[Bobboau]

The Warp Drive Could Become Science Fact

Daydreaming Beyond the Solar System with Warp Field Mechanics | Icarus Interstellar

[General Battuta]

Alcubierre drives have always been one of the more plausible potential FTL techniques, but I'm pretty sure this is going to run into the brick wall of causality protection by one mechanism or another.

e: honestly i have no idea if it will or not, it shouldn't violate local causality but?

[watsisname]

Are there any articles on Icarus Interstellar's research of 'warp technology' published in peer-reviewed journals?  I am aware that they have a few less-extraordinary articles published, such as "Optimisation of nuclear fusion propulsion for interstellar missions", but I haven't seen anything on this subject before.

[General Battuta]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure this thing would be a paradox generator.

[An4ximandros]

Fret not my kith, when we invent the teleporters, it will be pointless! 

[General Battuta]

Fret not my kith, when we invent the teleporters, it will be pointless! 

those will violate causality too 

[An4ximandros]

those will violate causality too 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8qcccZy03s

[kev11106]

Heard a story a few years back where a young South American physicist went to a party, got drunk, and when he got home, turned on the wall switch for the light and realized in that moment that Einstein was wrong about the absolute law of the speed of light. This sounds like him. Anyone know if it is?

[General Battuta]

Heard a story a few years back where a young South American physicist went to a party, got drunk, and when he got home, turned on the wall switch for the light and realized in that moment that Einstein was wrong about the absolute law of the speed of light. This sounds like him. Anyone know if it is?

well was his name harold 'sonny' white

[Bobboau]

well, the importaint part is the dude is building an experiment to measure the effect of his proposed warp field, if that works and others can replicate it, it's now an engineering problem.

[Nuke]

i hate to burst your bubble but the idea is dependent of exotic matter which might not even actually exist.

[Bobboau]

from what I understand this guy may have found a way to do it without exotic matter. like I said, he is doing an experiment to test it, we'll see.

[Mongoose]

This does seem extremely far out-there, and more than a bit shaky without more information, but we'll see if anything comes of it.

From a casual standpoint, though, and really I'm in no position to be puzzling over relativity of simultaneity at this hour, I'm not sure that this would run into the causality elephant in the room.  At least from the speculation I'm seeing, the bubble of flat space-time inside the drive would essentially be causally disconnected from overall space-time (hell if I know how the physics of that play out).  Both the ship and the outside observer would be experiencing the same passage of time, but there could be no communication between the two.  I'm not even sure what an observer in any inertial reference frame relative to the ship would "see," because of the space-time warp, but if they couldn't obtain any information from inside that bubble, then I don't think there would be any way to deliver information into the ship's own past.

But yeah, I'll leave it to someone else to pore over a space-time diagram of what's going on.

[Legate Damar]

Silly Terrans, warp drive is for civilized species

[Dragon]

Don't worry, it's unlikely that Poland will get it's hands on this tech.

[General Battuta]

This does seem extremely far out-there, and more than a bit shaky without more information, but we'll see if anything comes of it.

From a casual standpoint, though, and really I'm in no position to be puzzling over relativity of simultaneity at this hour, I'm not sure that this would run into the causality elephant in the room.  At least from the speculation I'm seeing, the bubble of flat space-time inside the drive would essentially be causally disconnected from overall space-time (hell if I know how the physics of that play out).  Both the ship and the outside observer would be experiencing the same passage of time, but there could be no communication between the two.  I'm not even sure what an observer in any inertial reference frame relative to the ship would "see," because of the space-time warp, but if they couldn't obtain any information from inside that bubble, then I don't think there would be any way to deliver information into the ship's own past.

While you are locally correct it would still be able to violate causality globally (like flying into the past and blowing itself up while still under construction). Even wormholes have this problem.

[666maslo666]

Is FTL always a problem for causality? I have not understood much, but this article seems to argue otherwise:

http://www.science20.com/alpha_meme/faster_light_neutrinos_do_not_time_travel_spoil_your_date-83029

[IronBeer]

While you are locally correct it would still be able to violate causality globally (like flying into the past and blowing itself up while still under construction). Even wormholes have this problem.

Once we know how, we should build this drive anyways, just to see what happens.

[Nuke]

puts on universe implosion goggles, gets boner

[Enzo03]

I read on io9 that the Alcubierre drive would wind up gathering a bunch of cosmic particles (since space is not true vacuum) and, when it stops, those particles go *everywhere* and obliterate everything in the surrounding area.

http://io9.com/5889628/warp-drives-may-come-with-a-killer-downside
I don't know if it has been shown to be wrong or anything, and I don't know **** about these things, just putting it out there though.