Thursday, November 8, 2012

Science News You May Have Missed; Engage Warp Drive Edition

NASA is working on making a warp drive a reality.

Apparently, it may be mathematically feasible to warp the fabric of space-time so that the effect is to go from one place to another at what would appear to be ten times the speed of light.*

One thing has been true: When we determine that something is possible, sooner or later, we do it.

The next politician who wants to cut NASA's budget should be flogged with a rusty logging chain.
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* A little faster than Warp 2 on the Star Trek speed scale.

3 comments:

  1. I've been curious about the Alcubierre drive for years now. Back when he first proposed it, the energy required to get going kind of exceeded the energy of the whole galaxy... so things seemed a bit far away.

    I'm also curious about the causality thing. My crude understanding of Relativity seemed to suggest that there isn't precisely a speed limit to reality, rather that you can't be at point B too soon after having been at point A.

    Yes, that sounds like a good definition of a speed limit, but it's different in that it negates any stargate/wormhole/hyperspace definitions of star drives. Yes, maybe you can skip all that tedious travel between here and there and just step through a hole to get there, but you CAN'T BE THERE YET.

    But I also don't understand why violating causality is such a big, stinking deal, either.

    ReplyDelete
  2. As a survivor of "Humboldt County Ca; ie BIG Tree Logging". let me explain something. They don Not use chain, no no no no. Never last. They use Cable. Inch and a half is normal but I have seen bigger. After a lot of use the cables develope spurs of broken strands. Kinda like 1/16 inch rusty metal splinters waiting to 'get' the unwary. Very nasty stuff to be anywhere near.
    That is what the 'nay sayers' deserve, chain is Way too kind.
    "out There, third star to the right"
    w3ski

    ReplyDelete
  3. Of, cuurse, the reality is they've been doing it for years: the Hidden Frontier is real! But nobody believes me.

    ReplyDelete

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