| Author | Message | ||
     Mr_grumpy |
Dip or Main Beam? I understood the article to say that the ship sort of surfs a wave that travels underneath it. Cogitate on this. You're at one of the poles sitting in a nice warm suit in a comfy chair on a turntable revolving at one revolution per day opposite to the Earth's spin, are you moving? You're on a road that girdles a planet at it's equator driving at exactly the same speed as the planet's spin. Are you moving? Now you've gone back to your turntable & you've reversed it are you travelling in time? I have neighbours who work at CERN & their answers to these sort of questions are mind boggling. However most of them will just stand & look at the car in incomprehension if they get a flat tyre. | ||
| 86129squids |
David Brin's books, starting with "The Uplift War", are great. Once had an urge to search out some good female sci-fi authors, found Sheri Tepper- enjoyed most all of her books. "Primary Inversion" is another female penned book, forgot the name of the author... never checked out Ursula LeGuinn though. "Snow Crash" by Neal Stephenson is one of my alltime faves. But, most anything by Frank Herbert is superb- the whole Dune series, read it twice, plus several other books he'd done. "I have neighbours who work at CERN & their answers to these sort of questions are mind boggling." It'd be fun to hoist a P or Q at the pub with them, no doubt! Fun thread! Badabababaaa, I'm grokkin' it! | ||
| Blake |
Think aircraft then. No road. Just cockpit and air. Cockpit is local frame of reference moving through air just as spacecraft moves through space-time. From your perspective your local frame of reference remains stationary relative to you, but it is moving quite rapidly relative to surrounding airspace. The light from a headlight on the spacecraft will curve through the space-time distortion as per the laws of relativity. Once outside the distortion, it travels as per normal. | ||
| Reepicheep |
+1 on Neal Stephenson... Love his stuff, even though it does tend to wander. | ||
| Rick_a |
As long as they don't use a black hole drive...  | ||
| Hootowl |
"You just power it with Zero-point energy." Zed-PMs are even harder to come by than unobtainium and Rareite. ----You're at one of the poles sitting in a nice warm suit in a comfy chair on a turntable revolving at one revolution per day opposite to the Earth's spin, are you moving? In relationship to what? But short answer, yes. The Earth moves around the sun, the sun moves around the galactic core, the galaxy is (probably) moving in some relationship to our galaxy cluster, etc. So yeah, you're moving. ----You're on a road that girdles a planet at it's equator driving at exactly the same speed as the planet's spin. Are you moving? See above. You'd also, if my figuring is correct, and this imaginary planet were roughly Earth-sized, be breaking some land speed records by significant margins. | ||
| Sifo |
Think aircraft then. No road. Just cockpit and air. Cockpit is local frame of reference moving through air just as spacecraft moves through space-time. From your perspective your local frame of reference remains stationary relative to you, but it is moving quite rapidly relative to surrounding airspace. In your example the aircraft is your local frame of reference, and the air craft is moving through it's environment. This isn't what they describe with warp drive though. You have a space craft that generates a bubble around itself in which the craft can remain stationary while the bubble is being pushed through it's environment by the warp of space. They do mention that the craft can also be moving in it's environment and increase the speed of travel up to, theoretically, near the speed of light. Of course, practical speeds will be much slower. If you were to try to accelerate yourself to warp speed without a bubble around you where you aren't moving, you would be bound by the G-forces that you could tolerate. Even at 2 G, the acceleration, then deceleration makes travel, even to nearby stars impractical just because of the time involved. You are back to years to get where you are going. By having a bubble around your craft where you literally don't accelerate in your local environment, you avoid this problem. Bottom line is that if it works as I understand it, then human space travel might be possible. If it works as you understand it, then the best we can feasibly do is unmanned travel to other stars. Given that they claim we could travel to other starts in weeks, and they seem to imply actual humans, not robotic craft, I think they are talking about my scenario. I do fully acknowledge that the reporters on this stuff may not have any real understanding about what they are writing about though. I'm guessing we are both limited to that second hand information. At least I know the math is beyond my abilities. ----------- Years ago I read a pretty good sci-fi novel about someone who secretly manufactured a black hole that escaped containment. It of course dropped straight toward the center of the earth and showed up on the other side of the earth, adjusted for rotation of the earth of course. Interesting book as it also got into the posturing of major nations who thought they were seeing the results of a secret space weapon. I don't remember the books name, or the author, but it was a decent read if you find it. | ||
