NASA and warp travel

Discussion in 'Physics & Math' started by daktaklakpak, Jun 8, 2001.

  1. daktaklakpak God is irrelevant! Registered Senior Member

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    Yesterday I read a magazine(Popular Mechanic???) from San Francisco Main Library. I remember there is an article about NASA is spending funds to explore the idea of faster than light travel, such as warp travel from Star Trek.
     
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  3. Javier Registered Senior Member

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    Any hope is good

    There are few things in the science field,if any,that would please me more than a discovery like this,if the interstellar travel becomes possible:

    All those beautiful sights of multiple systems,pulsars,differently coloured stars from alien landscapes...

    And the answer for the question if there s life out there¡¡
     
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  5. KneD Le Penseur Registered Senior Member

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    Personally I don't think it's possible to travel faster then light.
    This is a little to much hollywood/SF minded.

    It's against all physics laws I've ever learned....
    And I'm not a 'believer'.
     
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  7. papa_smirf Registered Senior Member

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    If you're not a believer KneD, then why do you have a picture of an alien as an avatar? Just curious. Also, how in the world can you not be a believer when the universe is aparently infinite?
     
  8. KneD Le Penseur Registered Senior Member

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    Let's say I just find it a nice picture, I believe in life somewhere else in universe, but not in life that is able to visit us and more of that sci-fi crap.

    With a 'believer' I mean someone who believes in supernatural things very fast....I want to see facts and scientific explanations first.
    And I still want to see that although the universe in infinite.

    And what I don't understand, why should I believe in warp-speed when the universe in infinite....that doesn't make any difference to me.
     
  9. daktaklakpak God is irrelevant! Registered Senior Member

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    NASA only spent half million on that project. So don't hold your breath.
     
  10. kmguru Staff Member

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    Whenever faster than light travel comes up, we get hung up on the light speed. I have a question for the physics experts. If I find a way to compress two points in space five light years apart and enter at point A and arrive at point B in 1 hour, am I breaking any laws? How so?

    In Babylon 5, they called it hyperspace during transit.
     
  11. Crisp Gone 4ever Registered Senior Member

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    Hi kmguru,

    If you can manage to get the points within 1 lighthour distance, then you're not breaking any physical laws. If you could get these points A and B close enough, then light would also need less time to travel the distance you're travelling using your shortcut. So that does not qualify as faster than light travel, only as interstellar travel

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    Bye!

    Crisp
     
  12. kmguru Staff Member

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    Well then, let us work on that. Can I do the experiments on the surface of our planet or have to go in space to do that? Is anybody working on such projects?
     
  13. Crisp Gone 4ever Registered Senior Member

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    Hi kmguru,

    What you are looking for is the warping of space and time. The theory on warpengines has been written by Alcubierre (1994) and has recently been refined by Van den Broeck (Belgian physicist, 1999).

    Bye!

    Crisp
     
  14. kmguru Staff Member

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    According to them, energy requirement is so huge that we need to harness a few suns energy if not the whole galaxy to make it possible.

    Need to find another method....
     
  15. thecurly1 Registered Senior Member

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    It was probably Popular Science...

    The article you saw was an earlier issue of Popular Science, I'd look it up, but I don't feel like going in my room. Anyways, warp travel doesn't mean always traveling faster than light. Their main purpose was to develop a more efficient and faster version of space travel than chemical propulsion, or even plasma.

    In the conventional sense you can't travel faster than light. But to move over huge distances you don't have too. If you can manipulate space, bending it and such you can create a cosmic shortcut, traveling a long distance in a short amount of time, but not traveling excessively fast. It would be like taking a perfectly straight road from your house to the store, instead of taking a curving, turning, road, which would take comparatively longer. I'm sure if you look around on the internet you'll find interesting articles on the subject. Try warp drive, or advanced propulsion.
     
  16. kmguru Staff Member

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    Yes, I read about different propulsion in Popular Science too. My point of finding different method is that, to cross a river while travelling on the road in an automobile, you need a bridge, not an automobile that floats on water.

    May be we could design a space bridge (or tunnel) that compresses the space between two points....

    Any ideas?
     
  17. papa_smirf Registered Senior Member

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    Kind of like the one in the movie Lost in Space? In the movie they were making what you called a space bridge to Alpha Centari in order to evacute our planet.
     
  18. kmguru Staff Member

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    papa smirf knows.

    long live and prosper....
     
  19. papa_smirf Registered Senior Member

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    die young and fail...
     
  20. kmguru Staff Member

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    Thank you...you are so kind...considerate...made my day. Same to you too.
     
  21. papa_smirf Registered Senior Member

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    Sorry if that sounded bad. Its a joke I have with my friends. Like if you live long you may prosper but if you die young then you fail. At least thats how I meant it. Hope you have a good one

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  22. DJeka Registered Member

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  23. kmguru Staff Member

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    Thank you DJeka, it is one of the best link I have seen so far.
     

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