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Are warp drives science now?
- ck2 5y agoWhat happens if you as matter plow into a spec of matter (dust) at beyond light speed?
- serverholic 5y agoIn terms of an Alcubierre drive, particles would collect along the perimeter of your space time bubble. As soon as you stop and the bubble collapses the collection of particles would explode outwards and more than likely vaporize anything immediately in front of you.
- isoprophlex 5y agoThat's an interesting plot device/weapon for a sci fi story..!
- avian 5y agoI can't remember the title or the author, but I remember reading a story based on a similar premise years ago - the first interstellar ship goes out from Earth to a nearby star, only to barely escape as it goes nova shortly after they arrive. They first think it's just a coincidence, but later suspect that their ship's drive might have been the cause. On their way back home they make up a desperate plan to drop out of FTL drive way out of the solar system to make sure Earth's sun would be safe. This would stretch their supplies, etc. because the flight will now take years instead of months. While traveling they realize that turning on the drive might have had the same effect as turning it off. They stop at the right distance from Earth to catch the light from the time of their departure and observe as the sun goes nova.
- faeyanpiraat 5y agoWow
- 6502nerdface 5y agoThis plotline sounds familiar to me, too. I hope someone will remember the author... are you thinking golden age SF, 60s/70s?
- YeGoblynQueenne 5y agoYou remembered more details of the story than me but I manged to find it... 3 years after someone else asked about it on SE: This is Randall Garrett's "Time Fuze", first published in IF, March 1954. https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/203584/short-story-about-the-maiden-voyage-of-an-ftl-capable-ship https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/203584/short-story...
- avian 5y agoThanks for finding it! I'm certain this is the story I remember reading.
- phs318u 5y agoFirst use case that comes to mind is "Alcubierre torpedoes" or "Alcubierre shaped-charge" (if the bubble could be focused in such a way). Possibly a mechanism for disrupting any orbital objects on a collision course with earth? Hit it at an oblique angle to its orbit and poof!
- imoverclocked 5y agoThis was used in “Another Life” on Netflix.
- throwanem 5y agoAny mass moving faster than light and still able to interact with matter that isn't, will necessarily have enough kinetic energy that any warhead would be an afterthought. That also doesn't necessarily improve matters in the Earth impactor case, since shattering a single large impactor without changing its vector only creates many small impactors. Some models make that look a little worse than the status quo ante, while more optimistic ones just say it's exactly as bad, but either way, if the mission is to see that zero rocks hit Earth then it isn't really a win. I'm more interested in the idea that, the longer your FTL leg, the less well you're able to see where you're going - not that that's likely often necessary for starships any more than for sailing vessels, but you can think of circumstances in which it might matter. Too, it might come to be considered unneighborly to take too direct a course anywhere, lest you inadvertently Kessler-spray your destination. Insystem use of the drive would be most complicated by this in general, especially since there's rarely much point in visiting stars without lots of rocks around them. You might also not be able to make sharp maneuvers in FTL, hence needing to plan legs with care not only for safety, but to minimize time and reaction mass spent on slow thruster rendezvous maneuvers. This has implications for travel time, navigation in general, and thus implicitly for supply chain logistics, travel time, and thus what's feasible both economically and politically - especially should it coincide with the absence of any FTL comms cheaper and faster than "record a message and then have a packet boat take it where it needs to go".
- willis936 5y agoI don't believe any model that says many small impactors cause more or the same damage than one large impactor. Surface area is higher, drag is higher. V becomes lower. 1/2mv^2 becomes dramatically lower. In every single case that an impactor is split. Also, in the case of hitting a rock with sufficient kinetic energy it will become atomized. A cloud of fast moving space dust would burn in the upper atmosphere.
- ck2 5y agoPerimeter? As in -outside- the warp bubble? So the dust is now moving at beyond light speed but without the protective effects of time inside the bubble? We know what happens to matter at those speeds, it becomes infinitely "heavy" and would experience time in relative light-years (I mean time-to-travel at light speeds) no?
- serverholic 5y agoWhat I said is about the limit of my knowledge unfortunately. However here’s the paper from the University of Sidney that goes into much greater detail. pdf warning https://arxiv.org/pdf/1202.5708v1.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/1202.5708v1.pdf From the paper: > These results suggest that any ship using an Alcu- bierre warp drive carrying people would need shielding to protect them from potential dangerously blueshifted particles during the journey, and any people at the des- tination would be gamma ray and high energy particle blasted into oblivion due to the extreme blueshifts for P+ region particles.
