Warp Drives May Come With a Killer Downside 458
An anonymous reader writes "Alcubierre warp-drives (theoretically) allow rocket ships to travel faster than the speed of light, while staying within the rules of Einstein's general theory of relativity. New research (PDF) has shown that as such warp-drives zip through the universe, they gather up particles and radiation, releasing them in a burst as the warp-drive slows down. This is bad news for family and friends waiting for the ship to arrive, as this intense burst will fry them."
This is why you drop to impulse in a solar system (Score:5, Funny)
Duh
duh (Score:5, Funny)
>thisfuckingguy.jpg
Not even real and already weaponized. (Score:5, Funny)
Yup.
"We'll be there in a sec... (Score:4, Funny)
Seriously? (Score:5, Funny)
Visit The In-laws! (Score:3, Funny)
Makes a visit to the Mother-In-Law worth while now!
Re:Apparently these guys never watched any Star Tr (Score:5, Funny)
You mean, as in:
Data: Geordi, in my experiments to become more like a human, I seem to have lodged Captain Picard up my positronic rectum
Geordi: Wow, Data, I mean, um.... Maybe I don't want to know. But I tell you what, we'll set up a tachyon burst through the deflector array and that should cause your mechanical sphincter to open. If we're lucky, it will also fry his brain so he won't remember you stuffing him in there.
Re:Already handled (Score:4, Funny)
Star Trek The Motion Picture (Score:5, Funny)
Except that in the 23rd Century way back then, Pluto was a PLANET!!!
Jet aircraft... (Score:5, Funny)
Jet engines (theoretically) allow large metal objects formed into a lifting body to fly though the air at great velocities. This causes them to accumulate great momentum. This is bad news for family and friends waiting on the runway for the aircraft to arrive, as this momentum will cause the aircraft to run into them and kill them.
Re:Fermi Paradox (Score:5, Funny)
Re:"We'll be there in a sec... (Score:3, Funny)
"I sense a great disturbance in the Force. As if millions of voices all cried out in terror, and then were suddenly silenced. So ease up on the damn brakes next time, Solo."
Re:Seriously? (Score:5, Funny)
Star Wars uses hyperspace, not warp. Get off my lawn!
Re:Easy Fix (Score:5, Funny)
Gunnery Chief: This, recruits, is a 20-kilo ferrous slug. Feel the weight. Every five seconds, the main gun of an Everest-class dreadnought accelerates one to 1.3 percent of light speed. It impacts with the force of a 38-kilotomb bomb. That is three times the yield of the city buster dropped on Hiroshima back on Earth. That means Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son-of-a-bitch in space. Now! Serviceman Burnside! What is Newton's First Law?
First Recruit: Sir! A object in motion stays in motion, sir!
Gunnery Chief: No credit for partial answers, maggot!
First Recruit: Sir! Unless acted on by an outside force, sir!
Gunnery Chief: Damn straight! I dare to assume you ignorant jackasses know that space is empty. Once you fire this husk of metal, it keeps going till it hits something. That can be a ship, or the planet behind that ship. It might go off into deep space and hit somebody else in ten thousand years. If you pull the trigger on this, you're ruining someone's day, somewhere and sometime. That is why you check your damn targets! That is why you wait for the computer to give you a damn firing solution! That is why, Serviceman Chung, we do not "eyeball it!" This is a weapon of mass destruction. You are not a cowboy shooting from the hip!
Second Recruit: Sir, yes sir!
Re:Queller Drive (Score:5, Funny)
So you're the other Space 1999 fan.
Rebel propaganda exposed! (Score:5, Funny)
Remember when the Millennium Falcon jumped out of hyperspace and Alderaan was gone? What we now know is that the dust on the leading edge of the ship is what actually destroyed the planet, arriving just before the ship, leaving it in the middle of an "asteroid field". However, this would have been mighty embarrassing for the Rebellion, so they made up this myth of destruction by the "Death Star" (which wasn't even operational yet!) as the killer. Who do we have to prove otherwise, Leia? She's from the planet that got destroyed and head of the Rebellion; of course she'd lie to protect it (remember, she'd never consciously give it up)! Let's stop the propaganda in its tracks!
Oh, and when Kenobi felt that disturbance in the force: it was a premonition of what they were about to do, but Mr. "I've seen a lot of crazy things" didn't believe in some "force"
Re:This is why you drop to impulse in a solar syst (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, my ex wife can create an enormous bubble of negative energy with only a moment's notice...
Re:Fermi Paradox (Score:5, Funny)
From their perspective, you might as well not.....
Plus, I'm sure your HOA wishes you would mow more.
Re:Conservation of energy (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Fermi Paradox (Score:4, Funny)
Re:This is why you drop to impulse in a solar syst (Score:5, Funny)
Proposing to use your ex as fuel is taking it a bit far...
Re:Awesome!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Uh, if we had this technology then the easiest way of wiping out the competition would be to not stop. You get all the mentioned effects plus the ship itself as an RKV and any destruction the warp field can do to their planet. It's like the difference between an asteroid and a space capsule - it's easy to hit Earth, it's harder not to leave a crater on impact...
Re:Awesome!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Now we know why no one answers our calls. They've seen Star Trek.
"It's that little planet out near the rim calling again."
"Sssshh. Just pretend we're not home, or they might come over."