# Real "Warp Drive" soon.



## TheMailMan78 (Sep 19, 2012)

Dunno if this has been posted yet but its very cool. I love playing football.









> A warp drive to achieve faster-than-light travel — a concept popularized in television's Star Trek — may not be as unrealistic as once thought, scientists say.
> A warp drive would manipulate space-time itself to move a starship, taking advantage of a loophole in the laws of physics that prevent anything from moving faster than light. A concept for a real-life warp drive was suggested in 1994 by Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre, however subsequent calculations found that such a device would require prohibitive amounts of energy.
> Now physicists say that adjustments can be made to the proposed warp drive that would enable it to run on significantly less energy, potentially brining the idea back from the realm of science fiction into science.
> "There is hope," Harold "Sonny" White of NASA's Johnson Space Center said here Friday (Sept. 14) at the 100 Year Starship Symposium, a meeting to discuss the challenges of interstellar spaceflight.
> ...


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## D007 (Sep 19, 2012)

If the universe exists, it was made.. Within those same rules anything can happen.. Amazing to think this is becoming plausible now a days.. I  an elegant solution.. E=MC2 is elegant and simple..
This thing seems just simple and elegant enough to have a shot maybe.. I sure hope people start looking into it anyway.. The other things something like this could be applied to are endless..

PS: I just never know when TMM is trolling anymore...lol.. I brace myself for the coming ridicule for giving this possible credance.. XD


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## TheMailMan78 (Sep 19, 2012)

D007 said:


> If the universe exists, it was made.. Within those same rules anything can happen.. Amazing to think this is becoming plausible now a days.. I  an elegant solution.. E=MC2 is elegant and simple..
> This thing seems just simple and elegant enough to have a shot maybe.. I sure hope people start looking into it anyway.. The other things something like this could be applied to are endless..



It seems simple due to the media outlet I quoted. Believe me its VASTLY more complected then a football floating inside a woman's diaphragm.


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## RejZoR (Sep 19, 2012)

Two words. Event Horizon.


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## D007 (Sep 19, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> It seems simple due to the media outlet I quoted. Believe me its VASTLY more complected then a football floating inside a woman's diaphragm.



But could anything be more sexy? I doubt it..   

Cool find MM, Dig it.  

When they started talking about only needing the power of the voyager space craft, is when my ears perked up.. That would be something..



RejZoR said:


> Two words. Event Horizon.



lol...


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## TheMailMan78 (Sep 19, 2012)

RejZoR said:


> Two words. Event Horizon.



Love that movie.


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## natr0n (Sep 19, 2012)

This came to mind


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## Disparia (Sep 19, 2012)

natr0n said:


> http://www.domain-pop.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/warp-drive1.png
> 
> This came to mind



Actually, I think Vulcan ships are a more logical choice for the this story.


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## natr0n (Sep 19, 2012)

Jizzler said:


> Actually, I think Vulcan ships are a more logical choice for the this story.



gg


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## Benetanegia (Sep 19, 2012)

Jizzler said:


> Actually, I think Vulcan ships are a more logical choice for the this story.



Yep that's what I thought when I saw the picture and read the description. Vulcan ships are actually the only ones capable of warp travel. 

On a more serious note, I'd like to be able to see a real development on this during my lifetime (I'm 29), but I don't expect to see an actual drive anytime soon. It's like Da Vinci and it's flying machines. I have little doubt that if posible scientists will find the science behind warp travel in say, the next 25 years, but I think we are easily 100-200 years away from having the technology to actually build one, if at all posible.


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## W1zzard (Sep 19, 2012)

it's like saying

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Battery : real nuclear power plants soon


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## Solaris17 (Sep 19, 2012)

Isaac Asimov
Jules Verne

people thought they were crazy too, lazers and robots who writes about that stuff before they exist? I really hope someone pitchforked those wizzards before they had time to spread their blasphemy!


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## NinkobEi (Sep 19, 2012)

Just as I expected, Gene Roddenberry was given some ideas from a future civilization with time travel in order to speed up technology's progress. Really it makes sense.


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## D007 (Sep 19, 2012)

NinkobEi said:


> Just as I expected, Gene Roddenberry was given some ideas from a future civilization with time travel in order to speed up technology's progress. Really it makes sense.



Well duuuh, we know that already... 

It is interesting to always see how the world prefers to keep thinking it is flat..
It's not.

I can't laugh off any possibilities, especially ones that Einstein has made efforts in..
Light and radio were unthinkiable at one point. I think this will be like a microwave oven in a couple hundred years..
Just another common household appliance, for all I know..
The potential is there..
We keep thinking so flatly, but the only way we will ever change, is to do what these people are doing.
Think outside the box..


