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Hardrock69
11-12-2007, 01:49 PM
21st century travel: building your own warp drive
Better than a bendy bus

By Lucy Sherriff
Published Monday 12th November 2007 16:20 GMT


There is to be a gathering of boffins in London next Thursday (15 November), at which the future of intergalactic spaceflight will be discussed.

Not content with merely watching Star Trek re-runs, the good folk of the British Interplanetary Society (BIS) have organised a conference to discuss how to make faster-than-light travel a reality*.

http://www.bis-spaceflight.com/sitesia.aspx/page/1539/l/en

According to Einstein (and we're not going to pick a fight with him...) the universal speed limit is the speed of light in a vacuum. Nothing can break that limit, which rather disappointingly restricts our ability to explore the universe.

The problem is simple enough for science fiction to solve: don't move faster than light, warp space instead, in the same way that a large mass does. And in 1994, a scientist suggested it might even be possible.

The BIS writes: Miguel Alcubierre used Einstein's theory of gravity to design a metric that resembled a bipolar distortion otherwise known as a spherical warp bubble in space-time.

The idea is that you build yourself a machine that moves some of space time along with you, much as airports have moving walkways that speed you along as you walk. In this way, you can effectively change the local speed of light. You'll never exceed light speed in your space time bubble, satisfying the laws of physics, but you'll still get to your destination much, much faster.

There are a few technical difficulties, such as the amount of (negative) energy you need to get something to warp space time. Or as the BIS puts it: "Calculations show that physically enormous and unobtainable amounts of negative energy are required to generate the desired geometrical warpage."

Which is why it is hosting the conference. Organiser Kelvin Long told The Guardian: "The main purpose is to raise awareness of this obscure field of research within general relativity and quantum field theory and attract new and particularly young researchers to work on the technical problems."

He argues that no one really took the idea of black holes seriously at first, and it is only after a huge effort, and literally hundreds of papers on the subject, that we have a good understanding of how such a beast might actually work. He says that with a similar level of work on warp drive theory, humanity could reap huge benefits.

*At some point. Not this week, not this year, and probably not even this century.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/12/warp_drive/

bueno bob
11-12-2007, 02:17 PM
My guess is "never"...

However, I wouldn't be opposed to beaming myself wherever I want to go...why doesn't somebody do something fucking practical for a change and get to work on that?

Coyote
11-12-2007, 03:52 PM
The odds for a warp drive in our lifetime:

10000000000:1

(Of course, that's if the scientists aren't recieving any "help" from some shadowy figure. If they were, then the odds would only be 500:1 )

FORD
11-12-2007, 04:20 PM
Originally posted by bueno bob
My guess is "never"...

However, I wouldn't be opposed to beaming myself wherever I want to go...why doesn't somebody do something fucking practical for a change and get to work on that?

No shit!

It's disappointing that the only Star Trek technology that has become reality as of yet was the cell phone (communicator) which is usually now even smaller than the one Captain Kirk used.

The beaming thing would have been much more useful. Not to mention it would end the oil dependency bullshit once and for all.

FUCK biodiesel and ethanol, gimme a god damned transporter!!!

Nitro Express
11-13-2007, 09:28 PM
Originally posted by FORD
No shit!

It's disappointing that the only Star Trek technology that has become reality as of yet was the cell phone (communicator) which is usually now even smaller than the one Captain Kirk used.

The beaming thing would have been much more useful. Not to mention it would end the oil dependency bullshit once and for all.

FUCK biodiesel and ethanol, gimme a god damned transporter!!!

Austin Powers came on television last night and my wife and I were watching the first part of it and laughing. My dad was an architect/contractor and the house we lived in when I was a kid was right out of the 1960's futuristic concept. I would love to have some of the cool furiture was had in that home now. It would actually be in style again.

Anyways, my early years were spent watching men land on the moon and supersonic airliners becoming reality. My older brother was a geek and was one of the early computer enthusiasts who went down to Stanford to get in on the action. He was actually in the famouse Home Brew Computer Club with Woz and Jobs.

Our home had a gas furnace but my dad put in resistor based heaters in the cielings. They worked like a baseboard heater but the plaster in the cieling got warm and heated the room. They were saying nuclear power would make electricity so cheap in our area that we would use electricity for everything in the home.

Anyways my dad subscribed to Popular Science and Popular Mechanics who painted some wild views of the possible future and it all looked cool.

2007 is a huge dissapointment. Instead of the average person getting from New York to Paris in 3 hours, only the rich will be able to fly once $200 oil breaks the airlines and only the rich can afford to fly in their charter and private planes.

Nitro Express
11-13-2007, 09:36 PM
It's increadable we still use internal combustion engines and lead acid batteries in our cars. The technology is over 100 years old on both. Other than using computers to fine tune the carburation and ignition, it's still just a compression pump turning gears and shafts. Not efficient at all and rediculousely old fashioned.

We still heat our homes with oil and gas and many people still burn wood because propane is so expensive now.

Our medical and computer technology went forward but the way we are living is substandard to the way we were living in the 1960's where even with the Vietnam war going on, people had a positive outlook. Even the hippies had their concept of a better life.

Now nobody cares or gives a fuck. So nothing gets done. In fact, everyone talks about doing some fucking and partying and then dying young. People want to die now. Pretty sad.

Dave's PA Rental
11-13-2007, 09:43 PM
FORD, you really need to get out more...

This is from a documentary from two years ago about how Star Trek fictional technology inspired a generation of scientists to invent dozens and dozens of the futuristic gizmo's first alluded to in the Star Trek universe.

<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/cGyQVO62QM0&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/cGyQVO62QM0&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>

I have the whole thing on DVD, but I could only find this and one other clip on Youtube. Shatner is acting all tongue-in-cheek, taking credit for the advancements, but it's true how there are many, many technological advancements that got their starts in Star Trek...

Just sayin.

Jurak
11-15-2007, 02:24 AM
And what a great show it was too........

Hardrock69
11-15-2007, 08:39 AM
One of the best documentaries of that type to come along recently was called "How William Shatner Changed The World".

Bill is able to poke fun at himself these days, and this show has a lot of tongue-in-cheek moments.

But it is pretty cool.

kastco
11-15-2007, 08:59 AM
Originally posted by Nitro Express
It's increadable we still use internal combustion engines and lead acid batteries in our cars. The technology is over 100 years old on both. Other than using computers to fine tune the carburation and ignition, it's still just a compression pump turning gears and shafts. Not efficient at all and rediculousely old fashioned.

We still heat our homes with oil and gas and many people still burn wood because propane is so expensive now.

Our medical and computer technology went forward but the way we are living is substandard to the way we were living in the 1960's where even with the Vietnam war going on, people had a positive outlook. Even the hippies had their concept of a better life.

Now nobody cares or gives a fuck. So nothing gets done. In fact, everyone talks about doing some fucking and partying and then dying young. People want to die now. Pretty sad.

You're right about the oil and gas dependency but it's not going to change until we outlaw lobbiests and politicians start passing bills that make sense instead of putting cash in their pockets. So in other words it will never change. We've had the technology to get away from oil and gas dependency for decades now.

Dave's PA Rental
11-15-2007, 07:50 PM
Originally posted by kastco
You're right about the oil and gas dependency but it's not going to change until we outlaw lobbiests and politicians start passing bills that make sense instead of putting cash in their pockets. So in other words it will never change. We've had the technology to get away from oil and gas dependency for decades now.

We've had the technology, but not the infrastructure. Still don't. Gonna be a while, too. Hydrogen-station on every street corner? Gonna cost trillions. Once we don't have trillion-dollar wars to fund, you and I will be driving hydrogen fuel-cell cars.

Oh, wait...

kastco
11-16-2007, 08:55 AM
You're absolutely right about the infrastructure but this is something they should have been working on for years now. This technology is not new. Many European nations, Norway for one, has been slowly lessening their oil dependancy. I'm pretty sure that I heard that only about 35% of their energy needs now come from oil. Down from 100% 20 years ago. Wind farms, solar energy etc. Everyone wants an alternative to oil but this past summer people where I live were up in arms because they were going to put a wind farm about 50 miles off the south shore of Long Island. Nobody wanted it in their backyard. Pretty typical. I say build the shit out of the wind farms and solar farms. There is more than enough open space to build on. As long as we have these politicians (on the right and left) who are in bed with these oil companies we will never see a aggressive move away from oil. One day we'll be out of oil and everyone will be standing around scratching their heads saying "what the fuck".

thome
11-16-2007, 11:07 AM
Hydrogen fuel cars ???/

Oh yeah, I know then the people of the world will rise up and have a lobby on capital hill,, demonstrations in the streets.

Scientist everywhere stating that -Global Humidity- from the hydrogen cars emissions is ruining the deserts of the world thus lowering the
-DryZone- layer!!!

AAAAAAAhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

Let's see 10 ft of garden hose.

Where are my keys?

Do I have enough gas in the car ?

How will I "Take The Pipe," after fossil fuels are outlawed?