Spaceship Could Fly Faster Than Light

[SUBMAN1]

I thought of this idea 15 years ago. Someone is just seeing the light? My idea involved a shield of some sort that would keep space/time still inside. Slightly different, still the same concept.

-S

Travel by bubble might seem more appropriate for witches in Oz, but two physicists suggest that a future spaceship could fold a space-time bubble around itself to travel faster than the speed of light.


We're talking about the very distant future, of course.


The idea involves manipulating dark energy — the mysterious force behind the universe's ongoing expansion — to propel a spaceship forward without breaking the laws of physics.


"Think of it like a surfer riding a wave," said Gerald Cleaver, a physicist at Baylor University. "The ship would be pushed by the spatial bubble and the bubble would be traveling faster than the speed of light."


In theory, the universe grew faster than the speed of light for a very short time after the Big Bang, driven by the dark energy that represents about 74 percent of the total mass-energy budget in the universe. Dark matter constitutes 22 percent of the budget, and normal matter (stars, planets and everything you see) makes up the remaining 4 percent or so.


Strange as it sounds, current evidence supports the notion that the fabric of space-time can expand faster than the speed of light, because the reality in which light travels is itself expanding.


Cleaver and Richard Obousy, a Baylor graduate student, tapped the latest idea in string theory to devise how to manipulate dark energy and accelerate a spaceship. Their notion is based on the Alcubierre drive, which proposes expanding space-time behind the spaceship while also shrinking space-time in front.


String theorists had believed that a total of 10 dimensions exist, including height, width, length and time. The other six dimensions exist largely as unknowns, but everything is based on hypothetical one-dimensional strings. A newer theory, called M-theory, suggests that those strings all vibrate in yet another dimension.


Manipulating that additional dimension would alter dark energy in terms of height, width, and length, Cleaver and Obousy theorize. Such a capability would permit the altering of space-time for a spaceship, taking advantage of dark energy's effect on the universe.

"The dark energy is simultaneously decreased just in front of the ship to decrease (and bring to a stop) the expansion rate of the universe in front of the ship," Cleaver told SPACE.com. "If the dark energy can be made negative directly in front of the ship, then space in front of the ship would locally contract."


This loophole means that the spaceship would not conflict with Einstein's Theory of Relativity, which states that objects accelerating to the speed of light require an infinite amount of energy.


However, the Baylor physicists estimate that manipulating dark energy through the extra dimension requires energy equivalent to the converting the entire mass of Jupiter into pure energy — enough to move a ship measuring roughly 33 feet (10 meters) by 33 feet by 33 feet.


"That is an enormous amount of energy," Cleaver said. "We are still a very long ways off before we could create something to harness that type of energy."


The workaround solution may leave fans of Einstein pleased. But for now, faster-than-light travel remains, like Oz, a pleasant fantasy.

http://www.space.com/businesstechnol...arp-speed.html

[Happy Times]

You should have written it down, now they stole it.

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by Happy Times

You should have written it down, now they stole it.

I think it is. I mentioned it at one time I think in this GT forum! I'm gonna look.

-S

[Jimbuna]

Similarly, some fecka pinched my idea for a stargate

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

Similarly, some fecka pinched my idea for a stargate

Yeah yeah yeah! At least my idea was plausible!

By the way, I take pride in the idea that I was right! Thats all I care about.

-S

[SUBMAN1]

Can't find it. I wonder how far back the records go? Probably 2005 time frame I would guess.

Doesn't matter. We won't need this type of travel anyway - not with Cern able to make Micro Black Holes in the near future. With this kind of power, you just fold space time and warp the otherside of the universe to you, and you simply take one step over - one step, one instant in time, you travelled billions of light years in a single moment.

I guess its probably a good idea to know precisely where you are going though.

A vehicle could do this.

-S

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

Similarly, some fecka pinched my idea for a stargate

Ya know? I was thinkin about your said Stargate. Suppose there is a collider in there, and they create micro black holes, and use it to do something similar to the above of stepping across the Universe? Maybe the Stargate idea has merit! :p

-S

[Onkel Neal]

Pfftt! Still not as fast as SUZUKI Hayabusa

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

Ya know? I was thinkin about your said Stargate. Suppose there is a collider in there, and they create micro black holes, and use it to do something similar to the above of stepping across the Universe? Maybe the Stargate idea has merit! :p

-S

Why don't we let STEED test it

[Happy Times]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

I think it is. I mentioned it at one time I think in this GT forum! I'm gonna look.

-S

Neal will love that, Subsim goes down in history, they will study our postings a thousand years from now.
I will be famous also.

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

Old news. Zephram Cochran designed the Warp Drive on that very thesis.

Since nothing in this universe can match or exceed c the idea is to slip under the rug of the unverse, so-to-speak, using the warp engines to evelope the ship in a bubble of distorted time-space. The ship is stationary within that bubble, staying below c, while the bubble zips along at faster-than-light speeds.

These guys need to watch Star Trek more often.

[Blacklight]

What's actually going on in that theory is this... A ship would have to inject MASSIVE ammounts of energy in front of the ship. What this does is compress the space and time in front of the ship. Basically space and time get squeezed up as if a heavy object like a black hole were forming there in front of the ship. The next step is to inject vast ammounts of negative energy (A type of energy we've never observed in the universe, but mathimatically it could exist) behind the ship. What this does is expands the space and time behind the ship. Coordinating the two effects together can allow the ship to travel faster than the speed of light because it's not the spacecraft moving, but the space around it due to the compressing and expansion of space in front and behind it.
(I may have the negative and positive energys reversed. I forgot which one went to the front of the spacecraft but this is basically how it works.)

The universe is a LOT wierder than we take for granted.

[SUBMAN1]

Yes, that is why a micro black hole will solve your problem - It removes the energy from the equation. It is the energy.

-S

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

Yes, that is why a micro black hole will solve your problem - It removes the energy from the equation. It is the energy.

-S

That sounds very zen-like, doesn't it?

"Be the energy."

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by Zayphod

That sounds very zen-like, doesn't it?

"Be the energy."

Yes it does! :p

-S