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Monday June 15, 2009
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And here I was getting all excited about scientists working on warp drive: A different group of physicists in Italy have determined that such an engine could create a black hole that would kill everyone on a spaceship and then suck Earth into it, according to Discovery News.
"Warp drives are so far the best case scenario to attain faster-than-light travel," said Stefano Finazzi of Italy's International School for Advanced Studies in the article. This paper "makes it much harder to realize, if not almost impossible, warp drives." There are two ways that humans could move faster than the speed of light (normally an impossibility). One would be a worm hole, but that's tough to make in a backyard garage. The other, "more appealing option," is to design a warp drive that, with enough energy, could propel space around a space ship to move faster than the speed of light.
Here's the problem, according to the Italian physicists: a warp drive would create a bubble of energy behind the ship and a lack of it behind the ship, which the ship could then surf on. But maintaining the bubble would require a tremendous amount of dark energy (which we still know very little about). Once that energy ran out, the bubble would rupture, causing the temperature to rise to about 10^32 degrees Kelvin--and possibly collapse into a black hole, taking Earth with it. Otherwise, it shouldn't be a problem.
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June 15, 2009 5:15 PM
Hah - well, there are risks to everything, right?
It's not just the ridiculous amount of energy that's at issue either; if I'm not mistaken if the same "warping" theory is the one that I studied, the use of incredible amounts of energy to create a supermassive point in space-time that spatially brings the space behind a ship and the space in front of a ship closer together and then releases that space back to its normal curvature by releasing the gravitational field would of create a super-massive point in space all by itself; essentially a black hole. :)
June 15, 2009 5:37 PM
What the frack!!! Can carbon units surpass the speed of light without disturbing the space time continuum and dematerializing into oblivion. Let me get the frack out of here....
June 15, 2009 6:35 PM
Through out history we are reminded what was once believed impossible is in fact possible. Perhaps we are limited only by our current understanding of the laws of physics in known universe.
June 15, 2009 6:50 PM
"Perhaps we are limited only by our current understanding of the laws of physics in known universe".
Perhaps there is a Sanity Clause.
June 15, 2009 7:30 PM
It is interesting that scientist have only begun to learn, understand and think about dark matter and dark energy. And already some are declaring we cannot control it if we use it. More time is needed to understand the physics of it, before we can declare what we can and cannot do with it. Especially since We still cannot harness and manage the energy we use everyday.
June 16, 2009 10:29 AM
This is la la stuff. To an unemployed technician it is frustrating to think that these guys are actually on the clock and getting paid to carry on with this kind of drivel.
June 16, 2009 10:41 AM
I distinctly remember that man once believed the world to be flat. His eagerness for discovery proved that "fact" to be wrong. The same mentality said we couldn't fly, let alone go into space itself. Look at where we are now. If warp drive isn't possible, then something else that we havn't discovered yet will be. Nothing has stopped us from exploring before. Nothing will stop us now or in the future. Live long and prosper.
June 16, 2009 11:16 AM
I wonder how one can reliabley draw conclusions about warp drive feasibility and function when matter (dark matter) - something that is a theory - has not been proven to exist; has only unobserved speculative properties; and seems to be an integral part to the theory that warp drive would create a singularity capable of gobbling up Mother Earth. Hmm. Someone might want to contact the boys at S4 Area 51 to give them the disappointing news. Sorry guys, but your faster-than-light-speed capabale vehicles really don't work.
June 16, 2009 12:02 PM
JR: Now now, it's just a theory! That being said, dark matter is NOT a theory and has experimental observations to back up its existence. The problem is that we don't know what it's MADE OF, we just know that it's THERE.
We can see this because stellar objects, particular solar systems and galactic movements don't strictly follow Kepler's laws - there seems to be some "missing mass" somewhere in the system that would explain why the motion of the objects doesn't correspond to how they would move based on the sum of their respective masses. That's why it's called "dark matter," because for Kepler to be right, it's there but we just can't see it. :)
June 16, 2009 1:30 PM
It is amazing to me that most people put up with this stuff...
