Is Warp Speed Possible?

[n2doc]

Analysis by Robert Lamb
Fri Oct 22, 2010 03:52 PM ET

Humans shed a lot of blood, sweat and tears in search of the almighty loophole. From sweet tax dodges to life-extending gene hacks, there's nothing like finding an exploitable weakness in an intensely complicated system.

But is it possible to find a loophole in the universal speed limit? Can we skirt Einstein's theory of special relativity and travel faster than a beam of light?

"As an object approaches the speed of light, all sorts of interesting things happen," says theoretical physicist Richard Obousy. "For example, time dilation occurs and an object’s mass increases. As you reach the speed of light, relativity calculations indicate that an object's mass becomes infinite."


Plug in the numbers, Obousy says, and you face some staggering fuel costs. To accelerate an object to the speed of light, you'd need nothing short of an infinite amount of energy. There has to be a better way, right?

more

http://news.discovery.com/space/is-warp-speed-possible.html

[phantom power]

1. Is interstellar hydrogen a safety problem for a ship that isn't actually moving *thru* space?

:shrug:

[Occulus]

4. Interstellar hydrogen can't work as a fuel source for this.

Star Trek ships have what's called a "Bussard Ramscoop", but I think Dr. Bussard himself- after whom the concept is named; I believe he's the father of the concept- also said later it couldn't work as a means of propulsion, because any collector would become 'clogged' with hydrogen.

He's also the man behind the concept of the Polywell fusion reactor, which when I last checked does in fact have a decent chance of working as advertised.

[pokerfan]

9. we need to build a fusion reactor first

Well, at least one that produces net energy. http://crowlspace.com/?p=450">This paper (from 1975) deals with a few of the challenges including the bremsstrahlung losses. The biggest problem seems to be that space has a much lower density of interstellar hydrogen than was believed at that time. Countering that is the possibility of using a different fuel cycle that produces more energy. (wiki)

Yeah, Star Trek beginning with TNG introduced the Bussard collector but I'm pretty sure I first heard of the concept reading Poul Anderson's Tau Zero almost forty years ago which concerns itself with the crew of an out of control starship that just keeps accelerating closer and closer to the speed of light. They can't just turn off the engine because the radiation due to their velocity would kill them.

Still, a fun concept for writers to play with without resorting to FTL, wormholes and warp drives. It's all well established physics. If one could simply accelerate at a constant 1 g, you could travel across the galaxy in twenty years or so ship time. Indeed, you go anywhere you wanted within a lifetime. And you don't care how much time has passed back on Earth because from the Earth's POV, it took you 100,000 years to traverse the galaxy.

[krispos42]

11. At high percentages of c, you appear to be traveling faster than light

Crossing light-years in relative days or weeks, for example. :-)

[pokerfan]

12. This is true

To an on-board observer, you are moving FTL. But to a stationary observer, you're 'just' traveling at slightly less than c.

[krispos42]

13. Today's XKCD comic discusses this issue in the mouse-over

The mouse-over text is "Don't worry! From the light's point of view, home and your eye are in the same place, and the journey takes no time at all! Relativity saves the day again."

:-)

[Cirque du So-What]

2. Well, it'd require a wormhole

and even then, the speed of light must not be exceeded locally, although to an outside observer the trip through the wormhole would appear to have occurred at greater than light speed.

[Occulus]

5. So we need to build a Stargate.

Fair enough. Just get me some naquadah and a design for a huge supconducting magnet, and.....

[txlibdem]

6. Chinese researchers have teleported information 10 miles

Quantum entanglement is a possible enabler of Stargates.

Here's a post where I describe that, even has a link to the research:
http://upload.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=228&topic_id=69770&mesg_id=69902

Another possibility of faster than light travel comes from M-Theory, 11 dimensional space.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=228x69770#69848

[Jim__]

8. I don't follow your argument.

If I describe how I see the issue, can you tell me what I'm missing?


First, quantum entanglement, to my understanding, involves particles that begin in an "entangled" state. All the examples I've seen of this involve particles that are created together - they begin very close together. Now, the fact that they are entangled means that knowing something about 1 of the particles, tells us something about the other particle, even if that particle has traveled a long distance away from the partner. Information determined at one point, is instantaneously "realized" at another point. Certain information can be "communicated" at faster than the speed of light. But, the actual separation distance of the particles is subject to the speed of light constraint. The simple example from wiki:

Before delving into the complicated logic that leads to the 'paradox', it is perhaps worth mentioning the simple version of the argument, as described by Greene and others, which Einstein used to show that 'hidden variables' must exist.

