Spaceship could fly faster than light

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gblaze42
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Joined: Mon Jul 30, 2007 8:04 pm

Spaceship could fly faster than light

Post by gblaze42 »

An interesting article I'm sure many of you will enjoy.

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology ... speed.html

JohnSmith
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Location: University

Post by JohnSmith »

Bleh. The first time I read about the Alcubierre drive I was interested. Now I'm annoyed with pretty much any article mentioning FTL.

"If we could warp the fabric of space, we could go faster than light!"

... And if we could raise the speed of light, we could go faster, too!
This isn't even science, let alone engineering.
Heim Theory is still interesting, but not much else.

gblaze42
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Post by gblaze42 »

JohnSmith wrote:Bleh. The first time I read about the Alcubierre drive I was interested. Now I'm annoyed with pretty much any article mentioning FTL.

"If we could warp the fabric of space, we could go faster than light!"

... And if we could raise the speed of light, we could go faster, too!
This isn't even science, let alone engineering.
Heim Theory is still interesting, but not much else.
They've modified Alcubierre's warp drive and now it's possible to warp space with "only" the equivalent mass energy of one Jupiter, as before it took most of the mass of the universe. I'm hoping that in the next few years they'll figure out how to get the energy density down to one earth mass, then we'll see things start to heat up! :lol:

Seriously though they did calculate the maximum speed that could be attained and looks like you could zip across the entire universe in about 15 seconds at maximum velocity.

Heim theory interesting? I'm even afraid to mention the name in conversation!

kurt9
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Post by kurt9 »

This is the String/M-brane version of the Alcuberrie "warp" concept. It is far less plausible or realizable with projected technology than the FTL concept based on the Extended Heim Theory.

gblaze42
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Post by gblaze42 »

kurt9 wrote:This is the String/M-brane version of the Alcuberrie "warp" concept. It is far less plausible or realizable with projected technology than the FTL concept based on the Extended Heim Theory.
I'm not sure how to approach this as It sounds like a few people are believers of "Heim Theory" but the original theory hasn't even been peer reviewed! I'm not even sure mainstream scientists are looking at it seriously. String theory, even though, at the moment isn't tested, has quite a bit of solid work behind it, and has more credibility behind it. It is possible that String theory could remain impossible to prove or passed by a new "better" theory but I can't imagine it would be "Heim Theory" .

No insult intended.

djolds1
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Post by djolds1 »

gblaze42 wrote:
kurt9 wrote:This is the String/M-brane version of the Alcuberrie "warp" concept. It is far less plausible or realizable with projected technology than the FTL concept based on the Extended Heim Theory.
I'm not sure how to approach this as It sounds like a few people are believers of "Heim Theory" but the original theory hasn't even been peer reviewed! I'm not even sure mainstream scientists are looking at it seriously. String theory, even though, at the moment isn't tested, has quite a bit of solid work behind it, and has more credibility behind it. It is possible that String theory could remain impossible to prove or passed by a new "better" theory but I can't imagine it would be "Heim Theory" .

No insult intended.
There are something like 1E15 variations on String/Brane/M theory. A new one for every time a theorist solves the same equations for the second time.

Heim is related to LQG, and thus far more limited, more coherent, more testable, and more promising. Quantization of spacetime into planck length surfaces makes more intuitive sense than infinite strings smaller than the planck length. String Theory postulates additional dimensions of "real" space rolled up in the strings, LQG/Heim are restricted to only the three real dimensions of actual experience. String theorists wax poetical about the mathematical beauty of string theory, but the LQG variants have the intuitive & comprehensive conceptual simplicity, and thus the parsiminous beauty.

Any hypothesis that requires a particle accelerator the diameter of the Galaxy to be proved should've been dropped in a heartbeat. String Theory is virtually the definition of the most un-parsiminous concept in human history, and such a blatant violation of Occam's Razor should have killed the conjecture's credibility post haste. Or at least it is supposed to be. String theory is about aesthetics, not hard results. It is trained scientists getting caught up ruminating over the putative beauty of the beauty of the beauty of the concept they're convinced is beautiful.

