Scientists Confirm Faster than light travel is actually possible

One of the main points used by debunkers of Aliens having ever reached Earth is that they are just too far away, that it would take millions of light years to reach us and that nothing can ever travel faster than the speed of light.

However a blockbuster new paper, to be published in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society early 2008, changes all of that by stating that infact the laws of physics do allow such a device if certain methods to use these laws are employed to propell it.


arxiv.org...
Full science paper; xxx.lanl.gov...

Certain classes of higher dimensional models suggest that the Casimir effect is a candidate for the cosmological constant. In this paper we demonstrate that a sufficiently advanced civilization could, in principal, manipulate the radius of the extra dimension to locally adjust the value of the cosmological constant. This adjustment could be tuned to generate an expansion/contraction of spacetime around a spacecraft creating an exotic form of field-propulsion. Due to the fact that spacetime expansion itself is not restricted by relativity, a faster-than-light ‘warp drive’ could be created. Calculations of the energy requirements of such a drive are performed and an ‘ultimate’ speed limit, based on the Planckian limits on the size of the extra dimensions is found.

They go on using elementary physics to explain how this speed is possible. Basically they propose that by creating a contraction in space-time geometry infront of the vehicle, and an expansion behind the vehicle, should produce sufficient motion to far exceed the speed of light, without actually breaking any of the laws of physics.

The basic idea is to formulate a solution to Einstein’s equations whereby a warp bubble is driven by a local expansion of spacetime behind the bubble and a contraction ahead of the bubble. The aim of this paper is to suggest that a warp bubble could be generated using ideas and mathematics from quantum field theory, and to hypothesize how such a bubble could be created by a sufficiently advanced technology. [.......]


[......]We have proposed that a sufficiently advanced civilization could utilize this relation to generate a localized expansion/contraction of spacetime creating a ‘warp bubble’ in which to travel at arbitrarily high velocities. One vital aspect of future research would be how to locally manipulate an extra dimension. String theory suggests that dimensions are globally held compact by strings wrapping around them [5], [8]. If this is indeed the case, then it may be possible to even locally increase or decrease the string tension, or even locally counter the effects of some string winding modes. This would achieve the desired effect of changing the size of the extra dimensions which would lead to propulsion under this model. It would thus be prudent to research this area further and perform calculations as to the energies required to affect an extra dimension and to try and relate this energy to the acceleration a spacecraft might experience.

This work follows on from the cutting edge research of Francisco Lobo, Matt Visser and Michael Morris into the plausibility of wormholes, and faster than light travel, all within the laws of physics;

adsabs.harvard.edu...

Wormholes, time machines, and the weak energy condition

Authors: Morris, Michael S.; Thorne, Kip S.; Yurtsever, Ulvi
Affiliation: AA(California Institute of Technology, Pasadena), AB(California Institute of Technology, Pasadena) AC(California Institute of Technology, Pasadena)
Publication: Physical Review Letters, vol. 61, Sept. 26, 1988

arxiv.org...

Fundamental limitations on "warp drive" spacetimes

Subjects: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc);
Journal reference: Class.Quant.Grav. 21 (2004) 5871-5892

[edit on 17-12-2007 by ZeuZZ]

Not a surprise...to me.


Ignorant people will say that aliens could never reach us because it's too far-well we only created the airplane a century ago, what will we find out next century. As time goes on, we will find new theories and then 'newer' ones to say the old theories are wrong.


Don't just think a short-term or even a theory that has been around for decades is absolutely true, if you think we know all there is or even a lot about the universe, then congratulations, you receive the gold medal for Ignorance.

reply to post by Monsterenergy791


I think that modern science has forgotten the very definition of the word theory, which means that if a better theory comes along, you have to replace the old theory. Theory's are different from laws of physics, which are definitive. We're still stuck in Einsteinian relativistic dogma way back from the 1930's, and things have pretty much stayed there, with no new theories being accepted over Einsteins for over seventy years.

