Introducing the Warpship

astroengine writes "Dr. Richard Obousy, a guy who has put modern science into the warp drive, has designed his very own warpship. Now, for the first time, he's shared it with the world. It might not be the sleek Starship Enterprise, but its structure has been optimized to harness local 'dark energy,' generating a warp bubble so faster-than-light velocities are possible." Now, the only question is: will the ship achieve faster-than-light travel ... or will the company hit those speeds once it has enough money from investors?

Comments

Let's not put the cart before the horse

[ikirudennis]

How about we figure out how to warp time first and then figure out a ship to utilize that science for the sake of travel?

Re:Let's not put the cart before the horse

[c6gunner]

So. Are they selling electric motors or perpetual energy devices?

That's a false dichotomy. The great thing about pseudoscience is that it's "experts" can sell you anything you want!

Re:Let's not put the cart before the horse

[smoker2]

Flight is a very good example IMHO. The first people who wanted to fly, jumped up in the air and promptly fell back down again. So next time they jumped out of trees or off cliffs to extend the time they spent in the air. Gradually they worked out that they needed some other components to slow the descent, and this gradually became a "wing". So they got as far as the hang glider. Wing shape was then concentrated on and eventually the concept of lift was discovered. Then the engines were developed to push that wing through the air fast enough to take off without needing to drop from height first.

So deciding to do something is the very first step in learning how to do it. Nothing is invented in reverse. Except in computing, where a lot of solutions seem to always be in search of a problem.
Your last sentence speaks the truth, but negates your argument. Yes, heavier than air flight was considered impossible, and yet boeing 747s are commonplace. But it all started from a few nutters jumping out of trees.

Is it powered by bovine excretions?

[whiledo]

The physics behind the warpship is purely theoretical, however. 'Dark energy' needs to be understood and harnessed, plus vast amounts of energy needs to be generated, meaning the warpship is a technology that could only be conceived in the far future. That said, Dr. Obousy's warpship design uses our current knowledge of spacetime and superstring theory to arrive at this futuristic concept.

Translation: We have a theory based on a lack of theory.

Re:Is it powered by bovine excretions?

[mcvos]

100 years ago, many scientists thought that almost everything had been discovered, and they only needed to work out the details. Turns out there were completely new worlds hidden in those details.

We know for sure that there are gaps in our scientific knowledge. Who knows what kind of worlds are hidden in those gaps? It's too early to definitively rule out warp travel.

Something about that...

[hardwarejunkie9]

This article bothers me primarily because it simply recovers old ground on a theory of the possibility of warp travel. The idea of utilizing dark energy to create waves in space-time is hardly new or original and so what we end up seeing in front of us is a series of explanations about possible "space time bubbles" that we have no idea how to create, or even if they're technically feasible, supplemented by a few minor CAD renderings and a wonderful representation of a planar mesh. Pardon me if I'm not entirely enthused. There seems to be no real mention of any progress since this topic was last covered in the scientific press. In short, while a nice idea, it's an old theory and less than stellar (if you'll pardon the pun). This is more science fiction than science, in my opinion.

I'm not against thinking outside the box

[juanergie]

but this fully speculative article will only confuse people.

I can already hear my non-scientific-inclined friends assuring that it has been demonstrated by Dr. Blah that faster-than-light travel is absolutely possible and we even have the ship ready.

When Jules Verne wrote his masterpieces he made it clear that it was scientific fiction, and people thrilled shuffling the pages. He was later called a visionary, but he did not pretend to be a scientist, merely a very intelligent writer.

It bothers me when plausibly smart people make interesting points but place them in the wrong category - nothing wrong with being smart, creative, and wild but, please, let us distinguish science from speculation.

"with astronomical amounts of energy"

[starglider29a]

From TFA #2:

"but by manipulating extra dimensions with astronomical amounts of energy dot dot dot"

Well, if we could manipulate astronomical amounts of energy, instead of sailing off to Alpha Centauri or Wolf 359, we could:

• Have rolling roads (a la heinlein and Asimov) and eliminate the need for flying cars or rolling cars
• Desalinate seawater to irrigate the arid lands
• Control global climate change, or run a computer cluster model that can disprove it. Pick one.

But we can't. I know this is a fun dream. But before you try to replicate the Federation, take a look at the world that they were based upon. The Earth of Roddenberry is VERY different than this one. Let us strive to achieve THAT before we strive for the fastest way off of here.

Re:"with astronomical amounts of energy"

[fiannaFailMan]

From TFA #2:

"but by manipulating extra dimensions with astronomical amounts of energy dot dot dot"

Well, if we could manipulate astronomical amounts of energy, instead of sailing off to Alpha Centauri or Wolf 359, we could:

• Have rolling roads (a la heinlein and Asimov) and eliminate the need for flying cars or rolling cars
• Desalinate seawater to irrigate the arid lands
• Control global climate change, or run a computer cluster model that can disprove it. Pick one.

But we can't. I know this is a fun dream. But before you try to replicate the Federation, take a look at the world that they were based upon. The Earth of Roddenberry is VERY different than this one. Let us strive to achieve THAT before we strive for the fastest way off of here.

Imagine charities researching the causes you mention. Now imagine everyone giving a dollar to those causes every time someone repeats the "let's solve all the problems on Earth before we start exploring space" mantra. Those causes would then have enough money to fix all those problems, we'd have our utopia on Earth, and then we'd be free to go on exploring space.

Personally, between 6 billion of us, I think we should be capable of working on more than one project at once.

Futurama?

[Fry-kun]

"The tricky part is that the ship wouldn't actually move; space itself would move underneath the stationary spacecraft. "
FTA

"I understand how the engines work now. It came to me in a dream. The engines don't move the ship at all. The ship stays where it is, and the engines move the universe around it."
Cubert J. Farnsworth

Re:Venture capitalists

[EvilToiletPaper]

What was it someone said about "a fool and his money"?

... are my best friends

Re:Investors?

[fiannaFailMan]

I can't see this venture returning capital on anything that remotely resembles "short term". As such, I envision only government entities or wealthy individuals uninterested in ROI funding a project such as this.

Honestly, what kind of question could there be about investors in this type of technology? I didn't see anything remotely relevant to a business plan in any of the links.

I didn't either, but I do see a catastrophic sense of humor failure in your post.