Why are the Concepts for secret planes usually more advanced then the real plane

Intresting thought YF! I never though about time travel. That is a capiblitiy I could certinally find a few good uses for. For one thing, time travel would give you a revolutionary Reconnassance capibility if it works. You could watch a battle, and learn critical strategic lessons and then go back and used then to plan the battle before you ever fight it.

Tim

Only if you live in a comic book or bad movie world .

Anyway, FTL "flight" (as in "moving through normal space from A to B") is impossible, so lets stop this totally off-topic dicussion here. I'm sure, somewhere in the "wilder" forums about UFOs, aliens, etc., the subject has already been discussed - most likely without such inconvenient constraints like considering the actual physics behind it .

Regards
yf


[edit on 19.4.2007 by yfxxx]

Getting back on topic. . .

How many different versions of the "F-19 Stealth Fighter" concept exist any way? I have two different F-19 concept models in my personal collection.

Does anyone know of more?

Tim

Never ever say something is impossible - you invariably get embarrassed later on.

Science is always changing, and our understanding of the world is changing - 'impossible' things are becoming possible every year with those advancements in understanding.

The laws of physics dont work all that well at the quantum level, so theres no reason to think that we know everything there is to know at *any* level today - discoveries made tomorrow will alter our entire scientific normal.

I fully expect the faster than light 'problem' to be solved, but 'when' is another matter.

YF,

The laws of physics are evolving everyday as scientists lean more about the world around us. The Quantum level is a good "Case in Point". Science has learned that on a quantum level matter behaves very differently than what we are ues to. A while back there was a NOVA TV special on this very topic.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that physics hasn't changed since high school.

Tim

Why are NASA and the companies who do work on the ISS and Space Shuttle so behind the times? Maybe they should just hire movie artists to design their spaceships, since there was a movie in 1977 with the "Death Star" and lots of vehicles that could travel out into space from a planet.

A few points just from skimming the thread:


1. Concepts always look flashy, whenever real design work begins then reality takes over and the most efficient design ideas come out. Which are usually evolutions of the designs we've been using for the past 100 odd years.

Having too much technical risk in a project puts people off.


2. While engineers/designers will and do "borrow" ideas from others - they will almost never take an idea from a movie! Movies don't have to adhere to physics, so there is no logical development train that has resulted in any particular solution there.


3. Einstein's law of relativity quite clearly indicates travelling faster than the local speed of light is impossible - so according to our current understanding of physics, its a no-go.


4. Time warping would offer a way around that, while incidentally removing all g-forces within the warped space-time bubble.

*Sigh* As a physicist, I always "like" it when I'm lectured by non-physicists on how science in general and physics in particular "always change" . And to add to the insult, a TV special is quoted as a reference.

I'm sorry, and don't want to ridicule anyone, but just because you heard the word "quantum" somewhere doesn't mean you know anything of the "meat" behind the physical theory. Evidence for the latter is the e.g. the phrase "the laws of physics dont work all that well at the quantum level" - well, the laws of quantum physics work exceptionally well at quantum level.

But I'm getting used to it: If a scientist says something, it's put in doubt, quite frequently by people who don't really know what it's all about. But if some jerk says something like "Aliens live underground/on the moon/in my backyard/wherever ..." without anything to back it up, people go "Wow, tell us more!". In this light, the motto of ATS is probably meant to be ironic .

Regards
yf

You have no idea as to my background or specialties - therefor calling me a 'non-physicist' is laughable.



Yes, another set of laws for another domain - and one that is actually relatively new in the world of physics. Up until fairly recently, people were still trying to shoehorn the quantum level into the laws of the macro world, and it doesnt work.

So if the quantum level is different, what makes the macro world stable?

Can you honestly say, hand on your heart, that we know all there is to know, our current laws are unchangeable in the face of future discoveries? If you can say yes to both of those, you can stop calling yourself a scientist and start calling yourself a religious person.

Science is all about challenging current understanding, its not about protecting current understanding. There are many things out there that we dont have an understanding of at the moment, any one of those things could blow our current understanding out of the water and present us with new pieces of the puzzle.



This I agree with - I see far far too many outrageous theories on here that could never stand up to high school science, and yet people nurture them and protect their own idea to the extent of absurdity.

yf,

I had no idea you were a physicist! I would never have brought it up if I had known. I was trying to share what I know in good faith. Please accept my appologies. Given your background, I Will yeald to your Greater Wisdom!

