Topic: Quantum setback for warp drives

[Nemesis]

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Bad news I'm afraid -- it looks as if faster-than-light travel isn't possible after all. That's the conclusion of a new study into how warp drives would behave when quantum mechanics is taken into account. "Warp drives would become rapidly unstable once superluminal speeds are reached," say Stefano Finazzi at the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, and a couple of friends.

Warp drives have been the focus of science fiction writers for decades. But scientists kept them at arms length until 1994 when the idea was put on a firm (ish) theoretical footing by the Mexican physicist, Michael Alcubierre. His thinking is that while relativity prevents faster-than-light travel relative to the fabric of space time, it places no restriction on the speed at which regions of spacetime may move relative to each other.

How rapidly does it become unstable?  Could you make repeated "short" FTL jumps? 

For a start, they say that the inside of the bubble would be filled with Hawking radiation, making life rather uncomfortable for any spacecraft within it.

Thats bad. 

[Lieutenant_Q]

At how "Fast" does it become unstable?  And since when has instability stopped us from doing anything?  We play around with things that are unstable, just to see what would happen.  That's why we have half-life numbers for all sorts of materials, because they are unstable.  That doesn't mean we can't make it a controlled instability.  Just because a Warp Field would become unstable and uncontrollable at Warp six, doesn't mean it won't be unstable BUT controllable at Warp five.

Also, Solar Radiation is something we have to overcome just to leave the Terra-Luna system.  Once we figure that out, this Hawking Radiation should be a snap.

[Clark Kent]

Has anyone even actually encountered hawking radiation, or is it still just purely theoretical?  I'm just curious as to how hawking radiation would actually affect a person.  Differently than solar or other types of radiatin we're already familiar with?

[toasty0]

All this talk about Hawking radiation is giving me the vapors.

[toasty0]

Has anyone even actually encountered hawking radiation, or is it still just purely theoretical?  I'm just curious as to how hawking radiation would actually affect a person.  Differently than solar or other types of radiatin we're already familiar with?

An ecounter with this formula increased my rad count...