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Warp Drive Plausible and Possible

If this is true we might see a true interstellar drive starship go out. AWESOME!

Hold your horses, Adventus. In order to actually do this, there has to be a way to amplify gravity. The energy requirements for this are still going to be enormous and are far beyond the range of existing technology. Furthermore, the Alcubierre drive requires an antigravitational force to which there is no conclusive proof that such a force actually exists.

However, there is hope. If gravity can be amplified, the way to generate a warp drive and avoid the spacecraft from being crushed into oblivion and then evaporating in a burst of gamma rays shortly afterwards is for the spacecraft to rotate rapidly before the gravitational amplifiers reach their peak. The idea is to create a singularity ring which creates a space-time tube much like a rotating Kerr Black Hole does and the gravitational pull will suck this vehicle through it before the ring collapses and evaporates.

Very interesting. The article says that White found a way to reduce the necessary mass/energy from the mass of Jupiter to about 1500 pound's worth. And White says that oscillating the field may reduce that amount even more. Of course, nuclear bombs convert micrograms of mass into energy so 1500 pound's worth is still an insane amount of energy to contemplate working with.

And you still need 'exotic' 'negative mass' matter to make the Alcubierre drive work. So, there's still a major hitch to be overcome (not just a matter of difficult engineerIng).

Still, very cool stuff. Really stirs the imagination.

Pure theory, supported only by 'exotic' maths.

I'll believe it when I see it demonstrated.

The negative mass is the only exotic thing about the theory. The rest of it is straight-up general relativity.

The Casimir Effect can produce negative energy density but it's uncertain if this can be useful:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect

There have been ftl projects going on for 30 years. So far there is nothing in physical law that indicates it is possible to exceed the speed of light. The only way we can do it is to bend space-time and we have not even the glimmer of a theory or technology to do it. Natural wormholes are to unstable to be put to use.

Yoda says, do not your breath hold until with we ftl else blue turn you will.

ruveyn

There have been ftl projects going on for 30 years. So far there is nothing in physical law that indicates it is possible to exceed the speed of light. The only way we can do it is to bend space-time and we have not even the glimmer of a theory or technology to do it. Natural wormholes are to unstable to be put to use.

Yoda says, do not your breath hold until with we ftl else blue turn you will.

ruveyn[/quote



What natural wormholes are you talking about? I can think of one that appears to be stable enough, but it's 26,000 light years away.

"Wormholes", or Einstein-Rosen bridges, are a hypothetical construct, with no physical evidence that they exist. If they do, the only way to generate one would involve creating a black hole, which isn't exactly recommended within a lightyear or so of an inhabited planet. (Oh, and since "white holes" would appear to be completely imaginary, the other end of an Einstein-Rosen bridge would have to be another black hole, which again presents, shall we say, certain difficulties.)

Alcubierre warp drives are similarly theoretical, but NASA apparently has some way to (possibly) create a miniature warp. Should the theory be proven correct, the rest is a matter of engineering. Of course, one set of solutions to the equations results in particles encountered en route being trapped in the surface of the bubble, and released as a massive burst of gamma radiation when the bubble collapses, so you might want to be really careful about exactly where you drop out of warp...

Interesting, but would there be a limitation due to the vacuum energy density being so low?

(If only the universe were filled with lead or packed full of neutrons... well, I guess that would actually be kind of a bad thing. )

Hmm, maybe warp-drive for nanobots?
[/sci-fi mode]

We just need 3rd-stage Spacing Guild navigators to use the spice from Arrakis to fold space, rather than travelling at all.