I know warp can't ever exist in our time as it stands now because they say in order to move just a few grams of 'space' it would take all the engery of all the stars in our galaxy. And we have all those nasty side effects like mass vs. velocity vs. fuel vs. time dialation oh and money + technology and human laziness.
sucks like gravity doesn't it?
So lets say we get to .3C it would take us 7+ years to get to our nearest star however (for arguments sake) 100 years go by on earth. Pretty sad huh, all of our loved ones would be dead and buried.
I think that the time dialation is an energy byproduct that we should be trying to harness somehow. Time is forever and Einstein said we would need infinite power to acelerate to the speed of light but why even try?
Maybe we can create some sort of 'engine', for lack of a better term - that takes advantage of time dialation? The universe has laws correct? If you go this fast for this long you should be here at this location.
So lets say we do a 'burn' and get us up to 30% of the speed of light (200,880,000mph ~) and then activate this sort of time reaction engine to trick the universe into thinking we have been tarveling for the last 7+ years by manipulating the mass of the ship via atomic nucleus saying we weigh what we should weigh at the speed of light x (insert factor here) and we've been traveling for this long. But since we used the energy from the time dialation effect, it is has been cancelled out and thus we arrive instananeously which would to an observer be way, way, way faster than the speed of light and we wouldn't be any older!
Think of how the F-14 Tomcat tricks the laws of physics by sweeping it's wings back to gain airspeed. More surface area = more drag. The plane still has the same surface area, just configured differently.
Either my idea is good for us or just a great original example for a new sci-fy verse, lol.
When brainstorming on ideas, one thing you have to keep in mind is that things like energy and momentum have to be conserved. Changing the mass of something is cheating because it would change the object's momentum and kinetic energy to do so. You'd end up getting something for nothing.
I have one problem with relativity: it says that as you approach the speed of light that time slows down. But it can't because in order to calculate speed you have to use time as a constant. S=V/T
I have one problem with relativity: it says that as you approach the speed of light that time slows down. But it can't because in order to calculate speed you have to use time as a constant. S=V/T
Relativity is called thus because you always have to keep track of what you're measuring in relation to what else. If you're measuring things from your own perspective, a lot of values are going to be fixed. I used to know this stuff back before I went crazy. :rolleyes:
For a few examples, regardless of your apparent speed to other people:
A beam of light coming out of a flashlight you're holding will come out at the speed of light, regardless of the direction you aim it.
You will always be still relative to yourself.
Your perception of your own time will never change (unless you're on drugs or something )
Other objects will never exceed the speed of light relative to you.
Meanwhile, your preceptions of *others* moving quickly relative to yourself will change:
Light coming from a flashlight moving away from you very quickly will change color, though the light from it will still be moving at the speed of light relative to you. This is known as "redshift" -- astronomers like to use it a lot.
Other objects can obviously move around.
Things that are in motion will seem to slow down in time. Things can either move quickly in time or space, not both. This is not to be confused with the speed of the light it takes from the person to get to you.
Objects can appear to exceed the speed of light relative to each other, but they're actually not. Two people moving away from each other, each traveling at the speed of light in your frame, would still see the other person traveling slower in their own frame. It's all a matter of perspective!
The equations to work out the changes are very simple, thankfully. The hard part is all in trying to figure out things will look from the different perspectives and work in the correct perspective to get the answer you're looking for. Instincts are useless here, as well. Acceleration is another complicating factor that makes everything even worse. It's fun stuff, though.
Relativity is called thus because you always have to keep track of what you're measuring in relation to what else. If you're measuring things from your own perspective, a lot of values are going to be fixed. I used to know this stuff back before I went crazy. :rolleyes:
For a few examples, regardless of your apparent speed to other people:
A beam of light coming out of a flashlight you're holding will come out at the speed of light, regardless of the direction you aim it.
You will always be still relative to yourself.
Your perception of your own time will never change (unless you're on drugs or something )
Other objects will never exceed the speed of light relative to you.
Meanwhile, your preceptions of *others* moving quickly relative to yourself will change:
Light coming from a flashlight moving away from you very quickly will change color, though the light from it will still be moving at the speed of light relative to you. This is known as "redshift" -- astronomers like to use it a lot.
Other objects can obviously move around.
Things that are in motion will seem to slow down in time. Things can either move quickly in time or space, not both. This is not to be confused with the speed of the light it takes from the person to get to you.
