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Warp Engines In Development?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i'm-giving-her-all-she's-got-captain dept.

Toloran writes "Although a staple of Sci-Fi space travel, it is often deemed to be just that: Fiction. However, it seems that one is currently in development. "The theoretical engine works by creating an intense magnetic field that, according to ideas first developed by the late scientist Burkhard Heim in the 1950s, would produce a gravitational field and result in thrust for a spacecraft. Also, if a large enough magnetic field was created, the craft would slip into a different dimension, where the speed of light is faster, allowing incredible speeds to be reached. Switching off the magnetic field would result in the engine reappearing in our current dimension.""

14 of 1,016 comments (clear)

  1. This is SO neat! by ackthpt · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It reminds me of the experiments with the first atomic bombs: they didn't know that the chain reaction wouldn't ignite the atmosphere. Who knows what considerations they've given it. Will it jerk the earth out of it's orbit? Will it open a wormhole that sucks out the earth's atmosphere? Will it end life as we know it? I was under the impression that extreme magnetic fields were fatal to humans, to say nothing of throwing birds off of their migration patterns.

    I wonder who they will bestow the honor of first flight on...

    Like the WB Gophers:

    "After you!"
    "I wouldn't think of it, after you!"
    "Oh, but I insist you go first!"
    "I am most undeserving of that honour, you go first!"
    "I couldn't live with myself it I did, you first!"
    etc.
    Latest news: Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott still dead.

    wwgd: what would google do?

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
    1. Re:This is SO neat! by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This is mostly a myth. Virtually every physicist associated with the Manhattan Project came independently to the conclusion that a nuclear bomb would not ignite the atmosphere, based on what was known about the nuclear cross-sections of atmospheric atoms (which was a lot).

      Having had one of said people as mathematics instructor; he said it was about 1/3 of the team members who thought it would probably kill us all via igniting the atmosphere, or jettisoning a significant amount of it into space.

    2. Re:This is SO neat! by ackthpt · · Score: 3, Interesting
      And what of those poor army lads who stood there gazing into the light of a million suns and standing but a few mere miles away from the nuclear blasts? You know, just like the guys on the navy boats who drank fallout until they got home? I can see something similar happening here.

      A story was related to me by a friend:

      His father was working a classified site back in the 40's where several technicians, engineers and so on, were working on things in a lab. At a desk was an engineer, poking at a small pile of uranium in granuals with a pencil. Suddenly there was a brilliant flash as if a photo flash went off. The pressure or friction of prodding the granuals had caused some of it to go critical.

      A security guard was sent to get my friend's father who came in (I don't honestly know what his position was) and he asked everyone who had been in the room when it happened to go to the exact position they were standing when it happened. Their shoes were spray painted to create a silhouette and their location and distance from the desk were noted. These people were all tracked and died within two years of the event. Those closest to the desk died within weeks, including the engineer who had been pushing the dust around, those furthest died later. It's probably in a declassified study somewhere but I wouldn't have the first idea where to look.

      --

      A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
    3. Re:This is SO neat! by monopole · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Supposedly, when Fermi ran an office pool allowing the staff to guess the yield of the Trinity device, "ignite the atmosphere" was a side bet.

    4. Re:This is SO neat! by Sabaki · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Virtually every physicist associated with the Manhattan Project came independently to the conclusion that a nuclear bomb would not ignite the atmosphere

      Maybe eventually, but only after several came to the scary conclusion that it might. Whereupon they re-ran the numbers until pretty sure it wouldn't. Then they crossed their fingers. I think Feynman talks about this in his book.

      And it does make sense to worry about it in those cases where someone has their finger on the button of the possible atmosphere-igniter in question.

    5. Re:This is SO neat! by AxemRed · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Are extreme magnetic fields fatal? I remember watching a show on magnetic fields on TV one time, and some European scientists were levitating a living frog in a machine that could produce enormous magnetic fields. I can't remember anything other than that, but it was pretty cool. And the frog didn't die.

    6. Re:This is SO neat! by nickull · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Unfortunately, he cannot write anything new: http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/senate/inmem oriam/KennethRossMacKenzie.htm but he is well published in scientific circles. Atmopsheric hydrogen ignition is a sustained chained reaction in theory. It does not work due to the lack of control over the initial energy release. Yeah - I guess no one *really* knew until they pushed the button but since then it has been discredited.http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/Smyt hReport/smyth_appendix_4.shtml

      --
      "Question everything, including this!" - http://technoracle.blogspot.com/
  2. Come again, please? by slavemowgli · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The theoretical engine works by creating an intense magnetic field that, according to ideas first developed by the late scientist Burkhard Heim in the 1950s, would produce a gravitational field and result in thrust for a spacecraft.

    OK - so far, so good.

    Also, if a large enough magnetic field was created, the craft would slip into a different dimension, where the speed of light is faster, allowing incredible speeds to be reached. Switching off the magnetic field would result in the engine reappearing in our current dimension.""

    Err, what? I hope this is a joke...

    --
    quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
  3. Nutjob or not? by clem · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Here's how to determine if you're dealing with complete scientific quackery or not. Let's examine a quote from the linked article:
    "But this thing is not around the corner; we first have to prove the basic science is correct and there are quite a few physicists who have a different opinion.
    "It's our job to prove we are right and we are working on that."
    Now let's take the typical nutjob quote:
    "Naysayers! My contemporaries conspire against me in refusing to acknowledge my genius!"
    This doesn't mean that the physicist is right, but merely an indicator that this is a controversial theory rather than the workings of a complete and utter looney. For more information on loonies, see http://www.timecube.com/
    --
    Your courageous and selfless spelling corrections have made me a better person.
  4. Re:Slower Dimension by kfg · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Classic short story published in Analog, lo, these many years ago.

    FTL

    It describes the meeting between a young hotshot applying for money to develop his surefire warp drive and the institute director who has to break the news to him that they've secretly had a functional warp drive for ages . . .

    But c is slower in hyperspace.

    Reading it as a youth woke me up to the fact that you have to be careful what you wish for, because you might not get it.

    KFG

  5. Re:Oh, *come* on, now... by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 3, Interesting

    the theoretical process works by imbuing heavy metals - such as lead - with the essence of the sun's emanatory spirit, resulting in the lead taking on a yellowish hue.

    I remember reading once about how every now and again someone finds a pile of platinum hidden somewhere. It was believed by some gold prospectors that platinum was gold that had not yet turned yellow, thus they hid it so they could come back later and see if it had become valuable gold yet. That has nothing to do with anything, but I find it amusing.

  6. Re:Unnecessary by Planesdragon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You need a basic lesson in relativity.

    Point A: All motion is relative. If I walk down the asile of a plane, I'm not suddenly walking at 202 mph; I'm walking 2mph in a 200 mph plane, so long as that plane is around me and at a steady flight.

    Point B: The speed of light is NOT relative. It's always c. Always, always, always.

    Point C: When you move relative to an object, the speed of light stays constant both for you and that object.

    Point D: The only way to have a constant c with different relative speeds is to change the other side of a speed equation -- that is, time.

    Conclusion: As you go faster, you travel through time faster.

    (Bad) Example: Imagine you have ten identically sized strings ("time"), and you have to stretch them from one line on the ground to another line in the ground. The space between the two lines is the speed of light -- a constant. Normally, exactly ten strings reach from one line to the other. But if the line became further apart (as if you were moving faster through space), you'd still have to stretch those ten strings between the lines, but you'd have gaps -- time would be dilated, or slowed.

  7. Re:I call shenanigans! by chill · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...(who was blind, mostly deaf, and was born without hands)...

    Actually, a footnote to the article says he had his forearm blown off in the same accident that cost him his hearing and most of his sight -- fiddling with high explosives. It also mentions he developed a photographic memory. Absolutely amazing stuff.

    --
    Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
  8. Hawking Radiation: Z-Pinch vs Black Hole by sanman2 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The article says that the intense magnetic field of the Z-pinch machine might be able to test the theory on whether these gravitophotons can be generated from split-up virtual electron pairs. If this gravitional force were to be observed under the extreme magnetic field of the Z-pinch, then it would be consistent with the Heim theory's claims. Somehow this reminds me of Hawking's radiation. Hawking said that the virtual photon pairs from Heisenberg's could be split up by the powerful gravity of a black hole's event horizon. So isn't this latest paper on Heim's theory then stating something analogous to that, only using extreme electromagnetism to split the virtual gravitophotons instead of using the extreme gravity to split the virtual photons? Could we say that "Heim Gravity" is a counterpart/cousin to Hawking radiation? Comments?