Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Warp drive possible
BBC ^ | Thursday, June 10, 1999 | Dr David Whitehouse

Posted on 03/08/2006 9:05:34 AM PST by SunkenCiv

Miguel Alcubierre came up with the idea of expanding the space behind a starship and contracting it in front of it. The starship would rest in a "warp bubble" between the two spacetime distortions. The result would be a wave in spacetime along which the starship would surf... There would be no limit to the velocity that a starship could attain. It could travel faster than the speed of light because the starship would, strictly speaking, be stationary in the space of its warp bubble. Also, the starship and its crew would be weightless and would therefore not be crushed by the enormous G-forces of acceleration and deceleration... What's more, the passage of time inside the warp bubble would be the same as that outside it. The crew would not suffer from Einstein's "time dilation" effect where time passes at different rates for people travelling at different speeds... Alcubierre's idea was a good one, but his work seemed to suggest that building a warp bubble would be impossible in practice. More energy than the entire universe could supply would be needed to create the spacetime distortions. However, Dr Van Den Broeck's analysis suggests a far lower amount of energy is required, reduced by a factor of one followed by 62 zeros... As Dr Van Den Broeck says in his forthcoming paper in General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology: "This does not mean that the proposal is realistic." ...But it just might be. Dr Van Den Broeck concludes his analysis by saying, "The first warp drive is still a long way off but maybe it has now become slightly less improbable."

(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...


TOPICS: UFO's; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS: podkletnov; scifi; space; startrek
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-58 next last
To: SunkenCiv

As Dr Van Den Broeck says in his forthcoming paper in General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology: "This does not mean that the proposal is realistic."

So if realisticality is not required, why not use the switch method to travel space. Simply switch reality on and off. While off, leave your body, take off to wherever. When yo get there, turn the switch back on and pull your body to you.

parsy, the inventor of the switch method.


21 posted on 03/08/2006 12:19:22 PM PST by parsifal ("Knock and ye shall receive!" (The Bible, somewhere.))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv
Also, the starship and its crew would be weightless and would therefore not be crushed by the enormous G-forces of acceleration and deceleration...

Can I just make stuff up as I go along, like this guy does?

22 posted on 03/08/2006 1:02:55 PM PST by RJL
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: fishtank

AWK! They have the exclusive franchise?


23 posted on 03/08/2006 1:12:01 PM PST by R. Scott (Humanity i love you because when you're hard up you pawn your Intelligence to buy a drink.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv

eh???


24 posted on 03/08/2006 1:53:11 PM PST by King Prout (many accuse me of being overly literal... this would not be a problem if many were not under-precise)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: GreyFriar

Once we have antigravity (i.e. gravity control technology), we will be able to bend spactime to order. The creation of wormholes will follow.

And once we have wormholes, we won't need spaceships of any kind. Instead, we'll create a pair of nuclear-particle-scale linked wormhole mouths, A and B; then park A in Earth orbit, and use a particle accelerator to shoot B to the target star at relativistic velocity. (The wormhole diameter can be very small, since the diameter of the wormhole link need only be wide enough to allow a low-res communications laser beam to pass through the link.) Due to relativistic time dilation, only a few days will pass from B's point of view until B enters the target star system. Since clocks on both ends of a wormhole must always agree, those watching the view through A will see the target star appear from the point of view of B only a few days after launch. At that point we "spin up" the wormhole, opening both A and B mouths to a size large enough to pass a deceleration framework and engine through. The decel rig capures B, fires its engine, and decelerates B until it enters orbit around the destination planet. We then spin the wormhole up until it is big enough to pass loads of any desired size.

And once this is done, we have no more need for spaceships. With wormholes, all travel is local travel; therefore, instead of a ship, we travel between the stars by train.

