The warp drive could become science fact

[Nullifidian]

http://news.discovery.com/space/warp...ss-120917.html

[Reincarnate]

Re: The warp drive could become science fact

Before I even click this link

Is it piggybacking off the Alcubierre drive? Exotic matter?

[Nullifidian]

Re: The warp drive could become science fact

It is based on the Alcubierre drive, but physicists say that adjustments can be made to the proposed warp drive that would enable it to run on significantly less energy, making it more plausible

[Reincarnate]

Re: The warp drive could become science fact

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1623#comic

[Nullifidian]

Re: The warp drive could become science fact

lol

Read the article though, if you haven't

[Reincarnate]

Re: The warp drive could become science fact

Just read it --

I find it funny how that Jupiter figure gets tossed around so much. It's also been cited as the amount of exotic matter you'd need to stabilize a one-meter-wide throat in a wormhole (from Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku).

Either way, exotic matter is only a mathematical abstraction and may not actually exist.

I try hard not to be a technological naysayer, since human ingenuity is usually strong enough to overcome most claims of impossibility, but I truly believe that things like interstellar travel are beyond our means. The barriers are so numerous/staggering in magnitude that I don't think it's a realistic goal at all, even for optimists.

It's certainly worth looking into, since our species is pretty much done for unless we figure out a way to spread to other systems outside Earth at some point... but I don't think we'll have the luxury of choice. It's also consistent with my speculation that even though intelligent life is not a one-time phenomenon, separate civilizations never come into contact because space is just so g'damned huge and the odds of two civilizations being alive at the same time and being sufficiently close is probably uber-low.

^seriously how I feel every time I watch that video

[Nullifidian]

Re: The warp drive could become science fact

We will have to see what the experiments yield. After all, our knowledge is based on currently known concepts, but that shouldn't stand in the way of exploring new ideas or attempting experiments with this. A lot of modern inventions were thought to be impossible before they were discovered.

[Reach]

Re: The warp drive could become science fact

Won't happen. Sadly.

Exotic matter (negative energy) probably doesn't even exist.

If it does exist, it still needs to be produced, stored and transported and then applied.

Even if those things are possible, many stranger things could arise from this that make it impossible. For example:

Blueshifted gamma rays in front of the ship that would kill everyone on board.

The ship itself might generate deadly amounts of radiation.

Causal disconnection from the universe itself within the ship.

The fact that you would have to have traveled the path already at slower than light speeds anyway for this to work (meaning we would have to wait millions of years to get to the nearest galaxy even near c. At currently realistic velocities, it would take billions. Also, the universe would end long before we could reach outer galaxies).

Yeah...

Also, I like this video more, Reincarnate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0

If humans are to survive in a technological society, we'll probably have to start seeding ourselves into the nearest solar systems as soon as is possible so we can slowly spread ourselves out through the galaxy. Otherwise, we're doomed to run out of resources with nowhere to go.

[hi19hi19]

Re: The warp drive could become science fact

The word "could" carries an awful lot of stipulations with it.

The journalism industry as a whole is often sadly confused between "could", "should", and "will"