9 ms·

DIA Study: Warp Drive, Dark Energy, and Manipulation of Extra Dimensions (2010)

90 points by civilitty 8y ago

wuliwong 8y ago
I am not familiar with this site. Is it safe to assume this is an authentic document? It's been an interesting read so far. :)
- ryanmercer 8y ago
  https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/public-intelligence https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/public-intelligence I'd take it with as big of a grain of salt as you do things like wikileaks leaks.
  - wuliwong 8y ago
    I thought wikileaks was reputable. What documents have they released that turned out to be fake?
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - ryanmercer 8y ago
      I never said they weren't reputable. I said take the information with a similar grain of salt.
    - dwringer 8y ago
      ... what documents have they released that were scientifically confirmed not to be hoaxes?
lainga 8y ago
Even though the EagleWorks' research turned out to be a fizzle, I'm impressed that they got the DIA to at least put out a paper about it.
- hdivider 8y ago
  Was it a fizzle? Didn't they get an "inconclusive" result, rather than a negative one? (No criticism intended -- I really want to know.) :)
  - thekingofh 8y ago
    After further review I believe they found that for the EmDrive, the thrust was being generated by interaction of the electricity through the cables with Earth's magnetic field. Someone tested it by dampening the actual microwaves and still getting the same thrust result, which eliminates the microwave cavity as a source for the thrust. However the follow up test was with very low power, so they wanted to run it with magnetic shielding and higher power to fully rule it out.
    - boznz 8y ago
      "I believe they found that for the EmDrive, the thrust was being generated by interaction of the electricity through the cables with Earth's magnetic field." isnt that still thrust without and propellant or am I missing something?
      - ben_w 8y ago
        I think what you’re missing is that the entire Earth is the reaction mass. I’ve had a bit of fun doing the maths on space launch systems that function like this — if I remember right, you might even be able to do it… if you can make a monocrystalline superconductor, of whatever the best critical current density was about five years ago, about ten times the combined mass of your payload and cooling equipment. Unfortunately there are limits on which direction this force can act in that make it even less useful than I’ve just made it seem.
      - thekingofh 8y ago
        You are correct in that this does not use propellant, however the Earth would need to be nearby for this to be viable for any sort of space travel. Perhaps maybe keeping a satellite in orbit or doing orbital maneuvers, but even then the amount of thrust is so small that it would likely not be usable. So unless the review team comes back and says they've eliminated magnetic interference then we're probably back to square one.
GW150914 8y ago
There seems to be little recognition of the fact that FTL implies time travel, and just how unlikely that really is. I expect major advances in physics in the far future, but I’m not sure that bypassing causality and FTL will ever be one of them.
- lainga 8y ago
  The "warp drive" they are discussing, and which was so hyped in 2010 or so, doesn't involve FTL, it involves contraction and expansion of spacetime as the ship moves in freefall. So no time travel.
  - GW150914 8y ago
    It doesn’t matter, it still implies time travel. Use the wormhole acceleration-return thought experiment as an example. If you can leave point A and arrive at point B before light could, it doesn’t matter if you took a shortcut.
    - lainga 8y ago
      OK, touche - it's true that an Alcubierre drive could be used for time travel, but it's not necessarily implied, whereas it is for an object actually travelling beyond the speed of light. The discoverer of the method itself [0] (Miguel Alcubierre ) believed that chronology protection [1] would prevent time travel, as the spacetime bubble would destroy itself somehow. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_protection_conjecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_protection_conjectu...
      - GW150914 8y ago
        It’s a cool idea, and admittedly would be a sort of loophole, but it might just mean that such a drive would require an arbitrarily high amount to work. Maybe Stephen Hawking was right and as soon as you build a machine capable of time travel, turning it on blows it up, because of QM effects. It does seem a little neat if how we intend to use the machine is the deciding factor in how it works.
Ancalagon 8y ago
I understand the feasibility of such an endeavor as faster than light travel is not high, but does anyone else get kind of existential depression for not being able to live long enough to see these kind of advancements humanity might make?
- dguaraglia 8y ago
  The short answer is "yes". The long answer is: the longer you live, the more your concerns lay elsewhere (career, health, kids, etc.) and you stop worrying so much about what you are going to miss, and start focusing more on what you might be missing right now. From a philosophical aspect, it also helps to remind yourself that - for all we know - we might be living in the "Golden Age" of humanity and it's all downhill from here. Enjoy the present, maybe experiment with psychedelics. It gets better :)
  - johndubchak 8y ago
    +1
- overcast 8y ago
  Concentrate on experiencing as much as you can on this awesome planet we were all lucky enough to be a part of. There is more than enough here for a dozen lifetimes to explore.
- wuliwong 8y ago
  I do indeed.
- dogma1138 8y ago
  Even at “warp speeds” you’ll likely live a life simmilar to this one on a single planet where ever it may be. Space is so big that it’s nearly pointless to travel for place A to place B because place B likely won’t have anything place A won’t, especially if we are talking on a solar system scale, so traveling to another solar system is nearly pointless. While we might spread to the stars were likely going to end up with solar system scale separate civilizations rather than some huge inter planetary alliance unless there is a clear need for e.g. if we would have discovered an enemy.
andrepd 8y ago
I don't know who this group or person is, but their "knowledge" of what they're talking about is tenuous at best, seemingly obtained from mediocre pop physics books. This is essentially empty garbage.
- dionian 8y ago
  In which respects?
  - hurpaDurpa 8y ago
    Starting with: Of course, this may not bе actualized until many years in the future, but consider the many spectacular physical phenomena that are believed to bе true at this early point in the 21st century. To make the leap from that premise, to practical utilization of even the most grounded phenomenon from the paper's title, Dark Energy, is essentially "magical thinking" at best, and at worst, a deliberate waste of time. Consider that dark energy isn't even an assuredly verifiable phenomenon. Dark energy is a place holder in equations with a theoretical gap in understanding for the fundamental mechanisms driving the behavior of observable systems. We can't explain certain noticeable details, but, the difference between conflicting concepts that do explain disparate observations, is where the assumption of a hypothetical dark energy to bridge the difference, as an idea to help resolve conflicting observations, comes into play. On paper. A thousand years ago, we did not know that microbial life was responsible for fermenting food, but we weren't ready to tackle that gap in awareness, until the microscope was invented. Prior to the invention of the microscope, ideas like spontaneous generation were still plausible. Without the proper equipment to declare dark energy or extra dimensions or worm holes as tangible, grounded facts founded in direct evidence, these ideas themselves are simply grasping at straw to reconcile known truths. Given that these concepts deal in cosmological theory, there isn't even a lab to test or prove facts in. Such ideas are based on connecting the dots between imagery gathered from telescopes, for the purpose of studying astronomy. We probably wouldn't be able to construct a laboratory, until we graduate to a space-faring civilization and succeed at it for a couple of generations.
    - deleted 8y ago
dookahku 8y ago
Published April 2nd

