Scientists Are Starting to Take Warp Drives Seriously, Especially One Specific Concept

[Jokodo]

"Scientists also estimate that the total energy requirement would be equivalent to the mass of Jupiter"

Hm

In 1960, it took a medium sized building to hold the equipment needed to store 1 GB of data. A mere 50 years later, the same amount of data can be stored on something the size of your thumbnail.

Mass of Jupiter? That's nothing (some day)!

False analogy.

For starters, energy doesn't get annihilated. So if it takes a Jupiter mass to create the bubble, a Jupiter mass equivalent if pure energy is released again when it collapses. You better not be anywhere close to their destination when that happens. If it is released along the entire route (mapped to normal space), you better not be anywhere near the source either. That's be easily the biggest cigar shaped supernova the galaxy has seen so far.

That's while still ignoring that half a Jupiter in normal matter plus half a Jupiter in antimatter is the minimum amount of fuel you need to make it work - not "at current technological levels", but in principle.

 

[Jokodo]

One other question.

In this warp drive theory what happens to photons at the boundary or interface? Is it a bubble of sorts or a trasition to some other dimension?

If so what will happens to EM thermal radiation? Is it prated or reflected or absorbed and re radiated?

It doesn't really matter when you find yourself in the centre of a supernova as soon as you're at the target and the bubble collapses...

 

[steve_bank]

Energy that is used to do any work at the atomic or Newtonian scale eventually shows up as heat.

If at another star you manage to accelerate to a high percentage of C in normal space and try to quickly decelerate near our solar system it would result in a huge cataclysmic transfer of kinetic energy to heat.

In any theory the first question to ask is where does the energy go? What is the energy balance or continuity equation. That tells you how feasible something may be.

 

[barbos]

I can multiply by 0.5 and it would still work. But 0.5 is way too low. one can easily get 95%.


plenty of materials have melting point over 3000K.


They are designed to work in air, having fins in space would be pointless.


I have shown it's easier than YOU think. In fact you seemed to be saying that it was IMPOSSIBLE in the vacuum.


Yes, 80,000 m^2 is more than enough to provide adequate cooling for 6000 people.

You miss the points as usual.

That's rich, coming from someone who just learned about black body radiation.

I am sure Space X is looking for expert cooling engineers. Send them a resume. They are looking towards Mars and beyond.

Look, I provided a calculation which shows that as far living inside spaceship cooling is not a problem, deal with it. There are much bigger problems than cooling.

 

[Gun Nut]

"Scientists also estimate that the total energy requirement would be equivalent to the mass of Jupiter"

Hm

In 1960, it took a medium sized building to hold the equipment needed to store 1 GB of data. A mere 50 years later, the same amount of data can be stored on something the size of your thumbnail.

Mass of Jupiter? That's nothing (some day)!

False analogy.

For starters, energy doesn't get annihilated. So if it takes a Jupiter mass to create the bubble, a Jupiter mass equivalent if pure energy is released again when it collapses. You better not be anywhere close to their destination when that happens. If it is released along the entire route (mapped to normal space), you better not be anywhere near the source either. That's be easily the biggest cigar shaped supernova the galaxy has seen so far.

That's while still ignoring that half a Jupiter in normal matter plus half a Jupiter in antimatter is the minimum amount of fuel you need to make it work - not "at current technological levels", but in principle.

That's what they said about exceeding the speed of sound... that aircraft would be "annihilated" by the transonic forces... in principle, etc...
prior to that, the idea of heavier than air flight was impossible...
prior to that, In the 1800's, it was thought that it was impossible (physically impossible, not just technologically unknown), to come to know the chemical composition of stars. I bet they thought that travel to the star and scooping up material to look at in a jewelers loop would be necessary to analyze composition...

The idea that meteorites "fell from space" was ludicrous. They were called "lightening rocks" and the idea that rocks were flying around space was "impossible".

prior to 1940, Einstein said that it was IMPOSSIBLE to harness the power of nuclear energy...

my god, man...

