Posted on 08/14/2008 5:51:05 AM PDT by BloodOrFreedom
Travel by bubble might seem more appropriate for witches in Oz, but two physicists suggest that a future spaceship could fold a space-time bubble around itself to travel faster than the speed of light.
We're talking about the very distant future, of course.
The idea involves manipulating dark energy — the mysterious force behind the universe's ongoing expansion — to propel a spaceship forward without breaking the laws of physics.
"Think of it like a surfer riding a wave," said Gerald Cleaver, a physicist at Baylor University. "The ship would be pushed by the spatial bubble and the bubble would be traveling faster than the speed of light."
In theory, the universe grew faster than the speed of light for a very short time after the Big Bang, driven by the dark energy that represents about 74 percent of the total mass-energy budget in the universe.
Dark matter constitutes 22 percent of the budget, and normal matter (stars, planets and everything you see) makes up the remaining 4 percent or so.
Strange as it sounds, current evidence supports the notion that the fabric of space-time can expand faster than the speed of light, because the reality in which light travels is itself expanding.
Cleaver and Richard Obousy, a Baylor graduate student, tapped the latest idea in string theory to devise how to manipulate dark energy and accelerate a spaceship.
Their notion is based on the Alcubierre drive, which proposes expanding space-time behind the spaceship while also shrinking space-time in front.
String theorists had believed that a total of 10 dimensions exist, including height, width, length and time.
The other six dimensions exist largely as unknowns, but everything is based on hypothetical one-dimensional strings.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
The distances between the stars are just too vast for us to make it without one of these two things.
Being a religious person, I find it hard to believe that God would create us in a universe where our survival was not possible.
Do you mean "survival" in our physical form? How long should our "survival" last to make it easier for you to believe that God would create us that way? Most religions believe that God created us to live for only a limited time in our physical form.
String theorists had believed that a total of 10 dimensions exist, including height, width, length and time. The other six dimensions exist largely as unknowns, but everything is based on hypothetical one-dimensional strings. A newer theory, called M-theory, suggests that those strings all vibrate in yet another dimension. Manipulating that additional dimension would alter dark energy in terms of height, width, and length, Cleaver and Obousy theorize.That 'other dimension' is the Eleventh and is based 'Super Gravity' which was pooh-poohed until theoretical physicists realized (finally) that without it their String Theory didn't 'work' because their was FIVE of them, and that ain't good in physics. Only by adding the Eleventh Dimension of Super Gravity did they see that all five string theories were basically the same thing being approached from different directions. And more importantly the M-Theory solved the leetle problem the String Theory couldn't -- The Big Bang and The Singularity (not to mention Alternate Universes, but that's another matter (pun intended).
As to Einstein; There's already a problem with E=mc2. Super Gamma Ray Bursts blow it to hell. The 'answer' arrived at to make it work is laughable (IMO). So if he's wrong there ...??? Oh and Leptons appear in two places at the same time. How do they do that, Alternate Universes or Time Travel?
I'm not a Theoretical Physicist, nor a Cosmologist, I just play one on FR.
Sorry,
you’re still wrong. time doesnt describe a spatial dimension. If i say i am meeting someone on a streetcorner, sure, time is a factor. BUT if i am describing the location of Times Square to you, time is most assuredly NOT a needed descriptor.
As to Airliners, Spaceships, GPS, and slowing time. Surely* you do not suggest that the mere accounting for mechanical signals lags, due to varying distances, somehow suggests that some form of time travel has occurred? Are you kidding? That time has actually slowed? Inaccuracy in measuring devices is *not* the same as time actually passing slower. Get it? Dont believe everything claimed today in the name of physics. A clock running slower, isn’t magically making time pass slower. Its an accuracy problem.
The speed of dark.
Night Speed.
space-time bubble.. manipulate dark energy
can wormhole tollways be far behind?
Things change once you throw out the assumption that the density of space is homogeneous throughout the universe.
Mass=Energy=Spatial Distortion.
When the surfer turns, he is slowing his fall off the wave.
One second is defined as “the duration of 9192631770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom”
or,
1/31557600 of a Julian year.
And,,,Youre kidding, right? You actually, sincerely believe a unit of time somehow occurs *slower* if it happens in a fast moving airplane using a GPS? This is the logic of evidence used in the the witch trials. Time is fixed. Our measurents are probably necessarily doomed to be inadequate, but that doesn’t mean that actual “time” runs faster or slower. Besides, if time is not fixed, it can’t be a descriptor of a location as you claim it to be.
