Apologies to those of you who have already seen this thread on Sakeriver, but this is just too potentially cool not to share it both places.
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
How credible is that?
Posted by Raventhief (Member # 9002) on :
I'll believe it when I see it. But if something moves faster than light, seeing it would be difficult...
The main problem I see is that this device is based on an unproved theory as to the structure of the fabric of the universe. Also, what indication is there that in this supposed alternate dimension, the speed of light is higher than it is here? As a fan of SF in it's many forms, I have to believe that there will someday be faster than light travel, but I think it's a few years off.
Posted by Sharpie (Member # 482) on :
Please oh please oh please!
That's my reaction to reading this article: Please let this work!
Posted by ricree101 (Member # 7749) on :
quote:Originally posted by Sharpie: Please oh please oh please!
That's my reaction to reading this article: Please let this work!
Mine too, but I suspect that the chances of this working are almost nonexistant.
Even if they can move to some other dimension, and even if the speed of light is faster there, it doesn't really help us in the new future. It's not like the speed of light is really limiting our space travel at the moment.
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
It's pretty much meaningless: NASA/DARPA has also funded research on the various Poldnekov, Woodward, etc* "effect"s, cold fusion, hafnium fission, etc.
Military**paranoia basicly dictates: If you can't prove that an idea doesn't work, we must research it until we are sure. For the US especially, the nightmare is waking up one morning to find out that a new "ManhattanProject" has sneaked under the intelligence services' notice, to a success which guarantees the OtherSide overwhelming military superiority.
* Any antigravity device is inherently a faster-than-light drive.
** I don't mean this in a bad way. The military is specificly paid-to-be-paranoid. When they aren't.....look at the results of the French military's over-confidence in the "invulnerablity" of the MaginotLine.
[ January 06, 2006, 01:28 AM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
Posted by King of Men (Member # 6684) on :
How does antigravity give you FTL?
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
Well, technically the Maginot line remains undefeated.
Posted by DarkKnight (Member # 7536) on :
I think you have some faulty reasoning Aspectre. Unless you are suggesting that you try once, maybe twice to get an idea to work, and then abandon it? The military tries to get very complex things to work and they can take time. Stealth technology took decades to develop for instance.
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
I call b.s.
But I do think we'll find away around the speed of light at some point.
Posted by Telperion the Silver (Member # 6074) on :
I'm with Sharpie... Oh god oh god please let it work!!
Posted by KarlEd (Member # 571) on :
Just musing, but how safe is it to test these kinds of theories on the scale of a prototype engine on earth? The part of me weaned on Hollywood mad scientist-induced disasters can imagine such a test going awry and porting a good sized chunk of Earth out somewhere near pluto.
I'd feel safer if they did their tests in space. Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
Not very. Huge magnetic fields aren't something that are easy or healthy to work with.
Posted by starLisa (Member # 8384) on :
It isn't the speed of light that's limiting us. It's maintaining a constant acceleration. We just don't have any way to generate the kind of power necessary without making the ship so big that it needs more power, and so on.
They say they can create a gravitational field with a large magnetic field, but to the best of my knowledge, that's science fiction theorizing. Some people have conjectured that gravitation is a 4th order effect of electromagnetism, but it's not even a theory at this point. Just an idea.
And deforming such a field to create thrust... can we even do that on a small scale?
Posted by ricree101 (Member # 7749) on :
On the other hand, it would be interesting if they could show that magnetic fields can generate gravitational fields. Even without faster than light travel, that alone would still probably be worth it.
Posted by Enigmatic (Member # 7785) on :
quote: "But this thing is not around the corner; we first have to prove the basic science is correct and there are quite a few physicists who have a different opinion.
"It's our job to prove we are right and we are working on that."
I think this article is a great illustration of what science is all about. "We have a theory. Not everybody agrees on the theory. We're working on a way to prove whether or not it works." It's not a problem at all that they're working with an unproven theory. That's exactly how science makes progress.
--Enigmatic
Posted by SC Carver (Member # 8173) on :
I'm with starLisa, We can't do anything close to the speed of light now, what makes us think we can go faster than it in another dimension?
Posted by Bean Counter (Member # 6001) on :
I have a design I made for an Anti-Gravity engine based on the idea that Electro Magnetism can distort space time the way Gravity does, but to my knowlege that is not the case, for instance a spinning Black Hole can drag spacetime in a circe, but can a spinning supperconducting magnet? Physics says no.
I would put any design based on a speculative theory of gravity up there with having a miswired toaster turn out to be a time machine!
So why design it? It was amusing and it did turn out to have some familiar needs, familiar in the sense that the end product needed to resembe a saucer!
BC
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
They're not actually suggesting exceeding light speed in any dimension, the hypothesis is that in the alternate dimension the speed of light is faster, and thus we can travel faster there than here. Where they're getting that info I'd love to know.
Posted by Bean Counter (Member # 6001) on :
When alternate dimensions are smaller then the plank distance how do you fit into them?
BC
Posted by camus (Member # 8052) on :
Hmmm, it might be useful for high speed data transfers, but probably very expensive..
Posted by Juxtapose (Member # 8837) on :
how can we have a hypothesis on something in another dimension? Isn't that like scientifically hypothesizing that, say, God (or a flying spaghetti monster) exists? How can we have knowledge of something not physically there in the sense that it's not in our universe?
Posted by Alcon (Member # 6645) on :
It'd be amazingly nice. Unfortunately: its bullshit.
They should be putting funding into things we know work, such as the VASIMR and nuclear rockets, instead of this. But so it goes.
Posted by erosomniac (Member # 6834) on :
All that talk of other dimensions reeks of science fiction to my uneducated sense of smell:
quote:Also, if a large enough magnetic field was created, the craft would slip into a different dimension, where the speed of light is faster, allowing incredible speeds to be reached. Switching off the magnetic field would result in the engine reappearing in our current dimension.
It just READS badly. They've gotta find a better way to phrase that if they want anyone to take it seriously (although I suppose if the government is taking them seriously, that's all they really need).
Posted by Enigmatic (Member # 7785) on :
I wonder how much of the bits like what erosomniac quoted are the journalist trying to briefly sum up a much, much more complicated theory. We had a few threads a while back on the crappiness that is science journalism. Whether their theories are correct or not remains to be seen, and even if they're right there's still a question of whether propulsion based on them would actually be feasible. But I am willing to bet that there's much more to it than the vague "magnetism, another dimension, whoosh!" summary that we get in the article.
As for only funding things that we know work, that just guarentees that we won't ever know more.
--Enigmatic
Posted by Lyrhawn (Member # 7039) on :
How do they plan to accelerate a human being that fast without having him slam into the back of the ship like bugs on a windshield?
Don't we have to invent inertial dampeners before we can do this?
Posted by Vasslia Cora (Member # 7981) on :
No, but it would be a plus Posted by ricree101 (Member # 7749) on :
If it is true, applications aren't limited to actual space travel. For example, it could have short term applications in space communications. Being able to send normal radio communications at a faster than light speed would be usefull both in unmanned probes and future manned flights.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
My father (a mathematical physicist) says they are crackpots with a gift for PR. Posted by Blayne Bradley (Member # 8565) on :
tisk tisk, what about Alcubierre? this mexican physicist came up with something interesting...
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