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Can't
Authored by: ailuromancy on Sunday, March 31 2013 @ 01:50 PM EDT

I think the NASA experiment you are referring to is the White Juday warp-field interferometer. If you use some future technology to warp space inside the interferometer, the interferometer will measure how warped the space is. As the interferometer is really sensitive, you will probably see some results shows space got warped - but not into the shape required for useful faster than light travel.

The machine that makes a warp field the right shape has some challenging components:

  • Some matter with negative mass is required (so far none has been detected).
  • Components that move faster than light (there might be a way to dodge this requirement).
  • Components 10^-32m thick. Atoms are 10^-10m across. The wave length of particles at LHC are about 10^-20m. Increase the energy per particle at LHC by a factor of a million and you match the more energetic cosmic rays. Increase that by a factor of a million again to get to wave lengths small enough for warp drive components.
  • Warp drive is not something you install on a star ship. It is more like building a railway line between two stars. That railway line has to be constructed with slower-that-light space ships.

Fusion reactors were fifty years away for decades. Sensible predictions for the date of a profitable fusion reactor are now under fifty years. Younger readers might live long enough for biologists to invent proper eternal youth. If they are careful, they might live long enough to use some pocket fusion reactors. Fitting ITER into your pocket is much easier that useable FTL. I love the theories and that people are working on them, but I would like people to have some idea just how high in the sky this particular pie is.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Can't
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, April 02 2013 @ 04:07 AM EDT

Relativity says we can't travel at the speed of light. It says nothing about being unable to travel faster than light, just as soon as we manage to avoid passing through a state of "travelling at the speed of light" on the way there.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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