I don't know how we missed this:

http://io9.com/5963263/how-nasa-will-build-its-very-first-warp-drive

^NASA wins again
Wow, neither do I. This is nothing short of amazing I don't know exactly if we'll see it in our lifetimes, but nonetheless, very cool indeed.
DShiznit wrote:
I don't know how we missed this:

http://io9.com/5963263/how-nasa-will-build-its-very-first-warp-drive

^NASA wins again
As noted in the article, there's a huge chasm between the theory and applications for this idea. It's nice to know that according to our current math, it's possible, but if they're building more and more sensitive inferometers to test if massive capacitor banks can produce a tiny measurable effect, then we have a very long way to go on this.
KermMartian wrote:
DShiznit wrote:
I don't know how we missed this:

http://io9.com/5963263/how-nasa-will-build-its-very-first-warp-drive

^NASA wins again
As noted in the article, there's a huge chasm between the theory and applications for this idea. It's nice to know that according to our current math, it's possible, but if they're building more and more sensitive inferometers to test if massive capacitor banks can produce a tiny measurable effect, then we have a very long way to go on this.


We went from a half-watt proof-of-concept nuclear reactor to one that could power a town in less than a year. My hopes are most definitely up.

Of course we need to actually fund NASA to be able to do this.
That was a truly awesome read, and I can't wait to see where it goes. Smile
I should also mention this, from the comments, which is frankly the greatest impediment to FTL travel:

http://www.universetoday.com/93882/warp-drives-may-come-with-a-killer-downside/

It would be like the Millennium Falcon dropping out of hyperspace to find Alderaan obliterated, but eventually realizing it was their own hyperspace drive that caused it.
On the one hand, I'd love to be able to visit other solar systems within my lifetime. On the other hand, I really don't believe that this research will come to fruition in any meaningful form. People like to forget that faster-than-light travel of ANY kind is equivalent to time travel.
elfprince13 wrote:
On the one hand, I'd love to be able to visit other solar systems within my lifetime. On the other hand, I really don't believe that this research will come to fruition in any meaningful form. People like to forget that faster-than-light travel of ANY kind is equivalent to time travel.

Not the kind of FTL they're talking about. As far as I know, bending space doesn't actually affect the flow of time at all for anything outside the space being bent, since your matter isn't actually moving faster than the speed of light.
It's an abuse of General Relativity, rather than Special Relativity, but it ought to carry the same problems with causality. if you can get from here to Alpha Centauri in a month, and back in another month, you're doing hideous things to causality. Saying that the Alcubierre Metric is a solution to the field equations for GR isn't really any different than saying tachyons are a solution to SR. The only difference is that we've shown tachyonic fields must collapse, and nobody's quite sure what negative mass needed by a warp drive actually means (or if there's any physically meaningful transition between our mostly-flat spacetime geometry and the spacetime geometry of the Alcubierre Metric). You should have absolutely no expectation of this research ever leading to a warp drive.
Forget all this "splitting the atom" nonsense guys, it's a pipedream and it will never ever happen.
DShiznit wrote:
Forget all this "splitting the atom" nonsense guys, it's a pipedream and it will never ever happen.

I can understand your discontent here. There might be some way to invent a warp drive, this just probably isn't it.

And the real question we should be asking ourselves is: does the populace even want a warp drive? As far as I can tell, the only reason the US started NASA is because we wanted to beat the Russians, and NASA is probably not funded much anymore because the Russians are already beaten.
I suppose most of you guys have already heard about this, but apparently a meteor exploded over Russia. [url]my.chicagotribune.com/#section/-1/article/a-74435779/[/url]
The universe is flat.
tifreak thought this was cool enough for me to share: http://io9.com/5987078/nasa-has-found-a-free-particle-accelerator-floating-in-space
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNJvmsnQ1Z0 Just found this video, kind of an interesting watch. Discussion on creation of anti-matter.
Now this is awesome! http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/brighter-than-a-full-moon-the-biggest-star-of-2013-could-be-ison--the-comet-of-the-century-8431443.html
This is also awesome: http://io9.com/5989393/a-star-that-looks-older-than-the-universe-itself
elfprince13 wrote:


Is it just me, or did you accidentally post a link to an update of a space-based video game? Confused Either way, the end part of that URL sounds interesting, so if it is me and I'm just redirecting to the wrong place, I hope you'll drop a mirror to the article Smile
io9 seems to have broken their website. No idea what's up.
http://www.sciencerecorder.com/news/oldest-known-star-appears-older-than-the-universe-itself/ in case you're wondering.
  
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