FTL

[Frederich Barbarossa]

I have a question.


SHouldn't FTL space travel be possible some how. I've noticed some guys talking about a warp bubble and a warp drive, but I've developed a theory that maybe it is possible even by evading Einsteins theory of relativity.


It is basically common sense. The big band hosted an expansion that was a lot faster than FLT, so why can't we use that. Also the theory of relativity is a theory. Key word. I dunno what do you think?

[Elfdude]

The big bang went faster than light because light had not yet crystalized into a law of the universe. At extreme temperatures the very fabric of reality breaks apart. This is what it was like in th big bang. Imagine a furnace, multiply that by a trillion and then by another trillion. That was the temperature of the big bang.

Yes we could use extreme temperatures to create instability in space and time but we'd undoubtedly create a spacetime foam which could simultaneously vaporize us and create a new big bang universe outside of ours once the tear repaired itself assuming it does.

Warp bubbles are the best we can do with 4th dimensional control. If we master subsequent 5th dimensional hole we can create wormholes any time we want between any two points in time or space. If we master the 6th dimension we could create a wormholes between any two points in time or any possible timeline or space.

[Trax]

The big band hosted an expansion that was a lot faster than FLT, so why can't we use that.

The fact that space itself can expand faster than light doesn't mean that you can travel faster than light within that space.

Also the theory of relativity is a theory. Key word. I dunno what do you think?

I don't think you know what a theory means. Hint, it's not the same as hypothesis.


Nevertheless, even if FTL travel is not mathematically impossible, it most likely is unfeasible from technological and economical standpoint for a very long time to come.

[Elfdude]

The fact that space itself can expand faster than light doesn't mean that you can travel faster than light within that space.

Better explanation. At extreme temperatures the fabric of time and space becomes warped and distorted meaning it can do crazy .

[Frederich Barbarossa]

Oh ok sorry I did not know but what about warp bubbles?

[Elfdude]

Warp bubbles work based on negative energy and mass. Unlike normal (anti)matter/energy which generates gravitational attraction that curbs space and time expanding it negative energy/matter contracts space. Using a selective distribution of negative energy and positive energy to bend space and time you can create a treadmill of sorts that can accerate you to past the speed of light by moving the space around you rather than you yourself.

Of course if you impact something like a ship, or a planet or the bubble's physics become extremely unstable you could vaporize yourself completely. Also we don't understand how to harvest negative energy for our uses yet.

P.S the theory of relativity does have loopholes in its law and expanding/compressing space is one of those loopholes

[Sphere]

It should be noted here that in theories of warping space to travel FTL, one would still be traveling light speed, just that you would be travelling along a path through space that has been shrunk in comparison to the rest of space.

But in any event, this would take enormous amounts of energy (e.g. the mass of several suns) and so is not feasible in terms of current or foreseeable engineering cababilities, to say nothing of reaching near light-speed in the first place.

[MathiasOfAthens]

Someone once said anything is possible in science. Nearly everything is of course... so in terms of Artificial Gravity and FTL yes I believe we will have that one day. Today we cant imagine how but if you look back a couple centuries our ancestors could not imagine cars or planes.


Actually this is quite interesting.

http://www.ufodigest.com/spaceship.html

Humans can build spaceships capable of reaching the Moon within minutes; a flight to Mars will take 2.5 hours, and a flight to Alpha Centauri, which is scores of light years away from Earth, will take a mere 80 days.

Incredible journeys can be a reality, say two German Doctors of Physics who put forth an audacious theory. Walter Dresher from the University of Innsbruck joined forces with Joachim Hoiser, a leading scientist with the German company HPCC-Space Gmbh.

“The German physicists build their work on a theory formulated by the German scientist Burkhard Heim. The theory was put together in the 1950s,” says Vadim Pimenov, deputy director of the Institute of Theoretical and Applied Physics under the Russian Academy of Sciences, professor at the Lomonosov Moscow State University. “Heim, a brilliant physicist and philosopher, was the first scientist who began thinking over the principles of space flights using a “hyper-engine.”

The key to their theory

The concept seems improbable at first sight. In actuality, it is a byproduct of the efforts aiming to combine the quantum mechanics and the general theory of relativity – two theories that so far have successfully foiled all the attempts to make them “friendly,” mostly due to differences in the interpretation of space and time. Heim made use of the Einstein concept regarding gravitation as a manifestation of distortions in the “fabric” of space and time. However, he suggested that all kinds of fundamental interaction be considered a manifestation of the complete set of spatial dimensions.

And something a little less sci fi.

http://www.internationalreporter.com...ntimatter.html

Most self-respecting starships in science fiction stories use antimatter as fuel for a good reason - it's the most potent fuel known. While tons of chemical fuel are needed to propel a human mission to Mars, just tens of milligrams of antimatter will do (a milligram is about one-thousandth the weight of a piece of the original M&M candy).

However, in reality this power comes with a price. Some antimatter reactions produce blasts of high energy gamma rays. Gamma rays are like X-rays on steroids. They penetrate matter and break apart molecules in cells, so they are not healthy to be around. High-energy gamma rays can also make the engines radioactive by fragmenting atoms of the engine material.

The NASA Institute for Advan ed Concepts(NIAC) is funding a team of researchers working on a new design for an antimatter-powered spaceship that avoids this nasty side effect by producing gamma rays with much lower energy.