Alternative to chemical engines --- warp?

[Nibb31]

Y'know, in XIX century idea of heavier-than-air flying machine was theoretical too. I we read somewhere about famous French mathematician, who conclusively proved (on paper of course) such machine will never actively fly. Good thing Wright brothers never read his publication. As of now, math says "Maybe" - rest is left to human inguenity.

Yeah, Star Trek prophetized teleportation and needleless syringes too. Dr Who's Tardis is bigger inside than outside. And anyone over the age of 40 remembers promises of flying cars, personal helicopter back packs and bases on Venus by the year 2000. Everyday, there are wackos who come up with perpetual motion machines or reactionless drives, all of which are bogus. Some day, maybe someone will crack it, but you've got to admit that the odds are increasingly against it.

Some wacky predictions can come true, but 99.9% of the time, they remain wacky predictions. I have no doubt that some fundamental physics problems will be solved or worked around, but most of them will remain. We are just as likely to implement FTL travel as we are to invert gravity or to create perpetual motion.

[R0cketC0der]

The term "warp drive" comes from Star Trek. It's based on fictional magic, not science.

There are some vague hypothetical concepts about something called an Albucierre drive. Some clever scientists related this to the fictional Star Trek term "warp" in order to catch the imagination of the ignorant public, which is always better when you are looking for funding. However, it's still just a hypothetical idea that may or may not be feasible. At any rate, it requires materials and energy levels that probably won't be available before decades or centuries, if ever.

At any rate, debating its practical capabilities makes no sense, because we have no idea if it is feasible or what its properties would be. It's still just fictional.

Warp is the common term in sci-fi to describe ftl travel, so what reason would be there to invent a new name for something the general public already knows with a different name?

[TeeGee]

It's funny how there are 2 types of people in this forum: those who say warp drive is impossible and others convinced it is possible.

If everyone thought flight was impossible, we never would have developed airplanes. If everyone thought developing splitting atoms was impossible, we never would have developed nuclear energy. If everyone thought going to the moon was impossible, we never would have had the apollo missions.

Human's aren't advanced by skepticism, they are advanced by innovators and dreamers who say anything is possible, we just need to find the answer.

[Aghanim]

Needleless syringes exists! Search for hypodermic injector on google

Disclaimer: I'm doesn't have enough physics, so take this with a grain of salt

Warp drive is theorized to be possible, and so wormhole. The physics is pretty much solid, the problem is no one know how to implement that physics into real life. No one know

whether space is bendable, or if "negative energy/mass" even exists. It might be that its impossible, or not. BUT, this thread assumes that warp drive is possible. Using the possible parameters of the drive, we could speculate the effect of the drive to the surrounding.

So stop arguing about possibility of warp drive here! Discuss it on several other thread about "is warp drive is possible" thread. Here, in this thread, we assume that warp drive

is possible.

However, some skepticism is good. I'm skeptic of the cellphone radiation, so I could find proof about how companies mislead the population.

[Dodgey]

To say that something is impossibe you must demonstrate that it is impossibe.

TeeGee, what Nibb31 is doing isn't being skeptical, he is being stubborn. Warping of space is a proven fact. All this proposed drive is doing is artificially warping the space around the space craft. All skepticism is, is not believing something untill there is evidence to show that it exists. I think that you might of had a skewed defination of what it is.

[78stonewobble]

And we can build flying cars...

They just really wouldn't be enviromentally friendly or especially safe, but possible it is. We've got that narrowed down to questions of morality, practicality and engineering.

Warpdrive on the other hand? I'm gonna go with it's most likely impossible or atleast so practically impossible, it would be foolish to attempt to build it.

Yet, the rewards from even a remote possibility of it working cannot be ignored and I think the theoretical work should continue, in the hope of discovering a way to make it practically possible.

Until then, I find it foolish if we bet on it's possibility and delay "conventional" space exploration.