The age of fire lasted 100 millenia.. the age of agriculture a milllenia.. the industrial age - a couple of centuries... the information age - just a few decades so far. The next age will last a few years... and then exponential growth of knowledge and abilities will be simply unimaginable (as evidenced by what we think is "impossible" today).

 

[Jokodo]

False analogy.

For starters, energy doesn't get annihilated. So if it takes a Jupiter mass to create the bubble, a Jupiter mass equivalent if pure energy is released again when it collapses. You better not be anywhere close to their destination when that happens. If it is released along the entire route (mapped to normal space), you better not be anywhere near the source either. That's be easily the biggest cigar shaped supernova the galaxy has seen so far.

That's while still ignoring that half a Jupiter in normal matter plus half a Jupiter in antimatter is the minimum amount of fuel you need to make it work - not "at current technological levels", but in principle.

That's what they said about exceeding the speed of sound... that aircraft would be "annihilated" by the transonic forces... in principle, etc...
prior to that, the idea of heavier than air flight was impossible...
prior to that, In the 1800's, it was thought that it was impossible (physically impossible, not just technologically unknown), to come to know the chemical composition of stars. I bet they thought that travel to the star and scooping up material to look at in a jewelers loop would be necessary to analyze composition...

The idea that meteorites "fell from space" was ludicrous. They were called "lightening rocks" and the idea that rocks were flying around space was "impossible".

prior to 1940, Einstein said that it was IMPOSSIBLE to harness the power of nuclear energy...

my god, man...

The age of fire lasted 100 millenia.. the age of agriculture a milllenia.. the industrial age - a couple of centuries... the information age - just a few decades so far. The next age will last a few years... and then exponential growth of knowledge and abilities will be simply unimaginable (as evidenced by what we think is "impossible" today).

So your most recent example for something that allegedly used to be impossible is ... 80 years?

So much for your exponential growth.

 

[Gun Nut]

False analogy.

For starters, energy doesn't get annihilated. So if it takes a Jupiter mass to create the bubble, a Jupiter mass equivalent if pure energy is released again when it collapses. You better not be anywhere close to their destination when that happens. If it is released along the entire route (mapped to normal space), you better not be anywhere near the source either. That's be easily the biggest cigar shaped supernova the galaxy has seen so far.

That's while still ignoring that half a Jupiter in normal matter plus half a Jupiter in antimatter is the minimum amount of fuel you need to make it work - not "at current technological levels", but in principle.

That's what they said about exceeding the speed of sound... that aircraft would be "annihilated" by the transonic forces... in principle, etc...
prior to that, the idea of heavier than air flight was impossible...
prior to that, In the 1800's, it was thought that it was impossible (physically impossible, not just technologically unknown), to come to know the chemical composition of stars. I bet they thought that travel to the star and scooping up material to look at in a jewelers loop would be necessary to analyze composition...

The idea that meteorites "fell from space" was ludicrous. They were called "lightening rocks" and the idea that rocks were flying around space was "impossible".

prior to 1940, Einstein said that it was IMPOSSIBLE to harness the power of nuclear energy...

my god, man...

The age of fire lasted 100 millenia.. the age of agriculture a milllenia.. the industrial age - a couple of centuries... the information age - just a few decades so far. The next age will last a few years... and then exponential growth of knowledge and abilities will be simply unimaginable (as evidenced by what we think is "impossible" today).

So your most recent example for something that allegedly used to be impossible is ... 80 years?

So much for your exponential growth.

Don't confuse growth of our knowledge base with the extinction of what is thought of as "impossible". I believe that the frequency of hubris of "that's impossible" is inversely proportional to the growth of knowledge. So, ya, it makes sense that the educated people are less likely to fall into the "impossible" trap... and we should expect to see those ignorant statements less frequently.

 

[Jokodo]

So your most recent example for something that allegedly used to be impossible is ... 80 years?

So much for your exponential growth.

