Possible Warp Drive Physics: The Alcubierre Drive

[swampwiz]

I was reading this article about a possible warp drive that seems like science fantasy to me.

https://www.universetoday.com/89074/what-is-the-alcubierre-warp-drive/

 

[p1l0t]

Maybe? I mean it's just conjecture as far as I know at this point. I wouldn't say it's IMPOSSIBLE to warp spacetime because planets do it just by having mass. Can you do it enough on a smaller scale to reasonably move a spaceship somewhere you point it... no idea.

 

[phinds]

Is this "warp drive" physics really possible?

No. It DOES have a sort-of basis in physics, but not likely in reality since it requires negative mass which as far as can be determined is not a real thing.

 

[Ibix]

The maths is fine. It's not at all clear that it describes anything that can actually exist, since it requires negative mass matter, which we've never seen. Not to mention that we don't have any maths to describe the bubble forming or collapsing, only existing.

 

[cosmik debris]

This paper by "Sonny" White from NASA explains some of the theory and some experiments to probe the theory. I seem to recall, but can't find, that he has some method for using baryonic matter.

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110015936.pdf

Cheers

 

[PeterDonis]

I seem to recall, but can't find, that he has some method for using baryonic matter.

There's no way to produce this kind of spacetime geometry using only baryonic matter. You need "exotic matter", which basically means "can be described mathematically, but there's no evidence that it's actually physically possible".

 

[cosmik debris]

There's no way to produce this kind of spacetime geometry using only baryonic matter. You need "exotic matter", which basically means "can be described mathematically, but there's no evidence that it's actually physically possible".

Yes, I understand this is current thinking.

This extract from Wikipedia (yes, I know):

"The theoretical framework for the experiments dates back to work by Harold G. White from 2003 as well as work by White and Eric W. Davis from 2006 that was published in the AIP, where they also consider how baryonic matter could, at least mathematically, adopt characteristics of dark energy (see section below). In the process, they described how a toroidal positive energy density may result in a spherical negative-pressure region, possibly eliminating the need for actual exotic matter.[2][4]"

I know I have seen this in a paper somewhere. I will try to find it.

Cheers

 

[PeterDonis]

I know I have seen this in a paper somewhere.

AFAIK the only "papers" on this are the ones by the NASA engineers. They apparently have enough taxpayer money to have run some experiments, all of which so far have been inconclusive. I would expect further experiments they run to continue to be inconclusive.