Kepler (great guy) came up with some great ideas that eventually become accepted as LAWS (meaning that they seem to always work), just like that great guy Newton.
On the other hand, some irregularities were eventually discovered, so the laws are still accepted, BUT with some hesistancy and caveats.
So this guy Einstein helps out Newton by adding some more great ideas that fill in where Newton's Laws have some issues, and all is well again (though a bit more complicated). I think Kepler got some help there as well.
But for most of Kepler's Laws, we instead get these idiots who dare to claim that 96% (# found elsewhere) of the matter in the universe is this special dark stuff that you CAN'T observe. Apparently, it is supernatural.
That is not science, that is religion--man-made "drivel" (nice term) that requires blind faith while wholeheartedly departing from the scientific method (observe, model, test, rinse, repeat). There may be a place in life for faith, but these dark matter shenanigans and their ilk smack more of a con job than of curious discovery. It sounds like a desperate ploy to keep oneself "gainfully employed", if I may stretch the term that grossly.
June 16, 2009 1:33 PM
just think about Event Horizon...
June 16, 2009 1:46 PM
JR, they never said anything about these things existing any time soon. It's not so much that we don't know Dark matter even exists as it is that we don't understand enough about this level of physics in general yet. The current "ideas" to create something like a warp drive will most likely be entirely obsolete by the time we do actually have the potential to create such a device.
History has repeated itself time and time again with humanity pushing the limits beyond what was previously believed even remotely reasonable. In time, people will find it hard to believe we got by with what technology is today. It'll be in books.
Of course these vehicles don't work, because they don't exist, nor do they claim them to.
June 16, 2009 1:47 PM
Seems odd that Earth would be the only planet sucked into the black hole. Maybe they should work on a warp drive that will only suck Pluto into a black hole, no one cares about Pluto anymore its not even a planet.
June 16, 2009 1:48 PM
Who cares if we destroy the Earth? Science must never be hindered!
PROGRESS!
June 16, 2009 1:55 PM
Uhh...no.
That's not how black holes work. What a stupid research.
June 16, 2009 1:59 PM
killjoy...
June 16, 2009 2:10 PM
Physics seem to have laws that vary depending on the scale. This explains, loosely, why we see the strange unexplained at the micro scale and the unusual movement of the universe. There isn't any dark matter, only the scalable law of physics that itself much like the universe, a mathmatical sphere with the very large at one pole and the very small at the other.
In time you will figure that out. The universe you live in is a sphere. The universe does not consist of the inside of this sphere, but rather it is the surface.
But what do I know.
June 16, 2009 2:15 PM
"it might make a black hole" is the equivalent of "if you keep going you will fall off the edge of the earth". ya we dont know what will happen 100% but i really dont thin we will be able to make enough energy to do anything to make a black hole.
-matt
June 16, 2009 2:27 PM
I like the explanation I heard from I believe David Eicke (sp? a British author) on Coast to Coast AM. Fish in a pond live two-dimensionally; they swim left, right, back, forwards, but to them, the surface of the pond is just the end of the world. They don't think to think about what is beyond it - why would they? There doesn't seem to be anything there. But then one fine day, a person is walking along the banks, reaches into the water, and picks up a fish. The fish is simply gone from its world; its fellow fish don't know where it has gone, and neither does the abductee. The person puts the fish back in the water a few feet down the shore, and suddenly, this fish has (to the appearance of its fellow fish) been teleported from one location in the world to another. It did not travel the intervening distance; it simply disappeared in one place, then reappeared in another.
Now, we super-smart humans KNOW the world is three-dimensional. We have up and down, as well as back and front and left and right. But our string theories posit that there are up to twelve dimensions. A fish has no idea how to incorporate 'sky' into its two-dimensional worldview; you can't explain up to it, because they have no point of reference. So too will it be for us with interstellar travel.
Its not a matter of warp drives, or dark matter. Its a matter of learning where the surface of the water is, and how to get past it. We need to find our new 'up'. I suggest we call it 'bleen'.