[Kaezan]

Yeah, Star Trek prophetized teleportation and needleless syringes too. Dr Who's Tardis is bigger inside than outside. And anyone over the age of 40 remembers promises of flying cars, personal helicopter back packs and bases on Venus by the year 2000. Everyday, there are wackos who come up with perpetual motion machines or reactionless drives, all of which are bogus. Some day, maybe someone will crack it, but you've got to admit that the odds are increasingly against it.

Some wacky predictions can come true, but 99.9% of the time, they remain wacky predictions. I have no doubt that some fundamental physics problems will be solved or worked around, but most of them will remain. We are just as likely to implement FTL travel as we are to invert gravity or to create perpetual motion.

I hope you do know that a company actually made a car with wings and it flew. It would have a 100Km/h speed while in the track and 200Km/h speed while in air..

And i hope you know that a laboratory actually made a sucessful teleportation of a block of solid matter.

Just saying

[TeeGee]

To say that something is impossibe you must demonstrate that it is impossibe.

TeeGee, what Nibb31 is doing isn't being skeptical, he is being stubborn. Warping of space is a proven fact. All this proposed drive is doing is artificially warping the space around the space craft. All skepticism is, is not believing something untill there is evidence to show that it exists. I think that you might of had a skewed defination of what it is.

Skepticism is the doubting of something. Nibb31 is skeptical that warp drive will ever be produced.

[TeeGee]

I hope you do know that a company actually made a car with wings and it flew. It would have a 100Km/h speed while in the track and 200Km/h speed while in air..

And i hope you know that a laboratory actually made a sucessful teleportation of a block of solid matter.

Just saying

[Seret]

Human's aren't advanced by skepticism, they are advanced by innovators and dreamers who say anything is possible, we just need to find the answer.

No it isn't. It's advanced by people who have a good understanding of what's possible and what's not. Sometimes new information changes our ideas of what can and can't be done, but the people who exploit these changes in understanding still understand and work with the limitations that are imposed on them. All design work is essentially a comprimise process where you have to factor in your limitations as much as your capabilities.

People who think "anything is possible" never achieve anything of note, they lack the focus and good understanding of reality that effective innovation requires. It's good to be daring and creative, but the real world does place harsh restrictions on what can be done physically, practically, and economically.

[Creature]

It's funny how there are 2 types of people in this forum: those who say warp drive is impossible and others convinced it is possible.

There's also 2 types of people in this forum: those who know what real world engineering is like and those who don't. But I agree, people shouldn't wave the impossible flag so much, it's certainly not productive just as well as going all hyperconvinced that we'll be warping to adjacent galaxies sometime next year is just showing the lack of understanding of realities.

As for warp drive the only correct answer right now is that we simply haven't got a clue wether or not it's possible. And probably won't know for sure in a very very long time.

[xcorps]

Human's aren't advanced by skepticism, they are advanced by innovators and dreamers who say anything is possible, we just need to find the answer.

No. Saying something is possible doesn't make it so. Dreamers don't do anything but dream. Skepticism is just a reaction to a change in knowledge.

Competition drives innovation.

[TeeGee]

No. Saying something is possible doesn't make it so. Dreamers don't do anything but dream. Skepticism is just a reaction to a change in knowledge.

Competition drives innovation.

Sigh.

You being the authority on what is possible?

Throughout the history of science (from breaking the sound barrier, to heliocentric models, to flight, to travelling to the moon) educated, and very intelligent men have said it was impossible. Impossible is not a word ANYONE should use... because that means that for all time, in any situations with any level of intelligence it cannot be done.

How can you possibly say that? Who are you to say that 10, 50, 100, 1000, 100,000 years or more someone, somewhere won't develop the technology to break the boundaries of light speed?

People who accept impossible, never advance anything because the strive to do so implodes.

People who LOOK for solutions to problems are usually the ones who find them, not the ones who give up and pack their bags and go home. People who say something is impossible are quitters and nobody who was great in the pursuit of science was ever a quitter, or ever used the word IMPOSSIBLE in their field of work.

Anyways, sorry for the rant but that needed to be said.

[xcorps]

Anyways, sorry for the rant but that needed to be said.

But not really, I wasn't claiming the possibility of anything. I was saying that the driving force behind innovation isn't dreaming.

