Micro-Warp Drive

A recent breakthrough has moved the concept of a "warp drive" another step along its path from a fictional SF prop-idea to a well founded physics concept that might one day be realized. This improvement on the Alcubierre warp drive was devised by general relativity theorist Chris Van Den Broeck of the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. He has eliminated seemingly insurmountable problems with the Alcubierre warp-drive scheme. His improvement employs topological gymnastics to keep the interior of the warp bubble large while making its external surface very small. But before describing Van Den Broeck’s work, I’ll summarize the Alcubierre warp drive concept itself, first featured in my column (#81) in the November-‘96 Analog.

Until 1994 a "warp drive" was one of the myths of science fiction, a rubber-science concept used principally to permit space-opera heroes to flit from one star system to another at faster-than-light speeds, moving the plot forward in the process. Those familiar with the laws of physics saw the warp drive as a flagrant violation of the principles of special relativity, conservation of energy, and physics-as-we-know-it. It was tolerated as an excessive but perhaps necessary use of literary license by SF authors.

The status of the warp drive changed dramatically in 1994, when Dr. Miguel Alcubierre published a paper entitled "The Warp Drive: hyper-fast travel within general relativity" in the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity. Alcubierre is a theoretical physicist from Mexico who in 1994 was working at the University of Wales and is now at the Albert Einstein Institute in Potsdam, Germany. Also a fan of SF, he was steeped in the SF tradition and turned his physics expertise to the task of considering how a warp drive might be constructed within the restrictions of general relativity, our present "standard model" of gravity. Alcubierre constructed a "metric", a mathematical specification of the curvature of space-time that had all the characteristics of a SF warp-drive including the capability for faster-than-light travel. Surprisingly, Alcubierre’s warp-drive metric is a solution of Einstein’s equations of general relativity and is completely consistent with them. Science fiction’s warp drive had been given a consistent theoretical and mathematical basis.

www.npl.washington.edu...

Any thoughts?

Yeah..

Will Einstein's theory, of General Relativity, even be that relevant in the future?

reply to post by Kashai


Sounds kinda flimsy to me, I will believe it when I see infinite. Power, perpetual motion, a working replicator or warp drive.

I see these things all the time and they go nowhere but "the black hole" of the net.

ETA- SnF op interesting reading if nothing else, I am a huge fan of SciFi. I only dream that I live long enough to see warp drive.

.One can consider that, in relation to EPR Paradox and Bells Theorem the idea of information being transfered, can be instantaneous.

reply to post by yahtzeestone


Probably extremely outdated but that's life he took us leaps farther than we could have imagined. We have to move on if We hope to advance even a micron before we die.

reply to post by inverslyproportional


The universe as we understand, it could in effect generate its own warp bubble. In effect causing space/time to wrap around matter as a whole and again as we understand it. Allowing the universe as a whole to actually move faster than that of light.

This could actually work considering a scale of 185 billion light years in nature...

Any thoughts?

reply to post by Kashai


I agree totally with teleportation, in a very limited, quantum scale, sort of way.. they have already done that, just recently as a matter of fact.

www.technologyreview.com...

Kinda neat really, but isn't it the same as say the portal gun, or star gate? Where one must first go there before being able to teleport there, as michinery would be required?

reply to post by Kashai


Spacetime can be moved faster than light, that's the method of black holes pulling in light. It pulls spacetiime backwards faster than light.


We have observed this "gravitational lensing" effect which is the same but on a much larger scale in the example of black holes.

One would if the requesite technology were to be employed, be able to cause a similar effect to cause a "tunnel". The enrgies and materials needed though are beyond our current grasp of physics......as we are still mired in Einsteinian physics. Even he said himself that it was only meant to be a starting point, not a cure all fix all.

We have the concept of M-theory where objects presumably about 185 billion light years wide, make contact and therefore generate new objects, that eventually develop. I consider that in such a case a warp- bubble would make such an interaction plausible.

Keeping in mind of course that speeds can be as much as 100 times that of light.

Any thoughts?

reply to post by Kashai


Please note that this "amendment" to the warp drive, that of including the ship in dimensional bubble, large on the inside but small on the outside, was published in 1999.

It isn't really new.

It was submitted to the (abandoned in 2008) NASA Breakthrough Propulsion Physics program but was seen as infeasable (requiring energies in excess of three solar masses, requiring negative energy which has never been observed, the ship would also be unsteerable and unstoppable, would generate deadly amounts of Hawking radiation and requires both that string theory is correct and that we can locate "negative" strings for use in the drive).

