FTL Drive??

[not so ancient]

Funny because the concept of Faster Than Light travel is impossible.

The concept of it is, obviously, not impossible. A concept is a thought.

I have a concept of a roast beef sandwich right now. Doesn't mean I have anything other than a Diet Coke.

The achievement of FTL travel is going to depend on figuring out a way to bend, or get around, special relativity as we know it. That seems dubious.

I think we have to go with general relativity with a *lot* more power than we have currently, and lots of expansion on Alcubierre's work.

But, you know, that's why they put the Fi in SciFi.

[Jeffer]

all this talk about FTL Faster Then Light what about FTD Faster the Dark it theroy it has to be the same speed of light

[Steve_the_Wraith]

all this talk about FTL Faster Then Light what about FTD Faster the Dark it theroy it has to be the same speed of light

Discworld anyone

Infact everyone knows that Dark is much faster than light because dark gets there istantly once light leaves

[kiyuchan]

.... because dark gets there istantly once light leaves

Actually, it gets bright instantly once light appears. It's just that the speed in which the light gets somewhere is variable.

There is some evidence for FTL speed, but not any that humans would survive as anything other than energy. But the evidence seems to center around the microseconds after the big bang and something to do with the uncertainty principle(I think). Because it states something like...if it can happenit will , but the probability is so low that it would never happen in a place that humans could observe it...?

Please, someone correct me if my physics are off.

[tomchris45]

Actually, it gets bright instantly once light appears. It's just that the speed in which the light gets somewhere is variable.

There is some evidence for FTL speed, but not any that humans would survive as anything other than energy. But the evidence seems to center around the microseconds after the big bang and something to do with the uncertainty principle(I think). Because it states something like...if it can happenit will , but the probability is so low that it would never happen in a place that humans could observe it...?

Please, someone correct me if my physics are off.

So All we need is an infinite Improbabilty Drive!

[Steve_the_Wraith]

Actually, it gets bright instantly once light appears. It's just that the speed in which the light gets somewhere is variable.

Actually I was making a joke about "science" in the Discworld novels

Ponder Stibbons (I'm a Rocket Wizard) and the other Wizards are extremely clever men (who unfortunately suffer fom being a little too literal), use logic to come up with theories, that while completely logical are nonetheless ridiculous.

For example "The Speed of Dark" (which comes out of one of the books), Dark doesn't exist, it is merely the absence of light thats why it "appears" instantly when light leaves. This doesn't stop the wizards being assured that it exists though.

Dark is alot like cold - "cold" doesn't exist, its what you get when there isn't much heat. On cold evenings you might close the curtains to "keep the cold out" but what you are actually doing is keeping the heat in. (See "The Science of Discworld" for a better answer)

[MartoufMarty]

Ah, so I see that I'm not that only one who noticed that and started laughing

[SmallTimePerson]

"The Speed of Dark" (which comes out of one of the books), Dark doesn't exist, it is merely the absence of light thats why it "appears" instantly when light leaves.

Thats what i was gonna say.

[Jeffer]

i was also trying to make a joke when i said what is the speed of Dark i heard it somewhere else other then the books but its all good

[Major_Griff]

Untill now it was just refered to as hyper space generator since it generates the hyper space window. But FTL is kinda lame.

[illuminarok]

According to Einstein's Theory of Relativity it is possible to travel the speed of light, but first you need infinite mass and you need infinite energy to do so.

At 99.9999999% of the speed of light, the mass of your vessel including the vessel and all of its contents will have effectively doubled, and it's fuel consumption will have increased astronomically because the faster you go, the more energy you need in order to increase speed further due to resistances.

Once you hit 100% of the speed of light the mass of your vessel including the vessel and all of its contents will have reached infinity, but it will have required infinite fuel in order to reach this state.

Additionally, a single atom will have the ability to totally cut through the hull of the vessel because of the velocity you will be traveling.

-----

There is a way around this, but most mainstream scientists don't like the idea, and there isn't really even a theory to describe it other than the theory of everything / string theory.

It goes like this... let's assume the universe is infinite, and because of that there exists infinite universes. This comprises the multi-verse and all of the dimensions of every universe within the multi-verse.

Now, let's take two individual universes and single them out. One is a matter universe (like ours) and the other is an anti-matter universe (unlike ours). We don't currently fully understand gravity at all or why it exists, but we know it's there. Therefore, we will assume for this hypothesis that the Electromagnetic Spectrum in our universe (matter universe) acts as gravity in our counterpart universe (anti-matter universe) and our counterpart universe's (anti-matter universe) Electromagnetic Spectrum acts as the gravity in our universe (matter universe).