Tim

Thanks, no problem. In fact, it was my fault that I hadn't mentioned it again (I said it once or twice in other threads, but how should you have known that - sorry!).


Certainly not "greater wisdom" ! Only slightly more knowledge than average in a few specialized corners of science .

Regards
yf

Erm.... surely thats only time-travel from a certain point of view.


If I travel from A to B, then back to A, I'm not gonna arrive before I leave.

I admit that it was a leap of faith , because you said "The laws of physics dont work all that well at the quantum level" - this is simply not true for many important laws, and I can't imagine any physicist would claim it.


"Only" about 100 years .


I have no idea what you are talking about


Huh?! In fact, the quantum theory of the atom explains why atoms (and therefore any ordinary matter) is stable in the first place! If the so-called "classical" (i.e. non-quantum) theory of electromagnetism were valid in particle physics, all atoms would immediately collapse.


I answer a clear "No" to both of your questions.


I think I know quite well what science is "all about", and I would in fact agree to your statement above.


Yes, but nevertheless there are a few facts which we can be sure must hold true, because know what the universe would look like if it weren't true. And by simply watching the universe, and seeing that it is not like that, we can be sure that our original premise must be true.

Ok, I don't think I have explained this very well - sorry! Anyway, there are admittedly only few things we can be really sure of, and among these are e.g. the First Law of Thermodynamics (conservation of total energy), and the inability for objects with positive rest mass to travel through "normal space" {*} at the speed of light or above (because this would lead to total breakdown of local causality, and to say "all hell breaks lose" then would be a gross understatement ).

{*}This does not forbid "tricks" like wormholes, "warp drives" etc.. Although these also have very serious problems, they can - at present - not be definitely excluded.



So in the big picture, we're actually on the "same side" .

Regards
yf

Not necessarily, that's true. But you can do it, if you select a clever trajectory .

Regards
yf

{edited for typo - yf}

[edit on 23.4.2007 by yfxxx]

In Relative time, NO! It's physically impossible to arrive in one place before you've left another. That would require being in Two places at once.

If you talking "clock time" you don't even need to go fasted then light. Fly supersonic from the east coast of the US to the west coast. You'll land 3 hours before you left because of Time Zones.

Tim

That was exactly my point when I said that FTL = time travel ! If you travel FTL from A to B, then there is a frame of reference, in which you made your journey backwards in time! That's simple Special Relativity!

It's as simple as that: If you accept the possibility of FTL spaceships, you must also accept the possibility of time travel. And because the latter is rather frightening from scientific and philisophical standpoints, it's no surprise that many physicists think that the few theoretical options on FTL/time travel left open by General Relativity (e.g. "wormholes") are either somehow "forbidden" by quantum effects or otherwise impossible in our universe (e.g. you need a special type of so-called "exotic matter" to make a wormhole, and this "exotic matter" might simply not exist).

Regards
yf

A simple answer to the ORIGINAL QUESTION from an artist:
Imagination does not run parallel with practicallity
Therefore the artist is "artistic" in his or her representation as mainly a visual concept I guess, based on the facts for the requirements and specifications given.
If the artist was also the builder, then the similarities would be more alike.

But is that "travel through time" not just with respect to lightspeed.

For instance, you watch a football (soccer/gaelic whatever) match [live and in person], and someone kicks the ball - you see the ball move, then a split second later you hear the kick.


Is the ball time travelling? Hell no, its just light is faster than sound. Surely here it is just a case of the ship being faster than light.


Alpha Centauri is around 4.4 light years away. So if I left AC for earth now, travelling at 10 times the speed of light, it would still take me 160 odd days to get here [ignoring curved travel paths and all the complications]. So I'd arrive around Sept/Oct time.

Folks, the topic of this thread is "Supposed To Be" Concepts that are more advanced then real aircraft. I'm unaware of any Faster Than Light (FTL) concepts in circulation.

Call the Mod, we have a Hijacking on thread #278030!

Now, does anyone have any Concept Aircraft to discuss?

Tim

Hey, it was you who ran with FTL after someone made a joke about it . So don't complain if someone actually starts to explain what you are talking about .

Anyway, I replied to kilcoo via U2U, so the subject should be settled.

Regards
yf