Warp Drive article on the Discovery website

[Major Tom 2009]

I found an article about warp drive on the Discovery website today, in which

it was suggested that a Star Trek-type warp drive could pose a possible

danger by creating a black hole-type phenomenon.

 

Looks like the heirs to the Trek legacy are going to have to go back to the

drawing board.

 

 

Major Tom 2009

[Spence]

Re: Warp Drive article on the Discovery website

 

I found an article about warp drive on the Discovery website today, in which

it was suggested that a Star Trek-type warp drive could pose a possible

danger by creating a black hole-type phenomenon.

 

Looks like the heirs to the Trek legacy are going to have to go back to the

drawing board.

Major Tom 2009

 

No....it's a plot by the secret evil alien overlords to discourage humanities escape from the planet by misinformation

 

Fear them, their agents are everywhere....

[austenandrews]

Re: Warp Drive article on the Discovery website

 

It should be okay as long as they're careful with the Red Matter.

[Nyrath]

Re: Warp Drive article on the Discovery website

 

Well, I found the article to be a breathless puff-piece: long on hype but short on hard details. Most of it appears to be old stuff, and speculation build on top of speculation.

 

The real problem with the blasted thing is, like all other proposed forms of FTL travel, it is functionally equivalent to a time machine.

[CSgeekHero]

Re: Warp Drive article on the Discovery website

 

Well, I found the article to be a breathless puff-piece: long on hype but short on hard details. Most of it appears to be old stuff, and speculation build on top of speculation.

 

The real problem with the blasted thing is, like all other proposed forms of FTL travel, it is functionally equivalent to a time machine.

Yeah, time paradoxes are a pain in the neck.

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: Warp Drive article on the Discovery website

 

The real problem with the blasted thing is' date=' like all other proposed forms of FTL travel, it is functionally equivalent to a time machine.

 

... Which does seem to be the secondary purpose for warp drives in the Trekverse, anyhow.

[palaskar]

Re: Warp Drive article on the Discovery website

 

IIRC, there was an episode of ST:tNG which showed a Romulan starship powered by a quantum singularity (or "black hole.")

 

Didn't the short-lived mecha spoof Megas XRL have a quantum singularity drive too? ("You'll be sorry! One day you'll have to know what a quantum singularity is....!" [Teacher to lead character Coop.]

[Major Tom 2009]

Re: Warp Drive article on the Discovery website

 

IIRC, there was an episode of ST:tNG which showed a Romulan starship powered by a quantum singularity (or "black hole.")

 

Didn't the short-lived mecha spoof Megas XRL have a quantum singularity drive too? ("You'll be sorry! One day you'll have to know what a quantum singularity is....!" [Teacher to lead character Coop.]

 

 

There were actually two episodes of ST: tNG where the quantum singularity

power source of the Romulan ships was part of the story to one extent or another;

the one in which Troi was altered to look like a Romulan in order to

get some defectors/dissidents to safety, and the other one in which both the

Enterprise and a Romulan Warbird were stuck in an area of space where time

passed at different rates (slow, fast, or in reverse).

 

 

Major Tom 2009

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Warp Drive article on the Discovery website

 

Well, I found the article to be a breathless puff-piece: long on hype but short on hard details. Most of it appears to be old stuff, and speculation build on top of speculation.

 

The real problem with the blasted thing is, like all other proposed forms of FTL travel, it is functionally equivalent to a time machine.

 

Yeah, but the whole mathematical concept of "frame of reference" is the reason we believe this.

 

I think if you imagine the entire universe as a single frame of reference, then you can start to wrap your head around this as us laymen do: Travelling faster than light just means you beat the visible evidence of an event, not the event itself.

 

I had a conversation on this when I was plotting my current campaign; they kept asking "but in who's frame of reference?" to everything I tried to come up with.

 

I just can't wrap my head around the idea that if you move faster than a photon - the visible evidence of a visible event - then you are in fact traveling through time. I won't claim to be right, but my imagination says there are more ways to approach this than what conventional wisdom might suggest, and I thus contend that there is a "universal frame of reference" whereby you can travel "faster than light" without traveling through time as well.

[Kristopher]

Re: Warp Drive article on the Discovery website

 

Yeah' date=' but the whole mathematical concept of "frame of reference" is the reason we [i']believe[/i] this.

 

I think if you imagine the entire universe as a single frame of reference, then you can start to wrap your head around this as us laymen do: Travelling faster than light just means you beat the visible evidence of an event, not the event itself.

 

I had a conversation on this when I was plotting my current campaign; they kept asking "but in who's frame of reference?" to everything I tried to come up with.

 

I just can't wrap my head around the idea that if you move faster than a photon - the visible evidence of a visible event - then you are in fact traveling through time. I won't claim to be right, but my imagination says there are more ways to approach this than what conventional wisdom might suggest, and I thus contend that there is a "universal frame of reference" whereby you can travel "faster than light" without traveling through time as well.