Now, we know that as planets and stars travel through space, they expel energy. Nothing moves without a loss of energy and all objects in space move. Let's just go ahead and assume that this expelling of energy throughout space is actually what we know of as 'time'. So because of this assumption we have indirectly stated that time is a form of energy.

Here's where the viewers of this post may lose me... Our hypothesis states that each point in space exhibits a unique rate for time, and that each planet and star has its own gravitational signature and it's own unique time continuum field. As planets and stars move throughout space and expel energy their atomic structures change, and each location in space has it's very own atomic structure of all of the matter within it. Hydrogen will still be Hydrogen and Uranium will still be Uranium, but the spin of the electrons may be different, and the nucleus of the atoms may be arranged slightly different. There are infinite arrangements, thus infinite points in space.

Now let's assume with our little hypothesis that there exists a way to modify the arrangements of all of the atoms within your vessel. The food, people, hull of the ship, and everything else within it can have its atoms modified. The ship will create a containment field around the vessel so that everything around the ship and the ship itself will be included in the atomic structure and arrangement modification.

Now let's assume we have built a super computer that has the ability to calculate the current atomic structure of points in space, maybe even points tillions of lightyears away outside of the galaxy. The computer locks onto a point, and begins to modify the gravity and time signature of the ship by rearranging the atomic structure and arrangement of all of the atoms inside of the containment field.

Once this happens, the multi-verse itself sees this anomaly and realizes that something has went very wrong with this particular containment field and everything within it, because it does not match its surroundings. The multi-verse itself knows the location of all of its contents and after a brief search it will find the "best place" to relocate the vessel that has the anomaly - the place the crew of this vessel wishes to go. And then the entire force of the multi-verse itself acts to move this vessel so that it matches its surroundings. You, your crew, and your ship will instantly be teleported to the location your super-computer calculated within the multi-verse. Most likely you will have broken the speed of light unless you only traveled to the moon or somewhere nearby.

But you really haven't. In all reality you have just exploited the system of the multi-verse. You didn't travel even 1mph. You traveled 0mph and instantaneously arrived at your destination.

There's three things you must realize that you have to master before this technology will be possible. You have to master gravity. That means within your ship you will have gravity, just like the Prometheus, the Galactica, or even the Starship Enterprise - that's one. You have to master anti-gravity. That means you can travel around the planet by controlling the gravity of your craft itself. It will be like watching a movie such as "Top Gun" when the fighter pilot is high in the atmosphere. You see the plane moving around, but you can't feel the G forces because you aren't moving at all. This is what it would be like to be in an antigravity capable craft. Looking out the windows will feel like everything else is moving around you and you're stationary - that's two. And you have to master atomic structure modification and rearrangement, which can be done by modifying the gravity on individual atoms to match distant locations or by actually modifying the atoms themselves which is far harder than simply exerting specific gravity on them - that's three.

That's all I know about the subject, and its all hypothesis within string theory. Although, stargates could be created using this theory by linking all the gates within the galaxy together with a subspace link so that they could communicate their current gravity and time signatures to all the other gates within the galaxy. Then, when a gate dials another gate, the subspace link tells the gates to activate a portal - not a wormhole - to the other location. When a person steps through the gate what would happen would be their atomic structure and the clothing and items they carry would have their gravity to match that of the gate they were dialing. Then they would feel as though they had stepped through a stargate, minus the wormhole traveling through space thing. No demolecularization, no getting stuck in any buffers, and no problems if you connect to a world with a black hole. The "event horizon" - if there was one at all - would be purely cosmetic. In fact you could open a portal to a world without any gates at all, or even send gates to worlds without gates from a gate and assemble it when you get to the other side.

This is all a hypothesis within a theory, take it however you will, and enjoy

[Three PhDs]

Actually, it gets bright instantly once light appears. It's just that the speed in which the light gets somewhere is variable.

No, it gets light when light arrives at the previously dark place. Which is a factor of how far the dark place was from the light source and when the light source began emitting light.

There is some evidence for FTL speed, but not any that humans would survive as anything other than energy.

Really, where?

But the evidence seems to center around the microseconds after the big bang and something to do with the uncertainty principle(I think). Because it states something like...if it can happenit will , but the probability is so low that it would never happen in a place that humans could observe it...?

Please, someone correct me if my physics are off.

They're off.

[UltraMarioMan]

So All we need is an infinite Improbabilty Drive!

The falling whales might be a problem tho...

[TechnoWraith]

The falling whales might be a problem tho...

Ummm... how are falling whales going to help us go FTL?

[Steve_the_Wraith]

Ummm... how are falling whales going to help us go FTL?

Check out "Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy"