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Juicy bit, cut from the end of the abstract: > a toy model consisting of a 1µm diameter sphere centrally located in a 4µm diameter cylinder was analyzed to sho
by generalizations 5y ago
Juicy bit, cut from the end of the abstract:
> a toy model consisting of a 1µm diameter sphere centrally located in a 4µm diameter cylinder was analyzed to show a three-dimensional Casimir energy density that correlates well with the Alcubierre warp metric requirements. This qualitative correlation would suggest that chip-scale experiments might be explored to attempt to measure tiny signatures illustrative of the presence of the conjectured phenomenon: a real, albeit humble, warp bubble.
- natechols 5y agoFor someone used to working at nanoscale, 1µm seems enormous! There are entire free-living organisms that could fit inside that warp bubble.
- nine_k 5y agoA warp bubble full of DNA could be an okay form of "FTL" communication.
- zogomoox 5y agoOh my! - George Takei
- voldacar 5y agoThink about the potential for mischief or warfare it would enable. You could warp a tiny blob of some potent toxin right into someone's body. Fascinating.
- samus 5y agoCute. But over the distances where this even remotely makes sense your problem is targeting!
- ben_w 5y agoI think we can already get that effect (tiny stuff into people some distance away) just using blow darts?
- voldacar 5y agobut not instantly and with very limited range.
- WJW 5y agoThere is a macroscale non-warp solution for that already available in the form of normal bullets. No need to make it more complex by adding microscopic warp particles.
- qubex 5y agoOr toxins, for that matter.
- tzs 5y agoWith normal bullets the shooter has to be somewhere in the target's past light cone. With an FTL bullet the shooter could be outside the target's past light cone, which makes arranging an alibi easier.
- piperswe 5y ago"You see your honor, according to this spacetime diagram..."
- kelseyfrog 5y agoI get the sense that it would be many other things easier as well.
- ben_w 5y agoIn a world with warp drive, a light cone isn’t an alibi.
- voldacar 5y agoBullets are loud and require you to transport a gun into the area and find a spot where you can snipe at your target, both of which could be very difficult in, for instance, an urban environment. You probably would get caught. The poison warp bubble is much cooler and stealthier. And as someone else mentioned, you aren't restricted by the lightcone.
- ben_w 5y agoA warp drive is easier than a gun? I don’t think that’s likely even in the UK.
- ccozan 5y agoI have to save this posting somewhere. So many interesting ideas in a single place!
- Woodi 5y agoAlso it could make wars even more obsolete then nukes make them. Yay :) But with all consequences - we should immediately start to cut down on bureaucracy ! ;) And in case that article is not some pre- 1 April joke: how the heck you all here peoples can be so calm and "meh HFT will eat this" ??????
- neatze 5y agoCIA made electric dart (instead of blobs) gun in like 1960, if not earlier with effective range of 100 meters.
- DesiLurker 5y agoor imagine a gray goo scenario where an advanced civilization shoots self replicating nanotech based microorganisms at FTL wrapped in this bubble and 'sanitize' a potential threat-planet.
- kragen 5y ago1 micron and 4 microns, not 1 meter and 4 meters. @dang, is this an HN bug?
- Groxx 5y agoconsisting of a 1 <span class="img-inline"> <img src="/articles/epjc/abs/2021/07/10052_2021_Article_9484/10052_2021_Article_9484_tex_eq1.png"> </span> m diameter sphere nah. it's just a strange rendering decision to use an image for a standard extended-ascii character: μ
- mmastrac 5y agoThe original paper was likely LaTeX and they rendered all equations as images. You'd have to special case equations that can be rendered directly in HTML.
- mannerheim 5y agoHm, I seem to be able to copy and paste the mus produced by pdflatex or by using pandoc to convert from LaTeX to HTML. Perhaps they're using something bespoke.
- bawolff 5y agoAt the very least it would be nice to have some alt text.
- MaxikCZ 5y ago"µ" would be fitting
- kuschku 5y agoIt looks like the article includes the greek letters as image, not as unicode character, so they got lost while copying. It should be 1µm and 4µm instead.
- 5y ago
- a9h74j 5y agoIt would be funny if the signs and magnitudes worked out to allow the 1 micron sphere to levitate inside a 4 micron hole.