Even using Einsteins relativity this paper has managed to get around his light speed barrier by creating a contraction in space time. We can nearly do it now with particle accelorators, the chances of a far advanced civilization being able to master it is very likely.

oh my!!!!!!!! ETs travel faster then light. Well where are they?
Not even a signal from space. Silence.No alien artifacts. Fermi paradox states that our size galaxy could be colonized in 50 million years without faster then light travel.And our galaxy is half the age of the big bang.It should have been colonized thousands of times over.So where are they?Thats the question you should be trying to solve instead of calling people ignorant.Its fun to think good old earth is the center of the universe and ETs are all around us,but there is no reason for them to be here.Any space travel to the stars will be done by humans,not ghosts. spirits or aliens or whatever you believe. Happy Hollidays!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm still on the side that anything we can conceive, we will eventually achieve.

Newtons laws said man cannot fly, 104 years ago today the wright brothers flew. They didn't prove Newton wrong, they just discovered a different set of laws, the laws of aerodynamics. We still have plenty to learn and eventually, we'll zip thru the universe like it's our own hometown.

Scary, ain't it

Full science paper link doesn't work. It's not there...


“We already have the means to travel among the stars, but these technologies are locked up in black projects and it would take an act of God to ever get them out to benefit humanity….. anything you can imagine we already know how to do.”
Ben Rich, former Head of the Lockheed Skunk Works

Originally posted by abovetech
Full science paper link doesn't work. It's not there...

Yeah it is but at the LANL site you need to come in the front door Hot linking there will get you 'noticed' But the first link is the same just click on pdf on the right

But that archive is the public archive of LANL so hot link works

arxiv.org...

reply to post by ZeuZZ


Thanks for this... I had some of the warp drive papers before but when I posted the links at ATS they moved them LOL Imagine all the ATS 'ers hitting that site at once sends up flags..

Got them all though Thanks for the find

Oh and a word to the wise... don't try to back track urls there... its NOT healthy

"Any space travel to the stars will be done by humans,not ghosts. spirits or aliens or whatever you believe."

I'm on hold right now with Websters. They are considering letting me use the above poster's quote as the definition of ignorance.

Really though, the most obvious, not the most convenient to your way of life, is usually the truth. Alien have been visiting us for years. Every type of person on Earth has said it the only ones who say otherwise is the US gov. which has been proven in the past to lie. Just like in 30 years people will know the truth about the current admin. History repeats itself and truths never stay hidden. Most people who live now are descended from the people who thought the world was flat.

People have been saying this for how many years? 60 or so? I mean didn't we see this in star trek in the 60's and in sci-fi books prior? so just because some scientist say it's possible, it's true now? I mean why is it that we trust some guy who went to school and did some studies but when a poet, musician or just a regular says it, he's nuts.

That paper doesn't say it's possible, it just speculates that it might be.

It's just a theory, folks.

A lot of people also use the theory of relativity as an excuse that aliens would not visit us simply because by the time they get here millions of years would have already passed on earth and their home planet relative to their time. They would stay young while people they are close to on their home planet would age.

How do we know with 100% certainty we can't bend the fabric of spacetime or break the laws of physics? How do we know time travel is not possible which could be used to reverse the effects of relativity if conventional means of travel were used?

These physics theories are just… well… theories. And even though we have laws of physics that are not theories, we can't prove that the laws can not be broken or bent, just like the laws of a country.


[edit on 18-12-2007 by curiousbeliever]

Even NASA is beggining to accept that faster than light 'warp drive' is actually possible within the laws of physics. They placed it in the speculation category, but i would say that it is far into the science category by now with all the research into supluminal travel being done recently in verious tests on earth. www.nasa.gov...



You can be sure NASA is not letting on everthing they know as usual, so i would guess that arrow belongs more between the science and technology part than the speculation part. Twenty years ago they would'nt have even considered it.

This is another conference that was held at the respected interplanetary society;

www.bis-spaceflight.com...

This suggested the possibility of effectively enabling a vehicle to move across enormous stellar distances in a short transit time, allowing the warp bubble interior as well as a vehicle located within to be moved through spacetime faster than the speed of light with respect to the distant universe. That is to say, within the warp field the speed of light limit has been raised so that locally the vehicle does not violate the central tenet of special relativity.

