new model for faster-than-light travel that uses conventional physics

#53

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

witherk wrote: post #17
ant6n wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...30 orders of magnitude more than a nuclear power plant.

We just a need a moore's law of nuclear power and we'll be able to have lunch at alpha centauri and be back in home in time for dinner!

At those energy densities, you'd need a Moore's law of matter too.

But look on the bright side, with scrith we could build a Ringworld as well.

Re: A new model for faster-than-light travel that uses conventional physics

#54

Post by willis936 »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #51
willis936 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Warp drives do not violate the speed of causality; they change the geometry of causality.

> Warp drives change the geometry of causality. Those are all words, and that's about all there is to say about your comment.

Why are you sharing your opinions about a mechanism when you don't even have a remote understanding of the basics?

Re: A new model for faster-than-light travel that uses conventional physics

#55

Post by mclightning »

willis936 wrote: post #50
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Literally any method of getting from A to B faster than light would, has a causality paradox. it does not matter if you cover the miles between FTL, or pop out of a hypothetical wormhole gate: If you end up outside of your own light cone, no matter how, there's a causality paradox.

Warp drives do not violate the speed of causality; they change the geometry of causality.

I'm not sure what that means but like the OP, I think any information transfer at FTL breaks causality. ref: http://www.physicsmatt.com/blog/2016/8/25/why-ftl-implies-ti...

Re: A new model for faster-than-light travel that uses conventional physics

#56

Post by baryphonic »

debo_ wrote: post #19
baryphonic wrote: post #14

> After studying existing research on warp drives, Lentz realized there were specific forms of spacetime bubbles that scientists had overlooked. These bubbles took the shape of solitons, or compact waves that maintain their whip while moving at constant velocity. Anyone else remember TNG 's New Ground ? That was the episode where the Enterprise helps test a soliton wave-based warp mechanism. If I remember right, Geor…

I just watched this a few days ago. The soliton wave was sort of a magic carpet. They, of course, decided to test it by aiming it at a colony...

Humanity has evolved so much by the 24th century that they have to make up contrived problems for the Enterprise to solve, otherwise the Enterprise crew might spend all their time on Risa (well, okay, maybe just Riker). It's not even like Q forced them to aim the wave at an inhabited planet, they just did that by themselves.

Also, couldn't that have used this tech to send superweapons towards Borg space in the Delta Quadrant? Picard has no problem straight up murdering assimilatees in First Contact who are much less far gone than Locutus was in Best of Both Worlds, so I don't think there's much of an ethical issue at stake. Or they could have just used Data's adversarial image virus to wipe out the collective through Hugh.

Re: A new model for faster-than-light travel that uses conventional physics

#57

Post by nick_kline »

Instead of negative energy this warp drive idea requires 10^30 more energy than the matter contained in Jupiter, so we aren't quite there ;-).

The additional issue is whether something going faster than the speed of light violates causality, like a warp drive. I've never understood how to reconcile causality with the fact of so called 'spooky interaction at a distance'. If it's faster than the speed of light, and you can communicate even the info of a bit, isn't that going to violate causality? Recent experiment showed that it was communicating faster than the speed of light at the least. https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/150207-chinese-physicist...

Re: A new model for faster-than-light travel that uses conventional physics

#58

Post by sli »

jkaplowitz wrote: post #38
rossjudson wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is easier? 1) Faster than light travel. 2) Extend lifetimes so 1) doesn't matter.

I'd rather predict 3) A spaceship large enough and self-sufficient enough that many generations of society can live and die on the spaceship at sub-light speeds. Not the flashy sci-fi solution, but the most likely.

It's not flashy, sure, but sci-fi is no stranger to generation ships.

Re: A new model for faster-than-light travel that uses conventional physics

#59

Post by emrah »

What is impossible in 2D (e.g. escaping from inside a circle) is possible and trivial in 3D.

Is moving faster than speed of light a limitation that can be overcome in a higher dimension? Does it really require a lot of energy or is that only so under certain circumstances?

There is a lot we still don't know

Re: A new model for faster-than-light travel that uses conventional physics

#60

Post by steelframe »

kyriakos wrote: post #31
gruez wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that is you don't know how willing the next generation is willing to continue carrying out the mission.

People are willing to follow religions because of society, family and peer pressure,I take it they will be willing to do so under the same pressure and for something that can at least be scientifically proved to exist.

If the year 2020 taught me anything, it's that an alarmingly large number of people can all as a group reject something that's scientifically proven.
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