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## 3870x2 (Sep 19, 2012)

Am I the only one that noticed this:

They reduced the equivalent power levels required for warp speed from Jupiter to Voyager.  From a planet that is almost a star, to something that could fit in your yard.


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## D007 (Sep 19, 2012)

3870x2 said:


> Am I the only one that noticed this:
> 
> They reduced the equivalent power levels required for warp speed from Jupiter to Voyager.  From a planet that is almost a star, to something that could fit in your yard.





D007 said:


> But could anything be more sexy? I doubt it..
> 
> Cool find MM, Dig it.
> 
> ...


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## W1zzard (Sep 19, 2012)

3870x2 said:


> They reduced the equivalent power levels required for warp speed from Jupiter to Voyager. From a planet that is almost a star, to something that could fit in your yard.



Sounds like the same creative accounting we use in the euro zone to fix the crisis.

Are those power levels quoted in E=mc² ? Anyone want to do some math to figure out how many kWh in 1 gram of matter (using E=mc²)


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## TheMailMan78 (Sep 19, 2012)

W1zzard said:


> Sounds like the same creative accounting we use in the euro zone to fix the crisis.
> 
> Are those power levels quoted in E=mc² ? Anyone want to do some math to figure out how many kWh in 1 gram of matter (using E=mc²)



Creative accounting kept me out of jail a few years back. It works. 

On a serious note I think the guy who is "testing" this hasn't had a real peer review yet. Unless hes discovered something mathematically scientist have been missing for about 90 years now its BS........or this is just fluff to get a nice fat grant. NASA has been gutted the last few years. They need to rattle some cages.


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## 95Viper (Sep 19, 2012)

W1zzard said:


> Sounds like the same creative accounting we use in the euro zone to fix the crisis.


das ist lustig!


We are all doomed!
The Euroverse will fold in onto itself!

EDIT:
Nice post, TMM.


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## D007 (Sep 19, 2012)

Meh, it's easy to scoff at untestable and unproven theories.. It's harder to come up with them in the first place.. I'm just happy people are trying to go beyond the physical and reach a deeper understanding, on how everything works.


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## W1zzard (Sep 19, 2012)

doesn't such a warp drive enable FTL information transfer (yes i know the ship itself is not travelling faster than c) ? Which would violate causality?

Real "Warp Drive" soon.
Real "Time Machine" soon.


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## Sasqui (Sep 19, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> On a serious note I think the guy who is "testing" this hasn't had a real peer review yet. Unless hes discovered something mathematically scientist have been missing for about 90 years now its BS........or this is just fluff to get a nice fat grant. NASA has been gutted the last few years. They need to rattle some cages.



You need to contact... Mythbusters!


... or this guy?








W1zzard said:


> doesn't such a warp drive enable FTL information transfer (yes i know the ship itself is not travelling faster than c) ? Which would violate causality?
> 
> Real "Warp Drive" soon.
> Real "Time Machine" soon.



I was explaining to my 11 yr old, it's always possible to travel forward in time, but travelling back is a different story.


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## 95Viper (Sep 19, 2012)

W1zzard said:


> Real "Warp Drive" soon.
> Real "Time Machine" soon.



That is the way I perceive it.

You fold time/space and move object from point a to b.

Time/Space travel.


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## TheMailMan78 (Sep 19, 2012)

95Viper said:


> That is the way I perceive it.
> 
> You fold time/space and move object from point a to b.
> 
> Time/Space travel.



Its the worm hole argument. In all honesty I agree with W1zz. I just thought it was kinda cool to hear this in the news for a change instead of all the doom and gloom.


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## Benetanegia (Sep 19, 2012)

W1zzard said:


> doesn't such a warp drive enable FTL information transfer (yes i know the ship itself is not travelling faster than c) ? Which would violate causality?
> 
> Real "Warp Drive" soon.
> Real "Time Machine" soon.



I don't think so, because nothing moved faster than light and that's what causality says in the end. I'm no expert at all, but as far as I remember causality goes hand in hand with the principle of locality. Within the local frame light would still travel at light speed and much faster than anything else, hence causality is not violated. I think.

EDIT: Hmm I now understand what TMM meant with the worm hole argument. And yes it is exactly the same. For those who don't know what it means (like me), this is it:



> The impossibility of faster-than-light relative speed only applies locally. Wormholes allow superluminal (faster-than-light) travel by ensuring that the speed of light is not exceeded locally at any time. While traveling through a wormhole, subluminal (slower-than-light) speeds are used. If two points are connected by a wormhole, the time taken to traverse it would be less than the time it would take a light beam to make the journey if it took a path through the space outside the wormhole. However, a light beam traveling through the wormhole would always beat the traveler. As an analogy, running around to the opposite side of a mountain at maximum speed may take longer than walking through a tunnel crossing it.


