FTL Idea

[Imperial528]

Okay, so, if I understand vacuum energy correctly, then an area of differing vacuum energy will have different laws of physics, including the speed of light. So, the idea is that a spacecraft would through some handwavium, create a "film" of lower or higher vacuum energy in a sphere around it, to the point that it is inside the film but not touching it, since if it touches the film it would cease to exist as we know it.

Now, an area of differing vacuum energy can only propagate at the local speed of light, c, even if the internal speed of light is 1.5c. Which means that, assuming my knowledge is correct, such a spacecraft could travel at the speed of light.

And here's where things get tricky.

Say we have three objects capable of maintaining this effect: Gate A, Gate B, and Spacecraft A. Gate A and Gate B are capable of creating whole regions of differing vacuum energy, rather than just films, and they are activated at the edge of the solar system, maintaining a shared film. Spacecraft A envelopes Gate B in its own film after attaching to it, and pulls it to the neighboring Alpha Centauri while traveling at c. Spacecraft A and Gate B take 4.3 years to travel to Alpha Centauri, and Spacecraft A places Gate B into orbit around the star at the system's edge when it arrives. Now, Spacecraft A can then enter Gate B while its own film generator is on. When it enters Gate B's region of differing vacuum energy, which was stretched into a tunnel shape to become Tunnel AB, then the space of normal vacuum energy is suddenly no longer the local force, which means that it can propagate at Tunnel AB's speed of light, in this case, 1.5c. Thus, Spacecraft A can return to Sol in only 2.86 years when going through the tunnel.

So, would this idea work?* Or am I, in my ignorance, completely butchering the theory of vacuum energy?

*This idea neglects other concerns such as generating mechanism and power sources.

[Sarevok]

The biggest problem is practical ways of altering vacuum energy.

Until you figure out a way to do this this is like stable wormholes. Might work mathematically but nobody has a clue how to build one.

[Imperial528]

I'm only interested on whether or not the idea itself is theoretically feasible, not practically.

[LionElJonson]

This seems like a really good way to destroy the universe if something goes wrong.

Of course, that could well be a part of the plot of this as the aliens flee the universe-destroying wavefront propagating at the speed of light.

[Imperial528]

Part of the idea is to use vacuum energies which would be overcome by our own, rather than the other way around, to avoid such an accident.

[matrix29bear]

Okay, so, if I understand vacuum energy correctly, then an area of differing vacuum energy will have different laws of physics, including the speed of light. So, the idea is that a spacecraft would through some handwavium, create a "film" of lower or higher vacuum energy in a sphere around it, to the point that it is inside the film but not touching it, since if it touches the film it would cease to exist as we know it.

Now, an area of differing vacuum energy can only propagate at the local speed of light, c, even if the internal speed of light is 1.5c. Which means that, assuming my knowledge is correct, such a spacecraft could travel at the speed of light.

And here's where things get tricky.

Say we have three objects capable of maintaining this effect: Gate A, Gate B, and Spacecraft A. Gate A and Gate B are capable of creating whole regions of differing vacuum energy, rather than just films, and they are activated at the edge of the solar system, maintaining a shared film. Spacecraft A envelopes Gate B in its own film after attaching to it, and pulls it to the neighboring Alpha Centauri while traveling at c. Spacecraft A and Gate B take 4.3 years to travel to Alpha Centauri, and Spacecraft A places Gate B into orbit around the star at the system's edge when it arrives. Now, Spacecraft A can then enter Gate B while its own film generator is on. When it enters Gate B's region of differing vacuum energy, which was stretched into a tunnel shape to become Tunnel AB, then the space of normal vacuum energy is suddenly no longer the local force, which means that it can propagate at Tunnel AB's speed of light, in this case, 1.5c. Thus, Spacecraft A can return to Sol in only 2.86 years when going through the tunnel.

So, would this idea work?* Or am I, in my ignorance, completely butchering the theory of vacuum energy?

*This idea neglects other concerns such as generating mechanism and power sources.

Since we are disregarding the laws of known physics and energy usage...
Isn't is easier to simply go "back in time" as you move through space?

Think about it, if you're moving at 1/2 light speed to a place 200 light years away, the journey is going to take 400 years in real time (not counting acceleration and deceleration issues).
Now if you move backwards in time a little bit for every light year traveled you will arrive at your destination instantly in real time (to avoid paradoxes, although your crew will be 400 years older or long dead and replaced by other humans -- which could be minimized by simply locking your crew in a "slow time" zone appropriate to the length of the journey with the ships computers figuring out the course at a much faster rate than any human could in avoiding obstacles). Downside is obviously the aging of the ship's components by 400 years in the journey. The obvious benefit of time manipulation + slowing the crew's time is that you can travel at much slower rates (using much less kinetic energy to start and stop movement and change direction -- which also gives greater maneuvering ability with less negative "splattering the crew into a brown smear on the ship's interior" side-effects).

Got the idea on trying to figure out how the new "Battlestar Galactica" Jump Drives worked.
Forget exotic energy sources, just screw around with time itself to get a faster result with lower energy costs.
A clever soul would figure out a way to exchange the "Slow time" on the interior of the ship with the negative-time-directional energy on the outside of the ship to get an equitable low energy cost exchange result. Only seriously big problem is that an object moving in an anti-temporal direction colliding with a positive-time direction results in a rather nasty explosion.

[Imperial528]

But how would you move backwards in time? IIRC there's not even theoretical non-FTL methods to do that.

PS: Not to mention that as you pointed out, the ship and crew would age, which would lead to a much more maintenance intensive design.