Since this seminal paper around 50 publications have appeared internationally on the topic demonstrating that academic interest in the ‘warp drive’ proposal is growing. In the first decade of research several technical physics obstacles have been identified towards making the warp drive a realistic proposal for interstellar travel. In particular, calculations show that physically enormous and unobtainable amounts of negative energy are required to generate the desired geometrical warpage. In an effort to generate interest in solving some of the technical problems a symposium is being organised with the intention of focussing on four main themes: The Current Status of the Warp Drive Proposal; Quantum Field Constraints; Photon Propagation through the Warp Field; Alternative Faster than Light Drives. Where the latter may be based upon alternative versions of Einstein’s gravity such as Brans-Dicke theory or Yilmaz theory, or based upon alternative suggestions for interstellar travel such as the Krasnikov tube and wormholes.

Confirmed Speakers

Casimir Energy: A Fuel for Traversable Wormholes
Remo Garattini, Bergamo University, Italy

Computer Tensor Codes to Design the Warp Drive
Claudio Maccone, International Academy of Astronautics

Warp Drive: From Imagination to Reality
Jeremy Gardiner

The Status of the Warp Drive
Kelvin Long

Warp Drive: A New Approach
Richard K. Obousy & Gerald Cleaver, Department of Physics, Baylor University, Texas

Warp Drives in Cosmology
Pedro F. González-Díaz, Instituto de Física Fundamental “Blas Cabrera”, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Spain

Can the Flyby Anomalies be Explained by a Modification of Inertia
M.E. McCulloch

Space Teleportation with Present Day Technology (Poster)
Yvan Bozzonetti

This paper gives a very good summary of all the possible ways that superluminal speed could be achieved, for communication and for travel;
math.ucr.edu...

[edit on 18-12-2007 by ZeuZZ]

Originally posted by dobsonion2
oh my!!!!!!!! ETs travel faster then light. Well where are they?

What relevance has that got do with the OP?, which was specifically about the possibility of faster than light travel, which makes the possibility of them reaching us far more likely.

Originally posted by dobsonion2
Not even a signal from space. Silence. No alien artifacts.

Not even a signal from space? I'm not sure why an advanced civilazation would be bothered about sending us radio signals when they could likely travel straight here instantly if they wanted to. Also there have actually been many signals that are unexplained from space, and also plenty of evidence of life outside of our own planet. space.newscientist.com...

Top 10: Controversial pieces of evidence for extraterrestrial life

1. 1976, The Viking Mars landers detect chemical signatures indicative of life

2. 1977, The unexplained extraterrestrial "Wow!" signal is detected by an Ohio State University radio telescope

3. 1996, Martian "fossils" are discovered in meteorite ALH80041 from Antarctica

4. 2001, A more rigorous estimate of the "Drake equation" suggests that our galaxy may contain hundreds of thousands of life-bearing planets

5. 2001, The red tinge of Jupiter's moon Europa proposed to be due to frozen bits of bacteria, which also helps explain the mysterious infrared signal it gives off

6. 2002, Russian scientists argue that a mysterious radiation-proof microbe may have evolved on Mars

7. 2002, Chemical hints of life are found in old data from Venus probes and landers. Could microbes exist in Venusian clouds?

8. 2003, Sulphur traces on Jupiter's moon Europa may be the waste products of underground bacterial colonies

9. 2004, Methane in the Martian atmosphere hints at microbial metabolism

10. 2004, A mysterious radio signal is received by the SETI project on three occasions - from the same region of space

Originally posted by dobsonion2
Fermi paradox states that our size galaxy could be colonized in 50 million years without faster then light travel. And our galaxy is half the age of the big bang. It should have been colonized thousands of times over. So where are they? Thats the question you should be trying to solve instead of calling people ignorant.

