Which SF FTL transper and power gen systems will be real?

[willpittenger]

Of the various means of travel at superluminal speeds, which do you think will be come reality? Also, which power generation system could become real systems?<br /><br />FTL Speeds:<br />*Warp Engines<br />*Hyperspace (Star Wars variant; you can't get too close to a planetary mass)<br />*Hyperspace (Babylon 5 variant; only large ships can create jump points without help)<br />*Wormholes (various)<br /><br />Power Systems:<br />*Zero Point Energy<br />*Anti-Matter<br /><br />Feel free to bring your own concepts up. If they have been used in SciFi, I may add them to the above list. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>

 

[yevaud]

My own weird suspicion? Something similar to Pournelle's "Alderson Drive," although I always found the concept he used (created by Doctor Dan Alderson of JPL) of superluminal "Tram-lines" created by equipotential flux to be a bit of a stretch.<br /><br />Still, there <i>is</i> gravity, and what a gravitational link between two stars might do as far as stressing the spacetime metric in some odd and unexpected way is intriguing. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[vogon13]

Dean Drive<br /><br />Para-grav<br /><br />Electro-gravitic<br /><br />Star Trek style transporter that can work at interstellar distances<br /><br />TARDIS<br /><br />Spice<br /><br />Ducted subspace incursion manifold<br /><br />Tesseract<br /><br />Bloater Drive<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[ebort]

there's also the solar sail vessel from "deep space nine"..which coincidentaly also caught FTL particles accidentaly taking it into "warp"...like that one because of it's "organic" at least in part approach..that really would be nice to see in the real world..sailing ships cruising the galaxy searching for currents of FTL particles, in the same way old world sailing ships searched for wind and ocean currents, would be a beautiful combination of high tech and old world skills...rather than ripping a hole through space like vandals we would be working in harmony with space...<br />LOL well it appeals to me i must admit

 

[willpittenger]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>Star Trek style transporter that can work at interstellar distances<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />You mean Dominion- or Borg-style. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>

 

[willpittenger]

That is the <font color="yellow">only</font>possible way for the solar sail craft at the end of <i>Attack of the Clones</i> to travel between systems as it was shown doing. Trouble is, the Star Wars universe hasn't defined any such particles. They rely on Hyperspace. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>

 

[Mee_n_Mac]

Hmmm, since I don't believe we can achieve FTL in normal space-time (now or ever) that leaves only hyperspace (variant unknown) as a possibility. <br /><br />As for power, I vote for matter:antimatter reactions though it won't be so much a source of power but rather a fuel. Make it at the fuel depot, transfer it to your spaceship. If you need a high energy to weight ratio for your spaceship, it seems the logical choice.<br /><br />ps - I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the Infinite Improbabilty Drive. I didn't vote for it as I consider it unlikely. <br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>-----------------------------------------------------</p><p><font color="#ff0000">Ask not what your Forum Software can do do on you,</font></p><p><font color="#ff0000">Ask it to, please for the love of all that's Holy, <strong>STOP</strong> !</font></p> </div>

 

[qso1]

vogon13:<br />Dean Drive<br /><br />Me:<br />what is the Dean drive? I've never heard of that one. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[yevaud]

<i>what is the Dean drive? I've never heard of that one.</i><br /><br />It's powered by short White Men who scream "Yeeaarrgghhh." <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><em>Differential Diagnosis:  </em>"<strong><em>I am both amused and annoyed that you think I should be less stubborn than you are</em></strong>."<br /> </p> </div>

 

[vogon13]

It is from the 50s, IIRC. It is the subject of a patent or two. Kind of the original stab at a non-Newtonian propulsion device.<br /><br />A derivative device is the Freem Drive, postulated by Watterson in the 80s.<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[willpittenger]

I should point out that in <i>Star Trek</i>, antimatter is a fuel that also generates power. When they combine antimatter with matter in the presence of dilithium, they get a type of "plasma" they can direct into the warp engines. There it interacts with the equipment in the engine to produce the warp field. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>

 

[willpittenger]

I think in this thread we have mainly been talking about which fictional systems might turn out to be the real deal. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>

 

[willpittenger]

<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p>I would suggest that the fictional systems which will become real might include -<br />fission drives including nuclear saltwater rockets and nuclear lightbulb drive; fusion dives including the Daedalus drive and the antimatter-catalysed fusion drive; also possible are the microwave sail drives such as Robert Forward's Starwisp, and the particle beam driven craft as described by Karl Shroeder.<p><hr /></p></p></blockquote><br />So which of those would be FTL as required by the original conversation? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>

 

[specfiction]

It's funny that this conversation neglects the physical constraint of Special Relativity. Nothing can go faster than light in a vacuum. Any kind of inertial oscillations, EM impulsion--anything like that won't work. Before any scheme can be proposed for FTL, one must reconcile with Special Relativity. Unless you do that, the conversation makes no sense.

 

[willpittenger]

Which is why in Star Trek, they supposedly have a way to negate Special Relativity. However, the details of that was never discussed that I know of.<br /><br />Universes, like Babylon5 and Star Wars, which rely on Hyperspace or Otherspace all simply ignore the problem by saying Special Relativity simply doesn't apply. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>

 

[specfiction]

Just as a reality check, you can not negate the laws of nature. When you do, it's called magic. Having said this, laws can have work arounds. The problem is that all the work arounds I can think of, although so speculative that they may not be right, would require energy in such great quantities that we might as well consider it impossible. But that has not kept me from writing a story, One Way Ticket, where I postulate such a thing.