Don't confuse growth of our knowledge base with the extinction of what is thought of as "impossible". I believe that the frequency of hubris of "that's impossible" is inversely proportional to the growth of knowledge. So, ya, it makes sense that the educated people are less likely to fall into the "impossible" trap... and we should expect to see those ignorant statements less frequently.

Funny that. What's ignorant is believing you can simply progress away the first law of thermodynamics and e=mc². Do you have any idea how long the law of conversation of energy (a.k.a. LoT 1) has stood the test of time? Do you understand why it is relevant here? Energy doesn't disappear. If it takes a supernova worth of energy to create a space time anomaly through which the spaceship could travel, a supernova worth of energy will be released when the anomaly collapses. Better not be anyhwere near then...

I'm lying: there has been one modification to the law of conservation of energy: the realization that matter and energy are ultimately equivalent. Unfortunately, for you, that doesn't help us here either: it puts a hard upper limit for how much energy can be stored in a given amount of fuel.

It would be really cool if interstellar travel were possible even easy. It doesn't appear to be the case though, and the fact they aren't here yet is itself strong evidence that it isn't going to get much easier.

 

[Gun Nut]

So your most recent example for something that allegedly used to be impossible is ... 80 years?

So much for your exponential growth.

Don't confuse growth of our knowledge base with the extinction of what is thought of as "impossible". I believe that the frequency of hubris of "that's impossible" is inversely proportional to the growth of knowledge. So, ya, it makes sense that the educated people are less likely to fall into the "impossible" trap... and we should expect to see those ignorant statements less frequently.

Funny that. What's ignorant is believing you can simply progress away the first law of thermodynamics and e=mc². Do you have any idea how long the law of conversation of energy (a.k.a. LoT 1) has stood the test of time? Do you understand why it is relevant here? Energy doesn't disappear. If it takes a supernova worth of energy to create a space time anomaly through which the spaceship could travel, a supernova worth of energy will be released when the anomaly collapses. Better not be anyhwere near then...

I'm lying: there has been one modification to the law of conservation of energy: the realization that matter and energy are ultimately equivalent. Unfortunately, for you, that doesn't help us here either: it puts a hard upper limit for how much energy can be stored in a given amount of fuel.

It would be really cool if interstellar travel were possible even easy. It doesn't appear to be the case though, and the fact they aren't here yet is itself strong evidence that it isn't going to get much easier.

You mean physical limits like the laws of thermodynamics that says it is IMPOSSIBLE to make a silicon chip any smaller than.... oh wait... Mores Law has yet to fail...

Let's use the "It's impossible to ever know what a star is made out of" claim of 1800.
Did we somehow break or otherwise violate the laws of physics to get past that "impossibility"? Of course not. We just broke the assumption that the heat of the star was the limiting factor in reaching out and scooping up material... we learned how to measure at a distance, getting around a barrier that was once thought to be in the way by avoiding it altogether.

If it takes a supernova worth of energy to create a space time anomaly through which the spaceship could travel, a supernova worth of energy will be released when the anomaly collapses.

As I alluded to earlier.. Einstein... EINSTEIN, for fuck's sake, also fell into that little trap there... We HAVE tapped nuclear power and somehow managed to keep the whole thing from going "nova".

A lot of problem solving is about finding another way... not brute forcing yourself through the most obvious direct path (scooping up star material from its surface with your hands, or bashing stones directly together, or whatever)

 

[Jokodo]

Funny that. What's ignorant is believing you can simply progress away the first law of thermodynamics and e=mc². Do you have any idea how long the law of conversation of energy (a.k.a. LoT 1) has stood the test of time? Do you understand why it is relevant here? Energy doesn't disappear. If it takes a supernova worth of energy to create a space time anomaly through which the spaceship could travel, a supernova worth of energy will be released when the anomaly collapses. Better not be anyhwere near then...

I'm lying: there has been one modification to the law of conservation of energy: the realization that matter and energy are ultimately equivalent. Unfortunately, for you, that doesn't help us here either: it puts a hard upper limit for how much energy can be stored in a given amount of fuel.

