New Study Simulates Gravitational Waves From Failing Warp Drive (phys.org) 63
Physicists have been exploring the theoretical possibility of warp drives, which could propel spaceships faster than light by compressing spacetime. A new study published in the Open Journal of Astrophysics simulates the gravitational waves such a drive might emit if it failed, showing potential detectable signals by future high-frequency instruments and advancing our understanding of exotic spacetimes. Phys.Org reports: The results are fascinating. The collapsing warp drive generates a distinct burst of gravitational waves, a ripple in spacetime that could be detectable by gravitational wave detectors that normally target black hole and neutron star mergers. Unlike the chirps from merging astrophysical objects, this signal would be a short, high-frequency burst, and so current detectors wouldn't pick it up. However, future higher-frequency instruments might, and although no such instruments have yet been funded, the technology to build them exists. This raises the possibility of using these signals to search for evidence of warp drive technology, even if we can't build it ourselves.
The study also delves into the energy dynamics of the collapsing warp drive. The process emits a wave of negative energy matter, followed by alternating positive and negative waves. This complex dance results in a net increase in the overall energy of the system, and in principle could provide another signature of the collapse if the outgoing waves interacted with normal matter.
The study also delves into the energy dynamics of the collapsing warp drive. The process emits a wave of negative energy matter, followed by alternating positive and negative waves. This complex dance results in a net increase in the overall energy of the system, and in principle could provide another signature of the collapse if the outgoing waves interacted with normal matter.
1 August (Score:5, Funny)
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Slashdot is inventing the Dupe Drive. When you arrive you'll find you're already there.
Great funding proposal (Score:4, Insightful)
And, to be fair, once we knew that warp drives exist somewhere, it would justify a lot of effort in research to invent them.
Re:Great funding proposal (Score:4, Interesting)
It's an interesting prediction. What other kinds of things might a high frequency gravitational wave detector detect? I don't think this is enough, by itself, to justify the funding, but it could be a component of a much larger reason.
I do wonder what the signal strength would be, whether it would be directional, and I predict that the signal strength would fall off as the square of the distance. So it might only detect near-by warp drive failures.
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Once a hint of it is discovered, we'd probably build ever better detectors to study it so that we are more sure. This assumes such events are relatively common.
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I remember when millisecond pulsars were discovered a big hurdle was that no one expected astronomical events of any significance to happen on such small time scales.
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It's that or a lunar biorepository.
Re: So now physicists get funded... (Score:2)
With the help of ${DEITY}
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Elon can put it in orbit around Mars!
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J.D. Vance already started the biorepository, so that research is underway. He just needs to figure out how to get a couch to the moon.
J.D. Vance's plan:
1. Park a Starship outside a furniture warehouse.
2. Cocaine and a long weekend.
3. Call up Musk and have the Starship launched.
Seems a simple enough plan even his conspiracy theory based algorithm should be able to comprehend it.
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To be fair, detecting such a drive would prove that we're not alone in the universe, and that FTL travel is possible and that warp drives of the type that these people researched is a viable way to achieve FTL travel and that the builders of these warp drives make them flawed enough that they can fail in that specific way. It's just that the combination of conditions needing to be satisfied in order to have a thing that can be detected seems very unlikely. It's like a kaiju detector - would be a pretty usef
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Seems the idiots moderating today can't tell the difference between Star Trek and reality. God help us.
Heads up: A warp drive is NOT physically possible to implement any known or postulated laws of physics. HTH.
Now go back to your basements, oh wait, you're already there.
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Get your nose out of your sci fi books sonny. Just because its written down doesn't mean it'll happen. Flying and going to the moon were based on known physics - people had seen birds flying since man evolved and the rocket was invented by china 1000 years ago.
But hey, maybe we can all travel to other dimensions too and morph into superheroes while we're at it!
When some proper basic physics research proves warp drives can work in this universe, not a made up one, get back to me.
Re: So now physicists get funded... (Score:2)
> Flying and going to the moon were based on known physics
Not always.
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Really? When did birds evolve then?
When did china invent the rocket?
Re: So now physicists get funded... (Score:2)
Why did Russians send Laika as the first living being into orbit first, instead of humans, if the "science" said it was "safe"?
FYI: Alcubierre Drives (Score:5, Informative)
Re:FYI: Alcubierre Drives (Score:5, Funny)
Alcubierre Drive
A drive that we can't build, and wouldn't be able to get into or out of or start or stop if we did have one, and which would sterilize the stellar system it was headed toward with the energy that it pushes ahead of it.
But maybe there are some broken ones flying around that we could use to investigate exotic effects.
Re:FYI: Alcubierre Drives (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't forget that it requires negative mass.
It seems more likely to me we'll find a reason that's impossible than actually create it.
The fact that the collapse creates more energy is a red flag too I'd think.
Of course I could be wrong and exotic physics could end up being correct with me being a spoil sport. The gap between Newton and Einstein was longer than Einstein to now, so maybe we just need time for a new paradigm.
I'd be more excited if someone had a proposal to start testing the credibility though, because currently it seems like putting a number faster than the speed of light into an equation and saying "look, there's math that works".
Re:FYI: Alcubierre Drives (Score:4, Insightful)
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Fair enough.
It's really the coverage that irritates me, not that people are doing the math.
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The coverage and the credulity of the ones who don't understand but want it to be true so badly they won't listen to the reasons it can't be.