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## NinkobEi (Sep 20, 2012)

You wouldn't travel back in time, but you would offset the universe by arriving before you SHOULD arrive. In a way that is time travel I suppose... Though who knows what implications it may have. I guess it will make people really, really early for inter-spacial meetings.


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## Benetanegia (Sep 20, 2012)

BTW according to wikipedia the Voyager weights 773 kg.

E=mc^2= 299,792,458 m/s^2 * M = 89,875,517,873,681,764 J/kg * 773 kg

E = 69,473,775,316,356,003,572 J

E = 19298270921210000 wh = 19,298 TWh

So almost nothing. 

Wiki again:


> In 2008, total worldwide energy consumption was 474 exajoules (474×1018 J=132,000 TWh).



"Feasible" tho, unlike with the mass of Jupiter, which I will not calculate but it's billions of billions times bigger.


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## D4S4 (Sep 20, 2012)

i'm kinda mad at myself now for dropping out of physics college (never had the discipline to tackle maths, probably still don't, could've been working on my doctorate now had everything went well lol) so i could understand the principle behind the alcubierre drive a bit better. i just can't wrap my head around how it can move ftl through the pinch in space-time it creates - let's say you take a brick (your ship) and shrink one meter of space to 0,5m. wouldn't the brick occupying that shrunk region simply become shorter (shrunk) and take the same time to travel through as if it were in normal space, like looking at the objects pass in front of a lens?


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## Benetanegia (Sep 20, 2012)

D4S4 said:


> i'm kinda mad at myself now for dropping out of physics college (never had the discipline to tackle maths, probably still don't, could've been working on my doctorate now had everything went well lol) so i could understand the principle behind the alcubierre drive a bit better. i just can't wrap my head around how it can move ftl through the pinch in space-time it creates - let's say you take a brick (your ship) and shrink one meter of space to 0,5m. wouldn't the brick occupying that shrunk region simply become shorter (shrunk) and take the same time to travel through as if it were in normal space, like looking at the objects pass in front of a lens?



The brick is within a bubble that is safe from the distortion. At all times it travels through normal space.


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## Aquinus (Sep 20, 2012)

Jump into the DeLorean! I just replaced the flux capacitor, so we shouldn't miss the time this time. 

Also, even if it is physically possible to travel FTL it doesn't mean that we know how to make something satisfy those conditions. So in other words, FTL travel is not coming soon we just *think* that we know how it all works.


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## NC37 (Sep 20, 2012)

Warp drive may be a future but there is another tech which can be seen even in the natural right now. Just hasn't been studied. They have documented portals in space from the Sun to Earth. Forget now how they found out about them or what type of energy it is. But they found micro portals where stuff was jumping from the Sun to Earth almost instantaneously. Some didn't last very long while others longer. There is an actual probe mission scheduled to study the phenomenon. Wish I had bookmarked the info on it. NASA did a vid on it too. Tried to explain it. Watched it but I had to view it a few times to really take it all in and even then they weren't really sure what caused it.

I imagine if studied and they found they could create them you might have a form of jumpgate tech. Bet you'd need a stable gate at both ends to make it work. So someone would have to go to the exit point and build the connection point. So that would be a downside.


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## D4S4 (Sep 20, 2012)

Benetanegia said:


> The brick is within a bubble that is safe from the distortion. At all times it travels through normal space.



yes, but how does that part of space move the ship within space? you can take a stretchy piece of cloth, put your finger on it on a table and by moving it, the cloth would expand behind and contract in front of the finger (finger is the ship) but there's still the same length of cloth (the same length of space to travel through) on all sides, the only difference is it's now distorted. when the distortion's gone, that point where the finger was will end up in the same place where it was.

my conception is most likely wrong so i'm looking for an explanation to how would this actually work.


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## Benetanegia (Sep 20, 2012)

The way I see it, I think that the closest analogy to how it works is an airplane wing. As you might know a wing creates a low pressure region above the wing and a high pressure region below the wing and this difference of pressure creates the force that lifts the airplane.

With the warp drive instead of pressure, we're talking about contraction of space-time. What it's in front of the drive is contracted and expanded behind. Since the ship is moving in the direction of space-time that is contracted, space in that direction is forced to be "closer" to the ship while the space left behind is farther away (isn't that by itself the definition of motion??). And since the drive that distorts space-time is part of this motion, in the next infinitesimal time unit (dt) a new infinitesimal region of space will be contracted in the front and expanded behind, accelerating the ship. It's kind of like running against a conveyor belt, though the latter is not an analogy for what the warp drive itself does, it does kind of represent the resulting interaction between the ship (more properly said, all of what's inside the bubble) and the space-time around it.