90 points by civilitty 8y ago

I am not familiar with this site. Is it safe to assume this is an authentic document? It's been an interesting read so far. :)

ryanmercer 8y ago
https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/public-intelligence https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/public-intelligence I'd take it with as big of a grain of salt as you do things like wikileaks leaks.
- wuliwong 8y ago
  I thought wikileaks was reputable. What documents have they released that turned out to be fake?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - ryanmercer 8y ago
    I never said they weren't reputable. I said take the information with a similar grain of salt.
  - dwringer 8y ago
    ... what documents have they released that were scientifically confirmed not to be hoaxes?

lainga 8y ago

Even though the EagleWorks' research turned out to be a fizzle, I'm impressed that they got the DIA to at least put out a paper about it.

hdivider 8y ago
Was it a fizzle? Didn't they get an "inconclusive" result, rather than a negative one? (No criticism intended -- I really want to know.) :)
- thekingofh 8y ago
  After further review I believe they found that for the EmDrive, the thrust was being generated by interaction of the electricity through the cables with Earth's magnetic field. Someone tested it by dampening the actual microwaves and still getting the same thrust result, which eliminates the microwave cavity as a source for the thrust. However the follow up test was with very low power, so they wanted to run it with magnetic shielding and higher power to fully rule it out.
  - boznz 8y ago
    "I believe they found that for the EmDrive, the thrust was being generated by interaction of the electricity through the cables with Earth's magnetic field." isnt that still thrust without and propellant or am I missing something?
    - ben_w 8y ago
      I think what you’re missing is that the entire Earth is the reaction mass. I’ve had a bit of fun doing the maths on space launch systems that function like this — if I remember right, you might even be able to do it… if you can make a monocrystalline superconductor, of whatever the best critical current density was about five years ago, about ten times the combined mass of your payload and cooling equipment. Unfortunately there are limits on which direction this force can act in that make it even less useful than I’ve just made it seem.
    - thekingofh 8y ago
      You are correct in that this does not use propellant, however the Earth would need to be nearby for this to be viable for any sort of space travel. Perhaps maybe keeping a satellite in orbit or doing orbital maneuvers, but even then the amount of thrust is so small that it would likely not be usable. So unless the review team comes back and says they've eliminated magnetic interference then we're probably back to square one.