- handol 5y ago> We know what happens to matter at those speeds, it becomes infinitely "heavy" and would experience time in relative light-years (I mean time-to-travel at light speeds) no? I don't think we do know what happens. Relativistic mass approaches infinity at exactly c. Beyond c we obviously have no data, but if we just apply the same equations the relativistic mass would drop back to a finite value. A finite complex value.
- wcarss 5y agoAnd so were coined the warp bombs and the warp shots, two weapons of unimaginable power against which no defenses could stand. Undetectable until arrival, unstoppable upon arrival. A very fast and saucy radiation souffle.
- waynecochran 5y agoMy son Zeph is working on it.
- oceanghost 5y agoShoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Da-Day
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- thereare5lights 5y agoWell he better hurry up because he only has 41 more years before it needs to launch.
- TheDudeMan 5y ago
- handol 5y agoThe field can't help being click bait with a name so loaded with implications that the work does not back up. e.g. that the warp fields studied would be capable of causing something to move.
- lambdasquirrel 5y agoEh, nowhere did I read her say that warp fields would cause something to move. It was never a stipulation of warp drives that they would cause something to move. In principle, they contract the space ahead of you so that any forward movement would be amplified. But you still need something to impart forward momentum.
- pkdpic 5y agoSo, they can facilitate actual movement then?
- kordlessagain 5y agoWhat we need is an inertia-less drive.
- handol 5y ago> It was never a stipulation of warp drives that they would cause something to move. The name was lifted from a very well known science fiction universe, where it has exactly that stipulation. As a result it carries that implication for (the vast majority of) readers when it shows up on IFLScience or whatever.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- platz 5y agotldr sub-light speed warp drives are not ruled out yet. still could be pretty useful
- temporalparts 5y agoI've never considered subluminal warp drives, but it'd be really exciting if we can create warp drives that are some healthy fraction of c.
- csdvrx 5y agoI hope these drives are also a healthy fraction of D:\
- vihren 5y agoSome healthy fraction of c seems to be possible with current technology also. If you consider 3% healthy that is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propuls...
- Maursault 5y agoThere's a big difference in that conventional propulsion will leave the traveller subject to relativistic effect of a slowed clock, while the traveller with a warp drive will not.
- drdeca 5y agoI’m not sure this is a benefit? The time dilation means the passengers subjectively get there faster than they would without the time dilation. Why would removing this be a benefit? It means when you arrive at your destination you are older than you would have been if you had the normal time dilation, and if you head back, the people will have aged just as much in your round trip as normal, the only difference is that you’ve also aged as much as they have. Right? If you have a non-accelerating subliminal warp bubble, and you shift to a frame of reference where it is not moving, then wouldn’t you just get a region where time moves more quickly? Or.. ?
- Semaphor 5y agoHah, Sabine Hossenfelder again. I found out about her via HN, when she’s not researching, or making pop-science articles and videos [0], she also does some fun music videos [1] [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdVIBlyiyBA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdVIBlyiyBA [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX0k0WfMSi0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX0k0WfMSi0
- VyperCard 5y agoMy favorites are „last real man“ and „outer space“ and „I can’t forget“(remix)
- steve76 5y agoMy understanding of gravitational waves is that very large objects try to move. It's easier if the universe sees more or less of their particles than if they moved. So the universe sees more or less of their particles. Instead of creating a warp drive, do that. Find some cosmic structure big enough, and manipulate it until the universe sees more or less of it's particles in a way that you are now where you want to be. Very difficult to do, but it happens: > After years of producing null results, improved detectors became operational in 2015. On 11 February 2016, the LIGO-Virgo collaborations announced the first observation of gravitational waves, from a signal (dubbed GW150914) detected at 09:50:45 GMT on 14 September 2015 of two black holes with masses of 29 and 36 solar masses merging about 1.3 billion light-years away. During the final fraction of a second of the merger, it released more than 50 times the power of all the stars in the observable universe combined. The signal increased in frequency from 35 to 250 Hz over 10 cycles (5 orbits) as it rose in strength for a period of 0.2 second. The mass of the new merged black hole was 62 solar masses. Energy equivalent to three solar masses was emitted as gravitational waves.
- pdonis 5y ago> My understanding of gravitational waves is that very large objects try to move. It's easier if the universe sees more or less of their particles than if they moved. So the universe sees more or less of their particles. Instead of creating a warp drive, do that. Find some cosmic structure big enough, and manipulate it until the universe sees more or less of it's particles in a way that you are now where you want to be. I'm not sure where you're getting this from, but it is nothing like our current understanding of gravitational waves. Nor did the black hole merger you describe, which was detected by LIGO, do anything like what you describe.
