…. maybe.

New theoretical warp drive design clears “negative energy” barrier.

Faster-than-light (FTL) travel is a staple of sci-fi, hand-waving away multi-millennia journeys between stars. Such a technology would of course be incredibly handy to us in the real world, and while these “warp drives” have been considered theoretically possible, they usually involve exotic physics that are out of our reach. Now, astrophysicist Erik Lentz has outlined a new theoretical design that could allow FTL travel based on conventional physics.

If humanity is going to stand the test of time, we need to expand beyond Earth. But where can we go? Elon Musk might have his heart set on Mars, but conditions there are hardly ideal. In fact, nowhere else in our solar system really works for us. So we should turn our attention to other stars.

While there are almost certainly other Earth-like planets out there somewhere, the universe is just too damn big for us to reach them in any practical time frame. Using current chemical rockets, it would take more than 50,000 years to reach Alpha Centauri, our nearest neighbor.

And that’s where the FTL dream comes in. If we could travel at the speed of light, the journey drops to a little over four years, meaning a return trip could easily fit into a normal human lifespan. Some hypothetical warp drive designs could get there in as little as five months – shorter than our current journey time to Mars.

Link

don’t understand what tidal forces have to do with time dilation.

In another interesting twist, the passage of time would be conserved for any travelers. Normally, objects traveling at the speed of light would be thought to age much more slowly, relative to the outside world. So, as an old thought experiment suggests, if you put one twin on a spaceship traveling at the speed of light, they would seem to be much younger than their twin who stayed behind on Earth. But the new concept overcomes this potential paradox – because there are minimal tidal forces in the center of the soliton, time would pass at the same rate both inside and outside the warp bubble.

ChrispenEvan said:

don’t understand what tidal forces have to do with time dilation.

In another interesting twist, the passage of time would be conserved for any travelers. Normally, objects traveling at the speed of light would be thought to age much more slowly, relative to the outside world. So, as an old thought experiment suggests, if you put one twin on a spaceship traveling at the speed of light, they would seem to be much younger than their twin who stayed behind on Earth. But the new concept overcomes this potential paradox – because there are minimal tidal forces in the center of the soliton, time would pass at the same rate both inside and outside the warp bubble.

Let’s see if I can make any sense of all out of this.

If there is such a thing as negative gravity. Then we put one source of positive gravity in front of our spaceship and a source of negative gravity at the back of the spaceship. That’s a version of the Albicore Drive. Problem is, negative gravity doesn’t exist. Even more than that, the result violates the laws of thermodynamics.

The “soliton” that this paper is talking about. I don’t get it. I don’t see how any combination of positive gravity sources can cause a result that violates the laws of thermodynamics. I have met solitons before, both in classical mechanics (eg. tidal wave) and in quantum mechanics (eg. topological defects such as the magnetic monopole and the hedgehog).

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6382/abe692
The solitons are also shown to be capable of being sourced from the stress–energy of a conducting plasma and classical electromagnetic fields. This is the first example of hyper-fast solitons resulting from known and familiar sources, reopening the discussion of superluminal mechanisms rooted in conventional physics.

So these are solutions of Maxwell’s equations? Magnetohydrodynamics?

Nope, I still don’t get it.

> don’t understand what tidal forces have to do with time dilation

Nothing to do with “time dilation”. “Minimal tidal forces” has everything to do with not tearing your spaceship into billions of tiny pieces.

Another link on this topic:

https://www.sciencealert.com/faster-than-light-travel-is-possible-within-einstein-s-physics-astrophysicist-shows

Michael V said:

Another link on this topic:

https://www.sciencealert.com/faster-than-light-travel-is-possible-within-einstein-s-physics-astrophysicist-shows

It’ll be quite an experience to arrive somewhere in time to find a good place to view the light reflected from the moment when you arrived.

Michael V said:

Another link on this topic:

https://www.sciencealert.com/faster-than-light-travel-is-possible-within-einstein-s-physics-astrophysicist-shows

Well, when youi think of it, travel back in time is possible within general relativity. And that’s a step beyond FTL.
Except that travel back in time is unconditionally unstable.

mollwollfumble said:

Michael V said:

Another link on this topic:

https://www.sciencealert.com/faster-than-light-travel-is-possible-within-einstein-s-physics-astrophysicist-shows

Well, when youi think of it, travel back in time is possible within general relativity. And that’s a step beyond FTL.
Except that travel back in time is unconditionally unstable.

You know that I have to agree with you about that. ;)

Atomic engines are the more likely next step

You could vapourise nasty stuff like lead perhaps or mercury and use that as a propellant?

Maybe strip’s of ion engines

The Borg cube ship seems the best shape, it’s a practical shape and engines could be installed on each face for control.

Maybe use tanks of water on the outer hull to absorb radiation. self sealing in the event of micro asteroid strike?

Make the hull out of HDPE, this would absorb micro asteroid strike nicely.

The command centre is buried in the centre

The cube ship is 3d printed in orbit with cargo ships bringing up solid slabs that will be turned into filament.

A slow spin creates g on the faces and you’d find 6 crew areas there, bad space weather would see crew take shelter in the centre. The cube ship will be 100mx100mx100m. Plenty of space for maintaining nuclear plant, scout ships (wings).