The Space Race to Build the First Working Warp Drive

https://thedebrief.org/warp-theorists-say-weve-entered-an-exotic-propulsion-space-race-to-build-the-worlds-first-working-warp-drive/

by chippy • 2 years ago

8 3 2 years ago

thedebrief.org

gary_02• 2 years ago

This article smells off. Unless I missed a breakthrough paper in the last few years, the mass/energy required to move an actual warp vehicle is measured in Jupiters. Given that we're talking about messing with spacetime, there's no reason to assume we can knock many orders of magnitude off that number any time soon. At any rate, it will probably be centuries before humans have the ability to start engineering something like that.

sourdoughness• 2 years ago

Agreed! This stood out:

The laws of physics definitely allow for functional subluminal warp drives

“Definitely”? That feels like an exceedingly bold claim, given the nature of the thing we’re talking about. I don’t believe we know enough about “functional” machines comprised of multiple Jupiter-masses of exotic-if-not-quite-fictional matter to start using words like “definitely”.

gary_02• 2 years ago

It's also a very bold claim because a warp drive will violate Newton's Laws. ("Technically we're moving space, not the ship itself," you might say, but Nature usually ignores semantic arguments.)

The Space Race to Build the First Working Warp Drive

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