It would be really cool if interstellar travel were possible even easy. It doesn't appear to be the case though, and the fact they aren't here yet is itself strong evidence that it isn't going to get much easier.

You mean physical limits like the laws of thermodynamics that says it is IMPOSSIBLE to make a silicon chip any smaller than.... oh wait... Mores Law has yet to fail...

Let's use the "It's impossible to ever know what a star is made out of" claim of 1800.
Did we somehow break or otherwise violate the laws of physics to get past that "impossibility"? Of course not. We just broke the assumption that the heat of the star was the limiting factor in reaching out and scooping up material... we learned how to measure at a distance, getting around a barrier that was once thought to be in the way by avoiding it altogether.

If it takes a supernova worth of energy to create a space time anomaly through which the spaceship could travel, a supernova worth of energy will be released when the anomaly collapses.

As I alluded to earlier.. Einstein... EINSTEIN, for fuck's sake, also fell into that little trap there... We HAVE tapped nuclear power and somehow managed to keep the whole thing from going "nova".

A lot of problem solving is about finding another way... not brute forcing yourself through the most obvious direct path (scooping up star material from its surface with your hands, or bashing stones directly together, or whatever)

Moore's law has fallen 15 years ago, lot has stood strong for what? 150, 500, 1500?

I know where I put my money.

https://images.app.goo.gl/uunpkxxDrqHiouYD8

 

[fromderinside]

Me too. Put it on accumulated measured and codified observation.

 

[Jokodo]

Don't confuse growth of our knowledge base with the extinction of what is thought of as "impossible".

You realise that you're kind of making my point here?

The areas of physics where there's rapid progress today are areas like biophysics - modelling the interaction of proteins etc. at the atomic level, and fluid dynamics. Those are areas where improved computers help understand complex, often chaotic, interactions by modelling them bottom-up.

When it comes to elementary physics, the two major breakthroughs of the decade, with only three months to go, were the observation of the Higgs boson in 2012 and gravitational ways in 2016. The Higgs boson was first theorized in 1964, gravitational waves are a consequence of general relativity formulated all the way back in 1916 (though their possibility was alluded to even earlier by Poincaré in 1905). So we're effectively catching up with ideas formulated 50-100 years ago.

prior to 1940, Einstein said that it was IMPOSSIBLE to harness the power of nuclear energy...

Do you have an actual quote for that? As far as I can tell, this appears to be an urban legend, and I'm not finding anything either. Maybe you meant to say he thought it was *not feasible*. Do you understand the difference between not feasible and IMPOSSIBLE?

However, all the way back in 1920 when Arthur Eddington first speculated that the stars might be powered by nuclear fusion, he said

If, indeed, the sub-atomic energy in the stars is being freely used to maintain their great furnaces it seems to bring a little nearer fulfillment our dream of controlling this latent power for the well-being of the human race - or it's suicide.

https://books.google.at/books?id=-7...ng this latent power arthur eddington&f=false (among other places)

So basically, we've known for over a century that it is possible in principle, if their was any debate, it was about whether it is feasible to control the process. The same knowledge that allows us to harness nuclear fission (and understand fusion) is what tells us that in order to harness one Jupiter mass equivalent of energy, we need at least one Jupiter mass of fuel (assuming the mutual annihilation of equal quantities of matter and antimatter as the source and a 100% efficient engine). And that's the smaller problem: The bigger one is conservation of energy, implying if it takes that much energy to create the space-time bubble, that's exactly how much energy will be released back into "normal space" when it collapses.

 

[steve_bank]

We have trouble with the simple ISSS. There have been a series of problems. Right now a 5000 crew starship is fantasy. It all comes down to energy and the laws of thermodynamics that includes recycling air and water.

And the problem of zero g. The ISS has shown even with exercise programs there is long term degradation of the body.

And the cost. It would be a huge expenditure. It is one of the reasons I reject the idea we are visited by ET. A spacefaring fleet like ST would be very expensive. A lot of resources.

For long term space travel you need artificial gravity. Spinning a 5k person habitat is problematic as speed increases. Reaction forces.

