https://phys.org/news/2021-03-warp-barri...light.html


Interesting read, though light on details. I've not read any theories, much less papers, that manage to generate the needed energy without dark energy or dark matter. (Haven't read this paper yet, bit I'm gonna try tomorrow.)

I figured in my lifetime we would move past faster than light travel being strictly theoretical, but not for another 40-50 years.

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Didn’t read the link but the navy has some interesting patents on possible FTL travel. From what I have heard in interviews the theories are possible just lite on specifics. Are they trolling our enemies? Who knows.

I always thought we needed to change the angle of approach. If spacetime is a fabric that can be stretched or compressed by gravity then it's 'shape' is inherently flexible, and much like a liquid it would seek an equilibrium or 'flatten itself out' in the absence of a gravitational force. If spacetime can be distorted by gravity, then what medium does spacetime occupy that allows it to be compressed or stretched? Instead of trying to get a ship to travel faster than light through spacetime, why not change the medium through which the ship travels?

In a 'traditional' warp bubble sense, instead of compressing space in front of the bubble and expanding it behind the bubble, we would 'clear out' the space inside the bubble, allowing light and the ship inside to travel faster than light through space that hadn't been cleared of 'stuff' i.e. dark matter, radiation, gravity waves, etc.) 'Speed' would only be limited by how far in front of the bubble and how quickly all that 'stuff' could be cleared.

The other option would be to create a bubble that could exist alongside spacetime rather than in spacetime. This would be more akin to the wormhole theories where spacetime is folded and a passage created between two points. If spacetime behaved like a liquid, maybe we don't have to fold it, but could go around spacetime.
Think of a drop of viscous oil in a cup of water. It moves slowly in the water when you shake the cup. Air bubbles in the water move much more quickly through the less dense water. A warp bubble could leave the viscous oil (our spacetime) and travel through the water (the medium in which our spacetime exists) to the other side of the drop of oil and reenter.



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I totally believe that the closer you get to the speed of light, the more you contract space in the direction you are travelling. So you dont even have to travel faster than light. You just travel almost to the speed of light, and the distance you have to travel contracts. Light would be travelling faster, but because it has no mass, it can not contract space. So light has to travel the full uncontracted distance, whereas things with mass can shortcut the distance.

On a similar note of things in the universe moving really fast, below is a montage of photos taken over a decade or two that shows the stars at the galactic center orbiting the black hole called Sagittarius A*. It was recently discovered that one of these stars gets accelerated to about 12% of the speed of light at its closest approach. That is a tremendous amount of speed for such as massive object. So if we know something thats quite massive can get accelerated to that high of speed, it really makes sense that a warp drive is possible. We just have to find a way of generating the amount of energy needed.

They've gone to plaid

Some of the navy patents propose the decreasing of mass. That seems to be the key. Mass is the real problem with FTL travel.

(03-10-2021 09:50 AM)Was SoMs Eagle Wrote:  Some of the navy patents propose the decreasing of mass. That seems to be the key. Mass is the real problem with FTL travel.

One of my favorite short stories is in Asimov's I, Robot. They have a computer that figures out how to travel FTL, but it can't tell the humans, because the idea is that the humans have to be dead for it to work, and then resuscitated after FTL travel completes.

(03-10-2021 10:15 AM)DaSaintFan Wrote:  

(03-10-2021 09:50 AM)Was SoMs Eagle Wrote:  Some of the navy patents propose the decreasing of mass. That seems to be the key. Mass is the real problem with FTL travel.

One of my favorite short stories is in Asimov's I, Robot. They have a computer that figures out how to travel FTL, but it can't tell the humans, because the idea is that the humans have to be dead for it to work, and then resuscitated after FTL travel completes.

A little Off topic, but I love the way Asimov tied his Robot, Empire and Foundation series together. I've read all the Foundation novels and most of the rest.