Warp Drive-how feasible?

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

... best inform anyone in that region to stay clear cause here we come ready or not!

Er, how do you propose to do that from inside your bubble of FTL spacetime ?

 

[Larniavc]

Have you seen Event Horizon? Its not a good idea to pursue this.

See also 'The Warp' in Warhammer 40K.

Not a nice place.

 

[Radrook]

Er, how do you propose to do that from inside your bubble of FTL spacetime ?

I am not proposing, I am describing a problematic scenario. We must get there first or communicate with that region first before barreling in leading with our snouts. So it seems to present an insurmountable problem unless the shockwave issue can be resolved prior to barreling into areas where we aren't sure whom or what we might just happen to obliterate accidentally in the name of scientific human curiosity..

 

[timewerx]

So impulse drive on any warp drive ship would be a redundancy? How about the expenditure of energy in getting space to warp.
Alcubierre drive - Wikipedia

I would imagine that could be a very significant factor in not warping at speeds below super luminal and in providing the ship with an impulse engine.

Any form of warp drive would require negative energy.

The negative entropy I was talking about at the quantum level becomes negative energy. It's potentially an incredibly efficient source of energy. It makes the impulse drive totally redundant unless maybe to be used as a back up or emergency propulsion system if the warp drive is disabled for some reason.

 

[timewerx]

Oh, that. As I said before, the ship doesn't accelerate, so wouldn't need to decelerate:

"The interior of the bubble is the inertial reference frame for any object inhabiting it.
Since the ship is not moving within this bubble, but is being carried along as the region itself moves, conventional relativistic effects such as time dilation would not apply."​

What other 'popular theories' did you have in mind?

I've read it. But the statement may depend on an assumption that we are not inside another warp bubble which is discussed as one of the problems with the A-Drive concept.

And I really have strong doubts about the theoretical claim to negate time dilation even for an FTL ship.

I don't know of other warp drive theories that is as sound enough or feasible as the A-Drive.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I don't know of other warp drive theories that is as sound enough or feasible as the A-Drive.

Oh, OK. It's just when you said, "The popular theories on FTL flight also use acceleration", I thought there'd be more than one, and at least one would actually use acceleration...

It doesn't matter.

 

[timewerx]

What happens to the problem that I kept encountering where the closer light speed is approached the greater the mass and the greater the force needed to accelerate further until any further increase in velocity or acceleration of the mass becomes impossible? Has that been replaced with the concept that the ship's increased mass produces a gravitational force ahead of itself which pulls it along into superluminal speed? How does that work?

From the ship's frame of reference, the mass doesn't actually increase. The mass only increases against an observer that is more or less stationary (Special Relativity)

So the occupants of the ship won't really notice any change, nor any need to increase energy output.

However, stationary observers would notice the ship slowing down in acceleration as time dilation sets in.

From a stationary observer, it would take an infinite amount of time for such ship to reach the speed of light. As for the occupants of the ship, only in a span few years (if accelerating at one G from their perspective)

 

[timewerx]

Oh, OK. It's just when you said, "The popular theories on FTL flight also use acceleration", I thought there'd be more than one, and at least one would actually use acceleration...

It doesn't matter.

I'm thinking in a practical sense the A-Drive would actually accelerate even though the occupants will not feel it.

For example, astronauts may not feel any acceleration while in orbit but are actually undergoing centripetal acceleration.

There's a previous theory involving rotating masses also in relation to Frame Dragging but it's too impractical for consideration.

 

[Radrook]

From the ship's frame of reference, the mass doesn't actually increase. The mass only increases against an observer that is more or less stationary (Special Relativity)

So the occupants of the ship won't really notice any change, nor any need to increase energy output.

However, stationary observers would notice the ship slowing down in acceleration as time dilation sets in.

From a stationary observer, it would take an infinite amount of time for such ship to reach the speed of light. As for the occupants of the ship, only in a span few years (if accelerating at one G from their perspective)

So do you agree or disagree with the following?

Special Relativity

"The relativistic increase of mass happens in a way that makes it impossible to accelerate an object to light speed: The faster the object already is, the more difficult any further acceleration becomes. The closer the object's speed is to light speed, the greater the increase in inertial mass; to reach light speed exactly would require an infinitely strong force acting on the body. This enforces special relativity's speed limit: No material object can be accelerated to light speed.

The increase in inertial mass is part of a more general phenomenon, the relativistic equivalence of mass and energy: If one adds energy to a body, one automatically increases its mass; if one takes energy away from it, one decreases its mass. In the case of acceleration, the object in question gains kinetic energy ("movement energy"), and this increase in energy automatically means an increase in mass."

See http://www.einstein-online.info/elementary/specialRT/emc

 

[timewerx]

I am not proposing, I am describing a problematic scenario. We must get there first or communicate with that region first before barreling in leading with our snouts. So it seems to present an insurmountable problem unless the shockwave issue can be resolved prior to barreling into areas where we aren't sure whom or what we might just happen to obliterate accidentally in the name of scientific human curiosity..

Actually.....It will also be a huge problem for the ship.

The highly compressed space ahead of the ship might be comparable to a black hole's Event Horizon. Immense tidal forces at the boundary would vaporize any object it encounters. Taking it from the example of giant black holes, the end product is usually intense X-rays and gamma rays.