- steve76 5y ago
- UltraViolence 5y agoI'd say they're getting closer to becoming science, but aren't there yet. BTW I wonder what they're going to do about the possibility of plowing into a small rock fragment at several times the speed of light? If they can't solve this problem traveling at these velocities would essentially mean playing Russian Roulette with the probability of the crew dying at any moment.
- alexvoda 5y agoThe solution is to add spice.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- rootsudo 5y agoobviously an energy shield
- z3t4 5y agoI've experimented with warp drives in theory and simulation, and what they could theoretically do is to "scale" the space so that every item in space appear to be closer to you so you just have to walk 10/30th of the distance to reach 30/30 of the distance. |---o------o------------o------| normal distance |o--o---o--| warped distance o = objects you might bump into. So you will be traveling the same "speed" relative to the objects, but they will be closer.
- PicassoCTs 5y agoThe trick is precursor vehicles.. basically fire a stream of bullets at space and expect the precursors to annihilate any obstacles.
- faceplanted 5y agoIs that a solution though? unless you send your ship instantly after those bullets another objects could still just come in from the side after they've passed, unless these bullets cover significantly more than the front facing area of your entire ship it won't work, and if you do send it directly in front of your ship immediately before your flight then you've just invented metal shields, and if they do hit something you're still going to be hitting shrapnel and spalling at appreciable fractions of the speed of light.
- netizen-936824 5y agoSo they took the phrase "science fiction" as what warp drives used to be. Then they just dropped the word "fiction" but that is the noun. "Are warp drives science?" does not make grammatical sense, as the word "science" was previously describing what type of fiction it was. The new sentence should read something like "are warp drives science fact now?" Science is a process, not a thing. The term science fiction describes fictions based around the process, or a faux process that seems realistic or may be in the future. If we were to take the same meaning of science as ascribed by the author here, my interpretation is they are equating the word "science" with something like "fact, truth, or reality". Following this, if the then ask what the phrase "science fiction" means in this context, we get "truth fiction"? "reality fiction"? These things don't make much sense to me. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction
- egberts1 5y agoThat moment when we become able to measure the speed of light in only one direction is the realization moment that this warp speed technology becomes tenable … or not.
- Diggsey 5y agoLet's say hypothetically we find a way to create all of the weird matter necessary to create a warp bubble... Changes to the shape of space-time willl still only travel at the speed of light, so I don't see how that would enable you to travel faster than light for any meaningful distance, as the warp bubble itself would be unable to keep up with the vehicle.
- wcoenen 5y agoWithin the event horizon of a black hole, spacetime seems capable of "moving" towards the center faster than the speed of light. That's why light cannot escape, right?
- designium 5y agoNo, speed of light will not move faster inside in the event horizon. It is still at the same speed. But the spacetime is so distorted that a photon will start orbiting the singularity, thus it doesn’t get out of the event horizon. https://phys.org/news/2014-03-orbit-black-hole.html https://phys.org/news/2014-03-orbit-black-hole.html
- zamadatix 5y agoThe speed of light in a patch of space does not change but space itself can warp faster than the speed of light. The link you post describes a region in certain conditions where light can orbit not that that is the fate of all light falling into a black hole.the end talks about the always orbitally unstable regions beneath that being referred to here.
- designium 5y agoPerhaps when we discover why the universe is expanding, then we may have or not a solution for this. The expansion of the universe can be faster than the speed of light. Would it be possible to use that to create FTL travel?
- dbqpdb 5y agoGeneral relativity permits changes in the geometry of space time to propagate faster than the speed of light.
- q1w2 5y agoThe primary reason we care about faster-than-light travel is because our lifespans are so much shorter than time taken to travel to other stars. If/When AI takes over, it will likely be quite content with taking 10,000 years to go to the distant stars. It will also likely be more capable of breaking off a piece of itself and launching it at 1/10th C in order to get around relatively quickly. It could "colonize" the entire galaxy in 10 million years - which is an acceptable time scale for it given that it has no finite lifespan. It is our biological limitations that fixate us on faster-than-light travel. ...something the rest of the universe probably doesn't think too much about.
- root_axis 5y agoAn AI capable of colonizing the galaxy seems a lot more far fetched than a practical warp drive.
- native_samples 5y agoWhy? AI has limited lifespan too. 1. Computing machinery is made of physical matter, which means it degrades. 2. The large scale economy required to support, repair and upgrade it also requires many input materials. 3. Those materials are exhaustable and finite, which means, the AI will eventually exhaust its supply of "stuff". If that happens before it's able to expand into new areas, then it dies.
- dreamcompiler 5y agotl;dr: Mathematician: "Absolutely." Physicist: "Sure! actually no." Engineer: "No way in hell. Go play with a blockchain." Zefram Cochrane: "I already built it."