Faster than Light?

[Yiannis_B]

Alcubierre’s "Warp Drive"

Here’s the premise behind the Alcubierre "warp drive": Although Special Relativity forbids objects to move faster than light within spacetime, it is unknown how fast spacetime itself can move. To use an analogy, imagine you are on one of those moving sidewalks that can be found in some airports. The Alcubierre warp drive is like one of those moving sidewalks. Although there may be a limit to how fast one can walk across the floor (analogous to the light speed limit), what about if you are on a moving section of floor that moves faster than you can walk (analogous to a moving section of spacetime)? In the case of the Alcubierre warp drive, this moving section of spacetime is created by expanding spacetime behind the ship (analogous to where the sidewalk emerges from underneath the floor), and by contracting spacetime in front of the ship (analogous to where the sidewalk goes back into the floor). The idea of expanding spacetime is not new. Using the "Inflationary Universe" perspective, for example, it is thought that spacetime expanded faster than the speed of light during the early moments of the Big Bang. So if spacetime can expand faster than the speed of light during the Big Bang, why not for our warp drive? These theories are too new to have either been discounted or proven viable.

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/technology/warp/ideachev.html

http://www.iflscience.com/space/nasa-reveals-latest-warp-drive-ship-designs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warp_drive

 

[Yiannis_B]

Real-world theories and science[edit]

A theoretical solution for faster-than-light travel which models the warp drive concept, called the Alcubierre drive, was formulated by physicist Miguel Alcubierre in 1994. Subsequent calculations found that such a model would require negative mass, the existence of which has never been supported by any evidence, and prohibitive amounts of energy.

However, it has recently been found that by changing the shape of the warp drive, much less negative mass and energy could be used, though the energy required is still many orders of magnitude greater than anything currently possible by human beings' technology. NASA engineers have begun preliminary research on such technology.[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warp_drive

 

[Yiannis_B]

Άντε κουνηθείτε!

We need visionaries to forge science into technical realities.

Are you the next Faraday, Einstein, Goddard, Von Braun...?

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/technology/warp/socanwe.html

 

[Zizik]

Ο Alcubierre είναι 50, έχουμε ακόμη.

 

[Yiannis_B]

Ο Alcubierre είναι 50, έχουμε ακόμη.

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