As to being a "believer," I'm entirely willing to see Heim fall by the wayside. But it is more plausible than the post-scientific metaphysics called "strings."

And whether or not Heim stands up to scrutiny, Martin Tajmar's artificial gravity/field findings seem to be holding up, so matters are starting to become interesting.

Duane
Vae Victis

JohnSmith
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Post by JohnSmith »

And don't forget Heim Theory's one claim to fame; accurate prediction of particle masses. That alone makes it a hundred times better than string theory in my opinion.

Nanos
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Post by Nanos »

> looks like you could zip across the entire universe in about
> 15 seconds at maximum velocity.

I bet the post office would still take 4 weeks to deliver..


Based on my experiences with TNT sending a rather large parcel from UK to US, 4 day delivery service they said... took 4 weeks!

They explained to me that weekends didn't count, holidays didn't count, the night time didn't count, that only so many hours in the day counted and even though it was going by airfreight, it spent a rather large amount of its journey going by truck passing upteen airports along the way..

Not to mention all the fun we had trying to get communication between US with touch tone phone technology phone menu's and UK rotatry phones and timezones where everyone in one country is asleep when everyone else is at work..

kurt9
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Post by kurt9 »

gblaze42 wrote:
I'm not sure how to approach this as It sounds like a few people are believers of "Heim Theory" but the original theory hasn't even been peer reviewed! I'm not even sure mainstream scientists are looking at it seriously. String theory, even though, at the moment isn't tested, has quite a bit of solid work behind it, and has more credibility behind it. It is possible that String theory could remain impossible to prove or passed by a new "better" theory but I can't imagine it would be "Heim Theory" .
This is very true, but misses my point. IF Heim theory turns out to be correct, the materials and energy requirements of the FTL are such that it could be realized with projected materials science and energy generation technologies in the next few decades. The technical hurtles appear to be the sustained generation of a 60T magnetic field and the development of a superconductor material that can handle high current flux (400Amp/cm2). These are daunting conditions, but realizable with "existing" technology.

However, if String/M-brane theory turns out to be correct, the energy requirements for the proposed FTL are many orders magnitude beyond anything that is even conceivable with materials science and energy generation technology in the foreseeable future, that it is does not really merit discussion.

In short, EHT or some version of it will prevail and we may get an FTL in the next few decades, or we will not get any kind of FTL at all.

I am well aware of the controversial nature of EHT. It is quite likely wrong. However, EHT does appear to be testable (thus falsifiable) with a relatively modest financial investment. At the same time, it offers the ONLY "realistic" potential for an FTL that I am aware of. These facts alone make it worth investigating, or at least attempting to falsify experimentally.

BTW, no offense taken. I am certainly no "believer" in EHT.

gblaze42
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Post by gblaze42 »

kurt9 wrote:
gblaze42 wrote:
This is very true, but misses my point. IF Heim theory turns out to be correct, the materials and energy requirements of the FTL are such that it could be realized with projected materials science and energy generation technologies in the next few decades. The technical hurtles appear to be the sustained generation of a 60T magnetic field and the development of a superconductor material that can handle high current flux (400Amp/cm2). These are daunting conditions, but realizable with "existing" technology.

However, if String/M-brane theory turns out to be correct, the energy requirements for the proposed FTL are many orders magnitude beyond anything that is even conceivable with materials science and energy generation technology in the foreseeable future, that it is does not really merit discussion.

In short, EHT or some version of it will prevail and we may get an FTL in the next few decades, or we will not get any kind of FTL at all.

I am well aware of the controversial nature of EHT. It is quite likely wrong. However, EHT does appear to be testable (thus falsifiable) with a relatively modest financial investment. At the same time, it offers the ONLY "realistic" potential for an FTL that I am aware of. These facts alone make it worth investigating, or at least attempting to falsify experimentally.