Nice bit of rumination to occupy theorists but sadly, hardly do-able.

Originally posted by Kashai
reply to post by inverslyproportional

 

The universe as we understand, it could in effect generate its own warp bubble. In effect causing space/time to wrap around matter as a whole and again as we understand it. Allowing the universe as a whole to actually move faster than that of light.

This could actually work considering a scale of 185 billion light years in nature...

Any thoughts?

The energies required to create a 200m warp bubble (without Chris Van Den Broeks unlikely cheat) is 10 billion times the energy that exists in the universe.

I'd love something that could bring these numbers into the realm of the real but we haven't hit it yet and the money required even to fund the theoretical work has dried up.

The fact that we can think these things has hope but the questions in a starving and resource unequal world are not significant enough for those that hold the purse strings (in a democracy, that's you & me).

We have to await new breakthroughs in mathematics on a similar scale to what calculus was and then new breakthroughs in our understanding in Physics similar to the breakthrough that Relativity was.

Then we may get somewhere. Until then, we're stuck.

I would again bring up the issue of M-theory and how new objects 185 billion light years wide can interact, thus generating new objects that can develop some equivalent. in nature???

Obviously, this capacity is outside our current science. In respect to developing a means for individuals to travel, beyond the speed of light.

But could such a capacity be somehow natural??

And therefore applicable in a context we as of yet, do not understand??

To be clear the Universe may be 13.7 billion years old but that has nothing to do with its actual size.....or for that matter its mass as a whole....


The size of the Universe: at least 250 times larger than what is visible

Any thoughts?

Originally posted by Kashai
I would again bring up the issue of M-theory and how new objects 185 billion light years wide can interact, thus generating new objects that can develop some equivalent. in nature???

Obviously, this capacity is outside our current science. In respect to developing a means for individuals to travel, beyond the speed of light.

But could such a capacity be somehow natural??

And therefore applicable in a context we as of yet, do not understand??

To be clear the Universe may be 13.7 billion years old but that has nothing to do with its actual size.....or for that matter its mass as a whole....

The size of the Universe: at least 250 times larger than what is visible

Any thoughts?

OK, one aspect of M Theory is that when two "branes" (the metaphor is like two sheets or membranes which are flexing and bending in multiple dimensions) cross each other (or collide) that this causes ripples to propagate along the "plane" of the brane (again this is a 3D metaphor, in the real world these branes can reach up to the 27th dimension). These ripples arising from the collisions are the structures we see as the big bang in our particular braneworld.

The particular issue is that the contact point can move faster than light even if the branes are moving at sub-luminal speeds, and this could account for the inflation stage of the universe after the big bang. Once the branes no longer interact, the ripples would move at speeds limited by light-speed, which is the way we see the expansion of the universe now.

The implication is that you can move something at super-luminal speeds if you are outside of, and almost as large as, the universe.

Chalk up another invention from Star Trek fans.

Pagers,
Cell Phones
Tablet computers

Now if we could work on the tolerance of different species (we might practice by tolerating other cultures) eliminate money and greed we might have a pretty nice place to live.

reply to post by Kashai

Sorry but this is complete B.S.

There is no such thing as Faster than Light Travel but there is Folding Space or Creating a Singularity to Warp Space to FALL TOWARD the SINGULARITY.

This type of Gravitic Drive Travel is WAY BEYOND US....although a few Out of Town Folks have Mastered it.

Before we could even do this we would have to understand the UNIFIED FIELD THEORY. To Fold Space you would have to generate a Massive amount of Energy to represent Mass or Matter since they are interchangeable. To do that...you would have to understand how a Matter/Antimatter generation of Energy is not just generating energy in One Universal State but Generating in Multiversal States as a Cascade Flow of Energy. Thus understanding QUANTUM MECHANICS is a MUST.

Then...on top of that...you would have to understand how to use this energy to NAVIGATE. I consider myself as a smart cookie but I do not have the slightest CLUE of how this is achieved. This is way beyond Human Understanding for now. Split Infinity

reply to post by chr0naut


Implying that folding space/time around an object could be an equivalent to calculating in scale, the mass of the Universe as we understand it, in relation to a specific object (say for example an object who's weight on earth is
100 tons).

I am going to take this opportunity to offer a pet theory...this being that generating an effect beyond electron spin, could potentially generate speeds well beyond faster than light...

Any thoughts?

reply to post by SplitInfinity


As i have offered and in conideration to the idea of M-theory this is not BS, if anything it is a matter of scale....

Any thoughts?