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Negative mass? I thought that was just to stabilize wormholes. (I do seem to recall that it requires something like the mass of Jupiter, but it's been a long time since I looked at it.)
Re:FYI: Alcubierre Drives (Score:4)
At various points in the past, you would have been told you're insane (or a con-man) if you tried to tell people that lightning (electricity) could be harnessed, that something other than fire could be created to light homes, that we could create flying machines, that instantaneous communication over long distances (radio) was possible, that machines that can calculate millions of times faster than a human being (computers) were possible, that the energy of matter itself could be harnessed (fission, fusion), that mankind could leave this planet, travel to other worlds, and return to Earth safely (space travel, moon landings), and so on, and so forth. At one point or another all these things were thought to be completely impossible, inconceivable, and you'd be scoffed at and ostracised if you tried to make people believe they were possible, yet here we are, and all these things are not only possible, but most of them are now commonplace and taken for granted.
I see no reason to discount the possibility that something more advanced than STL chemical reaction drives for spacecraft could at some future time be possible, and I see no reason why allowing for the possibility is bad.
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and which would sterilize the stellar system it was headed toward with the energy that it pushes ahead of it.
That always tempered for me the giddy fantasy of sci-fi space travel. Sure, you could direct that energy somewhere safe but you don't have a lot of wiggle room for mistakes on a ship that by its very operation fires a Death Star blast of energy every time it arrives! For all the talk of interstellar travel being a way to hedge the risk of humanity's extinction just having a capable vessel could enable a doomsday cult to forever "end human suffering".
A drive that we can't build
Thankfully.
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It's called mass. If we were to move mass around (especially very large concentrations of mass), it would indeed warp spacetime.
But using this effect to drive spaceships would be grossly impractical, because the amount of mass you'd have to move around, would be much more daunting than just moving the spaceship directly. It would be like buying an entire major multinational beverage company (like Coca-Cola Company
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And thanks to Einstein, there's a wonderful mass equivalent called energy. Energy and mass are interchangeable after all.
So in theory, energy can also warp space due to its equivalence.
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And thanks to Einstein, there's a wonderful mass equivalent called energy. Energy and mass are interchangeable after all.
So in theory, energy can also warp space due to its equivalence.
Well then, we'll just build three dyson spheres around the nearest stars to collect enough energy and we'll have this cracked in a few billon years!
Only unreliable ones (Score:3)
This raises the possibility of using these signals to search for evidence of very unreliable warp drive technology, even if we can't build it ourselves.
There, I fixed it for you.
First contact (Score:4, Interesting)
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I'm sure they sell one, but with the caveat of a "no returns" policy.
You mean humans from Ohio (Score:2)
don't already look like Bajorans?
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This study is about the Alcubierre Drive, not Star Trek. (I'll admit the summary makes it sound like it's about Star Trek.) This is only one of the "legitimate" rather than fictional proposals for an FTL drive. We can't really build any of them, so we don't know that they won't work. They're consistent with all the actual physics we know, but they're outside the range over which that physics has been tested.
It's quite plausible that none of them are actually buildable by anyone. In fact that's what I'd
interesting (Score:1)
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Good point, we should warp all the CO2 into the sun. Carbonated Sol.
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Carbonated Sol.
This already exists! [sol.com]
Speculation armed with math is fun. (Score:3)
So, let's summarize: (Score:1)
Warp drives violate casualty so they can't be real.
However, if aliens develop a warp drive, and it fails, then we can get notified about it using a special type gravitational wave detector which do not exist yet but should be funded.
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Your first sentence is invalid. We don't KNOW that causality can't be violated, just that we've never seen is happen, that we know of. But there are events in quantum theory that could be interpreted as causality violations. (A positron is mathematically equivalent to an electron moving backwards in time. If you interpret them that way, quantum theory still works.)
It's plausible that causality can't be violated, but there are ways to structure the universe that allow it, which are consistent with all kn
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(A positron is mathematically equivalent to an electron moving backwards in time. If you interpret them that way, quantum theory still works.) ... and there never will be.
No it is not. A positron has a positive charge, hence its name. Otherwise it is the same as an electron. There is nothing moving backward in time
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Argue with Dirac and Feynman.
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Argue about what?
If you think a positron flies backward in time - you are an idiot.
There would not be any positrons in the universe. They all had flew back to the big bang already. Facepalm.
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Warp drives violate casualty so they can't be real. However, if aliens develop a warp drive, and it fails, then we can get notified about it using a special type gravitational wave detector which do not exist yet but should be funded.
https://www.popularmechanics.c... [popularmechanics.com] Most concepts violate how we currently understand physics but not all.
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> Warp drives violate casualty
When you end up with 3 wankers, you won't care.
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> Warp drives violate casualty
When you end up with 3 wankers, you won't care.
No thanks. One of those bastards is enough. Damned trouble makers.
The Science of the Motorcycle of Star Trek Beyond (Score:2)
If the tech exists to build detectors... (Score:2)
... then once we do, the posibility of *creating* it increases dramatically.
Trekist SETI Mechanism (Score:1)
This would allow us to verify the existence of Klingon Birds of Prey
Scotty: (Score:1)
"Coptin, I toldja we didn't have enough powah, you didn't listen!"
Talk of failing warp drives and Star Trek (Score:2)
reminds me of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
The catch (Score:2)
Then it turns out that warp drives are extremely reliable.