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## NinkobEi (Sep 21, 2012)

D4S4 said:


> yes, but how does that part of space move the ship within space? you can take a stretchy piece of cloth, put your finger on it on a table and by moving it, the cloth would expand behind and contract in front of the finger (finger is the ship) but there's still the same length of cloth (the same length of space to travel through) on all sides, the only difference is it's now distorted. when the distortion's gone, that point where the finger was will end up in the same place where it was.
> 
> my conception is most likely wrong so i'm looking for an explanation to how would this actually work.



Simple. What happens when space/time is distorted is a thing we like to call Gravity. Essentially the space ship will be falling at 10 times the speed of light, hopefully without feeling anything! And god forbid they hit a spec of dust!


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## Nergal (Sep 26, 2012)

That´s were the shields and the Heisenberg compensator come into play!


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## Mussels (Sep 26, 2012)

"Scientists"


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## Inceptor (Oct 5, 2012)

W1zzard said:


> it's like saying
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Battery : real nuclear power plants soon



^This.

Admittedly, I haven't kept up with this, but it was my understanding that there was something wrong with Miguel Alcubierre's idea... this has been around since 1994:



> Difficulties
> 
> Significant problems with the metric of this form stem from the fact that all known warp drive spacetimes violate various energy conditions.[8] It is true that certain experimentally verified quantum phenomena, such as the Casimir effect, when described in the context of the quantum field theories, lead to stress–energy tensors that also violate the energy conditions, such as negative mass-energy, and thus one can hope that Alcubierre-type warp drives can be physically realized by clever engineering taking advantage of such quantum effects.


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

'Exotic matter' is not an engineering reality or possibility, at this point.
A lot of interesting propulsion ideas are possible with 'exotic matter', like Robert Forward's Negative matter propulsion.  The problem is that it's all impossible for us to create, regardless of what the equations allow for.  The exotic matter thing is always the answer when the raw energy requirements tend to approach or exceed the power output of an average star... it's understandable, look for a physical-material loophole that circumvents the need for massive power output.  The problem is that the loopholes always require materials we have absolutely no idea how to create or find (if they even exist naturally).  More importantly, the materials have to be 'creatable' without applying massive amounts of power that approach or exceed the power output of a star, otherwise they're not loopholes at all.


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## HalfAHertz (Oct 5, 2012)

Wasn't there something about a huge gamma-burst every time the spaceship would come out of warp speed?


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## saknid (Nov 1, 2012)

I am Not Saying that this whole "Warp Drive" is not possible but yes I am more concerned with the continuity of time means if we exist here in the world where we work on space-time connectivity then I am sure using (in other words opening) the gate through space-time (supposed to be faster than light) will surely going to effect the environment (in other words space of space-time) the problem is not only doing the whole thing but also taking care of the "Post Event Effect"...while on other side the problem would be managing the energy which will be transacted (transacted for in & out both). being more simple with the words doing this thing will surely generate "Distortion" in the space-time continuity of the environment 2nd thing is that making a whole ship of the size (as per told) is a really a hard deal and after then making such a magnificent engine who can produce and manipulate that much energy is a big deal in it self and after that what I think (While I have'nt been to touch the speed of light with my byk  ) but s I am sure running higher then light speed may effect the whole structure of body as the BODY(MASS) & VELOCITY both internally related with each other in the space-time frame.

So for Now I think this is little bit impossible..but what physics says there is nothing like IMPOSSIBLE. SO WAIT AND WATCH......


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## Mussels (Nov 1, 2012)

saknid: and thats why in Sci Fi shows, they never, ever use warp drive in a planets atmosphere, without the intent to screw that planet right over.


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## saknid (Nov 1, 2012)

Inceptor said:


> ^This.
> 
> Admittedly, I haven't kept up with this, but it was my understanding that there was something wrong with Miguel Alcubierre's idea... this has been around since 1994:
> 
> ...



@Inceptor

 Some cmnt there you are totally right when physics says something as "x" (as Exotic Matter) than it must utilize the IDEAL CASE terminology of physics while on other hand physics it self say that in the real world nothing is IDEAL....

So simply the whole funda is not applicable in the real world but physics is physics....


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## saknid (Nov 1, 2012)

Mussels said:


> saknid: and thats why in Sci Fi shows, they never, ever use warp drive in a planets atmosphere, without the intent to screw that planet right over.



@Mussels 
   that is the problem if we talk So called outer space we think that the space-time continuity is not existing there but that is the deal Continuity word is used to show the relation of the whole things made of matter(say like Dark Matter) with the space-time.

And yes it is the matter for which I am doing overtime in office ha ha ha so interesting matter to talk...ttul guy's keep it alive


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