Yes it should have been colonized many times over according to many well established theories. Thankyou for clearing that up. The Starchild skull (which has been DNA tested) is good evidence of ancient aliens. Also the horned skull, the huge Trilithon at Baalbeck, and various other historical anomalies support ancient aliens visiting Earth. Add to that the millions and millions of UFO sightings every year and the hundreds of military officials that have now gone public, that makes your statement that there is no evidence of Aliens visiting Earth truly ridiculous.



[edit on 18-12-2007 by ZeuZZ]

Lambda-based ‘warping’ allows one to travel “faster than the speed of light” because it is moving the space/time that an object exists within as opposed to moving through space/time directly. So, no, it is not scientifically impossible, and it does not interfere with special relativity one bit. No laws are being broken per se, they just being moved around a little.

Unfortunately, it still has its problems. One is that you need negative mass energy. (That’s A LOT of energy!) And we are talking several solar masses of the stuff, which makes your guess about as good as mine concerning how an advanced race could obtain something like this.

Second, there is the numerical anomaly we encounter with signals taking an INFINITE AMOUNT OF TIME to reach the outer boundary of the “bubble.” There are also a number of quantum energy conditions that become violated at a certain point.

Most theorists state that ‘exotic matter’ is absolutely required to create these outrageous space/time bubbles, which eliminates any and all forms of regular mass-based energy we are familiar with. Using lambda is to manipulate the cosmological constant locally somehow, according to this paper; to create this bubble they claim can get around the problem of having to use exotic matter. Unfortunately, lambda may BE ‘exotic matter’ whether we like it or not.

reply to post by ZeuZZ


i agree ---not only is speed faster than light possible for aliens--speed as fast as a thought is possible----for them to think is to be there---------but some dont have to come very far anyway-----because they are already here-----cloaked/invisible----just as the brits have recently demonstrated possible with an invisible 60 ton tank and as nasa film shows huge ufo's that look like eyes coming out of nowhere and then disappearing back to ?nowhere from the space shuttle missions with the astronaut videos taken out thru the windows in their cockpits.

reply to post by mrwupy


eventually we will zip thru the universe like its our own home town ----scary is'nt it ?/yes very scary-----------almost every day there are 1 or 2 collisions between cars now in my town of 10 thousand. for your future will the same drivers be navigating their way around the stars ? yes very scary.sure hope they make licensing a lot tougher to keep the drunks /druggies/road ragers and crazies from flying thru the universe.

Originally posted by yahn goodey
reply to post by mrwupy

 

eventually we will zip thru the universe like its our own home town ----scary is'nt it ?/yes very scary-----------almost every day there are 1 or 2 collisions between cars now in my town of 10 thousand. for your future will the same drivers be navigating their way around the stars ? yes very scary.sure hope they make licensing a lot tougher to keep the drunks /druggies/road ragers and crazies from flying thru the universe.

Unless above the speed of light of in a slightly different dimension (which you'd need to avoid planets and rocks etc in space at superluminal speeds) you wouldn't hit anything. Only problem might be stopping inside a planet or too close to a a star. It's just going to happen, one way or another... space pirates. Probably already exist. Roving marauders, looking for signals from stupid civilisations to conquer and hot on their trail is the galactic police/UN.

People think a one world government is bad, but maybe that is a condition of us being allowed to enter open talks with extraterrestrials?

Originally posted by ZeuZZ
They go on using elementary physics to explain how this speed is possible. Basically they propose that by creating a contraction in space-time geometry infront of the vehicle, and an expansion behind the vehicle, should produce sufficient motion to far exceed the speed of light, without actually breaking any of the laws of physics.

I swear that about 15 years ago I read an explanation of how the warp drive featured in Star Trek operates exactly how you've described here. That bit about locally manipulating extra dimensions sounds familiar, too. I'm pretty sure that there is book out there that explains the physics of Star Trek that touches on these same ideas in reference to warp drive technology. Wow!

Well Scotty would be proud!! What's the betting that in a 100 years or so we will be hearing the famous words of frustration " The Engines canna take it anymore Captain!". I think this is an exciting bit of news and we should embrace it. After all Humanity will need to get of this rock fairly soon and settle down on other planets if we are to survive, particularly considering the quite considerable damage overpopulation is doing to this one.