Isn't there a big problem in space exploration if the best when can do in terms of speed is nowhere even close to the speed of light? How will we ever get humans beyond the solar system? Unless we get some of that Star Trek warp drive stuff, were're stuck. But is something that can propel an object faster than the speed of light even remotely possible? I know surely not in my lifetime. And with all finacial cutbacks NASA is getting these days, it's not looking good. I try to be optimistic about some kind of faster than light propolsion but it's hard. From what I've heard, it's pretty impossible.
Hi Stef, From a theoretical point of view, it is indeed impossible to do FTL travel. One of the tricks that might work is the bending of spacetime as you mentioned ("warp drive"). There has been some theoretical development on that, most notably by the Mexican physicist Alcubiere and Belgian physicist Van de Broeck (the former proved that it could be possible, but in his calculations he required too much energy to bend spacetime, the later proved that it is also possible with less energy - read: with energylevels perhaps once available to man Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!). Bye! Crisp
Another possibility for FTL travel is to use a wormhole to connect to reigons of spacetime. The biggest problem with this is that wormholes are a bit unstable and would require another force to keep them open possibly antigravity. I think that another way is with charged sigularities but dont trut me im no expert. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
The biggest problem with this is that wormholes are a bit unstable and would require another force to keep them open possibly antigravity So the problem that wormholes don't exist is not as important as they are allegedly unstable. Kewl.
Thewy do exist on a quantum level and have been mathmaticly proven on a real world level but not experimentally detected.
Yiffy tunnels Does anyone recall the quantum tunnelling interaction? It's where a particle spontaneously disappears and reappears somewhere else. They have found that these quantum tunneled particles actually <b>do</b> travel at FTL speeds (if indeed they actually travel). This could potentially be used as some sort of FTL travel system, but probability is very very very very very against you. (On the order of 1:10^1000000000 or so Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! )
Correction (oh all right a yiffy correction) I should be more accurate. The quantum tunneled particles have not been proven to go FTL. All we know for certain is that the photon that <b>was</b> tunneled did reach the end of a tunnel <b>before</b> a non-tunneled photon. This does not necessarily mean the photon travelled FTL, it just means it set the detector off first. There is the possibility of some other force at work.
the lack of FTL travel won't limit man's ability to expand into outer space. We could very well populate our entire solar system with much slower than light travel. Keep in mind the vast differance in distance between say the planet Mars and even the closest star. Some theorists have suggested that "wormholes" can indeed be created. All that you need is a ring of neutron stars about the distance of earth's orbit around the sun. You spin the neutron stars until they are nearing light speed. A wormhole will then form, a "fold" in spacetime, though you will need a similar construction at your destination to take advantage of it. Now, while we will probably never possess the technology to manufacture neutron stars on such a large scale(not to mention gathering enough matter to build them) and to cause them to spin so quickly FTL travel may become possible if gravity-manipulating technology were fesible. But at this juncture, at this stage in the human races development, we need cheap, and relatively swift, travel around our solar system. Chemical propellant has its weaknesses. Which is another matter, even if a theoretical method of FTL travel were proven possible, how could we harness enough energy to take advantage of it?
starman, Actually wormholes aren't as far off as you think. Here's an article about making artifical black holes in labs. http://physicsweb.org/article/news/6/1/15
warp engine/space propulsion Maby this also intresting?Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! http://www.stardrivedevice.com/ch11ex.html Thx fukushi
... READ: "THE PHYSICS OF STAR TREK" ........ It gives a theoretical view on how we would attempt space travel faster than the speed of light. I have found that it answers a lot of the questions that come up in this forum. I agree... I doubt that that kind of space travel will be available soon. The "Warp Drive" doesn't "propel" the "Enterprise" it warps space and time around the ship to move the position of ship rather thatn the ship it's self.
Re: ... I hope that was just bad grammar. Moving is defined by changing position, so moving the position IS moving the ship. What do you mean?
...my mistake... Most people think of a "Warp Drive" as a super-powerful engine....I meant that is doesn't "propel" the craft itself... it causes matter in front of the ship to contract , and matter behind the craft to expand. Therefore it only moves matter not the ship. I only meant to say that is is unlike any other form of propulsion, not some all-powerful space engine. But...yes it does "propel" or move the position of the ship.