Originally posted by Kashai
reply to post by SplitInfinity

 

As i have offered and in conideration to the idea of M-theory this is not BS, if anything it is a matter of scale....

Any thoughts?

The reason I said it was B.S. is that in order to achieve what is described...they would have to have a complete understanding of the Unified Field Theory.

If you wonder why...I will say this. Since the Speed of Light with certain still within parameter exceptions...is the Ultimate Speed Limit in Normal Space/Time...one would have to Fold or Warp Space/Time to travel Interstellar Distances with any reasonable time constraint. Thus...one would have to generate Energy to represent Mass to Fold or Warp Space/Time. To do this...a MASSIVE AMOUNT OF ENERGY WOULD HAVE TO BE CREATED.

Since even the amount of Mass that our Sun has is not enough to Fold Space/Time to any amount greater than being able to hold our Solar Systems Planets and other Celestial Objects in it's Gravity well...the Energy Generated would have to exceed the amount of Mass of our Sun. There is only one way to do this and that is to use what has been called inacurately as the STRONG FORCE OF GRAVITY. This is supposedly achieved by stimulating an Element currently not on our Periodic Table by Particle Bombardment and achieving a Matter/Antimatter Multiversal Cascade Reaction. Thus this generated Energy is existing in more than one Universal Reality Divergent from our own within our Universal Group. Thus the Energy represents Mass and Folds or Warps Space/Time. To do this means that we would have a complete understanding of the Unified Field Theory...which we do not. And as I said earlier...NAVIGATION is a problem as great as understanding the UFT.
Split Infinity

Originally posted by SplitInfinity
reply to post by Kashai

 

Sorry but this is complete B.S.

There is no such thing as Faster than Light Travel but there is Folding Space or Creating a Singularity to Warp Space to FALL TOWARD the SINGULARITY.

This type of Gravitic Drive Travel is WAY BEYOND US....although a few Out of Town Folks have Mastered it.

Before we could even do this we would have to understand the UNIFIED FIELD THEORY. To Fold Space you would have to generate a Massive amount of Energy to represent Mass or Matter since they are interchangeable. To do that...you would have to understand how a Matter/Antimatter generation of Energy is not just generating energy in One Universal State but Generating in Multiversal States as a Cascade Flow of Energy. Thus understanding QUANTUM MECHANICS is a MUST.

Then...on top of that...you would have to understand how to use this energy to NAVIGATE. I consider myself as a smart cookie but I do not have the slightest CLUE of how this is achieved. This is way beyond Human Understanding for now. Split Infinity

Alcubierre's drive is that you contract local space just in front of the craft (just like falling into a singularity) and expand local space just behind the craft (like falling out of the universe into a singularity) so in essence, there are similarities with what you describe.

The difference is that Alcubierre's drive moves with the craft and most singularities stay put.

Alcubierre's method is calculable, does not break any laws of physics but has obscenely large energy requirements. To achieve 100 times lightspeed for a smallish craft would require substantially more energy than exists in the universe.

Chris Van Den Broeck's solution to the power puzzle is to drop the ship out of our reality, into a bubble, leaving a tiny neck connected to our reality. It is this tiny connection point which will be moved at super-luminal speeds and then afterwards the ship can be popped back out of its bubble into the real universe again, but at vast distances from its origin. This still requires enormous energies (equivalent to 3 solar masses) to achieve.

A further solution only requiring a few milligrams of negative energy was calculated by Serguei Krasnikov, but if tachyonic matter (negative energy) is not found, we'd have to prepare the path of the ship by laying down masses to be converted "in flight". The problem is that these masses would have to be in motion at super-luminal speeds or the ship would collide with them.

So you'd need a faster than light drive to build a faster than light drive, which is pretty annoying when you don't have one in the first place.

As far as navigating or even stopping, its anyone's guess! I have no idea how you'd do that. The drive would also probably generate a naked singularity (no event horizon) ahead of the craft and how you's stop from being spaghettified and falling in, I don't know.

Agreed, from the context to scale. Say for example one has an object who's weight on Earth is about 10 grams. In order to achieve beyond te speed of light (according to Einsteins theory) that object would somehow exceed, infinite density.

Clearly infinite density is related to electron spin...in the case of matter, electron spin, that makes something solid is anywhere between 10 to 50 % that of light.

Exceeding that speed would effectively increase density, say for example in the context of a sphere.

Given the example, of an object (as above) that spun beyond 50% of light, that object could effectively go beyond that of light...considering electron spin as a constant relative to postion and the relative issue of the
speed of light under such circumstances.


Any thoughts?