GW150914 8y ago

There seems to be little recognition of the fact that FTL implies time travel, and just how unlikely that really is. I expect major advances in physics in the far future, but I’m not sure that bypassing causality and FTL will ever be one of them.

lainga 8y ago
The "warp drive" they are discussing, and which was so hyped in 2010 or so, doesn't involve FTL, it involves contraction and expansion of spacetime as the ship moves in freefall. So no time travel.
- GW150914 8y ago
  It doesn’t matter, it still implies time travel. Use the wormhole acceleration-return thought experiment as an example. If you can leave point A and arrive at point B before light could, it doesn’t matter if you took a shortcut.
  - lainga 8y ago
    OK, touche - it's true that an Alcubierre drive could be used for time travel, but it's not necessarily implied, whereas it is for an object actually travelling beyond the speed of light. The discoverer of the method itself [0] (Miguel Alcubierre ) believed that chronology protection [1] would prevent time travel, as the spacetime bubble would destroy itself somehow. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_protection_conjecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_protection_conjectu...
    - GW150914 8y ago
      It’s a cool idea, and admittedly would be a sort of loophole, but it might just mean that such a drive would require an arbitrarily high amount to work. Maybe Stephen Hawking was right and as soon as you build a machine capable of time travel, turning it on blows it up, because of QM effects. It does seem a little neat if how we intend to use the machine is the deciding factor in how it works.

Ancalagon 8y ago

I understand the feasibility of such an endeavor as faster than light travel is not high, but does anyone else get kind of existential depression for not being able to live long enough to see these kind of advancements humanity might make?

dguaraglia 8y ago
The short answer is "yes". The long answer is: the longer you live, the more your concerns lay elsewhere (career, health, kids, etc.) and you stop worrying so much about what you are going to miss, and start focusing more on what you might be missing right now. From a philosophical aspect, it also helps to remind yourself that - for all we know - we might be living in the "Golden Age" of humanity and it's all downhill from here. Enjoy the present, maybe experiment with psychedelics. It gets better :)
- johndubchak 8y ago
  +1
overcast 8y ago
Concentrate on experiencing as much as you can on this awesome planet we were all lucky enough to be a part of. There is more than enough here for a dozen lifetimes to explore.
wuliwong 8y ago
I do indeed.
dogma1138 8y ago
Even at “warp speeds” you’ll likely live a life simmilar to this one on a single planet where ever it may be. Space is so big that it’s nearly pointless to travel for place A to place B because place B likely won’t have anything place A won’t, especially if we are talking on a solar system scale, so traveling to another solar system is nearly pointless. While we might spread to the stars were likely going to end up with solar system scale separate civilizations rather than some huge inter planetary alliance unless there is a clear need for e.g. if we would have discovered an enemy.

andrepd 8y ago

I don't know who this group or person is, but their "knowledge" of what they're talking about is tenuous at best, seemingly obtained from mediocre pop physics books. This is essentially empty garbage.

dionian 8y ago
In which respects?
- hurpaDurpa 8y ago
  Starting with: Of course, this may not bе actualized until many years in the future, but consider the many spectacular physical phenomena that are believed to bе true at this early point in the 21st century. To make the leap from that premise, to practical utilization of even the most grounded phenomenon from the paper's title, Dark Energy, is essentially "magical thinking" at best, and at worst, a deliberate waste of time. Consider that dark energy isn't even an assuredly verifiable phenomenon. Dark energy is a place holder in equations with a theoretical gap in understanding for the fundamental mechanisms driving the behavior of observable systems. We can't explain certain noticeable details, but, the difference between conflicting concepts that do explain disparate observations, is where the assumption of a hypothetical dark energy to bridge the difference, as an idea to help resolve conflicting observations, comes into play. On paper. A thousand years ago, we did not know that microbial life was responsible for fermenting food, but we weren't ready to tackle that gap in awareness, until the microscope was invented. Prior to the invention of the microscope, ideas like spontaneous generation were still plausible. Without the proper equipment to declare dark energy or extra dimensions or worm holes as tangible, grounded facts founded in direct evidence, these ideas themselves are simply grasping at straw to reconcile known truths. Given that these concepts deal in cosmological theory, there isn't even a lab to test or prove facts in. Such ideas are based on connecting the dots between imagery gathered from telescopes, for the purpose of studying astronomy. We probably wouldn't be able to construct a laboratory, until we graduate to a space-faring civilization and succeed at it for a couple of generations.
  - deleted 8y ago

dookahku 8y ago

Published April 2nd