Why is faster than light travel so bizarrely 'addressed'

[Roo]

Well then, assuming that space-time can indeed be bent/folded/warped in order to bring two points closer together - would anyone care to venture what would be needed in order to bring this about? The 'star trek' universe would have us believe that a 'warp field' surrounds the ship and that the two nacelles contain coils that when 'plasma' is put through them, they create an immensely large gravity field thus 'warping' space-time. I know this all sounds a bit daft, but if as I'm being told that space-time can be manipulated, then surely the mechanism for doing so must also be known, even if the actual technology to produce it is way, way off in the future?

And if it is nothing more than gravity that is needed, how much is required to be able to distort space and bring say, Earth and Alpha Centauri that little bit closer?

I'm asking this because there are numerous articles on the possible feasibility of FTL travel, yet none care to say how space-time would be manipulated - only that it could be.

Roo.

Any takers? Or is this a question for the engineering boys and girls?

Roo.

 

[neopolitan]

Any takers? Or is this a question for the engineering boys and girls?

Roo.

Responses would inevitably lead to smiting on account of the extremely speculative nature of any answer to your question.

Think about being on the surface of a balloon, in space, far from a gravitational field - the balloon represents the "space-time continuum". How do you bend the part of the balloon you are standing on so that it dips in and touches another part of the balloon, so that you then burrow through to a new spot on the surface of the balloon?

Without something that reaches down and across (even if you recklessly assume this is possible, it is a massive undertaking in terms of the universe), or having access to something outside of the balloon (representing a superdimensional poker, perhaps), you just can't do it.

The idea of warping or folding spacetime for our convenience is a science fiction topic, not a legitimate field of engineering research (not now, and most likely not ever).

cheers,

neopolitan

 

[DaveC426913]

How do you bend the part of the balloon you are standing on so that it dips in and touches another part of the balloon, so that you then burrow through to a new spot on the surface of the balloon?

The classic "warp drive" simply strategically distorts distances. Topologically, the balloon remains a sphere.

OTOH, what you describe above is a wormhole, a "here-to-there-with-no-in-between". Topologically, the spherical balloon is reformed to add a hole, so it's now a torus or "coffee mug" shape. Different animal.

Wormholes have been posited by GR but they'd need a form of exotic matter/energy to hold them open and stable.

 

[RUTA]

Of course that's not proof that space is infinite. After all, Earth's surface "goes on forever" while having a finite area. This is only contradictory for a flat surface.

Space being finite and unbounded would only be contradictory if we assume space is "flat".

Actually, you can have a flat, unbounded, finite space. For a 2-dim version, simply identify opposite edges of a piece of paper.

 

[CJames]

Yes - I couldn't agree more about gravity affecting things. Living on planet Earth kind of proves this amply! And yes, I've heard of gravitational lensing - but surely the gravity of a massive object is only bending the image of a real object - and as such, the object in question is still sitting pretty in its original position in space irrespective of what its image is doing?

The thing is that it's an empirically observed fact that the speed of light is constant in all reference frames. We use the speed of light in all measurements of time and space (even if we're using yardsticks). This means that if light is warped by gravity, so are time and space.

Well then, assuming that space-time can indeed be bent/folded/warped in order to bring two points closer together - would anyone care to venture what would be needed in order to bring this about? The 'star trek' universe would have us believe that a 'warp field' surrounds the ship and that the two nacelles contain coils that when 'plasma' is put through them, they create an immensely large gravity field thus 'warping' space-time. I know this all sounds a bit daft, but if as I'm being told that space-time can be manipulated, then surely the mechanism for doing so must also be known, even if the actual technology to produce it is way, way off in the future?

Not really. ;) It's largely the invention of the popular science movement, aimed at the sci-fi fanatics. The reality is that in it's modern vein this whole thing kind of started with Carl Sagan and his book Contact, when he asked a physicist to try and come up with a plausible FTL method for his work of fiction. So since then a few experts in relativity have been able to manipulate the math of general relativity to produce geodesics that shortcut through space and time somehow, but they always end up using bizarre things like negative mass, which we have no reason to expect existing. Then there's the fact that any method allowing for FTL also allows for backward time travel, which creates all kinds of paradoxes that seem highly unlikely. It's always POSSIBLE that once we have a full theory of quantum gravity, we'll really know IF and HOW to do FTL, and maybe by some bizarre turn of events relativity missed something really important and FTL won't allow us to travel backward in time, but this is mainly just a pipe dream of the sci-fi movement.

If you must know, my personal favorite most likely candidate is a wormhole, pried open with some kind of negative energy, perhaps something we'll understand if we ever figure out what's causing the dark energy that's blowing the universe apart. The two ends of the wormhole would most likely begin at the same point in space. You would then drag one end of the wormhole off to your destination at slower than light speeds, and you could return back home through the wormhole without having to deal with the twin paradox. Anytime you tried to position the wormhole so that backward time travel were possible, it would evaporate due to feedback loops in the background energy.

But the reality is that technology tends to take us in places we never expected. We futurized about flying cars and series of tubes distributing our mail, and instead we got the internet and stem cells. Who knows what's coming next? It might just make FTL obsolete.

 

[RonL]

I'd be happy if we could be technologically advanced enough to produce waste free (minimum or useful "waste") energy over the entire globe in my lifetime. I'll leave the FTL devices to the coming generations.

I have to agree here, also I find it interesting, how there can be such unanimous agreement on two subjects considered theroretic possibilities (PM and Time Travel) and the answers are complete opposites.

 

[DaveC426913]

I have to agree here, also I find it interesting, how there can be such unanimous agreement on two subjects considered theroretic possibilities (PM and Time Travel) and the answers are complete opposites.

Sorry, can you elaborate?

You're saying that PF has a virtually unanimous agreement on perpetual motion and on time travel? And that the answers are complete opposites? Since it's pretty unanimous that PM is a no-starter, you must be suggesting that PFers unanimously agree that time travel is possible?

 

[Max™]

[smartass]I'm traveling through time right now![/smartass]

:P

 

[matheinste]

[smartass]I'm traveling through time right now![/smartass]

:P

But not backwards.

Matheinste.

 

[Hurkyl]

But not backwards.

I am, at a rate of -1 seconds per second.

 

[RonL]

Sorry, can you elaborate?

You're saying that PF has a virtually unanimous agreement on perpetual motion and on time travel? And that the answers are complete opposites? Since it's pretty unanimous that PM is a no-starter, you must be suggesting that PFers unanimously agree that time travel is possible?

The main focus of my post I would like to direct at redargon's comment about "waste free energy".
The rest, you have put in words that sum up the statement just about right.

Ron

 

[DaveC426913]

The main focus of my post I would like to direct at redargon's comment about "waste free energy".
The rest, you have put in words that sum up the statement just about right.

Ron

I am dubious that PFers generally agree time travel is possible, let alone that they are nearly unanimous on it.

 

[Max™]

But not backwards.

Matheinste.

*turns around*