A crewman says to a Klingon captain 'Should I target their engines sir?'. 'The captain replies 'No! Target their thermal radiators!'.

 

[barbos]

We have trouble with the simple ISSS. There have been a series of problems. Right now a 5000 crew starship is fantasy.

Nobody says it is not a fantasy. But it is not a fantasy because of heat management.

It all comes down to energy and the laws of thermodynamics that includes recycling air and water.

And the problem of zero g. The ISS has shown even with exercise programs there is long term degradation of the body.

It is not the same level problem as warp-drive.

And the cost. It would be a huge expenditure. It is one of the reasons I reject the idea we are visited by ET. A spacefaring fleet like ST would be very expensive. A lot of resources.

For long term space travel you need artificial gravity. Spinning a 5k person habitat is problematic as speed increases. Reaction forces.

Not reaction forces, stresses.

A crewman says to a Klingon captain 'Should I target their engines sir?'. 'The captain replies 'No! Target their thermal radiators!'.

There is a bigger problem of finding Klingons. As for targeting radiators it would be stupid considering that they will take take close to 100% of the surface of the ship.

 

[steve_bank]

Forces, like trying to turn a trying bicycle wheel and keeping it straight up.

There are categories of forces on structures.

Compression means just like that. Opposing forces applied across a rod. Tension is opposing forces pulling a rod apart. Shear is a lateral force.

Or stress and strain. Stress is the applied force and strain is the result. Stress and strain are related to deformation, like a plate deflecting in the middle due to a center load. A strain gauge on a beam measures deformation from applied stress. It is all semantics. There is an applied force to a structure and a response to the force. For a bridge it is called statics. For a rotating object it is called dynamics.

In continuum mechanics, stress is a physical quantity that expresses the internal forces that neighbouring particles of a continuous material exert on each other, while strain is the measure of the deformation of the material which is not a physical quantity

There is force in Newtons and pressure or Pascals in Newtons/m^2.

Turning a large spinning structure at high forward velocity is like turning a bicycle wheel. Babylon 5.

Another limiting factor is human dynamics or human factors. No one knows how humans will react on a long Mars flight and a duration on Mars. The ISS has procedures and drugs to deal with a crew member meltdown. I'd have to check I believe there was an incident.

NASA is reported to be using the isolated winter crew at Macmurdo base in the Antarctic as a study.

 

[steve_bank]

Too many links to post. Search on 'international space station crew mental breakdown mental health'

Apparently there have been issues not largely reported.

https://www.theguardian.com/science...ation-astronauts-mental-health-space-missions

 

[Gun Nut]

You realise that you're kind of making my point here?

The areas of physics where there's rapid progress today are areas like biophysics - modelling the interaction of proteins etc. at the atomic level, and fluid dynamics. Those are areas where improved computers help understand complex, often chaotic, interactions by modelling them bottom-up.

When it comes to elementary physics, the two major breakthroughs of the decade, with only three months to go, were the observation of the Higgs boson in 2012 and gravitational ways in 2016. The Higgs boson was first theorized in 1964, gravitational waves are a consequence of general relativity formulated all the way back in 1916 (though their possibility was alluded to even earlier by Poincaré in 1905). So we're effectively catching up with ideas formulated 50-100 years ago.



Do you have an actual quote for that? As far as I can tell, this appears to be an urban legend, and I'm not finding anything either. Maybe you meant to say he thought it was *not feasible*. Do you understand the difference between not feasible and IMPOSSIBLE?

However, all the way back in 1920 when Arthur Eddington first speculated that the stars might be powered by nuclear fusion, he said

If, indeed, the sub-atomic energy in the stars is being freely used to maintain their great furnaces it seems to bring a little nearer fulfillment our dream of controlling this latent power for the well-being of the human race - or it's suicide.

https://books.google.at/books?id=-7...ng this latent power arthur eddington&f=false (among other places)

So basically, we've known for over a century that it is possible in principle, if their was any debate, it was about whether it is feasible to control the process. The same knowledge that allows us to harness nuclear fission (and understand fusion) is what tells us that in order to harness one Jupiter mass equivalent of energy, we need at least one Jupiter mass of fuel (assuming the mutual annihilation of equal quantities of matter and antimatter as the source and a 100% efficient engine). And that's the smaller problem: The bigger one is conservation of energy, implying if it takes that much energy to create the space-time bubble, that's exactly how much energy will be released back into "normal space" when it collapses.

