We went in a different direction than NASA and others and our research has shown there are actually several other classes of warp drives in general relativity. In particular, we have formulated new classes of warp drive solutions that do not require negative energy and, thus, become physical.
Alexey Bobrick
March 4, 2021
Engineers Have Proposed The First Model For a Physically Possible Warp Drive
[I wish Eric Engstrom were still alive.
Chromium Communications Corporation was incorporated on January 1, 2000 by G. Eric Engstrom. The next day, yes, a Sunday, I went to work for Eric as his first employee at the brand new company.
A couple weeks earlier I had told him I was looking for a new job and he lite up and engaged his famous “Engstrom Reality Distortion Field.” His sales pitch included his plans for the future with his company and the money we would make. He outlined he would be the first man on Mars, and exploring the planets would be so awesome that we would need to wait around for warp drive so we could explore other solar systems. To do that we would need to be able to extend our expected lifetimes essentially forever because there was so much out there to see and do. And he had plans on how to make that a reality too.
As was usual, the enthusiastic belief in the story Eric wove rapidly faded once I escaped the range of the distortion field. But that doesn’t mean I don’t still feel the yearning for some of those things to be true.
Eric is dead but maybe his dream of a warp drive will become a reality for someone he knew and influenced.—Joe]
Let’s just isolate the qualifiers.
“While we’re still a very long way” (assuming ‘we’ are even on the road, and assuming there even is a road.
“that doesn’t mean we’ll never”.
In other words, you can’t prove we can’t, so give us money.
“And they say it shouldn’t break any of laws of physics.” It might, of course, but it shouldn’t.
“Theoretically speaking”
“under some circumstances”
“could”
“His idea…could. The problem is…”
“something that’s simply not possible”
“But…independent research group” See,that’s a qualifier because it means that if they don’t release a presser now and then with some exciting-sounding stuff in it, their financing is gone, they’re finished, and they must get real jobs.
“albeit”
“maybe”
“a bit”
“slower than we’d like.”
And here’s a good one;
“We went in a different direction than NASA”
Well so did I! I also went in a different direction from DARPA, but that doesn’t mean I’m on the same level as NASA or DARPA.
“The need for negative energy gets”around..the…problems…keeping everything within…limits.”
Translation; we’ve all been makin’ shit up now for years and years.
“Unfortunately…more problems”
“primarily…fluctuations on a quantum scale.”
Oh yeah, don’t we all know it! I hate it when fluctuations on a quantum scale step in and ruin everything.
“Until we can figure a way to scoop up a Sun-sized mass of the stuff, this kind of drive just isn’t possible.”
Right. Why not start and end with that? Because funding. Because we have to keep pretending in order to get funding.
“negative energy (shit we made up earlier) wouldn’t be required, but a hugely powerful gravitational field would be.”
Oh, well then, that changes everything! But it’s still impossible. We just have to keep the dream alive because…you guessed it; funding.
“The gravity would do the heavy lifting of bending space-time so that the passage of time inside and outside the warp drive machine would be significantly different.”
Alright so we’re back to the old SciFi movie, Black Hole.
“You won’t be able to…though – the amount of mass required to produce a noticeable gravitational effect on space-time would be at least planet-sized, and there are still plenty of questions to answer.”
Right. More than plenty I should think.
“If we take the mass of the whole planet Earth and compress it to a shell with a size of 10 metres”
Yeah, let’s just go ahead and do that then, shall we? You first.
“then the correction to the rate of time inside it is still very small, just about an extra hour in the year,”
Well then we’ll just have to compress the mass of a whole galaxy into a shell with a size of ten meters. Who’s with me? Let’s do this!! You first.
“One other interesting finding”
There’s more? after you in effect told us that’s it’s utterly, utterly impossible?
“a wider, taller vessel will…”
“Will” meaning, “oh yes this is happening”.
…need less energy than a long and thin one. Think of a plate being held upright thrown at a wall face first, and you have an idea of the optimum warp drive shape.”
We’re now so sure about this, because we really need the money, that we’re already designing the structural shape. See how they do this? It’s huckster fraud 101.
“the reality of travelling to distant stars and planets…”
See what they did there? They’re calling it a reality.
“…is still a long way off”
So is cold fusion. It’s like, forever away.
“the new study is the latest addition to a growing body of research”
Of course. Keep throwing money at someone and they’ll keep writing papers. It’s supply meeting demand.
“that suggests”
Not demonstrates. Big difference. I can suggest that pigs could sprout wings and fly too, without requiring a violation of the laws of physics.
“.. that the principles of warp drives are sound in scientific terms.”
More like economic terms, insofar as we keep getting paid to put out dumb crap like this.
“The researchers admit that they’re still not sure exactly how to put together the technology that they’ve described in their paper, but at least more of the numbers add up now.”
I’m still not sure, exactly, how to compress the mass of a galaxy into a shell with a size of ten meters, and then use it’s gravitational field as part of a machine I have in mind, which is part of a vessel, which I will ride in, which will operate in close proximity to this super massive black hole I’ve constructed.
“STILL NOT SURE” is the understatement of the millennium.
“They’re confident that far into the future, the warp drive will become a reality.”
Ah yes, because we’re told that deep time can solve any problem. Deep time has replaced God in that respect. Naturalists point to deep time as our creator, the all-powerful, and they do so with more faith than most purported Christians have in the creator God of the Bible.
“While we still can’t break the speed of light, we don’t need to in order to become an interstellar species,”
Umm, you sure about that?
“Our warp drive research has the potential to unite us all.”
And there we come to it! At least they were honest enough in this instance to admit this motivation. “We” must all come together, putting all our faith and all our resources into your fantasy because, if for no other reason, it will bring us “common cause” (while making you, the leaders of this unity cult, extremely rich and powerful). That is the goal of all leftists, socialists, communists, Progressives, Neo-Darwinists, Marxists, et al, and of their coordinating spiritual leader, papal Rome.
“Unity” is the goal of the power-mad collectivists. The Bible on the other hand says “Come out and be separate”. Come out of Babylon lest you partake of her plagues. Come out and be a separate, peculiar people (meaning don’t go with the popular kids! the cool kids! or the majority! which are deluded).
To be fair, the term “laws of physics” is shorthand for “current approximate description of reality as we understand it.” As such, breaking the laws of physics is more correctly described as refining our understanding of reality.
That’s a good description but is not physics also a mature field with fertile ground well researched? It seems that new discoveries are coming at a slower and slower pace.
That was true right before quantum mechanics burt’s on to the scene, too.
The short version is;
“If the Cardasians of Start Trek could do it in the 1990s (using a singularity as the key component of their warp drive), then we should be able to do it. So give us money, stupid.”
Hey, everyone needs the fantasy. To keep the boredom of reality from crushing their ego like they want to do to some universe.
It’s good to dream. And rich people got to spend that money somewhere.
We can be comforted by the fact that they will meet the guy that actually invented all the stuff they dream about. Long before they ever get close to compressing galaxies.
The real question is how far away from this galaxy will you have to go in order to not crush this one? And how you going to get there? Without a warp-drive?
Speaking of fantasy sci-fi. Are we living in cartoon universe of, Wonder Warthog, and the invasion of the pigs of Uranus? Sure seems like it.
Back in 63 when I started college with a major in Aerospace (because that was the thing at the time) I remember a lecture on propulsion systems. There was a long list (I do not recall warp as being on the list), yet for launching payloads into space we still rely on chemical reactions (which is just a controlled flying bomb) 60 years later and I suspect that will always be the case. Physics is a hard master and there are real limits as to what can be done. [It is possible to use nuclear engines, but DOE killed the last effort in the 70s].
When I started working on SDI in its early stages (1986), the vision was one of a battle station satellite (inspired by the movie Star Wars) that could take out the enemy. missile during launches while the missile was still in enemy territory. Within a year it became clear that such a battle station satellite was not possible using kinetic weapons due to space-time limits. Even lasers were limited due to power requirements, beam disruption (caused by excited molecules in the path), and simple mechanics of creating an engine with the necessary energy to destroy a missile along with tracking mirrors to allow for dwell time (high levels of energy on mirrors will quickly cause mirror distortion).
Today, the reality of SDI is back to trying to hit a bullet with a bullet during the end game. Amazingly, we have some success, but it is a far cry from the original vision and far from foolproof.
It’s OK to dream, but the dreams should be tempered with reality and knowledge of its limits.
This belief in the impossible has permeated our society and is partly responsible for the dilemma that we find ourselves in – such as equal outcomes regardless of sex, … Equal opportunity is a good goal – equal outcomes are impossible.
“Even lasers were limited due to power requirements, beam disruption (caused by excited molecules in the path), and simple mechanics of creating an engine with the necessary energy to destroy a missile along with tracking mirrors to allow for dwell time (high levels of energy on mirrors will quickly cause mirror distortion).”
I think the cooling issue for all the associated bits of that laser system would be the ultimate choke point. Had a friend who designed a laser paint removal system for the Navy, and the mirror blocks had coolant running inside them, to allow a useful pulse repetition rate. Doing that in outer space would not be possible. The system would have to be a complete throwaway pulse setup for each missile target, most likely.
Mirror efficiency can be improved, however, if you’re dealing with monochromatic light (or reasonable approximation). Multi layer dielectric mirrors often have efficiency exceeding 99% and can be made better by adding layers and/or by more accurate control of layer thickness. Those numbers are much better than metallic mirrors. Dielectric mirrors are routinely used in low gain lasers like HeNe metrology lasers where a metallic mirror would have too much loss to sustain the laser action.
I’ll believe it when I see it.
That being said, people didn’t think the atomic bomb would work either.