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Warp Drive May Be More Feasible Than Thought, Scientists Say - Page 2 — Parallax Forums

Warp Drive May Be More Feasible Than Thought, Scientists Say

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  • Dr_AculaDr_Acula Posts: 5,484
    edited 2012-09-24 21:20
    Heater said
    What you are saying is that "All imaginable things can be made real".

    But:

    0) I assume your statement is true.
    1) Then I might imagine that is possible to imagine something that cannot be made real.
    2) That is to say I might imagine your statement is wrong?
    3) Having imagined that (which I just did) then it can be made wrong in reality. According 0) above.
    4) That is to say, you are wrong.

    If your statement is right it proves it's own wrongness

    Oh. I hadn't thought of that.

    *disappears in a puff of logic*
  • TorTor Posts: 2,010
    edited 2012-09-25 04:38
    Dr_Acula wrote: »
    [..]
    Here I went on the tiniest of time-dilation travels, I was away for only a day, but lots of time must have passed because Dr_Acula's avatar looks completely different now!

    -Tor
    :)
  • BeanBean Posts: 8,129
    edited 2012-09-25 05:03
    Somewhere I got the idea that warp1 = 0.9C, warp2 = 0.99C, warp3 = 0.999C etc.

    So even warp10 would not reach the speed of light (it would be very close).

    Don't remember where I got that though...

    Bean
  • BitsBits Posts: 414
    edited 2012-09-25 06:22
    Is it me or what, but if you warp the fabric of space time then time itself has to be warped too. That said faster than light speeds will be only an illusion. Just my 2 cents.
  • skylightskylight Posts: 1,915
    edited 2012-09-25 07:36
    As said earlier in the thread If you warp space and time are you actually moving? Instead are you just moving objects that were far away closer to you?
  • Beau SchwabeBeau Schwabe Posts: 6,568
    edited 2012-09-25 08:00
    Here is an interesting PBS documentary...

    http://video.pbs.org/video/2164065493/

    ... at about 23:00 ... the idea that past, present, and future already exists and the way they describe it is interesting. You may not be able to travel back in time or forward in time in reference to Earth, but if Earth is your reference point and you are moving toward or away from Earth, then a distant point in space should be theoretically possible to "view" the past, present, and future, depending on which direction you are moving to or from earth. Note: An interesting observation ... the closer you are able to move to the speed of light, the shorter the distance you would be able to "view" the past, present, and future relative to your immediate position... but because we can't travel at the speed of light, you would have to settle on some distant point to make your past,present, and future observations.
  • TorTor Posts: 2,010
    edited 2012-09-25 08:08
    Bits wrote: »
    Is it me or what, but if you warp the fabric of space time then time itself has to be warped too. That said faster than light speeds will be only an illusion. Just my 2 cents.
    You're correct. But it can be viewed from several angles, and what you say is one valid way of looking at it. The problem is that with the current understanding of time and physics you can't travel FTL without breaking causality. Even if Einstein actually allows you to circumvent the issue about going faster than light (by using a wormhole, or warping space) you'll still run into the problem that you will be able to influence something that happened in the past (e.g. yourself). Going FTL, by any means, _is_ time travel.

    -Tor
  • BitsBits Posts: 414
    edited 2012-09-25 08:17
    Skylight...

    Yes you are moving, at least with respect to something. Either you are moving towards something or away from something. It's all relative.

    Tor, I agree.
  • Beau SchwabeBeau Schwabe Posts: 6,568
    edited 2012-09-25 08:23
    If the past, present and future already exist, then by traveling back in time and breaking causality would have already happened before you ever left.
  • skylightskylight Posts: 1,915
    edited 2012-09-25 08:59
    Bits wrote: »
    Skylight...

    Yes you are moving, at least with respect to something. Either you are moving towards something or away from something. It's all relative.

    .
    To me that seems a factor of perspective, for instance if I warp space am I not bringing objects closer to me rather than myself moving towards them? If you see what I mean?
    Therefore am I not stationary, not moving at FTL but the space and objects within it maybe are moving at FTL towards me?
  • BitsBits Posts: 414
    edited 2012-09-25 09:02
    Interesting way to put it.:smile:
  • skylightskylight Posts: 1,915
    edited 2012-09-25 13:06
    It's just the way I interpret the explanations I have heard, That space time is a fabric and if oneself is at the centre of this, that a part of it could be folded in such a way to bring that part closer to you so you could reach it without having to worry about breaking rules by travelling faster than light oneself to get to the original point (although would you be breaking rules by getting objects to yourself FTL by warping space?).
    I perhaps have got the warping of space totally wrong and if so hope someone will put me right.
  • Beau SchwabeBeau Schwabe Posts: 6,568
    edited 2012-09-25 13:31
    "space time is a fabric" - What if a better analogy would be that space time is like the surface tension of water. "We" as 3-dimensional beings can only experience the surface of space time. What lies on one side or the other is unknown because it doesn't exist in our dimension.
  • skylightskylight Posts: 1,915
    edited 2012-09-25 14:32
    As you say the "fabric" is so thin that edge on it wouldn't be seen that's as I also understand it but what do they mean by warping if it doesn't mean to shrink/stretch that film and so bring parts of that film closer to a particular point?

    If we take the analogy of it being the surface tension of water say in a pond and we wish to bring two water lilies that happen to be floating upon that water tension together then we need to shrink the surface area between them, is this the same when talking about space?
  • BitsBits Posts: 414
    edited 2012-09-25 16:32
    "space time is a fabric" - What if a better analogy would be that space time is like the surface tension of water.

    This is about to get tricky. Can we bring back the notion that light is propagating on an ether? I am just teasing. :smile:
  • skylightskylight Posts: 1,915
    edited 2012-09-25 18:03
    Bits wrote: »
    This is about to get tricky. Can we bring back the notion that light is propagating on an ether? I am just teasing. :smile:
    :smile: sometimes it's better to take a step back and simplify things
  • kwinnkwinn Posts: 8,697
    edited 2012-09-25 18:32
    If mass approaches infinity as your velocity approaches light speed then at some point before your velocity reaches C your mass would be high enough to create a black hole around you. At that point would you still be in our universe, your own tiny universe, or maybe in warp/sub space ? Perhaps you could even travel faster than light then. Or maybe time would stop for you. Any thoughts ?
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2012-09-26 04:23
    "space time is a fabric" - What if a better analogy would be that space time is like the surface tension of water. "We" as 3-dimensional beings can only experience the surface of space time. What lies on one side or the other is unknown because it doesn't exist in our dimension.

    You may be onto something.

    I have very very real semantic issues with space time being a fabric or a surface of any sort.
    The implication is that a two-dimensional model clearly explains a four-dimensional phenomenon.

    The Discovery Chanel loves to have some idiotic moderator with a rubber sheet on a frame and a bowling ball show how it all works. I seriously doubt this has any basis in reality. I also take strong exception to the presentation of worm holes that has one 'folding space' and space cannot be folded - it is just space.

    At some point, we have gotten a low of bizarre presentations from physicist that seem to 'out there'.
  • skylightskylight Posts: 1,915
    edited 2012-09-26 04:36
    But I thought that warping of space had been proved by the fact that light bends around large objects?
  • Beau SchwabeBeau Schwabe Posts: 6,568
    edited 2012-09-26 06:43
    Loopy Byteloose,

    The "bowling ball" analogy is wrong also, it refers to a 2-d space... if anything, from the "bowling ball" analogy, the actual distortion is inverted meaning the depression or deformation of space time goes toward the center of the mass in all directions. <- this distortion towards the center of mass intuitively makes more since to me if the byproduct of space time distortion is what we experience as gravity.

    As far as 'worm holes' ... who knows how the properties of another dimension operate and what rules apply. I suppose there could be some kind of interconnect but I suspect it's in motion like everything else, so it wouldn't be stable from our vantage point. Back to the water tension reference.... depending on what side of the surface tension you are on if there is a 'ripple' in space time, because a theoretical rock was thrown in the pond (keep in mind the 'water ripples' of this pond operate in 3d ... jello would be a better visual), there would be a shorter distance between two ripple peaks or two ripple valleys depending on what side of the surface tension you were on. The problem is, that WE have to travel the complete distance along the surface of the ripple. A 'worm hole' as it is called may allow a 'bridging of the gap' between peaks or valleys but any amount of technology that you throw at it, I don't think it's possible to create such a distortion any more than we can move our own planet to another orbit without causing an EOL event.
  • skylightskylight Posts: 1,915
    edited 2012-09-26 07:58
    There seems to be two schools of thought as to what a warp drive would achieve? Some are looking at it allowing FTL travel and I'm under the impression that a warp drive would bend or distort space making parts of it move closer.although Beau's argument that you would still have to travel the same distance over the "jello" does make sense. If that were the case then warping of space seems like a waste of time if it was achievable.

    Or perhaps the warping thats suggested for travel is selective in what areas of space it can warp allowing travel across undistorted space towards objects that have been dragged closer?
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2012-09-30 03:05
    Loopy,
    At some point, we have gotten a low of bizarre presentations from physicist that seem to 'out there'.

    I get the feeling as well sometimes.

    However I think this has always been the way. As an example: As you know it was argued sometime that the must be stationary in the center of things. Everythnig else moved around it. One reason for this is that if the the Sun were in the middle and the Earth orbited it then there would be a huge wind all the time as the the Earthed moved through the air at such a high speed. There is no such wind so obviously the Earth is stationary in the middle.

    Well, that logic is sound given that it hasn't occured to you that there might not actually be air out there.

    The history of physics is full of examples of ideas that seemed "out there" but eventually our observations don't fit our initial "obvious" explanations.
  • HumanoidoHumanoido Posts: 5,770
    edited 2012-09-30 11:21
    Heater. wrote: »
    The history of physics is full of examples of ideas that seemed "out there" but eventually our observations don't fit our initial "obvious" explanations.

    There was a time when our conceptual ideas about space and time changed over the course of several decades, then years, when school books were at their next printing. ...Then more rapidly every year, which evolved to every 2 months and then weekly with the HST. Now, it seems its become a daily basis.
  • skylightskylight Posts: 1,915
    edited 2012-09-30 12:18
    This is what I mentioned in another thread, you get to a point that can you trust anything that the physicists of today say if experimentation doesn't prove it and with todays outlandish theories what hope do we have of proving them with current technology?
  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2012-09-30 15:04
    Good point. And no doubt that is why we build huge and expensive experiments like CERN and go looking for the Higgs Boson and such. Looks like at some point the experiments might become impossibly expensive or simply physically impossible to build. Then what? Do we reach the end of experimentation? Do we just have to say "With the evidence we have been able to collect and the mathematics we can apply to it this is how things must be"?
  • skylightskylight Posts: 1,915
    edited 2012-09-30 15:12
    Heater. wrote: »
    Good point. And no doubt that is why we build huge and expensive experiments like CERN and go looking for the Higgs Boson and such. Looks like at some point the experiments might become impossibly expensive or simply physically impossible to build. Then what? Do we reach the end of experimentation? Do we just have to say "With the evidence we have been able to collect and the mathematics we can apply to it this is how things must be"?
    As I mentioned in the other thread, there was talk in a documentary(can't remember which perhaps Horizon?) where it was suggested that a few "physicists" were actually making a comfortable living out of their unprovable theories!
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