 

IIRC, a constant speed of light doesn't work with a universal frame of reference.

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: Warp Drive article on the Discovery website

 

IIRC' date=' a constant speed of light doesn't work with a universal frame of reference.[/quote']

 

Well, we know that sufficient gravity affects light. This has been measured with VERY precise instruments during solar eclipses for a number of years - basically, the Sun's gravity is sufficient to distort the light from stars observed just above its "edge". And, of course, there are neutron stars and black holes - we're just getting to the point where we can detect similar effects caused by massive objects other than our own Sun.

 

Which suggests to me that the speed of light is not necessarily as rigid and absolutely definable a thing as we tend to assume. If "c" can be affected by mass / gravitational effects (and possibly other effects as well), then it follows that light-speed will not automatically be 186,262-whatever miles per second everywhere in the Universe.

[Nyrath]

Re: Warp Drive article on the Discovery website

 

I just can't wrap my head around the idea that if you move faster than a photon - the visible evidence of a visible event - then you are in fact traveling through time. I won't claim to be right' date=' but my imagination says there are more ways to approach this than what conventional wisdom might suggest, and I thus contend that there is a "universal frame of reference" whereby you can travel "faster than light" without traveling through time as well.[/quote']

 

Well, not to put too fine a point on this, it is not "conventional wisdom" so much as it is "Einstein's Relativity."

 

That's the way his math works.

 

If you want to deny Relativity, you have to explain why every other application of Relativity has been confirmed to about nineteen decimal places. Indeed, things like GPS satellite location devices would not work if Relativity was false.

 

Once you put in a preferred frame, Relativity crashes and burns.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Warp Drive article on the Discovery website

 

Relativity for dummies*

 

*no offense intended, that's just the name of the article.

[Zeropoint]

Re: Warp Drive article on the Discovery website

 

If you think this stuff makes sense . . . you haven't studied it enough. Einstein clearly established that there IS NOT any common frame of reference; ANY frame of reference is just as valid as any other. Worse, whether two things happen at the same time or not depends on the frame of reference. Events which are simultaneous to you will not be simultaneous to someone moving past you.

 

I'll admit that I still don't understand how an instant interstellar jump drive lets you get back home before you left. However, I suspect the trail to the answer lies in the question: instantaneous in what reference frame?

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Warp Drive article on the Discovery website

 

...

 

I'll admit that I still don't understand how an instant interstellar jump drive lets you get back home before you left. However, I suspect the trail to the answer lies in the question: instantaneous in what reference frame?

 

I'll give this one a shot.

 

Assumptions:

The 'frame of reference' for the jump drive is the jump's departure point.

The jump drive is literally instant and not just 'faster than light'.

 

Departure point = Earth

Destination point = Andromeda Galaxy

 

The traveler from Earth will arrive in Andromeda at a time earlier than the visible age of that galaxy from earth's perspective that is equivalent to its distance from us in lightyears (millions of years in the past).

 

Now the traveler is in Andromeda's frame of reference and light from earth has taken millions of years to arrive. If he jumps back to Earth he will be traveling to a point in time that precedes his original departure time by millions of years.

 

Nyrath, please correct me if this is wrong.

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Warp Drive article on the Discovery website

 

I know that is how the math works, but I still say that beating the visible evidence of an occurrence does not mean you beat the occurrence.

 

You jump to Andromeda and arrive now - Andromeda Galaxy will be millions of years past where we "see" it from Earth - everything we know of it is from light that has taken millions of years to get here. Millions of years later, an observer on earth will "see" your craft arrive there. If you then jump back, you will arrive back at Earth moments after you left, and an observer in Andromeda would not "see" you arrive back at Earth for Millions of years - but that is just due to how long the visible evidence of your arrival took to travel from A to B.

 

Again, I may be wrong - but from my limited understanding of the whole light speed deal I just don't think FTL must mean time travel. I think actually moving through space faster than a photon is likely simply impossible, but I think something like a Warp Drive or Jump Drive could be possible.

[Kristopher]

Re: Warp Drive article on the Discovery website

 

I'll give this one a shot.

 

Assumptions:

The 'frame of reference' for the jump drive is the jump's departure point.

The jump drive is literally instant and not just 'faster than light'.

 

Departure point = Earth

Destination point = Andromeda Galaxy

 

The traveler from Earth will arrive in Andromeda at a time earlier than the visible age of that galaxy from earth's perspective that is equivalent to its distance from us in lightyears (millions of years in the past).

 

Now the traveler is in Andromeda's frame of reference and light from earth has taken millions of years to arrive. If he jumps back to Earth he will be traveling to a point in time that precedes his original departure time by millions of years.

 

Nyrath, please correct me if this is wrong.

 

It has to be more than that, because just beating the light back and forth doesn't mean that you've actually arrived back at Earth before you left.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Warp Drive article on the Discovery website

 

It has to be more than that' date=' because just beating the light back and forth doesn't mean that you've actually arrived back at Earth before you left.[/quote']

 

Ok, let me change a couple of things to make it simpler then:

 

Departure point = surface of the Earth

Destination point = surface of the Sun

 

factoid: light takes ~ 8 minutes to reach earth

 

and again,

The 'frame of reference' for the jump drive is the jump's departure point.

The jump drive is literally instant (and not just X-times 'faster than light').

 

The traveler jumping from Earth will arrive on the surface of the Sun 8 minutes before he can be observed from Earth. If the same traveler then jumps back to the surface of the earth he will again arrive 8 minutes faster than photons leaving the surface of the Sun. He will have traveled 8 minutes into the past (compared to his original Earth departure time).

 

He will actually 'arrive' before he 'left'!

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Warp Drive article on the Discovery website

 

It has to be more than that' date=' because just beating the light back and forth doesn't mean that you've actually arrived back at Earth before you left.[/quote']

 

Nope. The Math "proves" it, too, though I only say that because people smarter than me say so - I look at that level of Math and say "How 'bout no?"

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Warp Drive article on the Discovery website

 

Ok, let me change a couple of things to make it simpler then:

 

Departure point = surface of the Earth

Destination point = surface of the Sun

 

factoid: light takes ~ 8 minutes to reach earth

 

and again,

The 'frame of reference' for the jump drive is the jump's departure point.

The jump drive is literally instant (and not just X-times 'faster than light').

 

The traveler jumping from Earth will arrive on the surface of the Sun 8 minutes before he can be observed from Earth. If the same traveler then jumps back to the surface of the earth he will again arrive 8 minutes faster than photons leaving the surface of the Sun. He will have traveled 8 minutes into the past (compared to his original Earth departure time).

 

He will actually 'arrive' before he 'left'!

 

That makes zero sense to me.

 

I say, he arrives at the Sun and 8 minutes later we see him arrive, but he has already been there 8 minutes, both for us, and for him - in both frames of reference. He would see himself leave Earth 8 minutes after he left - an odd effect to be sure - but again all he did was beat the evidence of leaving, not the event of him leaving.

 

He jumps back to Earth, and for 8 minutes an observer on Earth would still see him at the Sun, until the photons caught up to him.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Warp Drive article on the Discovery website

 

A better understanding of the term Lightyear might help as well.

 

Using a light year as a distance measurement has another advantage -- it helps you determine age. Let's say that a star is 1 million light years away. The light from that star has traveled at the speed of light to reach us. Therefore, it has taken the star's light 1 million years to get here, and the light we are seeing was created 1 million years ago. So the star we are seeing is really how the star looked a million years ago, not how it looks today. In the same way, our sun is 8 or so light minutes away. If the sun were to suddenly explode right now, we wouldn't know about it for eight minutes because that is how long it would take for the light of the explosion to get here.

[Kristopher]

Re: Warp Drive article on the Discovery website

 

Ok, let me change a couple of things to make it simpler then:

 

Departure point = surface of the Earth

Destination point = surface of the Sun

 

factoid: light takes ~ 8 minutes to reach earth

 

and again,

The 'frame of reference' for the jump drive is the jump's departure point.

The jump drive is literally instant (and not just X-times 'faster than light').

 

The traveler jumping from Earth will arrive on the surface of the Sun 8 minutes before he can be observed from Earth. If the same traveler then jumps back to the surface of the earth he will again arrive 8 minutes faster than photons leaving the surface of the Sun. He will have traveled 8 minutes into the past (compared to his original Earth departure time).

 

He will actually 'arrive' before he 'left'!

 

All you've restated is that the ship arrives before the photons. That doesn't establish that the ship arrives back at earth before it left. Unless there's something else going on, it arrives back no later than the moment it left Earth.

 

"When it can be observed" != "when it happens".

[Kraven Kor]

Re: Warp Drive article on the Discovery website

 

All you've restated is that the ship arrives before the photons. That doesn't establish that the ship arrives back at earth before it left. Unless there's something else going on, it arrives back no later than the moment it left Earth.

 

"When it can be observed" != "when it happens".

 

Except, in the case of Relativity, it does. The Math seems to support that or be built around that or some such - at least to my understanding.

 

Though I still disagree and think we are, as you say, missing that something else that is going on.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Warp Drive article on the Discovery website

 

That makes zero sense to me.

 

I say, he arrives at the Sun and 8 minutes later we see him arrive, but he has already been there 8 minutes, both for us, and for him - in both frames of reference. He would see himself leave Earth 8 minutes after he left - an odd effect to be sure - but again all he did was beat the evidence of leaving, not the event of him leaving.