BTW, no offense taken. I am certainly no "believer" in EHT.
I understand now, your basing which theory would provide the best path to FTL in the shortest time, if proven correct. Personally I don't believe their is a an easy way to do FTL. For example, the 60 Tesla magnetic fields needed to negate gravity, or possibly push a spacecraft into "Hyperspace". If this were true there would be no magnetic stars which revolve in seconds and have magnetic fields of 10 gigateslas! By EHT they should drop into "Hyperspace" and/or be moving at light speed across the universe because of the "anti-gravity" effect they produce.
I believe that Cleaver and Richard Obousy have given us at least the understanding that it is possible to move faster than light, if not directly, by the space around us. This gives great hope that some day they or someone could reduce the energy cost to levels almost attainable by human civilizations.

djolds1
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Post by djolds1 »

gblaze42 wrote:I understand now, your basing which theory would provide the best path to FTL in the shortest time, if proven correct. Personally I don't believe their is a an easy way to do FTL.
I'm conflicted as well. If I get my hyperdrive, I'll need to live up to my Faustian Bargain with the Son of Perdition, and give him my mother's soul. 8)
gblaze42 wrote:For example, the 60 Tesla magnetic fields needed to negate gravity, or possibly push a spacecraft into "Hyperspace". If this were true there would be no magnetic stars which revolve in seconds and have magnetic fields of 10 gigateslas!
Not how the mechanism is reported to work, as I think you know. Tho per this a neutron star would generate a gravitophoton effect (but not FTL).

Also don't know if the high-Tesla fields are still required for the putative FTL application. All work since Tajmar's initial reports two years ago have indicated vastly reduced technical requirements for the STL "normal" propulsive experiment.

I find EHT/LQG more attractive as a massively elegant GUT proposal however. It "fits."
Vae Victis

Jeff Peachman
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Post by Jeff Peachman »

"Causality, Relativity, and FTL travel: Choose any two."

(Credit where credit is due: http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket ... #causality )

Edit: You can still have wormholes, assuming they can't be used as time machines.
- Jeff Peachman

djolds1
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Post by djolds1 »

Jeff Peachman wrote:"Causality, Relativity, and FTL travel: Choose any two."

(Credit where credit is due: http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket ... #causality )

Edit: You can still have wormholes, assuming they can't be used as time machines.
Assuming the 'FTL' part of Heim holds up, in strict terms one does not travel faster than light, and therefore relativity is not violated. The purported mechanism is that in the various hyperspaces the local speed of light (c', c-prime) is revised up. The relativistic effects of 25% c' in any given hyperspace = the relativistic effects of 25% c in normal space. But no local velocity ever exceeds c or c'.

Not sure how that rebounds on causality.

Duane
Vae Victis

93143
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Post by 93143 »

Didn't Paul Birch demonstrate that FTL travel need not violate causality? Or did I miss something and he's full of it?

(Well, I already know he's full of it - crashing Enceladus into Venus to terraform it? - but the FTL paper sounded reasonable to me...)

(Maybe I shouldn't knock his planetary engineering; I recently tried to work out a scheme to restart Mars' core dynamo with a bank of fusion reactors, a really big electromagnet, and a deep hole backfilled with liquid iron...)

Jeff Peachman
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Post by Jeff Peachman »

djolds1 wrote: Not sure how that rebounds on causality.
Duane
Imagine you had a bazooka that could fire warp missles that used the heim FTL drive in question. Whether the missles experience time dilation effects themselves is moot.

Now read this site: http://sheol.org/throopw/tachyon-pistols.html

Replace the term tachyon bullet with warp missle. You are on the slower than light relativistic spaceship A and I am on B.

I tried to explain it myself but I'm typing on my phone right now, so its easier to just look at that site.

EDIT: You are right that heim's FTL drive does not violate relativity, but if it works then causlity will be violated. I'm not saying that FTL is impossible. Its possible that causality could be violated and that the world will just be a really really wierd place.
Last edited by Jeff Peachman on Fri Aug 15, 2008 6:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
- Jeff Peachman

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