
Warp Speed Engine Designed  - iamelgringo
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/07/28/warp-speed-engine.html
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ajross
Hacker News seems to be going down hill if a link to a mass media explanation
of a clever gedankenexperiment suddenly becomes a design (!) for a "warp
engine".

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d0mine
It is an interesting idea from _science fiction_ point of view.

 _The aim of this paper is not to discuss the plausibility of warp drive, the
questions associated with violation of the null energy condition, or issues
regarding causality. 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._ </quote>

Original paper: "Warp Drive: A New Approach" <http://arxiv.org/abs/0712.1649>

British Interplanetary Society's meeting "Warp Drive, Faster Than Light:
Breaking the Interstellar Distance Barrier" [http://www.bis-
spaceflight.com/sitesia.aspx/page/1539/l/en-g...](http://www.bis-
spaceflight.com/sitesia.aspx/page/1539/l/en-gb)

One of co-authors at Physics Forum
<http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=204637> (nick - 'robousy')

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froo
Quote from article: While the theory rests on relatively firm ground, the next
question is how do you expand space behind the ship and contract it in front
of the ship?

Quote from Star Trek: Scotty: "It's no use Cap'n, I just dont have the power!"

While cool in theory - I'm skeptical :)

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froo
Another quote from the article: "What the scientists were able to estimate was
the amount of energy necessary, if the technology was available, to change
these dimensions: about 10^45 joules."

That's the energy contained in (roughly) 22 x 10^43 Big Macs... easy, lets do
it!

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helveticaman
As if cosmic inflation weren't bad enough, we'd have cosmic obesity.

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rw
Yet another problem with string theory.

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helveticaman
This looks like it's for real. Damn. I want to ride a dark energy bubble.

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orib
It's an interesting mind game. Don't expect it to be happening any time.. uh..
more or less ever. From the article:

 _...were able to estimate was the amount of energy necessary, if the
technology was available ... about 10^45 joules_

How much is that?

 _"That's about the amount of energy you'd get if you converted the entire
mass of Jupiter into pure energy via E = mc^2," said Cleaver_

But even disregarding the energy needs, they don't know how they'd actually
interact to produce the warping they'd need:

 _"These calculations are based on some arbitrary advance in technology or
some alien technology that would let us manipulate the extra dimension,"_

On the other hand, it is an extremely interesting mind game, and who knows,
there may even be some interesting consequences, at least in theoretical
physics.

~~~
hugh
_"That's about the amount of energy you'd get if you converted the entire mass
of Jupiter into pure energy via E = mc^2," said Cleaver_

Or, to put it in terms (slightly) more easily visualised, that's the total
amount of energy put out by all the stars in the Milky Way galaxy every 31
years.

~~~
nuclear_eclipse
And how many humans hand-cranking windmills for how many fortnights would that
be?

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hugh
Let me see. With a hand-crank you could get about 25 watts, so... given all
six billion humans you could generate that much energy in... uhh, 5.2 * 10^27
fortnights.

Any other units which might be clearer?

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rkowalick
I prefer to measure power in poundal-furlongs per lunar year.

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hugh
Oh, sorry.

With a hand-crank you could get about 63.108 poundal-furlongs per lunar year,
so... given all six billion humans you could generate that much energy in...
uhh, 5.2 * 10^27 fortnights.

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namnyef
Sounds like a bunch of hokey-pokey hand waving to me.

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vaksel
hopefully we'll finish exploring our own system before venturing out into the
universe.

~~~
nuclear_eclipse
Well, _of course_ we'll have to establish military bases on Mars, Jupiter's
moons, and Pluto first...

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geuis
Apparently I'm quite taken with this paper based on the number of comments
I've been adding.

An interesting note that the discovery.com story left out: Page 11: "This
energy requirement would drop dramatically if we assumed a thin-shell of
modified spacetime instead of bubble encompassing the volume of the craft."

The Jupiter-size calculation is based on generating a warp bubble to fill the
_volume_ of space of a 10m x 10m x 10m ship. If we only need to produce a warp
bubble as a thin shell around the outside of that volume, but not to fill it,
then the energy requirements drop dramatically.

If my Star Trek lore is remembered right, the warp fields are only produced
around the starships, but do not fill the volume.

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geuis
I have a solid feeling we'll be building one of these much sooner than anyone
thinks...

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geuis
Why am I being down-voted for my comment? People generally _under_ estimate
the rate of technological progress. When researchers in the 30s thought about
utilizing fission for energy, much less weapons, they broadly thought it would
take hundreds of years to become practical. Come 1944, Hiroshima and Nagasaki
went up in smoke and radiation.

Once we develop a mathematical understanding of how we can manipulate various
forces of nature, practical applications tend to evolve very, very quickly.
This has been done over and over throughout history.

Simply because we don't have a complete understanding of how to build a device
described in the story _NOW_ has no impact on what we discover and are able to
build in the next few decades.

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khafra
Isaac Asimov wrote a corollary to Clarke's First Law, stating "When, however,
the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but
elderly scientists and supports that idea with great fervor and emotion -- the
distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, probably right." -
Wikipedia article on Clarke's 3 laws

Just because it seems impractical today doesn't mean it will soon be possible;
the great ideas that were scoffed at remain fresh in the memory because the
geometrically more numeric unworkable ideas have faded into obscurity. Plus
it's impossible--I mean, c'mon, focusing the entire 31-year energy output of
the Milky Way?

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geuis
Also quoted: "In 'Against the Fall of Night' the human race has mysteriously
regressed after a full billion years of civilization. Humanity is faced with
the remnants of its past glories: for example, a network of roads and
sidewalks that flow like rivers. Although physically possible, it is
inexplicable from their perspective. Clarke's Third Law explains the source of
our amazement as our limitation, rather than the impossibility of the
technology."

Another counter-argument to your quote is that "distinguished but elderly
scientists" very publicly claimed it was impossible to fly, as late as 1904.
Some even proclaimed this _after_ the Wright brothers had done it.

As for the amount of energy, that is an estimate based on this very early
design hypothesis. It points us in the right direction to continue research,
but does not necessitate there will not be much more energy efficient ways to
power such a device.

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DanielBMarkham
"...how do you expand space behind the ship and contract it in front of the
ship?

Cleaver and Richard Obousy, the other coauthor, propose manipulating the 11th
dimension..."

That's silly.

Everybody knows you need to adjust the phase shift of the dilithium crystals.
Either that or adjust your plasma flow.

Good thing I watched all those ST TOS and NG shows. This stuff would be a lot
harder without that.

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benpbenp
I hope they patented.

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eru
Patents protect only for 20 years.