I'm not sure if the compressed space would be able to deflect those high energy radiation away because if not, meeting those insane levels of X-Ray and Gamma Rays would be equivalent to a direct hit by a nuclear weapon! It would promptly vaporize the nose section of the hull in a rapidly expanding plasma that would send a shock throughout the entire ship. It could cause severe damage or even destroy the ship.

The nose of the ship has to be made of highly reflective, highly dense, and highly heat resistant material. I am thinking of Iridium but there's no way we can make a ship out of that material at least on Earth.

 

[timewerx]

So do you agree or disagree with the following?

Yes, because that's how it would look from a stationary observer.

And by the time the occupants of the ship reached the speed of light everything they left would be gone so it's also impossible to prove - of course this is without using a warp drive or not under the effects of frame dragging.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I'm thinking in a practical sense the A-Drive would actually accelerate even though the occupants will not feel it.

Still, it seems to me that, in a practical physics (relativistic) sense, the ship itself wouldn't accelerate or decelerate, so it wouldn't produce Bremsstrahlung Radiation.

But never mind, it's speculative hypothesis, if not science fiction.

 

[timewerx]

But it seems to me that, in a practical physics (relativistic) sense, the ship itself wouldn't accelerate or decelerate, so it wouldn't produce Bremsstrahlung Radiation.

But never mind.

IMO it can be done but may require warping of space equivalent to the space near a Black Hole's Event Horizon.

It's not necessarily dangerous to the ship if the force is collimated. The only problem is that it would be nigh impossible to achieve (Alcubierre expressed similar concerns with his concept) . However, it can still be done at lower levels and the ship would still reach FTL at a cost of some time dilation and Bremsstrahlung radiation. Still better than nothing.

You can always aim for an apparently "uninhabited" region of space when slowing down and the Bremsstrahlung radiaton would simply register as a harmless Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) in some distant world.

The bigger problem is still about where to get the negative energy required.

 

[Radrook]

Actually.....It will also be a huge problem for the ship.

The highly compressed space ahead of the ship might be comparable to a black hole's Event Horizon. Immense tidal forces at the boundary would vaporize any object it encounters. Taking it from the example of giant black holes, the end product is usually intense X-rays and gamma rays.

I'm not sure if the compressed space would be able to deflect those high energy radiation away because if not, meeting those insane levels of X-Ray and Gamma Rays would be equivalent to a direct hit by a nuclear weapon! It would promptly vaporize the nose section of the hull in a rapidly expanding plasma that would send a shock throughout the entire ship. It could cause severe damage or even destroy the ship.

The nose of the ship has to be made of highly reflective, highly dense, and highly heat resistant material. I am thinking of Iridium but there's no way we can make a ship out of that material at least on Earth.

Woe! Maybe it is best just to do the best we can with what we have and leave that warping for much later.

 

[timewerx]

Woe! Maybe it is best just to do the best we can with what we have and leave that warping for much later.

There is one flavor of warp drive that could avoid it. One that uses collimated artificial gravity (like a laser beam) would able to deflect debris long before the ship arrives at the same point. It won't cause any harm to either the ship or the object it encounters.

Such warp drive would also serve the equivalent roles of impulse drive, and deflector array in Star Trek.

 

[Radrook]

There is one flavor of warp drive that could avoid it. One that uses collimated artificial gravity (like a laser beam) would able to deflect debris long before the ship arrives at the same point. It won't cause any harm to either the ship or the object it encounters.

Such warp drive would also serve the equivalent roles of impulse drive, and deflector array in Star Trek.

Unless we have some quantum leap in technology, it seems that this is one scientific wonder that will be witnessed only by those who perhaps have been recently born and maybe not even them.

 

[Radrook]

I've read it. But the statement may depend on an assumption that we are not inside another warp bubble which is discussed as one of the problems with the A-Drive concept.

And I really have strong doubts about the theoretical claim to negate time dilation even for an FTL ship.

I don't know of other warp drive theories that is as sound enough or feasible as the A-Drive.

Why would time dilation still apply if the person inside the ship isn't really moving? As I said earlier, that not moving idea seems weird. Do you feel that the person warping space in that way is indeed moving?

 

[Cute Tink]

I honestly have trouble with the word "impossible" when it comes to human ingenuity (especially long term), despite all the time I've spent on the internet.

 

[Radrook]

I honestly have trouble with the word "impossible" when it comes to human ingenuity (especially long term), despite all the time I've spent on the internet.

Well, being in the image of God does give us certain abilities as is evident by our ability to split the atom and all the other technological wonders we have been able to create. Nevertheless we are material creatures tethered to our senses and to this material universe so that must place some limit on what we can ultimately accomplished. Or do you feel that we are so godlike that nothing is impossible for us?

 

[Cute Tink]

Well, being in the image of God does give us certain abilities as is evident by our ability to split the atom and all the other technological wonders we have been able to create. Nevertheless we are material creatures tethered to our senses and to this material universe so that must place some limit on what we can ultimately accomplished. Or do you feel that we are so godlike that nothing is impossible for us?

There may be some barriers, but mostly I would agree that nothing is impossible. Humans are capable of great feats of both intelligence and stupidity.