Hyperspace/Space warping for travel

[bdewoody]

Assuming that in the future we find that we can travel outside the bounds of "normal space" I wonder what effect that will have on the time question? In normal space if we travel say to the nearest star and back even at maximum sublight speeds the travelers will age only a couple dozen years but upon returning to earth several hundred years will have passed. Are there any theorys on how time would pass if such a trip were made in (lacking a better term) hyperspace? Would the passage happen instantaneously allowing the travelers to return home within days or weeks of their departure or would the same problem occur.

To me this is important as to whether we will ever leave our solar system as anything other than pilgrims.

 

[Saiph]

It's hard to say really. It depends upon how it all works. If it something akin to a worm-hole, then you've only got to worry about the transit time to and from the wormhole, and maybe a little bit of time going through it (not sure, but the wormhole may have a real...depth? to it).

If you wrap the ship in a 'bubble' universe, and break the FTL limit that way...beats me how that'd work.

 

[Boris_Badenov]

Without hard empirical evidence we'll never know for sure. I hope we'll have that evidence in my lifetime, but I'm not real hopeful.

 

[origin]

Since hyperspace or jumps were an invention of science fiction writers (Issac Asimov was the first I think) to make space travel more interesting - I would say you can make up anything you like. The time to travel through hyperspace could be instantaneous or it could be infinite. Most science fiction authors like to use jumps that have essentially no time change. So I would go with that.

 

[derekmcd]

Some of the most notable General Relativists of the last 100 years have toyed with the concept of wormholes... Einstien, himself, Wheeler, Thorne... etc.

Apparently, the math works with a few exotics involved. However, realizing this as something that could actually be accomplished is far, far off in the realm of science fiction. We would need to be able to harness the energy of an entire galaxy at a whim.

Considering our energy issues in utilizing the earth, it would seem we have a bit of work to do...

 

[DrRocket]

Some of the most notable General Relativists of the last 100 years have toyed with the concept of wormholes... Einstien, himself, Wheeler, Thorne... etc.

Apparently, the math works with a few exotics involved. However, realizing this as something that could actually be accomplished is far, far off in the realm of science fiction. We would need to be able to harness the energy of an entire galaxy at a whim.

Considering our energy issues in utilizing the earth, it would seem we have a bit of work to do...

It is uglier than that. The last time I checked you need exotic energy, negative energy. And not just the energy of a galaxy, but the energy equivalent of the entire mass of a galaxy, or more. So, to keep a worm hole open you need a type of energy that has nevery been seen in quantities that are literally unimaginable.

I would not bet a lot on worm holes being reduced to practice any time soon.

 

[derekmcd]

I would not bet a lot on worm holes being reduced to practice any time soon.

And I wouldn't bet against you...

 

[ZenGalacticore]

Some of the most notable General Relativists of the last 100 years have toyed with the concept of wormholes... Einstien, himself, Wheeler, Thorne... etc.

Apparently, the math works with a few exotics involved. However, realizing this as something that could actually be accomplished is far, far off in the realm of science fiction. We would need to be able to harness the energy of an entire galaxy at a whim.

Considering our energy issues in utilizing the earth, it would seem we have a bit of work to do...

It is uglier than that. The last time I checked you need exotic energy, negative energy. And not just the energy of a galaxy, but the energy equivalent of the entire mass of a galaxy, or more. So, to keep a worm hole open you need a type of energy that has nevery been seen in quantities that are literally unimaginable.

I would not bet a lot on worm holes being reduced to practice any time soon.

Does not mass equal energy x the square of the speed of light and vice versa? E=MC2? What derek said holds true. It's also what Freeman Dyson postulated, that is, that we would need the energy equivalent of an entire super-spiral galaxy such as the Milky Way or Andromeda in order to bend and warp spacetime at will in order to travel great distances without the annoyance and inconvienence of time dilation.
No one is talking about the apparent(shining stars, eg.) energy output of a typical, massive spiral galaxy. Rather, the theoreticians are talking about the POTENTIAL energy of a massive spiral galaxy. Mass = E x C squared.
Right? Please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[ZenGalacticore]

Since hyperspace or jumps were an invention of science fiction writers (Issac Asimov was the first I think) to make space travel more interesting - I would say you can make up anything you like. The time to travel through hyperspace could be instantaneous or it could be infinite. Most science fiction authors like to use jumps that have essentially no time change. So I would go with that.

No. The idea was not 'invented' by fiction writers of science fiction or otherwise. The idea originated with real turn-of-the-century physicists and physics. Sci-fi writers like Asimov, and many great others, took their plausible ideas from real physics.

Einstien's theories of General and Special Relativity established the malleable flexibility of spacetime and the warping of the fabric of space. Asimov and other great sci-fi writers of the early, mid, and late 20th century took their 'foundations'(pun intended), from real physics.

 

[dryson]

Still humanity lacks the devices to create such a disturbance and probably will not have such devices for thousands of years. The problem lies in the fact that it would take a leap beyond the current level of known physics to accomplish creating a manmade worhole as well as being able to provide the vast energy needed to:

A. Select a point at the which the wormhole would dump the ship at.
B. Create a warp conduit 'tunnel' where the energetic properties of the energy grid of the conduit are structuraly maintained for hundred of millions of light years
C. Create a point at which the wormhole would start at
D. Be able to maintain the wormholes entrance point based on B.

Although highly improbable with todays machines, the best hope for a stable wormhole to be found would be that if two random suns collapsed into blackholes at the same time and began pulling on each other in opposite directions. This would create a null space where any matter caught between the blackholes of the two dueling blackholes would form
a spiral like conduit, the matter being pulled towards both blackholes at the same time. This is only a theoretical until proven not to be, but seeing how we only have ten years of information on the blackhole we could find this occurance to be a regular phenom once more information has been discovered.

 

[ZenGalacticore]

Well yeah, our technology is far too feeble to attempt or even seriously contemplate moving and manipulating such massive amounts of matter and energy. I vote for a million years of technical development before we could artificially create, stabilize, and maintain a wormhole. Even if we could, I doubt we could build machines that could withstand the gravitational flux of plunging into a wormhole.
But in a million years? Hell, you never know! At any rate, it's all theoretical fun, isn't it? If we could manipulate the total mass/energy of an entire spiral galaxy, we truly would become like gods. With that kind of power, we might travel to parallell universes or multi-verses. But could we get back? How in the hoo-hay could we find our 'bearings' hopping around different spatial dimensions? Talk about lost in 'space'.
In a real sense, I suppose we're all 'lost in space' anyway. It's funny how people still talk as if the Earth and Sol are at the center of something. Of course there is no 'center' to any of it. We're lost in space. Makes it fun. :lol:

 

[xXTheOneRavenXx]

Sounds like something from maybe 10,000 years in the future

 

[dragon04]

Maybe you can borrow mass/energy from the Universe to project a warp field out in front of you so long as you promise to put it all back exactly where you found it when you're done using it.

Something tells me that we're stuck with relativistic travel for the Long Haul. Maybe we should spend our energies and resources developing and deploying some relativistic drives like nuclear-pulse engines a la the original (real) Project Orion.

A "Super Orion" was theoretically capable of about .1c on a good day, IIRC. We have the technology to build one this afternoon, in fact. Of course, there's all those pesky environmentalists and UN treaties prohibiting nuclear weapons in space that would have to be dealt with.

All jokes aside, I think that it's fine to speculate and hypothesize about Warp Drive, but we have technology available to us right now that would enable us to be Kings of the Solar System and pave the way for (Relativistic)Interstellar Travel. I think we should avail ourselves of it.

Project Orion: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Or ... propulsion)

 

[bdewoody]

It seems the consensus is that regardless of the method or the speed interstellar space traffic will be relatavistic and therefore for the individual a one way trip. I think this makes the universe the biggest tease of all time. What's the point of going somewhere and experiencing it if you can't go back and tell your friends about it.

I'm still in favor of exploring space and all of it's wonders but disappointed that all we will ever know about deep space will be things that happened thousands, millions or billions of years ago.

 

[JMK08]

You are right it wouldnt be practical for humans to travel somewhere without knowing if they would ever get back or if they would ever see their friends or family again, but just think of early western civilizations on Earth. Ships full of men who didn't know where they were going or when they would return would set sail all the time. Travel around the world for the first time, when the ocean was as vast and mysterious then to them as space is to us now. Some people's appetite for adventure is amazing, the type of people you end up reading about 100's of years later. Anyways, the first deep space adventurer's will probably be automated spacecraft, no humans allowed!

 

[origin]

Since hyperspace or jumps were an invention of science fiction writers (Issac Asimov was the first I think) to make space travel more interesting - I would say you can make up anything you like. The time to travel through hyperspace could be instantaneous or it could be infinite. Most science fiction authors like to use jumps that have essentially no time change. So I would go with that.

No. The idea was not 'invented' by fiction writers of science fiction or otherwise. The idea originated with real turn-of-the-century physicists and physics. Sci-fi writers like Asimov, and many great others, took their plausible ideas from real physics.

Einstien's theories of General and Special Relativity established the malleable flexibility of spacetime and the warping of the fabric of space. Asimov and other great sci-fi writers of the early, mid, and late 20th century took their 'foundations'(pun intended), from real physics.

Nope, the OP was about hyperspace which is completely in the realm of science fiction. Hyperspace and Jumps were invented to 'get around' general relativity. It is difficult to determine who the real inventer of hyperspace is it is probably Clarke or Asimov, though.