| Griffmeister |
In your example the aircraft is your local frame of reference, and the air craft is moving through it's environment. This isn't what they describe with warp drive though. You have a space craft that generates a bubble around itself in which the craft can remain stationary while the bubble is being pushed through it's environment by the warp of space. They do mention that the craft can also be moving in it's environment and increase the speed of travel up to, theoretically, near the speed of light. Of course, practical speeds will be much slower. Of course, according to relativity, theory of that is, as you approach the speed of light your mass approaches infinity. This being the case I think it's best from a fuel standpoint to sit still and let space warp around you.  | ||
| Blake |
Tom, Your just arguing about the containment mechanisms being different. The analogy holds. Air/space in vehicle being contained by said vehicle is analogous to the space-time bubble contained by the spacecraft and its energy (warp) field(s). You're just still wondering how the space-time "bubble" is maintained and propelled. On that, I have no good analogy for you. Some smart person may hopefully come to our rescue. | ||
| Sifo |
Tom, Your just arguing about the containment mechanisms being different. The analogy holds. Air/space in vehicle being contained by said vehicle is analogous to the space-time bubble contained by the spacecraft and its energy (warp) field(s). If the analogy were to hold then you have real problems with G-forces that make use of this virtually useless for manned space flight. They seem to imply this isn't the case, so I don't think your analogy holds. It's an entirely different thing. You're just still wondering how the space-time "bubble" is maintained and propelled. That part I understand. You are simply riding a wave produced in the space time continuum. It's not totally unlike surfing. Of course, according to relativity, theory of that is, as you approach the speed of light your mass approaches infinity. And that's why I threw in the "practical speeds will be much slower" disclaimer. | ||
| Sifo |
BTW, here's the cloaking device article I joked about earlier. http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1376652/chi nese-scientists-upbeat-development-invisibility-cl oak Take it for what it's worth. | ||
| Ferris_von_bueller |
Feck off it's bollocks, lol. My Buell would get further than this theory For reasons I won't bore you with the older I've become the more I've come to believe nothing is impossible. | ||
| Rocket_in_uk |
For reasons I won't bore you with the older I've become the more I've come to believe nothing is impossible. Wise. After all, I have spent some time and money getting my Buell 'this' (read - will go a long way) reliable! Rocket in England | ||
| Blake |
You're not following the analogy. Try again. Air contained in a volume is analogous to space-time bubble contained in energy field. No wind in your face is analogous to no g-forces on your body. That's all. | ||
| Blake |
>>> That part I understand. If you really do understand how a bubble of localized space-time may be contained, please do educate the rest of us. What you describe as a wave analogy is how the bubble may be propelled, not how it is formed or maintained. | ||
| Aesquire |
looks like the "Star Trek" FTL drive. In Science Fiction, the propulsion system is largely determined by plot. Star Trek had to hit a new planet a week, so it had to go real fast. There's a couple of variations. There's the jump through "hyperspace", the transit time varies from instant to months, but you make a lot of calculations and jump. No course correction. You pop out the other side. ( "Starman Jones" Heinlein classic Sci-Fi ) There's the Cruise in hyperspace, where you steer around stars and generally act like a ship at sea, with rocks and shoals, storms and waves. Warp bubble drives as speculated above might work either way. You may need special gadgets to see out of hyperspace, or be blind. ( adds to the Drama ) There's almost always a logical limitation on where & how you go FTL. "beyond the gravity well induced warp limit" is popular ( because it eliminates an enemy dropping a fleet over a planet and blowing them away before they can react. Meaning no surviving civilizations to interact with ) or "must be activated at .9234556 C" ( which means you have to speed up to go "hyper" like Doc Brown's Delorean ) And, of course, consider the possible folly of activating a warp drive on the surface of a planet. We'll have to see how it works. "Hey Bubba, Watch This!" | ||
