Star Trek - Warp drive being developed

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Kermit2

Joined Feb 5, 2010
4,162
Dr Harold White, a physicist at NASA’s Johnson Space Centre, is conducting research to create a warp in space and time.

These so called “warp bubbles” could eventually allow spacecraft to at speeds that appear to exceed the speed of light...

Dr White claims warp bubbles are theoretically possible and has now begun work to create warp bubbles for the first time in the laboratory.

From the full story found here
 

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
12,997
There is this little problem called needing 'negative vacuum energy' in QM and exotic matter in CM.

http://iopscience.iop.org/0264-9381/11/5/001/pdf/0264-9381_11_5_001.pdf

The metric I have just described has one important drawback, however: it violates all
three energy conditions (weak, dominant and strong [3]). Both the weak and the dominant
energy conditions require the energy density to be positive for UN observers. If one calculates
the Einstein tensor from the metric ( 8 ) .
and uses the fact that the 4-velocity of the Eulerian
observers is given by
... (some math)
then one can show that these observers will see an energy density given by
...(more math)
The fact that this expression is everywhere negative implies that the weak and dominant
energy conditions are violated. In a similar way one can show that the strong energy
condition is also violated.
 

bountyhunter

Joined Sep 7, 2009
2,512
Dr Harold White, a physicist at NASA’s Johnson Space Centre, is conducting research to create a warp in space and time.

These so called “warp bubbles” could eventually allow spacecraft to at speeds that appear to exceed the speed of light...

Dr White claims warp bubbles are theoretically possible and has now begun work to create warp bubbles for the first time in the laboratory.

From the full story found here
One of the things I learned a long time ago is that bizarre phenomenon that math/physics says may be theoretically possible are generally impossible in the real universe. Every time somebody says they are going to make mass go faster than the speed of light, I just go back to sleep.
 

BillO

Joined Nov 24, 2008
999
There are just a few major issues to deal with before warp drive is practical and safe.

Here is one of them.
Not at all. When my wife begins to formulate thoughts that the front yard flora exceed some imaginary altitude, I have already started the lawn mower and began to raze the offending organic life force.

The need for peace in my existence has outpaced the propagation of EM phenomena. It is a very warped drive!
 

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,212
Excellent article about the latest developments on the quest for a warp drive:


The fact that scientists are dealing with the idea at all today is thanks to a 1994 paper by Mexican theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre. At the time, Alcubierre was not just a passionate Star Trek devotee. In his doctoral thesis at the University of Wales College Cardiff (now Cardiff University), Alcubierre also worked on the theory of relativity. Strictly speaking, the theory states that nothing can travel faster than light. But by applying a little creativity, Alcubierre identified an apparent loophole.

***

... no one was able to get around the problem of negative energy—until Lentz took it up during the lockdown in Göttingen. In his enforced isolation, Lentz found a way to construct a warp bubble using only positive energy. In so doing, he may have overcome the greatest objection to warp drives.
 

Deleted member 115935

Joined Dec 31, 1969
0
Ok, hand up here,

Its always perplexed me

What exactly is a warp drive ?

Sfi seems to have a few different "definitions"

does it allow you to travel faster than light

or does it open a "new time stream" so that things appear closer then they were, so you get there quicker, a shrinking of space time ?
 

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,212
does it allow you to travel faster than light
Yes, that's what it's supposed to do. The idea is to create a sort of spacetime bubble in which the ship will be contained, and then to shrink the space in front of it whilst expanding the space behind it. That way the ship will be able to move through the universe at faster than light speeds but without violating general relativity.

The theoretical amount of energy needed for that, though, is ridiculously large... but at least all of this speculation is a start...
 
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