Objects can appear to exceed the speed of light relative to each other, but they're actually not. Two people moving away from each other, each traveling at the speed of light in your frame, would still see the other person traveling slower in their own frame. It's all a matter of perspective!
The equations to work out the changes are very simple, thankfully. The hard part is all in trying to figure out things will look from the different perspectives and work in the correct perspective to get the answer you're looking for. Instincts are useless here, as well. Acceleration is another complicating factor that makes everything even worse. It's fun stuff, though.
I am now afraid because i always thought the bird was a cheerio or fruit loop rather than... a braim.
Very simple explanation of the doppler effect as it applies to luminal waveforms there, hort_wort.
With regards to the F-14 Tomcat in the OP, the increase in speed through the sweeping back of the wing is not a trick, just aerodynamic drag reduction.
When the wings are forward, there is a large frontal area trying to force its way through the air (which feels thicker the faster an object is going, try sticking your hand out the window slightly when out in a car).
At the speeds the Tomcat flies at, this relative air density is possible equivalent to trying to swim in treacle, so in order to maximise speed potential with a limited amount of thrust (can't always add thrust, remember :P), the tomcat reduces its forward surface area by sweeping back the wings, thus there is a reduction in pressure*.
An analogy for this could be trying to make a hole in a wall using a pick and a hammer, where a fixed amount of force applied with each tool results in greater penetration into the wall by the pick, while the hammer makes a larger dent.
*Pressure as per the physics definition (number of particle impacts on a given area over a designated timeframe)
You're right! Hrmmmm I should've said the flashlight was moving around the observer in a big circle at relativistic speeds.
But this is the part that makes no sense. In terms of our perception, people moving away at Warp speed are slowing down (assuming you could watch them). But people moving toward us at warp speed are speeding up. My question is this, if you put a quantum clock both on the ship traveling and the people sitting still, is there difference. To me, it never made any sense why there would be.
But this is the part that makes no sense. In terms of our perception, people moving away at Warp speed are slowing down (assuming you could watch them). But people moving toward us at warp speed are speeding up. My question is this, if you put a quantum clock both on the ship traveling and the people sitting still, is there difference. To me, it never made any sense why there would be.
The time change isn't due to the arrival of the light at the observer, the time really is changing. The arrival of the light is just in there to confuse you more. It's evil that way. :mad:
If you really want to give yourself a nosebleed, read about the Twin Paradox. Arghhhh, brain hurt.
I propose that we start with learning how to manipulate neutronium and use it to design a "wheel within a wheel" flying saucer.
For example, take a clock with its 12-hour increments. Place a ring around the clock suspended via an EMF, so that's spatially locked but with free rotation. Inside the ring, at each hour increment is a warp core containing neutronium. Spin the warp core, controlling its speed with plasma flow. The faster we spin it, the greater the warpiture.
You activate only two drives, one at 7 o'clock, and one at 1 o'clock. The 1 o'clock warpiture should be twice as large, forcing the 7 o'clock warpiture to revolve. Then you activate/de-activate impulsively to push the saucer along like a wheel along an invisible plane.
The key is the neutronium. Anyone got any extra in their backpocket? hehehe
Very simple explanation of the doppler effect as it applies to luminal waveforms there, hort_wort.
With regards to the F-14 Tomcat in the OP, the increase in speed through the sweeping back of the wing is not a trick, just aerodynamic drag reduction.
When the wings are forward, there is a large frontal area trying to force its way through the air (which feels thicker the faster an object is going, try sticking your hand out the window slightly when out in a car).
At the speeds the Tomcat flies at, this relative air density is possible equivalent to trying to swim in treacle, so in order to maximise speed potential with a limited amount of thrust (can't always add thrust, remember :P), the tomcat reduces its forward surface area by sweeping back the wings, thus there is a reduction in pressure*.
An analogy for this could be trying to make a hole in a wall using a pick and a hammer, where a fixed amount of force applied with each tool results in greater penetration into the wall by the pick, while the hammer makes a larger dent.
*Pressure as per the physics definition (number of particle impacts on a given area over a designated timeframe)
Actually the swept back wing wasnt to increase speed. The swept back wings which was experimented with by the germans in 1938-1939 on the German Messerschmitt Me-262 jet aircraft it was found out that with straight wings when you approach the sound barrier you became what was called a "brick". You lost all control of your plane as your control surfaces were no longer getting air over them as the flat wings distorted the air at those speeds. The germans combated this by sweeping their wings back as well as forward on another experimental design and found out that they could reach the speed of sound and not lose control of the control surfaces.
