3 ms·

Or 7) FTL is possible, but the amount of energy required is so insanely large it doesn't matter. The paper says it takes energy equivalent to "four orders of ma

Or 7) FTL is possible, but the amount of energy required is so insanely large it doesn't matter. The paper says it takes energy equivalent to "four orders of magnitude smaller than the solar mass", which is an absurd amount. This reminds of an interview I read with Donald Knuth about the P vs. NP problem. IIRC, Knuth said he believes there probably is a polynomial time algorithm to solve NP problems, but the constant factor will be so absurdly huge (e.g. Graham's number) that it could never be run on an actual computer. I've heard layman claim that if P=NP were proven, then it'd suddenly spell the end of encryption relying on NP problems, but it's entirely possible that it'd have no practical impact. The constant factor is analogous to energy requirements for FTL.

api 5y ago
That’s why I said engineerable. If it takes the mass-energy of Jupiter it’s likely something that could never be done since no material could contain or control such energy in an organized way. This paper does not offer an engineerable solution but it does argue that negative mass, which may not exist, may not be required. That brings us closer. Are there solutions that require less energy? Are they physical or just math artifacts? Get the energy down to LHC levels and it becomes testable if even at submicroscopic scale. Show it at any scale and it’s a physics revolution and front page news and loads of money starts being spent. Going to the moon was once dismissed by many scientists as requiring silly amounts of energy until we figured out a bunch of things like modern rocket engines and staged rockets.