June 16, 2009 2:38 PM
@Tom F. Choad: If only there were.
June 16, 2009 2:51 PM
If this star ship goes below warp 1 it will destroy our solar system ... I feel another "Speed" moving coming out of this!
June 16, 2009 2:57 PM
I would rather have people employed to do this type of useless work then employed to steal as much money from as many people as they possibly can. What I stall can not understand is why people believe that they can not make themselves a job, and instead need to be hand feed work from an employer, then complain about people whom can make themselves a job? A lot of these people have to convince the government to fund them and do research at the same time. Many times they have to convince people that they deserve funding on a quarterly bias. Image having quarterly reviews at your last job where if you where not doing above average you would get fired, that is how the finical aid system for both college and research in the United States was designed to work many countries have similar systems. They have to be willing in many cause to work for years with little or no pay (attend college) and in the US add to that the threat of being in debt for the rest of their natural lives to get jobs like this. Being able to create a blockhole in any form via any method will at some time in the future be worth its weight in gold. Imagine sucking all of the nuclear waste of the entire world into a oil drum. But this will be pointless until our technology is at least 10000 times more advanced. By then we should have developed something form of pollution that makes a small black hole look like a much better alternative (the white hole, neutron star based weapons with pure mass to energy converts rates, Energy diseases that can infect electricity itself and disfigures elections, just to name a few). Like gunpowder in china. If they would have just held on that tech continued to develop they might have colonized the new world.
Black holes in theory could be view as nothing more than the difference between the amount of gravity compared to the speed of time in a particular point of space. If that is the case then it is reasonable that if you could increase the rate of time so that there is a localized temporal dampening field effecting the force of gravity compared to other diminutional forces a black hole could be neutralized, but you might have to be able to target the gravity and mass of the black hole only. Which may require wormholes and a massive power source. I am more in favor of linear motion drivers, like trains, you eliminate the negative effects of a specific aspect of the equation of motion, like friction, then move the object in space without moving the object in an equal amount in time. The object is to move things in space not time, warp drives are for people whom believe that using a localized time field to increase the local speed of light past normal speeds is unrealistic because they do not want to get place in a sleeper cell for five years just to vista the nearest star. Worm holes are the natural extension of roads, you alter the local environment to increase the speed of travel. Air plane do the same thing via nullifying the effects of gravity and friction. Alter the local effects of time directly to improve the amount of motion through space compared to the motion of time.
What about speed of light heading directly into a black hole? Would not the gravity of the black hole force light traveling directly into it to move faster than the speed of light? At the point where light is traveling at the maximum allowed speed what happens when the light is force to move faster because of the effects of gravity? Is there a light boom like a sonic boom or is there an flexing of the localized space time or is there a universal rounding mechanism to lower the speed that a particular electronic magnetic wave travels at?
June 16, 2009 3:15 PM
There isn't really anything to worry about here. The physics we are talking about isn't fully developed yet as this would definitely require quantum gravity. In the end, the "black hole" won't actually occur. I would be far more worried about gravitational waves that would result from the motion and the collapse of the bubble. It would be like no earthquake we have ever experienced... ungood.
June 16, 2009 3:37 PM
I like how articles like this seem to imply that we should abandon all hope of some idea from from popular science because of a technicality. If we end up really wanting to explore space at some point, and if space travel is practical, I'm sure we can find workarounds to the problems or discover entirely new ways of doing it.
Besides, I'm not sure that warp drive in the Star Trek sense was ever, or could ever be, totally explained, because we simply don't have the technology yet; nor have we even confirmed (or denied) that warp drive is the best solution for space travel. So, articles like this are simply speculation layered upon speculation.
Having said that, I still think these things are interesting to think about.
June 16, 2009 3:39 PM
Remember, they thought setting off a nuclear bomb would ingnite all the oxygen in the atmosphere and turn the earth into a giant fireball killing all of the inhabitants. They did it anyway. Sometimes you just gotta take risks.
