Physics reprt: FTL drives

SyntaxVorlon · Post by **SyntaxVorlon** » 2003-01-30 09:00pm

Also, don't forget to wear your towel on May 5.
http://www.systemtoolbox.com/towelday/

Rathark · Post by **Rathark** » 2003-01-30 10:55pm

jaeger115 wrote:I suggest you check out the Diametric, Pitch, Bias, and Induction Ring drives on NASA's website. Better than using sci-fi wankfests for a science project.

I'm familiar with these. If you want a fictional portrayal as well, you can also find them on www.orionsarm.com. However, I understand that they are relativistic sublight drives that require exotic matter instead of reaction mass. Also, Orion's Arm emphasises that only hyperintelligent AIs (somewhere between us and Culture Minds on the logarithmic intelligence scale, I would presume) could possibly make them work.

Slartibartfast · Post by **Slartibartfast** » 2003-01-31 12:22am

2000AD wrote:
Exonerate wrote:I dare you to do one on the Infinate Improbabilty Drive.

WTF is that?

It's a device that makes something infinitely improbable (read: impossible) happen, like turning people into penguins or being in all places of the Universe at the same time.

Since building such a device is almost impossible (read: finitely improbable) you have to construct a finite improbability drive first.

The Dark · Post by **The Dark** » 2003-01-31 12:29am

Rathark wrote:
jaeger115 wrote:I suggest you check out the Diametric, Pitch, Bias, and Induction Ring drives on NASA's website. Better than using sci-fi wankfests for a science project.
I'm familiar with these. If you want a fictional portrayal as well, you can also find them on www.orionsarm.com. However, I understand that they are relativistic sublight drives that require exotic matter instead of reaction mass. Also, Orion's Arm emphasises that only hyperintelligent AIs (somewhere between us and Culture Minds on the logarithmic intelligence scale, I would presume) could possibly make them work.

IIRC, Induction Ring is theoretically FTL. It's similar to the Alcubierre/Van Den Broecke Warp Drive, in that it (IIRC) breaks a portion of spacetime off and moves spacetime with the ship in it...freaky stuff.

The Nomad · Post by **The Nomad** » 2003-01-31 01:13pm

IIRC Chris Van den Boeck found a way to bypass the (10 billion times the energy contained in the Universe ) energy requirement for a warp-like drive, but it makes the drive itself so incredibly complicated that it's even less plausible than the precedent solution !

Post by **NecronLord** » 2003-01-31 02:38pm

Rathark wrote:
jaeger115 wrote:I suggest you check out the Diametric, Pitch, Bias, and Induction Ring drives on NASA's website. Better than using sci-fi wankfests for a science project.
I'm familiar with these. If you want a fictional portrayal as well, you can also find them on www.orionsarm.com. However, I understand that they are relativistic sublight drives that require exotic matter instead of reaction mass. Also, Orion's Arm emphasises that only hyperintelligent AIs (somewhere between us and Culture Minds on the logarithmic intelligence scale, I would presume) could possibly make them work.

Actually IIRC some of the orions arm AIs make Minds look positively slow...

gravity · Post by **gravity** » 2003-02-01 10:06am

Darth Wong wrote:Wormholes are statistically possible via quantum mechanics. However, that doesn't count for much. By QM, it is also statistically possible that you will spontaneously teleport to Jupiter.

That's true, but I think even then you would have to wait for a few hours (or however long it is), because even in QM you can't transmit information faster than light (and if you were instantly teleported, you could convey information to Jupiter at FTL speed).

gravity · Post by **gravity** » 2003-02-01 10:10am

Any FTL travel is probably impossible because it would always have a chance of violating causality (ie effectively creating a time-travel paradox).

Here's a (rather difficult) explanation: http://www.physics.purdue.edu/~hinson/f ... intro.html

The problem appears to be with frames of reference in relativity (and how they get screwed up by FTL information-sending), iirc.

Of course if relativity is wrong then that all might be invalid, but that seems pretty unlikely at this point.

gravity · Post by **gravity** » 2003-02-01 10:13am

Whoops, that link is dead. Here's another (and probably easier) explanation:

http://www.neci.nec.com/homepages/flake ... olumn.html

Basically, no matter how it supposedly works, FTL is impossible unless everything we think we know about the universe it wrong, which is probably not the case.

2000AD · Post by **2000AD** » 2003-02-01 12:35pm

I know that FTL travel is impossible. Thats why i'm working under suspension of belief!