3 ms·
> 4 orders of magnitude less than the sun's mass does sound like a positive development - still a lot but less than before, right? That’s something like 10^43
by beervirus 5y ago
> 4 orders of magnitude less than the sun's mass does sound like a positive development - still a lot but less than before, right?
That’s something like 10^43 joules. Still not achievable anytime soon.
- XorNot 5y agoProgress in warp field research though has resulted in significant energy reductions though - everytime a more efficient formulation is found its a step on the way to a possible practical system. After all, if it was easy then everyone would be doing it.
- TrevorJ 5y agoWe've definitely achieved progress on this sort of scale with transistor density. Not that it's at all similar, but it's interesting to observe that we do seem to be able to occasionally bring things within our grasp that would have sounded absolutely silly a lifetime ago.
- WJW 5y agoDid we though? From milli- to nanometers is "only" 9 orders of magnitude. 10^43 J is about 30 order of magnitude from practical application than the first transistor was. Also, warp bubble generation might be more like electric motors, which have gone from ~2% to ~95% efficiency and will never ever surpass 100%.
- mcswell 5y ago"if it was easy then everyone would be doing it": And, I suppose, we'd see them. Little green men, I mean.
- mathw 5y agoWell that supposes that they currently exist, that they're close enough and that they want to come here. Maybe it is feasible to build an FTL engine, but maybe it can only feasibly go at like 4c. That doesn't make it very easy to drop by our solar system and have a look at what all that radio noise means, even if anybody's heard it.
- gpderetta 5y agoWell, we went from theoretically impossible to merely practically impossible. (Only slightly tongue in cheek)