Hyperdrive Theory Could be Tested at the LHC

Tom Goldman

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Aug 17, 2009
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Hyperdrive Theory Could be Tested at the LHC



If one physicist's theory is correct, we could be closer to sitting in a captain's chair, queuing up a warp, and saying "engage" than we think.

Captain Picard always made sending the Enterprise into light speed look so cool. With the flick of a few fingers, Picard's ship would engage its warp drives and his crew would be off into the depths of space. Perhaps someday, you can be just like Picard, if physicist Franklin Felber's "hypervelocity propulsion drive" theory is correct. This theory states that "a relativistic particle should repel a stationary mass ... [and] that this effect could be exploited to propel an initially stationary mass to a good fraction of the speed of light." I'll guess this means we can travel through space really fast if it's true.

Large Hadron Collider [http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/24211/], the highest-energy particle accelerator in the world, should it ever be activated. The LHC was supposed to be put into operation in September of last year, but nine days after its initial activation suffered a fault that damaged many of its superconducting magnets. Believe me, if you're operating a particle accelerator, you don't want the magnets to be all messed up.

There is a lot of complicated stuff that goes along with this theory. According to Felber, it should work because "the repulsive effect allows a relativistic particle to deliver a specific impulse that is greater than its specific momentum, thereby achieving speeds greater than the driving particle's speed." Stress on a spacecraft and its occupants should not be an issue due to the face that "the spacecraft follows a geodetic trajectory, in which the only stresses arise from tidal forces." That last sentence I don't get, but maybe someone else does.

The Large Hadron Collider is a perfect testing ground here, because the particles accelerated could conceivably contain enough energy to demonstrate Felber's repulsive force. These particles won't be launching little blocks of metal into the sun, though, the test would be done on a much smaller scale. The results from testing at the Large Hadron Collider could put an end to Felber's theory, or save it. Meanwhile, I'll be shaving my head, ordering "tea, Earl Grey, hot," and flipping my fingers to practice for my inevitable future as a starship captain.


(Via: Slashdot [http://science.slashdot.org/story/09/10/08/1346200/Hyperdrive-Propulsion-Could-Be-Tested-At-the-LHC])





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carpathic

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Oct 5, 2009
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Wouldn't time dilation interfere with the measurement? As you approach the speed of light, time dilates causing time to be even more relative. So for every second the particle now excelerated to near the speed of light, wouldn't a comparitively much longer time take place for the particles (ie. us) not so accelerated?

The math would be fascinating.
 

ProfessorLayton

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Nov 6, 2008
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Oh no... not the Large Hadron Collider... I don't think that hyperdrive could be worth the chance of us all getting sucked into a black hole.
 

Nimbus

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Oct 22, 2008
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Only a fraction of the speed of light? I guess that means we could easily travel between planets in our own solar system, but not much else.

Even if we could travel at the speed of light, it would still take years to reach another system. And besides, what would we do when we got there?
 

Robert632

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May 11, 2009
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hm. nice bit of science that will never be funded because another guy needs a millon dollars to tell us that eating butter sticks for breakfast is bad for your health.
 

Kollega

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Jun 5, 2009
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Hyperdrive? Even if it could make interplanetary travel easier,it would be awesome. And if it would actually be powerful enough for interstellar... FUCK YEAH! Starfish aliens,here i come!
 

Arkhangelsk

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popdafoo said:
Oh no... not the Large Hadron Collider... I don't think that hyperdrive could be worth the chance of us all getting sucked into a black hole.
Natural forces have bigger chances of destroying us than the LHC. Trust me, you're safe. Also, it would be so worth it anyway. Travel in space, how awesome wouldn't that be?
 

ShadeOfRed

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Jan 20, 2008
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Dear God yes. If it holds true, space travel will be more complex, sure, but it will be so much easier once you get past that. Mars will no longer elude human feet! The moon may finally get colonized! Of course, if it doesn't that's one crazy theory out the window, which is still good.

popdafoo said:
Oh no... not the Large Hadron Collider... I don't think that hyperdrive could be worth the chance of us all getting sucked into a black hole.
No, the blackhole is one of the least likely things to come out of it, and even if it did it would only have enough energy is damage the LHC at worst. The massive amounts of energy required to make a blackhole of that mass is so huge that even with particles accelerated to that momentum would only have a small chance.
 

Distorted Stu

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Sep 22, 2009
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I was reading something like this last week about warpspeed. Although warp speed works in a differnt way and could potenially destory the universe (if the thoery works). But anyway, BRING ON THE LIGHTSPEED!
 

Lemeza

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Jun 20, 2009
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1. Show me the paper this guy's wriiten on the Hyperdrive thingy.
2. Show me that 1 has been printed in a respected journal.
EDIT: This has happened
But I still think it's crap. Also read the first comment on the source

popdafoo said:
Oh no... not the Large Hadron Collider... I don't think that hyperdrive could be worth the chance of us all getting sucked into a black hole.
'Any such risk was ruled out in a 2003 safety review. It pointed out that any black hole the LHC might cook up would evaporate almost instantly, and that its gravity would be too puny to gobble up anything, let alone a planet.'
From http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19826503.300-no-danger-of-particle-collider-triggering-doomsday.html
 
Aug 25, 2009
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Ah FTL travel.

If only, but I don't think it's going to happen.

On the note of all the LHC will destroy us worrying, I remember reading somewhere that a scientist gave an interview:

His first point was: 'The Large Hadron Collider, if it ascribes to the science we know and understand, will not destroy us.'

Later in the speech, he claimed: 'The LArge Hadron Collider will change everything that we know and understand about science.'

Not, may change, will change. He basically confirmed that the Large Hadron Collider, if it does what they want it to do, will destroy us.

HEE!
 

ProfessorLayton

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Nov 6, 2008
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crazyhaircut94 said:
Natural forces have bigger chances of destroying us than the LHC. Trust me, you're safe. Also, it would be so worth it anyway. Travel in space, how awesome wouldn't that be?
Maybe if you have the millions of dollars to afford actually going out in space. Chances are, I personally will never get to go to space.
 

kannibus

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Sep 21, 2009
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carpathic said:
Wouldn't time dilation interfere with the measurement? As you approach the speed of light, time dilates causing time to be even more relative. So for every second the particle now excelerated to near the speed of light, wouldn't a comparitively much longer time take place for the particles (ie. us) not so accelerated?

The math would be fascinating.
Yeah there'd probably be time dilation. At this point I think the only practical application of "really fast" stuff will be for non-living things. That's not necessarily a bad thing, I mean, we could send out space probes that would get to their targets in minutes (locally speaking).
 

Lemeza

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Jun 20, 2009
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MelasZepheos said:
Ah FTL travel.
Einstein's theory of special relativity states that it is impossible to accelarate an object of non-zero mass to FTL speeds because it requires infinite energy.
Not that it would be a bad thing for somebody to work out how to make something go FTL.
 

Voodoomancer

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Jun 8, 2009
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Zenode said:
Doesn't this go against Einsteins theory of relativity??
It's all about bending the rules, not breaking them. And I have the impression anyway that this would accelerate you up to relativistic speeds, but not above light speed.
 

Zenode

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Jan 21, 2009
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Voodoomancer said:
Zenode said:
Doesn't this go against Einsteins theory of relativity??
It's all about bending the rules, not breaking them. And I have the impression anyway that this would accelerate you up to relativistic speeds, but not above light speed.
yeh your right about the relativistic speed it says a fraction of the speed of light not the speed itself.

Just for your amusement