Warp Drives Make Better Guns Than Engines
- Thread starter Earnest Cavalli
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Always preferred the Star Wars Hyperdrive anyways.
But I thought the whole point of a Warp Drive was that you weren't actually moving, or you were just moving at normal speeds. It's that the bending of space allowed the appearance of FTL travel. If you really were building momentum like that then you'd still hit the lightspeed barrier.
But I thought the whole point of a Warp Drive was that you weren't actually moving, or you were just moving at normal speeds. It's that the bending of space allowed the appearance of FTL travel. If you really were building momentum like that then you'd still hit the lightspeed barrier.
As you approach the speed of light, the rest of the universe contracts to zero size. Even though the andromeda galaxy is 2 million light years away, you could get there arbitrarily quickly by traveling at large, sublight speeds.
For example, if you were traveling at 99.99999999999% the speed of light, the distance from earth to the andromeda galaxy would contract to 1 kilometer, so you'd arrive in a fraction of a second.
At realistic levels of human acceleration (e.g. 1g) the trip to andromeda could still take only less than 30 years.
Edit: The point of all this is that faster than light travel is not necessary. In Star Trek, they say that Warp 10 corresponds to theoretically infinite speed where the entire universe looks like a single point. The funny thing is that's what happens in reality as the speed of light is approached, the entire universe contracts to a single point so every destination becomes near. The whole warp system is superfluous, since the speed of light already corresponds to warp 10.
For example, if you were traveling at 99.99999999999% the speed of light, the distance from earth to the andromeda galaxy would contract to 1 kilometer, so you'd arrive in a fraction of a second.
At realistic levels of human acceleration (e.g. 1g) the trip to andromeda could still take only less than 30 years.
Edit: The point of all this is that faster than light travel is not necessary. In Star Trek, they say that Warp 10 corresponds to theoretically infinite speed where the entire universe looks like a single point. The funny thing is that's what happens in reality as the speed of light is approached, the entire universe contracts to a single point so every destination becomes near. The whole warp system is superfluous, since the speed of light already corresponds to warp 10.
Negative energy is more accurately descibed as negative mass-energy, because mass and energy are one and the same in different forms. Now, negative mass has a reverse-gravitational effect; that is, it pushes matter away. Should you use suficient quantities of both normal matter-energy and negative matter-energy, then you could theoretically warp an existing black hole in such a way as to make it possible to fly through without being crushed. And lo, the wormhole is born.thiosk said:
However, we aren't sure it even exists, let alone how to make it. And anyway, we'd need jupiter-masses of it to do anything useful.
No, the wave is in front of you. When you stop, it keeps going. Imagine if you hit someone with your car and then stopped. He wouldn't come through the windshield, he'd go flying forward.canadamus_prime said:
Anything capable of producing that much dark energy is likely capable of obliterating all life on a planet even before you reach light-speed anyway.
The Kzinti Lesson, as applied to Star Trek? Awesome.
"A reaction drive's efficiency related to propulsion is directly proportional to its usefulness as a weapon."
The first person I thought of was Larry Niven, who applied it to fusion drives.castlewise said:
"A reaction drive's efficiency related to propulsion is directly proportional to its usefulness as a weapon."
Beat me to it. Both physicists and science fiction writers have already explored in great detail the military side effects of propulsion systems that allow for either travel at significant fractions of the speed of light or FTL. All you really have to do is strap one of those things to a decent-sized rock and point it at a planet you don't like, and it might as well not exist anymore after the amount of damage done to it.Slycne said:
Ahhh, superluminal particles. What better way to start the day?
It reminds me of why the LHC would only use individual atoms, over atom clusters. Imagine an entire ship accelerated to that velocity and rammed into something. Honestly, I'm surprised scifi hasn't made this happen yet.
It reminds me of why the LHC would only use individual atoms, over atom clusters. Imagine an entire ship accelerated to that velocity and rammed into something. Honestly, I'm surprised scifi hasn't made this happen yet.
But that's just the standard course of things! Hell, if we hadn't made beer by accident, we'd still be trying to make water explode.Zen Toombs said:
I'm pretty sure the article said that the bubble would be generated behind the ship, but whatever. It's all just theory anyway.Daaaah Whoosh said:
that is not very efective. asi t only travels within solar system. the rest of travel id done via gates, which work on pretty much teleportation priciples. it took hundreds of years to mvoe gates to the next solar system in eve universe. it wont be working any time soon.TestECull said:
Also just to point an obviuos: venus is closer to earth than mars.
Indeed... I confused energy and force during writing, sorry about that.Wicky_42 said:I think you meant exponentially... *science fail*Thaliur said:
About those Warp-drive missiles you mentioned, wouldn't that be mostly how photon torpedoes work? At least that's how I always imagined them, besides being antimetter bombs, of course. Acording to the Memory alpha wiki, they are warp-capable.
I had a look at the entry, but no, they're driven by "sustainer engines", which use reactants and leave plasma exhaust. They are capable of being fired during warp and are shielded (which can alloy them to match frequencies and penetrate shields), but they come no-where near light speed. Then again, when you're an anti-matter bomb there's some that might say light speed is over-rated.Thaliur said:
What? No no no, inertial dampeners are there to stop you getting crushed into paste as soon as you enter warp.albino boo said:
Loop Stricken said:
Must resit the Sheldon impulse must resit.... AHHH I failed. You sir are wrong, inertial dampeners are there to stop you be crushed to a paste by the acceleration of going into warp, when you come out of warp you are merely accelerating a long the opposing vector. So you are wrong, wrong, oh so very wrong. REBOOTING HUMANITY CHIPS...... OK the Sheldon moment is over.
Yup I can see it now.
We finally break the light speed barrier and design a ship to travel to other worlds.
Then we get pissed off and confused why every planet we visit is obliterated and all the hot aliens we could have had sexy fun time with are already dead.
We finally break the light speed barrier and design a ship to travel to other worlds.
Then we get pissed off and confused why every planet we visit is obliterated and all the hot aliens we could have had sexy fun time with are already dead.