A positron and an electron are emitted from a source, by pion decay, so that their spins are opposite; one particle’s spin about any axis is the negative of the other's. Also, due to uncertainty, making a measurement of a particle’s spin about one axis disturbs the particle so you now can’t measure its spin about any other axis.

Now say you measure the electron’s spin about the x-axis. This automatically tells you the positron’s spin about the x-axis. Since you’ve done the measurement without disturbing the positron in any way, it can’t be that the positron "only came to have that state when you measured it", because you didn’t measure it! It must have had that spin all along. Also you can now measure the positron’s spin about the y-axis. So it follows that the positron has had a definite spin about two axes – much more information than the positron is capable of holding, and a "hidden variable" according to some interpretations of EPR.

Information about quantum states is "transmitted" at faster than the speed of light. What implications do you see for travel in that?

Second, when we talk about dimensions, the dimensions are orthogonal (specifically space dimensions - I'm not clear how orthogonality relates to the time dimension in spacetime). I'm not sure that orthogonality applies to the 11 dimensions of m-theory, but if it doesn't, I'm not sure what m-theory means by dimension. But, going back to the usual 3 space dimensions - (x, y, z) - let the z-dimension be very small. Say, the x and y dimensions are infinite, but the z dimension only runs from (-10 X 10**-10) to (+10 x 10**-10). So, we have a very small z-dimension. How does that allow us to travel at faster than the speed of light in the x or y dimensions?

[txlibdem]

10. Not sure how but they did it.

The Chinese researchers successfully sent information 10 miles. There's a link in one of the links I added earlier. In order for "information" to have been successfully sent (and verified for correctness) they would have had to manipulate one or more of the properties of the first atom (or photon). They first entangled the two photons and then took one of them 10 miles away to do the experiment. I see no reason why they couldn't have transported it even farther, 100 miles, 1000 miles, who knows, just as long as the two photons remain entangled. So I'd guess the moving of the entangleds would have to obey the speed of light. Patience would be required if you wanted to send one to another star.

As for the 11 dimensions I'd have to say your guess is as good as mine. I just thought what would happen if one of the 11 dimensions didn't undergo the expansion after the big bang. Or maybe whatever caused the expansion worked differently on that dimension. And then I guessed that there might be a connection between this 5th dimension and the "normal" space we are familiar with. Nobody has proven that there isn't so why not? Just how do we cause our atoms and molecules to leave "normal space" and move around on the 5th dimension for a time before returning to normal space, moving mere inches in the 5th dimension could be equivalent to moving a million light years in normal space, except that you didn't technically "move" anywhere in normal space so you are not exceeding the speed of light. You disappeared from one place and then some time later reappeared a million light years away. Boom. Not exactly warp drive but dimensional drive.

[laconicsax]

14. Can't be that complicated.

Orlin built one out of some stuff bought online and a toaster.

You may need a new credit card after building one...

[Occulus]

15. I've read about that episode several times but never actually saw it.

I want to know what the toaster did.

[laconicsax]

17. Well, watch it already.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/80869/stargate-sg-1-ascension#s-p25-so-i0

[EmilyKent]

3. Of course it is.

[deutsey]

7. Well, we have to discover dilithium crystals, first.

[txlibdem]

18. Some prescience in Star Trek, no?

In 1961, how many people were thinking that Lithium could be a useful carrier of energy (aka a battery)?

But don't discount the importance of a good Z.P.M. (or for our Canadian friends: Zed P. M.)...

[laconicsax]

19. FWIW: It isn't spelled differently just pronounced differently.

The letter "Z" isn't written differently whether its pronounced "zee" or "zed."

[txlibdem]

20. I'm talking about a sci-fi energy storage technology that may take us another 200 years to develop.

And you're going all grammar police on me???

:hippie: Don't rain on my parade, man.

[laconicsax]

21. I know what you're talking about, and why you referenced the Canadian pronunciation.

I was simply letting you know that it isn't spelled differently despite the difference in pronunciation.

[txlibdem]

22. I'm glad you knew

My "incorrect" spelling was for the benefit of the other 100 million people...

:hi:

[hunter]

16. I doubt any of our universe exists outside of c.

We're all riding a wave at the speed of light.

The speed of light isn't the maximum speed, it's the minimum speed too. Zoom, zoom, as you read this you are traveling at the speed of light.

What we "see" -- what we experience as motion and time -- is the changing relationships of our perceptual entities on the wave that is our universe.