Einstein, lacking the foresight that telescopes with immensely more power than imagined in his day would in the future exist.. AND ALSO that such telescopes would be launched into space to bypass the limits of fine resolution through our atmosphere, said that it was impossible to directly observe certain phenomena (such as a star transitioning across another star from our perspective to observe gravitational lensing):
LENS-LIKE ACTION OF A STAR BY THE DEVIATION OF LIGHT IN THE GRAVITATIONAL FIELD
Science 04 Dec 1936:
Vol. 84, Issue 2188, pp. 506-507
DOI: 10.1126/science.84.2188.506
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/84/2188/506

You see it WAS impossible to get that level of resolution though our atmosphere. It still is impossible. No one "broke the laws of optics" to solve the "elementary" problem.. They bypassed the problem by leaving the atmosphere.

 

[Jokodo]

You realise that you're kind of making my point here?

The areas of physics where there's rapid progress today are areas like biophysics - modelling the interaction of proteins etc. at the atomic level, and fluid dynamics. Those are areas where improved computers help understand complex, often chaotic, interactions by modelling them bottom-up.

When it comes to elementary physics, the two major breakthroughs of the decade, with only three months to go, were the observation of the Higgs boson in 2012 and gravitational ways in 2016. The Higgs boson was first theorized in 1964, gravitational waves are a consequence of general relativity formulated all the way back in 1916 (though their possibility was alluded to even earlier by Poincaré in 1905). So we're effectively catching up with ideas formulated 50-100 years ago.



Do you have an actual quote for that? As far as I can tell, this appears to be an urban legend, and I'm not finding anything either. Maybe you meant to say he thought it was *not feasible*. Do you understand the difference between not feasible and IMPOSSIBLE?

However, all the way back in 1920 when Arthur Eddington first speculated that the stars might be powered by nuclear fusion, he said

If, indeed, the sub-atomic energy in the stars is being freely used to maintain their great furnaces it seems to bring a little nearer fulfillment our dream of controlling this latent power for the well-being of the human race - or it's suicide.

https://books.google.at/books?id=-7...ng this latent power arthur eddington&f=false (among other places)

So basically, we've known for over a century that it is possible in principle, if their was any debate, it was about whether it is feasible to control the process. The same knowledge that allows us to harness nuclear fission (and understand fusion) is what tells us that in order to harness one Jupiter mass equivalent of energy, we need at least one Jupiter mass of fuel (assuming the mutual annihilation of equal quantities of matter and antimatter as the source and a 100% efficient engine). And that's the smaller problem: The bigger one is conservation of energy, implying if it takes that much energy to create the space-time bubble, that's exactly how much energy will be released back into "normal space" when it collapses.

Einstein, lacking the foresight that telescopes with immensely more power than imagined in his day would in the future exist.. AND ALSO that such telescopes would be launched into space to bypass the limits of fine resolution through our atmosphere, said that it was impossible to directly observe certain phenomena (such as a star transitioning across another star from our perspective to observe gravitational lensing):
LENS-LIKE ACTION OF A STAR BY THE DEVIATION OF LIGHT IN THE GRAVITATIONAL FIELD
Science 04 Dec 1936:
Vol. 84, Issue 2188, pp. 506-507
DOI: 10.1126/science.84.2188.506
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/84/2188/506

You see it WAS impossible to get that level of resolution though our atmosphere. It still is impossible. No one "broke the laws of optics" to solve the "elementary" problem.. They bypassed the problem by leaving the atmosphere.

That's not at all what your link says, but whatever.