Hmmm,.... I do not agree!! It's theoretically perfectely possible to device a warp engine: wheter or not created by humans (atificial) or by nature,... but to create warp you'll have to create a bubble around the space-ship, It is shown how, within the framework of general relativity and without the introduction of wormholes, it is possible to modify a spacetime in a way that allows a spaceship to travel with an arbitrarily large speed. By a purely local expansion of spacetime behind the spaceship and an opposite contraction in front of it, motion faster than the speed of light as seen by observers outside the disturbed region is possible. The resulting distortion is reminiscent of the ``warp drive'' of science fiction. However, just as it happens with wormholes, exotic matter will be needed in order to generate a distortion of spacetime like the one discussed here. the energy to create this 'bubble' (discovered by: Chris Van Den Broeck) around the spaceship is only a fraction of what is needed to warp time/space (you'll just need one ounce of it!) Mitchel Pfenning nad Larry Ford: they actually affirmated the theoretically possibillity of the general idear: but they also stated that the energy needed to warp space time is 10 billion times more energy then existing in the entire universe Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! So: a bubble? The bubble you can compare with the Tardis: the telephone boot: in dr.Who,...on the outside: it looks like a regular telephone-boot: but on the inside it's bigger then a city! how do we understand this? well: if you see a one-dimensional space: and you let a balloon-shaped object pass trough it: you will see just a circle growing from a point, to the diameter from the circle: and then back to a point,...but actually: it's a whole univers: a tree-dimensional space: it's just like in the string theory! the point is not just merely a point but it's also a whole dimension! you'll have to see a the two-dimensional perimeter as surfaces and surfaces as dimensions,....and so on,... I see it happening as a result of civilian devellopment: and NOT by a 'govermentally' governed institution like :NASA cause: they do not provide the people with the sufficiant possibilities: that is: a secret,...it's stupid,... Space time travel IS possible,...there just has to be enough freedom to create it,...to test it,...and to make avantage of it,... instead of surpressing the economy by instruating the people to be concurating instead of working together on this,...*sigh* And you might as well think of the benifits too,... some links: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/PAO/html/warp/ideachev.htm http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_364000/364496.stm http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9905084 Thx :bugeye:
SPACE IS THE FINAL FRONTIER... I couldn't have put it better myself. I didn't mean it was impossible by saying it would not be avalible soon. I simply meant what I said... you won't see any Warp Drives in next 50 years.
Haven't any of you heard about the Philadelphia Experiment. With the help of Nikola Tesla, the US military created a resonating current in a military ship that transported the ship into another dimension. Once in this other dimension, the object can come back into our universe at any location(maybe even at any time). Tom
I thought they were trying to make it invisible, but the ended up transporting it 10 yrs. into the future.
Prosoothus Haven't any of you heard about the Philadelphia Experiment. Excerpt from a crank site regarding secret projects; (Philadelphia Experiment) http://www.freezone.org/mc/e_conv04.htm "The ship was pulled into hyperspace. We were inside the ship and knew something was drastically wrong with the test. We tried to shut it off but it wouldn't shut off. We ran out on deck and jumped over the side of the ship. We jumped overboard but ended up in a time tunnel which ended at Montauk, Long Island on August 12th, 1983. At night. We were found very quickly and taken down stairs, where Von Neumann greeted us. He expected us. It was a bit of a shock. We had just been in 1943 and now we were in 1983 looking at Von Neumann as an old man. He said that there was a hyperspace lockup and that we had to go back and shut off the generators on the ship or the hyperspace rift would keep increasing and possibly engulf the planet. He had been waiting 40 years for us to arrive.Montauk sent us back and we smashed the equipment with axes. The ship returned to its original point in space and about three hours later in time. From 1943 on, Von Neumann didn't know what happened. He had modified earlier equipment in 1943 to where he had a full blown time machine. The Germans also were working on time travel, and had it working in 1945 just before the end of the war. This is all a matter of record. "If anything is done to either of us, there could be a rip in hyperspace. The whole reality system will shift. I will give you one guess as to what it will most likely shift to: We won the second world war by a slim margin. German technology was way ahead of us. If the war had gone on another 30 days the Germans would have won it. They had super weapons in production which they were ready to use. They were so close to winning the war that Churchill and FDR were really worried about it. If the system shifts, it could shift to a parallel reality where the Germans won the war.That's why the government doesn't dare kill either of you? Right. Because of what we were involved in, it might jeopardize our entire reality system." I wonder who's reality they're referring? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
(Q), That's on of the many stories about the Philadelphia Experiment. I was referring to the more believable version that claims that the ship disappeared, and the reappeared a few minutes later, in another port a few hundred miles away. The story I'm referring to doesn't involve time travel. Tom
The vrill and the Hanebau these where indeed german projects already tested and being used,...together with those fireballs,... Here some links: http://www.gpgwebdesign.com.au/germans.htm http://www.relinfo.ch/thule/info.html http://www.fsreview.net/spi/nazinth.htm http://www.crystalinks.com/thule.html http://www.violations.dabsol.co.uk/ind2.htm http://ovnis.esoterica.pt/ingles/antarctingl/VRIL6ingl.htm Have fun reading,...