Time for another patch! Wait, theres a superstring or yet another unprovable invisible dimemsion that explains it all.
Please,,,,
>>A clock running slower, isn’t magically
>>making time pass slower. Its an accuracy problem.
The accelerated clock in Einsteins paradox “runs” slower, not because time itself is going slower - but because the mass of the clock itself is increased as the result of being accelerated. The localized increase of mass translates into a localized increase in energy == localized increase in spatial distortion.
Time is measured by observing a change in the state of a system.
Higher mass = higher inertia and more energy required to overcome that inertia. The increase in localized mass/energy/spatial distortion also means the distances *within* the system itself increase with acceleration.
As to the problem of the missing “Dark Energy”; that will be resolved with the realization that energy is not something that exists separately within space; but that energy IS space, or more precisely the localized distortion of space.
Thats what I think, anyhow...
I didn't say it was a "spatial" dimension. I said it was A dimension as space (x, y and z) are dimensions. However, since the speed of light is observed to be the same from any point of view, it means that both space (x, y, and z) and time (t) cannot be absolutes: they vary according to one's particular state of motion with respect to another's. There is no such thing as absolute time, according to Einstein's theory of SR.
Wonderful point! However, why do people persist in using the misleading term “string theory”? Did i miss it, or did someone devise an observable experiment that can empirically prove or disprove “string hypothesis”??
The wilder the claim, (invisible dimensions, leptons simultaneously being in differing places, time travel, observer based reality,,ie, “what route did the particle travel,,well it depends, were you watching it?” etc,,,,)
Then the stronger is the demand for evidence beyond the chalkboard. When someone won’t even properly use and follow the basic terminology of the scientific method, (hypothesis vs theory) and shows no respect for even basic epistimology, i am free to conclude they may have consumed the bong water.
They freely label a mere mathmatical hypothesis a “theory”, and i am supposed to assume that all their other work doesn’t take sloppy shortcuts?
or that our planet is the only one out of billions that is capable of supporting human life
>>Right, time SLOWS DOWN
Einstein wasn’t even sure that time existed separately from the system in which it was observed.
The question “Does time exist” was a matter of debate among him and his peers.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Does+time+exist%22+einstein&btnG=Google+Search
But the concept of Eleven dimensions, and an infinite number of Alternate Universes made of 'branes' is just a tad hard to comprehend in our Three Four Dimensional world (I Include Time).
And as I recall Einstein never bought into Quantum Mechanics, which he was obviously wrong. And E=mc2 still has a problem on the 'VERY BIG' scale as with Super Gamma Ray Burst, just like the regular laws of physics doesn't work on the very small.
Not that any of it really matters in the long run anyway, 90% of the Universe is missing. ;-)
Yep, I'm hung up on Super Gamma Ray Bursts and the accepted explanation.
If I wasn't so old, I'd start a new career.
>>90% of the Universe is missing. ;-)
Nah, they’re just looking for it in the wrong place.
>>And as I recall Einstein never bought
>>into Quantum Mechanics
I think that’s probably a bit of a popular overstatement. Probably more accurate to says that he was never able to reconcile GR/SR with QM.
I think understanding the relationship between space and energy will be the key to reconciling GR/SR and QM.
As Energy is to Matter, so Space is to Energy.
C is relative to the quantity of space within a system.
Individuals die. The race survives.
We're pretty sure that life can only exist on this planet for at most 5 billion more years due to the lifecycle of stars like our sun.
The only way to survive that is to not be around for it.
Perhaps my imagination is limited, but I do not see how you can make it to other stars without FTL speeds because of the time the journeys would otherwise take. If you can't travel faster than light, then you are stuck loafing a long at sublight speeds. Even at speeds that are thousands of times greater than the speed of light, the distances between stars is unimaginably vast.
If you doubt this, download a copy of Celestia and see how long (in real time) it takes to get to Pluto in real time when limited to the SoL.
Then try waiting for how long it would take you to get to Alpha Centari while travelling at 1AU per second.
You apparently aren't very familar with atomic clocks.
Accuracy is not a problem.
There are measurable effects to time due to acceleration.
90% of the universe is missing socks.
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