What happens when your warp drive fails? Scientists have the answer

[Admin]

Scientists have "boldly gone" where no one has gone before, discovering what would happen if a faster-than-light warp drive like the one used in Star Trek were to fail.

What happens when your warp drive fails? Scientists have the answer : Read more

 

[Unclear Engineer]

I wonder what would happen inside a "warp bubble" if the warp drive fails. Seems like the occupants might get severely "warped" bent out of survivable shape in the deceleration process.

 

[Delphince]

I'm flabbergasted Robert Lea decided to reference Star Trek's technology without even knowing the basics of that technology.

"In Star Trek, exotic matter with negative mass allows the USS Enterprise to travel at faster-than-light or "warp speeds" by generating a warp bubble around the ship in which spacetime is warped, compressed ahead of the ship, and stretched out behind it."
No, and no. That's the Alcubierre drive, not a ST warp drive. "Negative mass" isn't used anywhere in the system, and nowhere in canon does it say that the warp field stretches and compresses spacetime, only that it creates a distortion with a propulsive effect due its shape.

 

[ChrisA]

I'm flabbergasted Robert Lea decided to reference Star Trek's technology without even knowing the basics of that technology.

"In Star Trek, exotic matter with negative mass allows the USS Enterprise to travel at faster-than-light or "warp speeds" by generating a warp bubble around the ship in which spacetime is warped, compressed ahead of the ship, and stretched out behind it."
No, and no. That's the Alcubierre drive, not a ST warp drive. "Negative mass" isn't used anywhere in the system, and nowhere in canon does it say that the warp field stretches and compresses spacetime, only that it creates a distortion with a propulsive effect due its shape.

You are right in that the ST canon never says anything about the shape of the wrapped space. But they do say that the shape is such that the ship is pushed in a forward direction. This implies a gradient. Even if they never speak directly about it. It is as if they said water flows down the road to the east. This implies a road that goes downhill to the east even if they never said the road was not level.

It could also be that in their time, the word "antimatter" is expanded to include more kinds of exotic matter including "anti-gravity matter".

In any case, all the science of Si Fi is "fictional science" they just make it up

 

[ChrisA]

I wonder what would happen inside a "warp bubble" if the warp drive fails. Seems like the occupants might get severely "warped" bent out of survivable shape in the deceleration process.

If the warp could have its gradient reduced to zero in a VERY short amount of time. The people inside would not feel anything because they would remain in freefall. Assuming the gradient is very large compared to the ship inside the ship see no force on it.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

What is the effect of "gravitational waves" on living tissue? The article states that they would be very high frequency gravitational waves. But, I would think they would also have extremely large amplitudes if they came from a spatial disruption that could move a space ship faster than c. So, if your head is "free falling" in the opposite direction from your "free falling" chest with sufficient amplitude to separate them by several inches, would there be any damage?

This is just another aspect of the issues that arise from assumptions about space "inflating", with arguments about whether atoms get bigger or not, and so on for larger physical entities that are in the space that is having its size changed. "Waves" would change size in different amounts in different places at the same time.

 

[thenumbernine]

Wow, crazy, this research article completely copied my warp bubble collapse simulation videos I had posted from 8 years ago to 2 years ago. Even using v = 0.1 c. Even my video of v > c collapsing, corresponding with the paper saying "v > c is numerically unstable".
How fitting that their title is "what nobody has seen before" when people on Youtube have been watching it for 8 years. 
And what's this? They didn't even find my 8 year old warp bubble simulations to cite it. Yup, my work is missing from their papers citations.
I can't tell, they are either being inept or deceitful or both.
Would post link to my YT for you all to verify but your spam filters won't let me so

 

[Delphince]

You are right in that the ST canon never says anything about the shape of the wrapped space. But they do say that the shape is such that the ship is pushed in a forward direction. This implies a gradient. Even if they never speak directly about it. It is as if they said water flows down the road to the east. This implies a road that goes downhill to the east even if they never said the road was not level.

It could also be that in their time, the word "antimatter" is expanded to include more kinds of exotic matter including "anti-gravity matter".

In any case, all the science of Si Fi is "fictional science" they just make it up

No, it is not made up. Plenty of technobabble in ST certainly is, but antimatter is a very real thing that has already been created. The imaginary ships of the Federation specifically use antideuterium, which consists of a positron, an antiproton, and an antineutron.

 

[billslugg]

The article refers to negative mass, not antimatter. Antimatter has opposite charge from normal but is massive, not negative massive. Yes, negative mass satisfies Einstein's equations but does not exist in reality.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

The article refers to negative mass, not antimatter. Antimatter has opposite charge from normal but is massive, not negative massive. Yes, negative mass satisfies Einstein's equations but does not exist in reality.

There had been a real question about whether antimatter had the same mass as regular matter. Some had wondered if it had negative mass. But, an experiment at CERN did address the issue, and at least showed that it has positive mass. I can't find that link, right now - maybe somebody else here has it.

Found the link: https://www.universetoday.com/16343...falls-down-in-gravity-not-up/#google_vignette

 

[Classical Motion]

Warp speed would be unusable unless you had a method that was faster than warp speed, to scan and deflect space debris and safely navigate.

Other wise it’s a shot in the dark. A fatal shot. Even if you didn’t hit something the particles/dust friction would burn you up.

At warp speeds, space has an atmosphere.

 

[Delphince]

The article refers to negative mass, not antimatter. Antimatter has opposite charge from normal but is massive, not negative massive. Yes, negative mass satisfies Einstein's equations but does not exist in reality.

Antimatter entered the conversation because the article incorrectly claims that negative mass is the fuel used with fictional Star Trek reactors.

 

[Classical Motion]

Making anti matter should not be a problem. The problem is transducing the product, gamma rays, from the anti matter reaction. We want to convert these emissions directly into current.

We need a left handed “wave” absorber and a right handed wave absorber. Layers of these absorbents around the reaction chamber gives us DC power. Diode absorbents.

An anti matter battery. Which can be gated for AC. For warp fields.

Scottie.

 

[billslugg]

Antimatter entered the conversation because the article incorrectly claims that negative mass is the fuel used with fictional Star Trek reactors.

I understand that. The only point I care to make is that there is no such thing as negative mass, thus the "warp drive" machines cannot be made. This fact is consistent with Einstein's equations, equations often have multiple solutions, only some of which are possible in reality.

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Bill,

I agree that there has never been found any real example of "negative mass".

However, I do not think we are able to prove that "there is no such thing as negative mass."

If, there is something like a sea of particles that have undetectable energy levels. then removing a particle from that sea by elevating its energy level might leave a "hole" that might appear to us to be a negative mass anti-particle. Similar to a positive electrical "hole" in semiconductor material when vacated by an electron. That was one theory/hypothesis for antimatter - which is now shown to be contrary to measurements by the CERN data I cited.

But, that does not rule out similar thoughts about other issues. It might not be so much a matter of actual negative mass, so much as our misperception of what "zero" is for mass. Think about the possibilities of a "false vacuum", where we think that a non-zero parameter is at its lowest possible value, because we cannot measure the material at lower values.