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Morphman
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Source.

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HOUSTON — A warp drive to achieve faster-than-light travel — a concept popularized in television's Star Trek — may not be as unrealistic as once thought, scientists say.

A warp drive would manipulate space-time itself to move a starship, taking advantage of a loophole in the laws of physics that prevent anything from moving faster than light. A concept for a real-life warp drive was suggested in 1994 by Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre; however, subsequent calculations found that such a device would require prohibitive amounts of energy.

Now physicists say that adjustments can be made to the proposed warp drive that would enable it to run on significantly less energy, potentially bringing the idea back from the realm of science fiction into science.


Now, this is very, very interesting.


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Very nice stuff, thanks for the link.

I refuse to admit at this point that travelling faster than light is impossible, especially since there are still many holes in our knowledge of physics. People used to claim that travel by train would be too fast for the human body, or that any plane reaching the speed of sound would desintegrate. Let's do more research before claiming that something can't be done.


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For some info on the other end, there's this article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/04/killer_warp_drive/

It discusses potential downsides of the aforementioned Alcubierre drive, though as you said Doc, it's too early to really say anything regarding the physics of the whole thing.

For all we know, any matter travelling faster than light turns into energy, or we start travelling through time rather than space (or both at once). One things for sure though: at the outer limits of physics, they get weird.


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Zane Truesdale
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That is... if physics exist anymore for us after engaging in such speed, considering the human body will be broken up into energy and all.

Edited by Zane Truesdale on September 20, 2012 at 0:44:50


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Quote from post #231065:
Originally posted by Zane Truesdale
That is... if physics exist anymore for us after engaging in such speed, considering the human body will be broken up into energy and all.


See, that's the thing: if this works, we won't be going fast at all. Rather than the ship moving, it would be the space around it, thus effectively going faster than light, but if Physics itself were to look your way it'd say "yep, those guys are staying perfectly still". In layman's terms: we would be teleporting.

Now you're thinking with 'porting.


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