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The scientist being discussed in the article didn't even find a new solution. Article (very end): --- ...there’s an enormous difference between what teams wo
by neltnerb 5y ago
The scientist being discussed in the article didn't even find a new solution.
Article (very end):
---
...there’s an enormous difference between what teams working on Casimir cavities do experimentally and the numerical calculations performed in this paper. That’s right: This isn’t an experimental paper, but rather a theoretical paper, one with a suspiciously low number (zero) of theoretical physicists on it. The paper relies on the dynamic vacuum model — a model typically applicable to single atoms — to model the energy density throughout space that would be generated by this cavity. They then use another technique, worldline numerics, to assess how the vacuum changes in response to the custom Casimir cavity.
And then it gets shady. “Where’s my warp bubble?” They didn’t make one. In fact, they didn’t calculate one, either. All they did was show that the three-dimensional energy density generated by this cavity displayed some qualitative correlations with the energy density field required by the Alcubierre drive. They don’t match in a quantitative sense; they were not generated experimentally, but only calculated numerically; and most importantly, they are restricted to microscopic scales and extremely low energy densities. There’s a lot of speculation and conjecture, and all of it is unproven.
- lumost 5y agoWhich is fine for a certain category of paper - in particular this opens the door to explicit measurements and manipulation of the curvature of space at extremely small scales. Further work is required to see if there is something real here or not.