[Comrade Jenkens]

Plenty of people said that it was impossible for man to fly, including plenty of experts at the time. Imagine if everyone from then on had packed up and not bothered again.

[Dodgey]

Sigh.

You being the authority on what is possible?

Throughout the history of science (from breaking the sound barrier, to heliocentric models, to flight, to travelling to the moon) educated, and very intelligent men have said it was impossible. Impossible is not a word ANYONE should use... because that means that for all time, in any situations with any level of intelligence it cannot be done.

How can you possibly say that? Who are you to say that 10, 50, 100, 1000, 100,000 years or more someone, somewhere won't develop the technology to break the boundaries of light speed?

People who accept impossible, never advance anything because the strive to do so implodes.

People who LOOK for solutions to problems are usually the ones who find them, not the ones who give up and pack their bags and go home. People who say something is impossible are quitters and nobody who was great in the pursuit of science was ever a quitter, or ever used the word IMPOSSIBLE in their field of work.

Anyways, sorry for the rant but that needed to be said.

That's not scepticism. Scepticism is the not believing of something until it has been demonstrated. Saying that it is impossible is making a truth claim and must be demonstrated in of itself. That is where you are mistaken, it is not scepticism that has held back the technological development of of humanity it is faith. Faith that something is impossible with out it being demonstrated.

[m4v]

It's like this: Einstein says "FTL? No. No way. Period." Which equals sad humanity pretty much chained to our solar system. Alcubierre and White say:"FTL? Hmm, maybe. Difficult, but there might be a way." Which equals hope for the future. It's all about hope, really

Funny you say that, Alcubierre himself is very sceptical about his drive becoming a reality and disagrees with the research that White is doing, https://twitter.com/malcubierre/status/371021602097336320

But the layman doesn't like about the limits of the universe, they want Star Trek, so they will keep fantasizing about warp drivers even if The Man himself says that it can't be done.

[xcorps]

Plenty of people said that it was impossible for man to fly, including plenty of experts at the time. Imagine if everyone from then on had packed up and not bothered again.

But at the time, they were right. It was impossible for man to fly prior to 1852. (Assuming you define flight as powered, sustained, and controlled)

Just like it's impossible for me to hop in my car and drive to the sun.

[m4v]

Except that for the case of a warp drive, it isn't that people are saying that is impossible, the laws of the universe are saying it.

[Dodgey]

Xcorps. So your argument then becomes it is impossible at this point it time. That is vastly different then saying it is impossible.

M4v. Do you have a complete understanding of the nature of the universe? If no than how can you say that it is impossible without exploring all possible options.

[xcorps]

My argument isn't anything.

I am trying to point out to you that epistemic impossibility is impossibility. Until it isn't.

FTL travel IS impossible. Me saying that is factually correct. It doesn't hold back science. It doesn't keep mankind in the Dark Ages. It's simply true.

[TheDarkStar]

My argument isn't anything.

I am trying to point out to you that epistemic impossibility is impossibility. Until it isn't.

FTL travel IS impossible. Me saying that is factually correct. It doesn't hold back science. It doesn't keep mankind in the Dark Ages. It's simply true.

Have you read how the Alcubierre drive works? It follows the laws of physics.

[m4v]

M4v. Do you have a complete understanding of the nature of the universe? If no than how can you say that it is impossible without exploring all possible options.

What's is the point of your question? nobody can claim to have a complete understanding of the universe, we know that the light speed limit is real, and that breaking it will bring consequences such as breaking causality and time travel. You can't claim that just because our understanding of our universe is incomplete the warp drive is a possibility, that's just wishful thinking.

[lajoswinkler]

Again with the ****ty "it was said a man can't fly" pseudoarguments.

[Dodgey]

I'm not claiming that it is possible, I am rejecting your argument that it is impossible. The claim has been made that it is impossible, without a complete understanding of the nature of the universe it is unreasonable and unjustified to claim that it is impossible. It is the same situation with the claim that a god does not exist. While we have no evidence for the existence of a god we also have no evidence that a god does not exist.