June 16, 2009 3:48 PM
wouldn't you stretch down to nil if you went the speed of light, if not faster?
June 16, 2009 5:36 PM
Well I'm sure it would destroy Earth if the Italians built it
June 16, 2009 5:44 PM
In that case... I better stop experimenting in my garage and read more about folding space.
June 16, 2009 5:52 PM
Guys, guys - you're harping on the "Dark matter" as a "thing" that either does or doesn't exist - remember "dark matter" is just a term used to describe whatever may be producing the extra mass required to explain the observations that we actually see. Whether it's an actual material, a particle, a force, or something else is entirely unclear. This is a really exciting discussion though, let's keep it up! :D
@middleman: Not at all - Einstein essentially said that in order for an object to approach the speed of light, it would require ever increasing amounts of energy to propel it. Since we know that energy and mass are essentially the same thing and are related by a very simple formula (E=MC^2) that ever increasing amount of energy would also require ever increasing mass.
That's the point of this specific theory - in order to travel across space time at exceptionally high speeds, approaching the speed of light, you need nearly infinite energy. Either that or infinite mass, and that's where the whole "warping" theory comes from - infinite mass will change the characteristics of spacetime to either bring points closer together, or cause a spacetime "wave" an object could use to propel itself through space at high velocity: the former reuqiring less energy than the latter because it's naturally "slower."
Now granted, this is all science-fiction-y stuff, and makes some serious assumptions about the nature of spacetime - assumptions we don't have the instrumentation or understanding to test and prove out!
June 16, 2009 5:52 PM
Definitely humans will need to harness some form of near-infinitesimal recyclable energy to travel beyond the speed of light and I highly doubt an exploding spacecraft could create a black hole that would eventually swallow up the Earth post it's failure to warp-drive. In my opinion, humans can travel beyond the speed of light... only by using a different method than conventional traveling means. Currently, humans trek across wholly in linear distances moving through space by them selves or a matter of a 3D mode of transportation such as a bicycle or plane. In order to travel beyond light, as a whole matter, is improbable... but what if humans created a means of "atom by atom" transportation travel? In general, science-engineers could create a super-particle accelerator that could propel a recon-imaging device that would be sent into any location of space by a small worm-hole. Since the device is inorganic, it could be simply remodel into the chosen area of space by a super-computer earth side... meaning no worries about going beyond the speed of light. When the recon-imaging device has finally been set-up, humans or inorganic stuff could be sent to the recon's location via "atom by atom". It would essentially mean that a person does not fully emerge itself beyond the speed of light into the human created worm-hole, but transfer piece by piece. Would work probably... the only problem I got with this was if the conscience of that individual would still be intact, damn. Oh well, back to the drawing board hehe.
June 16, 2009 6:02 PM
If I remember correctly the Enterprise warp drive was never used in the solar system. Impulse drive was used.
June 16, 2009 6:04 PM
The Spice must flow!
June 16, 2009 6:34 PM
OH MAN!!! Everyone's forgetting the big picture here. We're talking about ITALIANS...ok, so they brought us Pizza, the Ferrari and the Sopranos. Wait...Marconi...wasn't he Italian? So...add the radio to that list. ANYHOO...like I said..ITALIANS...what do they know about Warp Drive?
June 16, 2009 8:56 PM
To Heyshippy... No. Just no. Marconi didn't invent the radio, he stole it from Nikola Tesla. Even the supreme court eventually took the patent for radio from Marconi and gave it to Tesla... post-humously, of course. Marconi has screwed us over in more ways than that, as well. If it weren't for him stealing radio, J.P. Morgan (I believe?) would possibly have funded Tesla's plan for a massive network of wireless, free electricity, via GIANT Tesla coil generators.
June 16, 2009 9:21 PM
junco makes me want to cry
June 16, 2009 11:05 PM
Why won't the advanced extraterrestrial lifeforms just come down here teach us how they do it? They're so selfish! :(
June 17, 2009 3:18 AM
The Spice must flow!!