 

He jumps back to Earth, and for 8 minutes an observer on Earth would still see him at the Sun, until the photons caught up to him.

 

 

You're ignoring the fact that light traveling from the Earth to the Sun also takes 8 minutes and assuming a 'static' or 'Universal Time'.

From Time Travel via FTL:

 

Time travel via faster-than-light travel

 

If one were able to move information or matter from one point to another faster than light, then according to special relativity, there would be some inertial frame of reference in which the signal or object was moving backwards in time. This is a consequence of the relativity of simultaneity in special relativity, which says that in some cases different reference frames will disagree on whether two events at different locations happened "at the same time" or not, and they can also disagree on the order of the two events (technically, these disagreements occur when spacetime interval between the events is 'space-like', meaning that neither event lies in the future light cone of the other).[17] If one of the two events represents the sending of a signal from one location and the second event represents the reception of the same signal at another location, then as long as the signal is moving at the speed of light or slower, the mathematics of simultaneity ensures that all reference frames agree that the transmission-event happened before the reception-event.[17]

However, in the case of a hypothetical signal moving faster than light, there would always be some frames in which the signal was received before it was sent, so that the signal could be said to have moved backwards in time. And since one of the two fundamental postulates of special relativity says that the laws of physics should work the same way in every inertial frame, then if it is possible for signals to move backwards in time in any one frame, it must be possible in all frames. This means that if observer A sends a signal to observer B which moves FTL (faster than light) in A's frame but backwards in time in B's frame, and then B sends a reply which moves FTL in B's frame but backwards in time in A's frame, it could work out that A receives the reply before sending the original signal, a clear violation of causality in every frame. An illustration of such a scenario using spacetime diagrams can be found here.

According to special relativity it would take an infinite amount of energy to accelerate a slower-than-light object to the speed of light, and although relativity does not forbid the theoretical possibility of tachyons which move faster than light at all times, when analyzed using quantum field theory it seems that it would not actually be possible to use them to transmit information faster than light,[18] and there is no evidence for their existence.

[tomd1969]

Re: Warp Drive article on the Discovery website

 

You see, this is where I've actually had to spend some time reading up on this, and this is my *limited* and *incomplete* understanding of it. I'm sure that Nyrath or Cancer can (and I'm sure will) correct any errors I make, and I welcome it. This is the way I understand it.

 

The whole frame of reference thing has to do with this: Let's say that there are two people moving in opposite directions towards each other--let's call them Sam and Diane.

• From Diane's perspective, Sam is moving towards her at 300 kph
  
• from Sam's perspective, Diane is moving toward *him* at 300 kph.
  
• Now we add Cliff. From his perspective, Sam is moving 150 kph towards Diane, and Diane is moving 150 kph towards Sam.
  

 

Now, if this is true (and it is plain common sense), then that would mean that as you move toward the source of an event, the light from that event should be coming toward you *faster* then the light from an event from which you are moving away. However, experiments from before Einstein's time show this to not be the case: no matter your frame of reference, the speed of light in a vacuum in your reference frame is *always* 299,792,458 m/sec. Scientists postulate a background substance they called the "Aether" to provide a universal (or "preferred") reference frame to explain why this was.

 

However, there were numerous problems with the Aether theory, not the least of which was the problem of propagation of wave patterns. To quote Wikipedia:

 

A simple example concerns the model on which aether was originally built: sound. The speed of propagation for mechanical waves, the speed of sound, is defined by the mechanical properties of the medium. For instance, if one is in an airliner, you can still carry on a conversation with the person beside you because the sound of your words are traveling along with the air inside the aircraft. This effect is basic to all Newtonian dynamics, which says that everything from sound to the trajectory of a thrown baseball should all remain the same in the aircraft as sitting still on the Earth. This is the basis of the Galilean transformation, and the concept of frame of reference.

 

This was where Einstein's genius comes into play. The problem with the common sense approach to the relativity problem is that it assumes that *time is constant*. Einstein showed in the Theory of Special Relativity that time cannot be constant, and postulated that space and time were inextricably linked to each other--what he called "spacetime."

 

Speed is equal to distance divided by time (S=d/t). If time is constant, then the way to increase speed would be to increase the distance (d) moved in the time (t). For example, 30 km/hour is half as fast as 60 km/hour. However, if time *isn't* constant, then another option would be to *decrease* the amount of time it takes to move a body a certain distance. For example, 30 km/hr is twice as fast as 30 km/2 hrs. Einstein postulated that what *must* be happening that as a body (we'll call him Sam) approached c, time must be slowing down from Sam's reference frame.

 

The effect is the famous "Twin Paradox": a twin moves through space at some speed close to the speed of light and returns to earth. When the space-travelling twin returns, the earth-bound twin would be older.