Dynaverse.net

Off Topic => Engineering => Topic started by: FPF-Tobin Dax on April 28, 2015, 09:23:33 am

Title: Did NASA accidentally create a warp field?
Post by: FPF-Tobin Dax on April 28, 2015, 09:23:33 am
http://sputniknews.com/us/20150425/1021360503.html (http://sputniknews.com/us/20150425/1021360503.html)
Title: Re: Did NASA accidentally create a warp field?
Post by: Javora on April 28, 2015, 03:47:04 pm
This was talked about at the other place.  IIRC they thought it wouldn't hold up in a vacuum.  Time will tell...
Title: Re: Did NASA accidentally create a warp field?
Post by: Vipre on April 28, 2015, 08:06:09 pm
"But in the 1990s, physicist Miguel Alcubierre proposed the idea of a wave that would cause the space ahead of a spacecraft to contract, while the space behind it expands. This distortion would create a warp bubble, in which a ship would travel while itself remaining stationary."

Yeah, "proposed" after watching a weekend Trek marathon and/or browsing through one of the tech manuals..
Title: Re: Did NASA accidentally create a warp field?
Post by: Tumulorum Fossor on April 28, 2015, 09:49:54 pm
Yet ANOTHER validation of Star Trek's vision as a predictor of the future of science ...
... and another invalidation of what J. J. Abrams has done to it.  Sigh.

Cool news nonetheless.

We'll see if it withstands the test of time.  Even if we are only able to send lasers at warp speed, I wonder if it would allow us to communicate with other intelligent civilizations via supralight speed "Morse" code?
Title: Re: Did NASA accidentally create a warp field?
Post by: TAnimaL on April 29, 2015, 10:59:39 am

To be fair, Doctor Alcubierre is respected theoretical physicist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Alcubierre (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Alcubierre) whose work was seriously lookd at by NASA years ago http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110015936.pdf (http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110015936.pdf), whereas the EMdrive experiments have been criticized heavily
Title: Re: Did NASA accidentally create a warp field?
Post by: TAnimaL on April 30, 2015, 10:01:12 am
It seems the latest news of EmDrive is that it's been vacuum tested and still shows promise, at least in the very early stages.
http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/04/evaluating-nasas-futuristic-em-drive/ (http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/04/evaluating-nasas-futuristic-em-drive/)

It's important to note that the above link is NOT to an official NASA website, but NASAspaceflight.com seems a bit more reputable than the Russian propaganda site that is Sputnik.

I'll bet that we'll see this "news" make the rounds this week with no new info, just like the "new ST series" rumor last month. :(
Title: Re: Did NASA accidentally create a warp field?
Post by: EschelonOfJudgemnt on April 30, 2015, 01:38:42 pm
It seems the latest news of EmDrive is that it's been vacuum tested and still shows promise, at least in the very early stages.
[url]http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/04/evaluating-nasas-futuristic-em-drive/[/url] ([url]http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/04/evaluating-nasas-futuristic-em-drive/[/url])

It's important to note that the above link is NOT to an official NASA website, but NASAspaceflight.com seems a bit more reputable than the Russian propaganda site that is Sputnik.

I'll bet that we'll see this "news" make the rounds this week with no new info, just like the "new ST series" rumor last month. :(


Yeah, I've been waiting for a jpl.nasa.gov link or some such detailing this.  The websites I've seen so far didn't seem all that official...

That being said, I do hope they've stumbled onto something here.  It'd be nice to be able to be able to  get to Alpha Centauri within weeks or days, not decades...
Title: Re: Did NASA accidentally create a warp field?
Post by: Nemesis on May 01, 2015, 09:41:18 am
I wonder how such a "field" upping the speed of light would affect performance in optical computers?
Title: Re: Did NASA accidentally create a warp field?
Post by: TAnimaL on May 01, 2015, 01:38:11 pm
I think that would be an interesting outgrowth of warp, for computers optical or otherwise, and the tech manuals have assumed some sort of FTL processors in ST. (That must be  how the universal translators work so fast ;)  )

The EmDrive is less a "warp field" as it is a way to extract momentum from the Quantum Vacuum
Title: Re: Did NASA accidentally create a warp field?
Post by: Tulwar on May 01, 2015, 08:42:05 pm
I remember somebody explaining a perpetual motion machine using terms borrowed from Quantum Physics.  The more articles I've look up on the EM Drive, the more it smells like BS.  Anybody remember "Cold Fusion?"