June 17, 2009 9:43 AM
Junco...you sadden me. I guess you don't understand the importance of science. I assure that it's going to have more impact than whatever you do.
June 17, 2009 10:32 AM
@duke: It's frak, not frack.
June 17, 2009 5:07 PM
Gonzobot, We do need a new up but, the enemy's gate is down.
June 22, 2009 12:35 AM
hmm..Plan B of propelling space instead of the space ship for warp drive just sounds a bit too Wile E Coyote for me..
June 22, 2009 1:40 AM
Kelvin is a unit. It's supposed to be "10^32 Kelvin."
Thought you ought to know.
July 3, 2009 7:11 AM
Narrow minded views of the limits of mankind is exactly the type of dogma that maintains our child race status.
July 4, 2009 2:15 PM
Not that I really had high expectations for an anonymous comments section on the internet, but it's still sad to see so many of these posters showing so much ignorance of even the most basic concepts of science.
July 18, 2009 8:52 PM
When you're talking about 10^32 degrees, it doesn't really matter if you're in Kelvin, Celsius, or Fahrenheit.
August 22, 2009 11:00 AM
Ok first of all, if the warp bubble were formed, it stands to reason that the ship would not be anywhere near earth IF the bubble ruptured. So saying it would suck the earth into a black hole it just a scare tactic.
Secondly, I would think that if the bubble were anywhere close to rupturing, there would be an alarm telling the pilot. Seriously, there is risk in all science. If we don't take risk we don't get rewards. That is hardly a reason to stop research... unbelievable...
"OH ITSA DANGEROUS! DONTA DO IT! WE COULDA BEA HURTA!"
please...
September 5, 2009 1:43 PM
In this environment we see space time matter energy that all turns out to be the same if you could slow down time there would be the spaces in matter the matter that is around you would look half there or have part of the mass missing you being able to walk threw this space and with time stopped could travel at will and make it as far as one wanted with out massive amount of energy or sucking up the the world into a black hole. space is the thing that is moving not that you are moveing space. I believe at the speed of light you turn into partical of energy so traveling at the speed of light would be like heating water on a stove at some point the phaze of matter changes to vapor too bad you could not recondince a light stream by dropping the the temperture. any one have some good sources of book to read on this stuff that is being blog here?
October 31, 2009 12:06 PM
i have another idea for a superliminal drive. It involves using the scarnhorst effect. Basically if you have have light a a reasonable gravitation field and send it through an intense enough casimir vacuum, anything caught in the gravitational field of the light would go FTL along with the light. Now, to achieve a small enoough casimir effect, you would use a small amount of neutronium, because neutrons have no electric field, you could get a casimir effect less than the size of a neutron. Now to produce gravity you would need 2 intense gravomagnetic fields and a gravity wave generator. Now, the two intense ergoshpere would have to move the opposite rotation so that if a gravity waves would stall because of the to pulls of the gravomagnetic field. Now if the two field were equal they would both stall and stop each other and if a gravity wave was caught in the field it would remain frozen. Now if you have more gravity waves build in the field the amplitudes of the wave add up ass well. So if you shut of the gravomagnetic field, the capacitated gravity wave will be freed. If you have another erogsphere at another side and restart you orginal gravomagnetic field you can stretch out the gravity wave into a large curvature of space.
November 1, 2009 5:43 PM
Fear mongering! We don't even know how the damm thing would really work yet and there fear mongering.
In the words of Raymond Massey in "Thing to Come"
"Man must go on, conquest beyond conquest. First this little planet and all of it's winds and ways. Then outward across immensity to the stars. And even after he has conquered all the mysteries of time and space...still he will just be begining."
Let us wait and see first and the scientists a chance to work out not only the possible kinks in wuch an engine but also the possible safety issues. There is no denying these exists. However, warp drive is not even in the engineering stage yet and there already crying doomsday!! For heaven sake!
November 5, 2009 7:55 PM
Here's what I think is the best possible response to this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiSkyEyBczU