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Warp Engines In Development?
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.""
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:
Latest news: Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott still dead.wwgd: what would google do?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Original article from New Scientist - (also) stolen from digg.com :)
What if my Apocalypse battleship slipped into a different dimension where the speed of light is slower, and it would take me another 200 years to move my finger to the 'OFF' switch 2cm away just to come back again.
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
Sounds like a half-baked Star Trek explanation.
Just doesn't sound realistic to me.
YMMV
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
This should be a fun post. At any rate, the interest of the Air Force does not provide any more credibility to this story. I've seen some *really* whacky ideas based on science fiction rather than science fact move through the DOD that says more to me about the state of science education in the US than anything else.
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OK - so far, so good.
Err, what? I hope this is a joke...
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
In another dimension, this would already be a dupe...
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
Maybe it'll be powered by somehow catalyzing really bad Star-Trek fanfiction.
This story is clearly an attempt to manipulate the dilithium futures market.
Anyone else find it amusing that the warp engine story appears on 'scotsman.com'? James Doohan's probably smiling somewhere...
Although a stable of Sci-Fi space travel
Staple. A *staple* of Sci-Fi space travel. A stable would be... well, I don't know what it would be, but it would be something else besides a staple.
People: spelling phonetically doesn't always work. This is getting "rediculous" [sic].
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
He's dead Jim!
sig not found. please replace sig.
Basically, none. They suspend frogs inside of a doughnut field.
The effects of magnetic fields are actually an area of study here in the US with some groups funded through the DOD. Others in the Netherlands and Russia have been interested in them for a few years now.
Anyhow, it turns out that we are able to withstand pretty stunningly high magnetic fields. For instance, research magnets for MRI, fMRI and MRS are pushing 5-7 Tesla, but there are some absolutely stunningly high magnetic fields (starting at about 10 Tesla) that are contained in small areas that actually cause things to levitate. Right now there are folks that are looking at the biological effects on small organisms in those fields.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
The hypothetical device, which has been outlined in principle but is based on a controversial theory about the fabric of the universe, could potentially allow a spacecraft to travel to Mars in three hours and journey to a star 11 light years away in just 80 days, according to a report in today's New Scientist magazine.
Wow, I just logged onto their "theoretical" website and bought me some "hypothetical" tickets. I'll be staying in the VaporWare Resorts located on the crater-rific Southern Highlands, where I'll play Duke Nukem Forever on my Cold-Fusion powered Phantom Game Console....
Sigh.
I think more "Fake" sci-fi stuff becomes reality than not, but honestly I never thought there would be a way to implement a practical FTL engine.
...
On top of this, it works exactly as specified on startrek, with the "Warping" entering another dimension,
If they figure out that they can creat some new crystal that will power such a monster, I'm going to quit my job and start designing a world that can wrap all the way around a star.
The engine is based on physical theory that doesn't exist, therefore, it's not based on anything.
There is no theory of gravity or electro-magnetism that ties these things together. If there were such a theory, it would be huge news indeed.
HCG 50a = 2MASX J11170638+5455016
11h17m06.4s +54d55m02s
Forget that! We could've had interplanetary ships by the 70s if Kennedy hadn't killed Orion.
Just think of the horsepower that warp engine must have...
Clearly a warp engine in the garage would more than make up for science and progress failure for not delivering a practical flying car and dishwashing robots.
The theoretical engine works by creating an intense dark energy 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 dark energy 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.
And really, they might as well replace "magnetic" with "pork chop," for all the real science that's discussed here.
FTA: 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.
Yeah. Like almost all of them. This, however, is the most reasonable statement made in the whole article.
I'm not normally on the "bash slashdot" bandwagon, but...come on. Since when are completely unsubstantiated claims that it might be possible someday to violate fundamental physical laws news? If they are, here's more news:
A method to cheaply and easily turn any given substance into gold has long been the goal of alchemy, and widely regarded as fantasy. However, it seems that one is currently in development. According to slashdot user Control Group: "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. Also, if enough essence is crammed into any given substance, the very nature of it is changed, allowing incredible transformations to be performed.
*eyeroll*
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
My first thought in reading about huge magnetic fields was that this is the modern-day equivilant of The "Philadelphia Experiment". If you've seen the move by the same name you know the basics. Supposedly the US Navy tested using huge magnetic fields around a ship in the 1940's to see if it would make it invisible. The story goes that the ship disappeared but also phase-shifted and some sailors on board ended up partially embedded within the hull of the ship when it finally re-appeared.
This is a paper on the subject. The only thing that differentiates this from crackpot science is that it is testable. The authors won an award from AIAA for suggesting a method for testing the theory. There is no reason to believe that the theory won't be falsified.
Your courageous and selfless spelling corrections have made me a better person.
"The bullshit press release works by creating an intense bullshit field that, according to ideas first developed by the late scientist Rube Goldberg in the 1950s, would produce a suspended disbelief field and result in trust for the bullshit. Also, if a large enough bullshit field was created, the press release would slip into a different dimension, where the trust in bullshit press releases is automatic, allowing incredible levels of naivete to be reached. Switching off the bullshit field would result in the press release reappearing in our current dimension, where none of this bullshit makes any sense."
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
When you start going faster than the speed of light some joker with a faster warp engine in another dimension, the locals there are going to get pissed and start putting in transparent aluminum speedbumps and jersey barriers. They rip the tranny right out of your spaceship and knock your head on the ceiling faster than light. Your own grandpa will be shaking his rocket cane at you. Then we'll see who's boss, "mr what's-my-hurry".
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
***ducks***
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
Igniting the atmosphere was also not realistic. Scientists knew of far more energetic events in recent history (e.g. Tunguska) and even a chemical reaction of the atmosphere was not plausible.
Sustainability and energy independence essay
Pfft. If it can kill Keith Richards, roaches don't stand a chance. Then again, any force actually strong enough to kill or even injure Keith Richards would probably have to be based in interstellar space to avoid cracking the Earth like a quail's egg.
Ce n'est pas un vrai mouvement de robot!
Here's a a link for those who've never heard of it.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Do a Google search on "Burkhard Heim".
Read some of the entries. Or simply look at the domain names of the pages found.
Then take the following test to see if he's actually a revolutionary physicist of Gallileo's, Newton's, Einstein's or Feynmann's stature, or merely just another 2-bit crackpot.
HCG 50a = 2MASX J11170638+5455016
11h17m06.4s +54d55m02s
Why do people think that it is necessary to go faster than the speed of light "to go faster"? You can go arbitrarily fast by simply getting closer and closer to the speed of light. If you could reach the speed of light (which is impossible), you would be able to traverse the entire universe in no time (from your reference frame). "Warp" speed is not necessary.
Well I'm sitting over a 4.2 Tesla field so hopefully none.
On a side note, when you start losing magnetic field integrity in CDFs tracker, the twilight zone theme starts playing as an alarm. Never thought much of it (apart from really freaking me out the first time I heard it late at night) but after reading this article, perhaps its meant to warn you that you may be that you may be entering another dimension where time and space have no meaning...
April fools is three months away.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
Kirk: Mr. Shlock?
Mr. Shlock: No mustard Capt'n.
Kirk: Analysis Shlock?
Mr. Shlock: It would appear that Mr. Snot is about to eat a weiner without mustard captain.
Kirk: As usual, you logic is impeccible, however I was referring to the problem with the warp drive..
(slightly paraphrased from memory)
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Even a casual look was enough to show the ideas were about interesting electromagnetic propulsion methods, which work for small models but just wont work for anything bigger. It amazed me that these papers got anywhere in the military and irritating that they had lasted for so long without someone adding a comment that it was totally unfeasible. Eh. Physical ignorance is timeless.
Depends on the physics. There was a bomber designed back in WWII that looked a lot like the B-2. However, it was very hard to control due to no vertical stabilizers. 50 years later and computer controls, we have one of the most impressive bombers ever built. The SCRAM Jet was SciFi until we got new materials, so were forward swept wings on a super sonic jet. Sometimes it's just a matter of letting practical science catch up with the theory. After all, if all it takes is more power, wait until you have a denser working power plant.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
I've been waiting for this for a long time. Maybe it will allow me to go back in time and make my first marriage never have happened.
Every time you call tech support, a little kitten dies.
It makes me think the editorial policy must have changed to read this article. Or maybe the editor is on holidays and they let the work experience intern handle this edition. Or maybe I blanked out for a few months and now it's April?
Anyhow, what bunk.