The 16:15 Tau Ceti Overnight Express leaves Earth Station, traveling up the Space Railway ("space elevator") link. Once above the atmosphere, as dinner isserved in the dining car, the train accelerates to its cruise speed of about 8,500 miles per hour en route to Wormhole Junction over Earth. Traveling at full express speed, the trip to the Junction (and A mouth) takes about six hours. As the Pullman passengers settle into their sleepers for the night, the Express passes through the Junction, entering the A Mouth -- and emerging instantaneously from B Mouth in orbit around Tau Ceti's fourth planet! The train then begins slowing down, putting energy back into its magnetic track as it glides down the Space Railway link to the destination planet's surface. Six hours later, as the passengers are finishing breakfast, the Special pulls in to Nova Terra Station, having traveled about 100,000 miles from the point of view of a person aboard the train, and 11.6 light years through "real" space -- all by rail.

We'll settle the New Frontier the same way we settled the old one -- by rail. Now that's an American future!


25 posted on 03/08/2006 2:01:02 PM PST by B-Chan (Catholic. Monarchist. Texan. Any questions?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: King Prout

oh... static repulsorlift. kewl.


26 posted on 03/08/2006 2:05:48 PM PST by King Prout (many accuse me of being overly literal... this would not be a problem if many were not under-precise)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: RJL

You would feel no intertia/G-forces if your reference frame moved but you stayed at rest relative to it.


27 posted on 03/08/2006 2:07:39 PM PST by Dead Corpse (I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: The Sons of Liberty

Never, EVER, stand on the flux capacitor!


28 posted on 03/08/2006 2:13:21 PM PST by Frank_Discussion (May the wings of Liberty never lose a feather!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv
Most Illogical



29 posted on 03/08/2006 2:14:53 PM PST by MikefromOhio (22,952+ replies - wow I'm talkative.....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv
I'm givin ya all I got Captain, but any more 4 alarm Chili will cause her ta blow!!!



30 posted on 03/08/2006 2:17:01 PM PST by MikefromOhio (22,952+ replies - wow I'm talkative.....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv

Space Coke Rocket
31 posted on 03/08/2006 2:45:06 PM PST by UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide (Give Them Liberty Or Give Them Death! - IT'S ISLAM, STUPID! - Islam Delenda Est! - Rumble thee forth)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv
I think Volfson has seen the movie "Contact" one too many times.

Hey, watch it!
I resemble that remark.

32 posted on 03/08/2006 3:57:13 PM PST by tentmaker
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv

Thanks for the ping.


33 posted on 03/08/2006 4:27:18 PM PST by Las Vegas Dave ("Liberals out of power are comical-Liberals in power are dangerous!"-Rush Limbaugh.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: GreyFriar

First they've got to find or make dilithium crystals.


34 posted on 03/08/2006 4:36:41 PM PST by zot (GWB -- four more years!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv

As soon as I saw the headline I thought of Miguel Alcubierre's paper on the warp bubble.


35 posted on 03/08/2006 6:48:30 PM PST by FierceDraka ("Sure as I know anything, I know this: I aim to misbehave." - Capt. Mal Reynolds)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv

Interesting.


36 posted on 03/08/2006 8:19:02 PM PST by bvw
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv

NCC-1701-D

Beam me up, cheif!!!


37 posted on 03/08/2006 8:30:25 PM PST by Thunder90
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: R. Scott

I want a vacation on Bajor...


38 posted on 03/08/2006 8:32:36 PM PST by Thunder90
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: SunkenCiv
Dr. David Whitehouse?

In what field, dipshitology?

There's so much wrong in this anthology of fiction that it's hard to pick any one statement, but my favorite piece of dreck is:

This doesn't need saying, but weightlessness is the consequence of "G-forces" being zero. So our estimable author/expert asserts what... that the zero accelation condition experienced by the imaginary crew is also enormous.

Enormously nonexistent?

Infinitely infinitesimal?

What utterly an irrational psuedo-intellect.

39 posted on 03/08/2006 8:48:25 PM PST by delacoert (imperat animus corpori, et paretur statim: imperat animus sibi, et resistitur. -AUGUSTINI)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: delacoert

Don't hold back! Tell us how you really feel! ;')


40 posted on 03/08/2006 10:06:10 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Yes indeed, Civ updated his profile and links pages again, on Monday, March 6, 2006.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 39 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-58 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson