Warp drives' may actually be possible someday, new study suggests

[Admin]

A new study provides some theoretical underpinning to sci-fi warp drives, suggesting that the superfast propulsion tech may not forever elude humanity.

Warp drives' may actually be possible someday, new study suggests : Read more

 

[MikeEz]

I would be interested in Dr. Alcubierre and Dr. Whites' responses.

 

[billslugg]

It uses standard physics and does not allow FTL travel, according to the article. What's the point?

 

[Questioner]

I think what they are saying is it creates an independent frame of reference. That it is dislodged from standard spatial continuity.
That would be the first step to superluminal Alcubierri methodology.
It also might evade luminal proximate collisions with space detrimous.
But that's just my take.

 

[Pogo]

We’ve been launching stuff beyond Earth’s atmosphere for 67 years now and haven’t gotten beyond 0.064c thus far. This warp thing is still only one team’s theory. It’ll likely be generations before we get even a subatomic particle into this warp speed thing, if ever. If it ever does become practical, it could be used to send small probes to local stars in a reasonable timeline. Anything manned will not likely be practical. The article doesn’t mention if warp drive actually negates relativistic effects.

 

[billslugg]

All of the theories that would have us go FTL are based on solutions to Einstein's field equations. That they solve the equations does not necessarily mean they can exist in reality. Here is an example: The area of a square is given by x^2. Two negative numbers can solve the equation just as well as two positive numbers. But there is no such thing as negative length. Headline: "Scientists find solution to area problem that involves negative length, thus it must exist".

Another reason we can't go FTL. If one goes FTL, one must necessarily pass through c. At that point, the item would require all of the mass in the universe be converted into its kinetic energy. In other words: "You can't get there from here".

 

[Unclear Engineer]

It uses standard physics and does not allow FTL travel, according to the article. What's the point?

The point would be that even 1/2 c would be a game changer for travel to the nearest stars, compared to what we think is possible with the technology we have now. Especially for robotic probes, which would send data back at c.

But, as you and they both said, just getting the math to work does not mean we have any idea how to create a machine that will implement that math.

On the other hand, if what we currently understand about physics is really only 5% of what makes up the universe, who can say what we would be able to do if we ever get the knowledge about what "dark matter" and "dark energy" really are.

Just because GRT currently uses a scalar for lambda doesn't mean that a more complete set of field equations would not expand that to a tensor or a whole matrix of currently unknown phenomena.

Just like we can't expect all mathematical solutions to be real, we also cannot be sure that current equations are complete representations of reality. In fact, there are plenty of suggestions that our current equations are not complete.

 

[billslugg]

Valid points. When they actually come up with some of the exotic matter they need, then I'll get on board.

 

[Mizagorn]

The article doesn’t mention if warp drive actually negates relativistic effects.

That was my first thought. You're part of the crew. You get paid by the hour and you're on the clock. Do you go by the onboard clock or the one back at the office?

 

[davidwebb955]

That was my first thought. You're part of the crew. You get paid by the hour and you're on the clock. Do you go by the onboard clock or the one back at the office?

Warp drives work by compressing the space in front of you and expanding that behind you. Hence your speed through space is either zero or pretty close to zero and thus the crew will not experience any time dilation effects.

 

[davidwebb955]

A new study provides some theoretical underpinning to sci-fi warp drives, suggesting that the superfast propulsion tech may not forever elude humanity.

Warp drives' may actually be possible someday, new study suggests : Read more

This isn't the first positive energy warp drive solution. Erik Lentz published a paper in the same publication in 2021 proposing a soliton warp drive solution which did away with the need for negative energy.

 

[davidwebb955]

All of the theories that would have us go FTL are based on solutions to Einstein's field equations. That they solve the equations does not necessarily mean they can exist in reality. Here is an example: The area of a square is given by x^2. Two negative numbers can solve the equation just as well as two positive numbers can. But there is no such thing as negative length. Headline: "Scientists find solution to area problem that involves negative length, thus it must exist".

Another reason we can't go FTL. If one goes FTL, one must necessarily pass through c. At that point, the item would require all of the mass in the universe be converted into its kinetic energy. In other words: "You can't get there from here".

Warp drives theoretically bypass this speed limit since the limit only applies to traveling through space. Instead the ship is in a warp bubble which is carried forward as the space behind it is expanded and the space in front of it is compressed. The ship itself doesn't move through space it is space itself which moves (warps). Such a FTL warp drive may have other problems but it wouldn't require infinite energy to cover distances at what would appear to be faster than the speed of light since a ship using that warp drive would actually be standing still or at most moving slowly through space.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Warp drives theoretically bypass this speed limit since the limit only applies to traveling through space. Instead the ship is in a warp bubble which is carried forward as the space behind it is expanded and the space in front of it is compressed. The ship itself doesn't move through space it is space itself which moves (warps). Such a FTL warp drive may have other problems but it wouldn't require infinite energy to cover distances at what would appear to be faster than the speed of light since a ship using that warp drive would actually be standing still or at most moving slowly through space.

So, how does that work for "observers" outside of the soliton? Would we even see the soliton and whatever is inside of it? Or do all of the "waves" of matter, light, gravity, etc. inside a soliton fold back onto themselves and not go outside of the soliton's "volume"?

 

[George²]

and haven’t gotten beyond 0.064c

But we didn't travel so fast. Fastest man made object is Parker solar probe and it's relatively maximum speed will be(in 2025) up to 0.064% of light speed. However, here is the root of the problem. This speed is relative and is only achieved due to falling deep into the Sun's gravitational well. It cannot serve this probe to travel to the stars. In fact, we have actually accelerated the probe to just 11.2 kilometers per second so that it can leave the Earth's gravitational field and head for the Sun. Practically speaking, today the probe does not have enough kinetic energy to even escape the Sun's gravity and set off on its way to the stars.

 

[billslugg]

Sounds to me like a bait and switch. The good news is we don't need to put a near infinite amount of energy into the ship. The bad news is we need to put a near infinite amount of energy to warp spacetime.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

The bad news is we need to put a near infinite amount of energy to warp spacetime.

Which we have no idea how to do, anyway.

 

[billslugg]

I would have to guess that the warping of spacetime would have to be through the placement of large amounts of mass, energy or charge in front of the ship and removing all of such behind it. Like if you put a black hole in front of you and made the black hole go at near c. By positioning yourself at just the right spot you would fall into the black hole at the same rate it receded. You would feel nothing, not get squashed by the acceleration but would be acellerated none the less. So, rather than acellerate a 100 ton ship, we must acellerate a zillion ton black hole.

 

[Classical Motion]

There are two methods of c speed without mass gain. A "tuned" intermittence or a very slow acceleration. Either one will allow c without mass gain.

Getting faster than c is the problem. We would have to find something that is faster than c to propel with. All the force in the world will NOT do it.......it has to have a faster velocity.

It should take very little power to accelerate one proton to c. Even less for an electron. Electrons probably move close to c normally. Without man's help. The free ones that is. They don't travel far.......but they do travel fast. They probably come up to close to c speed very quickly. WITHOUT a mass gain. For they are an anti-inertia particle.

Both electronic free charge and chemical free charge(negative charge) probably move close to c. Before colliding.....or bonding. Or trading places.

Electrons zip. And they can flip quicker than they can travel. They can flip at 2 times c. And when that happens they become separated from their field and emit it. In an instant. There is NO emission duration. And that's why every emission has a stationary point in space where it was emitted from.

Only an emission can define a stationary point in space. Because of that instant.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

I would have to guess that the warping of spacetime would have to be through the placement of large amounts of mass, energy or charge in front of the ship and removing all of such behind it. Like if you put a black hole in front of you and made the black hole go at near c. By positioning yourself at just the right spot you would fall into the black hole at the same rate it receded. You would feel nothing, not get squashed by the acceleration but would be acellerated none the less. So, rather than acellerate a 100 ton ship, we must acellerate a zillion ton black hole.

Yes. Note that this paper is for a "Constant Velocity Physical Warp Drive Solution" [emphasis added]. Acceleration and deceleration are additional issues not addressed in this "solution".

The paper is available free as a pdf here: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.02709 .

The paper discusses problems with acceleration, and then says:
"Another alternative is to explore the use of focused gravitational radiation emission
as a way to accelerate drives over traditional momentum transfer methods, such as
recently discussed in [20]."

So, yes, when(?) we learn how to "focus" the "emission" of gravity, we might be good-to-go with warp drives. Meanwhile ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ .

 

[billslugg]

Yes, the system would first need to be acellerated to fractional c but then it would coast at constant velocity. I hope they are not suggesting that one can achieve some velocity without acellerating. That would be hard to swallow.

It would take all of the mass in the universe converted to energy to propel a single electron to near c, and we still would not get there. Any talk of velocity without mass gain, velocity without acceleration or achieving c, or going faster than c is fantasy. Far outside conventional physics. Any expansion of knowlege must tie into what we already know. We cannot possibly go faster than c without first goint at c, which is impossible.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Bill, I do understand the relativity equations, at least mathematically.

But, we also seem to think that mass can somehow "fall into" gravity wells around black holes, which would have them accelerate to at least very near c (depending on losses on the way in). The equations simply break down, there. From the outside, we predict that the mass never gets there. But, we also predict that we should neve see it getting there because the light it emits when it is just about there would have nearly infinite wave length.

So, we sort of have a ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ about gravity accelerating things to c.

 

[billslugg]

When someone falls into a black hole, as viewed from afar, their image slows down, turns red, gets slower, goes into the infra red, gets even slower, emits only EM at increasingly longer wavelengths until the wavelength aysmptotically approaches infinity. As we see it, they just slow down and disappear. To the individual falling, they experience nothing out of the ordinary.*
* They will feel tidal forces but for a sufficiently large BH, they will not notice it.

Are they going the speed of light when they cross the event horizon? Not to them, they don't feel any motion. An outside observer can't see them. So the question is moot.

 

[billslugg]

Perhaps what the falling person would see as they approach the event horizon would be a pinpoint of bright light directly ahead and darkness everywhere else.

 

[trailrider]

Which we have no idea how to do, anyway.

In 1903, I tol' Wilbur an" I tol' Orville, an' I tol' Glenn Curtis, "That thing will never fly!" In 1947, a number of people thought you couldn't go faster than sound or the loads on the human body would go to infinity. In the early 1950's, a sci-fi show opened with space ships landing by backing down on their own exhausts. Impossible...then. In the future, who knows?
Ad Astra!

 

[billslugg]

Yes, there are things we don't understand but don't hold your breath on that "c" thing.