From several previous NS articles, we know that Magnetars have HUGE magnetic fields - they have the strongest known magnetic fields in nature. Yet they don't seem to be slipping into other dimensions and warping around the universe. But maybe we can only see the Magnetars who's magnetic fields are not strong enough to do that. That would make the field required for warp pretty damn strong. About, oh 100 to 1,000 trillion times the strongest field we can create in the lab today.
Well that should be easy to test then.
This is basic science at its finest.
Someone comes up with a theory that may permit FTL space travel. There isn't any known way to test the theory with the current techniques.
Sometime later someone comes up with a way to test the theory to see if it works or not (we are here).
If the theory works, the nature of human society changes forever as we become a true spacefaring race.
If the theory fails to hold up then we've disproven it and learned something new about the nature of the universe in the process (or possibly just confirmed a different conflicting theory).
By all means - bring on the experiments/tests!
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
It's such a shame that crap like this gets on Slashdot but real technological breakthroughs don't. For example, how many of Slashdot's readers are aware that antimatter is currently being produced and stored in quantity at CERN and soon in facilities in the US? Antimatter is the ultimate in energy storage. Creating an antimatter rocket is trivial compared to regular chemical rockets. All you need is a sufficient supply of antimatter and a way to store it and we now have both.
How we know is more important than what we know.
The problem is we have the most powerful magnet on Earth. It's in Gainesville FL and it doesn't change gravity. The most powerful magnet ever detected was a magnetar of many billions of tesla and that didn't change gravity. We've observed very powerful magnets for years they have never ever slipped into alternate dimensions or changed gravity.
Colonel Sandurz: Prepare ship for light speed!
Dark Helmet: No no no, light speed is too slow!
Colonel Sandurz: Light speed too slow?
Dark Helmet: Yes, we're gonna have to go right to... ludicrous speed!
"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"
;-D
Of course a magnetic field that strong would pull all of the fillings out of your teeth but heck, some sacrifices must be made!
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
http://www.hfml.ru.nl/levitation-movies.html
My amazing wife - Artist, Author, Philosopher - Laurie M
The Warp Drive comes with a free copy of Duke Nukem Forever.
paintball
Certain kinds of smart people tend to ignore things that they don't find relevant. Not to imply that I am in any way a genius, just a smarter-than-average guy, but I can do a lot of smart things, yet I often leave my articles of clothing in other people's rooms and forget all sorts of everyday information. I am aware of where my clothes are, but my mind usually doesn't find it important enough to remember.
Surrealism: You have two giraffes. The government pays you to take harmonica lessons.
The purpose of antimatter is not energy production, it's high density energy storage.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Actually I didn't list the problems. But one for instance the use of diamagnetism for levitation works for lifting something like a frog but wont work for something as big as a human.
Use of electrostatic fields to lift very light small frames works but wont work for large scale objects because for example the breakdown voltage in air. These issues are more than engineering.
Bitter and proud of it.
Right below the article it says you can buy the magnetic ring at shopping.com :)
Maybe the air force doesn't have internet connection eh?
How could you possibly test such a theory? The fields required would destroy any computer or living being within. They already have problems doing MRIs, I can't imagine that much stronger of a field.
The headline says "a three hour trip". The truth is that this is just hype for the upcoming reality show: Gilligan's Island - The Next Generation.
They've already got Paris Hilton to play Ginger and David Spade to play Gilligan.
Good? Since when does a magnetic field, intense or otherwise, have anything to do with a gravitational field?
There's no evidence. There's no theory. It's just something somebody made up.
Einstein thought that they did. The ultimate goal of general relativity for Einstein was a Grand Unified Theory of Everything. In Einstein's conception, all forces (not just gravity) were the effect of curvatures in space-time. Since all energy was curvatures of space-time, so was all matter. Heim just expounded on Einstein's theories and he did so in a way that actually predicts the masses of fundamental particles. Thinking hard on relativity was what he did to distract himself from the pain of from where his hands used to be after they were blown off in an explosives lab accident. The same incident made him deaf-blind, so he preferred isolation rather than colaboration and pretty much spent all his time on the subject. This same isolation made his theories relatively unknown for a very long time.
The editorial blurb is hideously sensational, though. Even if we do prove that EM fields can alter space and produce gravitational effects, you're a long way from creating a practical form of propulsion. On the other hand, we'd at least have hope of a reactionless drive.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Heck with the science for just a few minutes. Let's talk SciFi. The way I understand the "Warp Drive" as proposed in most SciFi, notably in StarTrek from where I think the title "Warp Drive" first appeared, C is not physically exceeded. A "Warp Drive" is also not the same as a "Hyperspacial" or "Extraspacial" drive, as the local spacial dimensional properties are distorted rather than escaped from. My understanding of this idea is as follows.
Multiple gravity wells of sufficient strength to distort space in compressive rotating wavefroms are continuiously created and collapsed at the optimum non-destructive proximite points as related to the craft and in the direction of intended travel. One then is pulled toward the gravity wells and/or uses auxiliary propulsion methods to push the craft in the same direction. Through balancing and counter balancing of the multiple gravity wells one is able to "surf' only the crests of the primary or convergent folded compressed space "waves" thus not really exceeding but still "cheating" the speed limit of C. I'll bet wipeouts would really suck. Beware of the Under Toad!!!
Matthew
There has been some remarkable ideas---ideas, mind you---of what possibilities might exist for the reality we haven't been able to test in laboratories yet. These are ideas that real physicists come up with as possibilities that don't violate too many laws of physics to be utterly implausible.
We know that gravity bends space. We know that mass and energy are interchangeable. We know that mass creates a gravity field (that bends space.) What about massive energies? Does it have a gravity field? What if we took the equivalent energy in a 2 ton ball and stored that in a capacitor? Would its mass (as observed in relativity) increase by 2 tons? Incredibly, yes.
That's pretty whacko. But consider the possibilities. Using only energy, you can BEND TIME AND SPACE.
What can you do? Can you set up weird gravity fields that don't look like point sources? What about the acceleration due to gravity? Is that limited by relativity? What if we effectively cut out a region of space by surrounding that with a hollow black hole. What are the rules on whole regions of space as they travel through other regions of space? If it can move near the speed of light, and we are moving near the speed of light in that piece of space, are we moving 2x the speed of light compared to objects outside of that region of space? What if we had several layers of space each travelling within another region of space near the speed of light? Can we obtain infinite speed?
What about taking a region of space and effectively patching it somewhere else in the universe. Isn't this a wormhole of sorts? And are those possible?
String theory says that there may be more than 4 dimensions. If space is curved, then we can effectively travel from one spot to the other without covering as much ground as we would've in regular space. But what if there are different rules? What if with gravity we can put a kink in a strategic location in space thus making space curve in a way that makes this kind of travel easier?
You see, there are a lot of possibilities, and they aren't all that unreasonable. Unfortunately, we can't perform these experiments with today's technologies. Or can we?
Just remember how absurd people thought Einstein was for suggesting that light waves are really very tiny massless cannon balls. That earned him the Nobel Prize, and was the concept that gave birth to Quantum Mechanics, which Einstein himself thought was absolutely absurd. Physicists spend a great deal of time calling each other names when in the end, they end up proving the other guy correct by trying to disprove him.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
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?
Switching off the magnetic field would result in the engine reappearing in our current dimension.
What about the rest of the ship and its crew?!
No sig for you!!
From Heim-theory website:
(Speaking of the extra 3 dimensions in the six-dimensional theory):
(Emphasis mine)
This is starting to remind me of that oft-referenced Timecube website.
Don't you think we would have heard about it at least in university science education if this was even remotely possible? A discovery that we could generate gravity fields as easily as that would be the biggest scientific and technological leap forward we could imagine. Just imagine the everyday consequences of being able to switch off/on gravity locally.
Apart from that - a sufficiently strong magnetic field will affect a person's body chemistry to say the least; my guess is that this would quickly be fatal.
But they are not measurable by physical instruments and have an informational character
You just have to believe in them. You do believe in them, don't you, Brother? Oh, and we need more money now (passes the hat)...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
If they're wrong, they'll be unable to find proof, and may spend lots of resources on trying and failing, but in the process odds are good they may find other interesting results. Being open minded about your results is well and good, but having a clear goal and believing in that goal is what keeps momentum up and drives work forwards.
A lot of improvements have come because some seeming crackpot have refused to accept failure and kept going and going and eventually solved a problem, even if it isn't always the problem they set out to solve, and even if what they wanted to achieve seemed to fly in the face of common sense or accepted science.
You need people who can believe just as much as you need sceptics to challenge them.