Scientists Announce a Physical Warp Drive Is Now Possible. Seriously.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

In a surprising new paper, scientists say they’ve nailed down a physical model for a warp drive, which flies in the face of what we’ve long thought about the crazy concept of warp speed travel: that it requires exotic, negative forces.

To best understand what the breakthrough means, you’ll need a quick crash course on the far-out idea of traveling through folded space.

The colloquial term“warp drive” comes from science fiction, most famously Star Trek. The faster-than-light warp drive of the Federation works by colliding matter and antimatter and converting the explosive energy to propulsion. Star Trek suggests that this extraordinary power alone pushes the ship at faster-than-light speeds.

Scientists have been studying and theorizing about faster-than-light space travel for decades. One major reason for our interest is pure pragmatism: without warp drive, we’re probably never making it to a neighboring star system. The closest such trip is still four years long at light speed.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/scientists-announce-a-physical-warp-drive-is-now-possible-seriously/ar-BB1eeT4u?ocid=DELLDHP&li=BBnbfcL

Should make Donny's Space Force happy.

[Initech]

1. Sure, warp speed is great, does that mean Ludicrous Speed can't be far behind?

[uponit7771]

2. Yeah, Start Trek was some alien shit. That's my tin foil hate moment of the day

[qazplm135]

3. title is a little misleading

still requires negative energy which we don't really know how to make yet. But it definitely reduces the amount, and it suggests that this isn't necessarily pure science fiction, but now something that further research will be worthwhile.

[drray23]

9. not exactly.

they point out there is a class of solutions which uses positive energy ( section 3) and go through the process on how one would produce such a metric. Nobody had yet found an optimal mapping but they show its not forbidden by first principles.

I quickly read it. I will try to go through their paper and calculations carefully to see what its about ( I am a phd nuclear physicist who has done/does general relativity calculations ).

[qazplm135]

11. Sabine Hossenfelder's video

seems to indicate that you still do need negative energy but that you can decrease it according to this paper by altering and flattening the bubble. She does say if GR is wrong, then maybe you don't need negative energy, but that strikes me as a tough proposition.

[Mike 03]

4. I want to travel to the universe where the United States has been safely

in the hands of the majority-party Democrats for decades and can't be mistaken for a failed state or a third world country, where we have been cooperating with other nations on Climate Change for thirty years and averted calamity!

[Buns_of_Fire]

5. Cool. I vote we warp Trumpy right into a brick wall. nt

[ruet]

6. Yeah,... That's Not How 'Warp Drive" Works in Trek.

I'll wait for someone besides MSN to report on this.

[qazplm135]

12. I mean in general, yes it is how warp drive works in space

create a spacetime bubble, put a ship inside of it, move bubble faster than light while the time inside the "warp bubble" (literally what Star Trek calls it) is normal.

Yeah, ST talks about subspace and whatnot, but in general, this is that.

[Azathoth]

7. Hate to say it, but this sounds a little bit like a PR stunt

One of the authors appears to be a current/former PhD student and the other appears to be a flamboyant "tech entrepreneur" with no apparent background in research-level physics at all.

And they both list their affiliation as "Applied Physics"
www.appliedphysics.org
which appears to be some new startup corporate consulting firm with no staff listed and the only "project" mentioned on their site being this warp drive paper.

Sounds like this is more about getting attention from business clients/investors than building warp drives.

[NNadir]

8. This recalls my oft repeated joke that one cannot get...

...a degree in journalism if one has passed a college level science course with a grade of C or better.

[hunter]

10. If it was possible someone would already be doing it...

... or some random and observable natural process would be generating such warp speeds.

Which would be very bad for us.

I don't want any Klingons conquering the earth, and I don't want any warp speed ejecta hitting the earth.

If faster-than-light travel is impossible in this universe that's okay by me.

It seems unlikely natural born humans will ever have a significant presence in space beyond low earth orbit. Our bodies are too fragile and our reflexes too slow to thrive in space. If this technological civilization does manage to survive the next century then space will belong to our intellectual children, synthetic beings who can walk around naked on the surfaces of Mars or Titan, for example, just as we might go skinny dipping at the beach. If we are nice to them, if they grow up to respect us, maybe they'll take a few natural born humans along for the ride.

If there is intelligent life in this universe besides humans it probably permeates everything or else it has retreated into universes of its own making.

Or maybe civilizations like ours are common in this universe, blinking in and out of existence, never knowing they are not alone.

[qazplm135]

13. first,

someone could already be doing it. Lots of someone's could.

Second, we have no idea how that would look, or what, if any, signs it would give off at long distances that we could look at and say, yep that's definitely a warp drive and not just high energy particles from some other source (or whatever it is that a warp drive might give off--even assuming those particles would even reach us).

Third, being inside a warp bubble would, I would think, pretty much make you impervious to any outside dangers. You might be the cause of danger turning on and shutting down your drive with the build up and release of energy, but you literally have a force field around your ship protecting you.

Fourth, yeah, no idea if we are alone, or one in a series of lonely civilizations, or one of the first civilizations, or isolated under some version of the prime directive, or simply in a backwater part of the galaxy no one ever bothers to visit. That's a question with many possible answers.

[Act_of_Reparation]

14. Cool story.

Let me know when they solve the problem of powering the damn thing.

[lindysalsagal]

15. Great. Now, when you can find a more advanced, intelligent, and compassionate society,

I'll buy the first ticket outtahere.

[Watchfoxheadexplodes]

16. Wouldn't the test ships all fly apart?

I mean we haven't discovered castrodinium yet

[Dagstead Bumwood]

17. We need to start mining dilithium crystals

immediately and before the Romulans seize the entire supply. Or the Chinese.

[Watchfoxheadexplodes]

18. But once we have a warp signature

The bossy vulcans will show up.

[Klaralven]

19. It's pretty easy to attain velocities of 1 light year per 10,000 years.

There are about 133 stars within 50 light years of earth. So each of those stars could be visited with return in 100 years by an equal number of robotic probes.

The time required for interstellar travel is only a problem for short-lived humans. It should be no problem for our robotic successors.

[Bayard]

20. Make it so

Take us to a time where humans strive for greater enlightenment, rather than greater sums of money. And anything you need can be replicated.