| Sifo |
You're not following the analogy. Try again. Air contained in a volume is analogous to space-time bubble contained in energy field. No wind in your face is analogous to no g-forces on your body. That's all. Sorry, I see wind and G-force as very different things. Please explain to me how you are going to accelerate with no G-force. That's a real trick. >>> That part I understand. If you really do understand how a bubble of localized space-time may be contained, please do educate the rest of us. What you describe as a wave analogy is how the bubble may be propelled, not how it is formed or maintained. My bad. Somehow I read that statement to be about propulsion only. No, I have no idea how the bubble is formed. It seems to be an important part of the theory though. It's mentioned virtually every time I hear about this idea. I'm curious what you think the bubble does that the ship doesn't do. | ||
| Sifo |
For reasons I won't bore you with the older I've become the more I've come to believe nothing is impossible. Improbability drive? | ||
| Hootowl |
I prefer the improbability drive. Or one that operates on bistro math. Preferably equipped with an SEP cloaking field. | ||
| Hootowl |
Acceleration implies movement through space-time. A warp field warps space-time around you. You are not moving in the conventional sense so there is no acceleration. A warp does away with relativistic limitations precisely because it eliminates the need for conventional movement. | ||
| Rocket_in_uk |
This bubble warped space thing, you're both missing the point. It's the space empty behind and in front of a craft that creates the ability for hyper travel. By expanding the empty space behind the craft, and expanding it very very very quickly, the craft is propelled by the expansion. Though how it is felt as movement by those on board the craft yet they don't feel the hyper acceleration is beyond me. What's the point in spending all that money, and wasting a few weeks travel if it feels like you've not gone anywhere? If we were talking motorcycles no one would ride anymore. Yep confusing indeed. Rocket in England | ||
| Sifo |
A warp field warps space-time around you. You are not moving in the conventional sense so there is no acceleration. A warp does away with relativistic limitations precisely because it eliminates the need for conventional movement. Now you are talking about warping space to get two points to touch, connected with a worm hole. I don't think that thinking applies to what is commonly called a warp engine. Again, from the original link...
They are literally talking about removing the inside of the bubble from space/time. It's not my idea. I'm just pointing out what it is. | ||
| Hootowl |
What I said and what you quoted are not in conflict. Rather the opposite. | ||
| Hootowl |
I did not say anything about folding space. That's a different theory. | ||
| Griffmeister |
Warp drive, cloaking device, now all we need are defensive energy shields and photon torpedoes and we can wage intergalactic war.  | ||
| Mr_grumpy |
May the Froth be with you, now go & have a cappuccino. | ||
| Blake |
Tom, How do you travel through air at high speeds but yet remain contained within a volume of (relative to you) still air? The "how you will accelerate without g forces" is two questions. The analogy tries to explain the "without g forces" part. What g forces do you feel as you fall from great height towards say Jupiter? Imagine no air, just vacuum. Great acceleration towards the planet, but you feel zero sensation of acceleration. Gravity is a distortion of space-time. | ||
| Malott442 |
So excessive beer creates a warp field around me sometimes........ I've traveled great distances and seen the future. | ||
| Pwnzor |
HERE is all you need to understand the warp drive. | ||
| Hootowl |
I'm going to step out of this conversation. I have less than a layman's knowledge about such things, and only know what I've seen on the discovery channel, which dumbs things down so much that it becomes less than technically accurate. If anyone understands the math and can offer an explanation, I'd love to hear it. |