 

[willpittenger]

Are you a physicist or something? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>

 

[specfiction]

Yes. I was a particle physicist for fifteen years. I've read SF all my life and feel it's a greatly overlooked cultural resource.

 

[willpittenger]

I knew that wormholes would be FTL, but the other drive systems you mentioned were unknowns.<br /><br />BTW: There was a book I read which had singluraties, in this case, in a sublight drive. The concept was to spin them very fast and then collect the spin energy at a later date (presumably through gravitational tides. The problem was that if a ship is on a collision course (with a sucidal pilot), you can't just destroy the ship. You still have a singularity coming at you. Bin Laden would love it. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>

 

[specfiction]

Another problem. Nobody knows if wormholes exist. The only reason for even postulating them is that they represent a valid solution to Einstein’s equations. However, while there is circumstantial evidence for the existence of black holes (no one has ever seen one, only some evidence of their presence like gravitational lensing) there is not even indirect evidence for wormholes.<br /><br />If that weren't bad enough, there is no evidence of any kind that exotic energy (or matter) exists (in something other than a cosmological constant). Having said this, I still don’t consider FTL necessarily impossible. What I do object to is the way it’s reduced to a prop in most SF. FTL, if it were possible, would be one of the strangest realities permitted by nature. The implications of the warping of time-space would have profound consequences for the travelers. It would not be a matter of sitting in a chair and saying “warp-speed,” then going to the lounge and having a beer. This trivializes the profound to a point where it is not interesting.<br />

 

[specfiction]

There are many other effects. If one could create a time-space bubble around a ship for example (a god-like amount of energy is required), then the metric inside the bubble is no longer Euclidian. That means spherical tidal forces, time and space dilation, and geometric effects that might disassociate material objects--the ship may simply dissolve. If you could get past all that, there could be quantum entanglement issues.<br /><br />Again, having said all this, there may be ways of doing it (FTL) that might circumvent a lot of this. The moral of the story here is two-fold. First, FTL is not an element of the story, much of the story (here I’m talking about the situational personal story of the characters) is directly associated with FTL. For example, the movie Event Horizon. Even though it was a terrible SF movie—not bad horror story—I given them kudos for realizing how incredibly dangerous and exotic the nature of FTL is. Second, the side effects of FTL postulates societies and people very different from those we know today.<br />

 

[specfiction]

Oh--there is no theoretical basis for traveling backward in time (although Gödel’s solution to Einstein’s equations even had Einstein scratching his head). With FTL you can only go forward. The roles of cause and effect may be reversed for observers in relative motion who are time-like separated, but you can't go back on your worldline.

 

[specfiction]

Three points:<br /><br />1) In your example, the angle between the two systems, usually called Eta, is given as a function of the boost Tan(relative velocity/c). At the speed of light, the x and t prime axis collapse into a 45 degree line. For all boosts in between there is only a time-space volume for which this works (causality reversal). These events are called time-like. At the speed of light they're called light-like. Above the speed of light this diagram is "not defined."<br /><br />2) In these diagrams, world lines don't bend back on themselves--so this case is not defined. These diagrams don't work for FTL.<br /><br />3) Wormholes may not exist. There is no evidence for them--not even speculative. And if they do exist, we have no idea how to treat them--there is no theory of quantum gravity.<br /><br />My greatest issue about backward time travel is not with Relativity because Relativity was never formulated to handle it. The Relativity principle is that the speed of light is constant for all observers in relative motion and that nothing that has mass can travel faster than light. It may be that Relativity is not correct for speeds greater than c (don't ever say this to a professional physicist--if one said this they'd never work again). FTL violates the idea of Special Relativity. Just as Newton breaks down at relativistic speed, perhaps Relativity is inadequate when considering faster-than-light scenarios. For example, imaginary quantities may be a sign that the theory has broken down--it's telling us this is a non-physical result.<br /><br />The problem that has plagued the heavy-weights has to do with entropy. Hawking now says that entropy does not reverse with shrinking time-space. This is equivalent to saying no backward time travel.<br />

 

[specfiction]

I'm not trying to be negative--I like what you're doing. And I think history shows us that impossibilities in one age can be reality in another. I do agree that wormholes are a great model for this stuff (more appropriate than special relativity) because the strong gravitational field is equivalent to large time-space curvature--i.e. all the worldlines you drew were for constant velocity, once you start accelerating those lines start to curve--then the fun starts. But the problem I have with backward time travel has to do with quantum mechanics and entropy. That discussion is more than I want to write right now. <br /><br />I also think there are interesting issues with the Higgs Field (something I used to do research on) in FTL. After all, mass is the problem.

 

[specfiction]

I took a look at Cramer's paper--it's a rehash of what Thorn and Hawkings did after Sagan asked Thorn to provide him with "feasible" FTL for his book Contact. Before that nobody ever talked about wormholes. That was back in 1989. When I first read this I was troubled. Later, when Hawkings started looking at Entropy, it implied to me my worries were well founded.