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Except, string theory and multiverse aren’t theories. Heck, they’re not even hypotheses (since they offer no means to test them). They’re simple speculation; w

by hhas01 7y ago

Except, string theory and multiverse aren’t theories. Heck, they’re not even hypotheses (since they offer no means to test them). They’re simple speculation; what philosophers right back to the ancient Greeks were only too happy to rest on for 2000 years, until Persian protoscientists, during their own all-too-brief golden age, annoyingly said “but wait, don’t you think we should at least test our beliefs before we take them as granted?”; a practice that fully went mainstream a half-millennium later as the European Renaissance kicked off; and so modern-day Natural Philosophy was born. If the first rule of science is, “you must not fool yourself (and you are the easiest person to fool)”, then rule zero must surely be “stuff’s hard, folks”. And some things are just invariant, no matter how much you might wish that they not be†. -- († So no Warp Drive either, kids… sorry!;)

brutt 7y ago
> († So no Warp Drive either, kids… sorry!;) Warp drive will be real when we will crack vacuum. Maybe we will be able to condensate vacuum, or make a supercavitating shield, or something else. I have idea of an engine, but a) it must be supertiny, b) the only possibility to feed enough energy into engine is to launch it through Sun.
- hhas01 7y ago
  Causality’s the pig. Outracing your own light cone presents a problem, to say the least.
  - brutt 7y ago
    Causality is not a problem for physic. For example, electron can move faster than speed of light in a medium without violating of anything. The problem with FTL engine is that Cherenkov radiation alone will convert any FTL object into ball of plasma. The only way for material object to survive FTL speed is to travel in the it own space-time "bubble". The only natural object with properties of such bubble is black hole. So, warp drive is possible to create, in theory, if we will be able to create an artificial black hole like shield. Moreover, the only way to reach FTL speed is to throw something back at FTL speed. It's not possible to create any material fuels with FTL exhaust velocity. The only way to throw something at FTL speed is to throw it in it own space-time bubble.
    - hhas01 7y ago
      Faster-than-light in a medium, which slows light down. Not faster than c, which I believe is the point Einstein et al were making when fixing the speed limit of the universe. Although a lighthearted joke about “sciencing hard” being invariant certainly flew off its rails just as fast.:p
achillesheels 7y ago
Hence it is terrifying that a prestigious institute such as Cal Tech offers courses not on knowledge but on speculation (see bottom of list): http://pma.caltech.edu/research-and-academics/physics/physics-course-schedule-and-websites/physics-course-schedule-and-websites-2018-2019 http://pma.caltech.edu/research-and-academics/physics/physic...

by hhas01 7y ago

brutt 7y ago

> († So no Warp Drive either, kids… sorry!;) Warp drive will be real when we will crack vacuum. Maybe we will be able to condensate vacuum, or make a supercavitating shield, or something else. I have idea of an engine, but a) it must be supertiny, b) the only possibility to feed enough energy into engine is to launch it through Sun.

hhas01 7y ago
Causality’s the pig. Outracing your own light cone presents a problem, to say the least.
- brutt 7y ago
  Causality is not a problem for physic. For example, electron can move faster than speed of light in a medium without violating of anything. The problem with FTL engine is that Cherenkov radiation alone will convert any FTL object into ball of plasma. The only way for material object to survive FTL speed is to travel in the it own space-time "bubble". The only natural object with properties of such bubble is black hole. So, warp drive is possible to create, in theory, if we will be able to create an artificial black hole like shield. Moreover, the only way to reach FTL speed is to throw something back at FTL speed. It's not possible to create any material fuels with FTL exhaust velocity. The only way to throw something at FTL speed is to throw it in it own space-time bubble.
  - hhas01 7y ago
    Faster-than-light in a medium, which slows light down. Not faster than c, which I believe is the point Einstein et al were making when fixing the speed limit of the universe. Although a lighthearted joke about “sciencing hard” being invariant certainly flew off its rails just as fast.:p

achillesheels 7y ago

Hence it is terrifying that a prestigious institute such as Cal Tech offers courses not on knowledge but on speculation (see bottom of list): http://pma.caltech.edu/research-and-academics/physics/physics-course-schedule-and-websites/physics-course-schedule-and-websites-2018-2019 http://pma.caltech.edu/research-and-academics/physics/physic...