There was one american, i cant think of his name though, flying a P-38 Lighting during WWII, he saw a fellow P-51D Mustang under attack by two Focke-Wulf Fw-190A-8`s and dove to attack. Well in his dive at full throttle he quickly got going too fast and it took all his strength to get the plane to pull out of the dive. The flight stick was very hard to pull back on to pull up out of the dive and his alerions were dead as air wasnt moving across them. This was all because of a straight edge wing. It is a problem in high speed control cause it distrots the air flowing over your wing to your alerions and then you have excessive air on your elevators which makes it hard to move them up or down resulting in a brick aircraft that you cant really control as you cant pull out and you cant slow down cause gravity is going to keep you accelerating reguardless of if your engine is running or not.
When brainstorming on ideas, one thing you have to keep in mind is that things like energy and momentum have to be conserved. Changing the mass of something is cheating because it would change the object's momentum and kinetic energy to do so. You'd end up getting something for nothing.
When brainstorming on ideas, one thing you have to keep in mind is that things like energy and momentum have to be conserved. Changing the mass of something is cheating because it would change the object's momentum and kinetic energy to do so. You'd end up getting something for nothing.
I have a headache already.
I think that it's important to note, when dealing with FTL ideas, that whenever we say "XYZ is impossible," one must include the qualifier "according to physics as we understand it."
The warp drive basically bends the rules of space-time. Although that idea in and of itself may never manage to pan out for a useful FTL drive, that doesn't mean that bending the rules might not be viable at some point in the future. Granted, it may be the very distant future, but the future nonetheless.
I think that it's important to note, when dealing with FTL ideas, that whenever we say "XYZ is impossible," one must include the qualifier "according to physics as we understand it."
The warp drive basically bends the rules of space-time. Although that idea in and of itself may never manage to pan out for a useful FTL drive, that doesn't mean that bending the rules might not be viable at some point in the future. Granted, it may be the very distant future, but the future nonetheless.
I have always understood that for a warp drive to you it would need to bend the laws of physics by removing you from this universe for travel. So instead of you moving from A-B faster than the speed of light, you follow a law of quantum physics that allows you to be in two locations at once (though very briefly). I also think this is how transporters will eventually work. It won't tear you apart and put you back together, it'll create a situation where you exist in two locations at the same time. From your perspective, you wouldn't realize you are in two locations...it would seem like you instantly appeared at your destination.
This method could be used to cause a starship to instantly appear directly in front of where it was sitting. Do this fast enough and, to those looking from the outside, you are going faster than light but you really aren't because there is no inertial motion taking place.
I have always understood that for a warp drive to you it would need to bend the laws of physics by removing you from this universe for travel. So instead of you moving from A-B faster than the speed of light, you follow a law of quantum physics that allows you to be in two locations at once (though briefly). I also think this is how transporters will eventually work. It won't tear you apart and put you back together, it'll create a situation where you exist in two locations at the same time. From your perspective, you wouldn't realize you are in two locations...it would seem like you instantly appeared at your destination.
Worm Holes, you step in the entrance of one and instantly you step out of the exit on the other side at your destination. Problem is though it would require more energy than four of our suns put together to create and power a stable worm hole from the US to Egypt.
Worm Holes, you step in the entrance of one and instantly you step out of the exit on the other side at your destination. Problem is though it would require more energy than four of our suns put together to create and power a stable worm hole from the US to Egypt.
So lets say we do a 'burn' and get us up to 30% of the speed of light (200,880,000mph ~) and then activate this sort of time reaction engine to trick the universe into thinking we have been tarveling for the last 7+ years by manipulating the mass of the ship via atomic nucleus saying we weigh what we should weigh at the speed of light x (insert factor here) and we've been traveling for this long. But since we used the energy from the time dialation effect, it is has been cancelled out and thus we arrive instananeously which would to an observer be way, way, way faster than the speed of light and we wouldn't be any older!
1) Mass iand energy are conserved quantities. You can't change their sum but can only change its form, energy -> mass or mass <- energy. At the speed of light your mass must be zero.
2) I think you are forgetting the relativity part of the theory of relativity. Time dilation only occurs to the observer (on the ground) relative to the moving object (guy in spaceship). If the guy in the spaceship is moving near the speed of light, for stuff that is relative to him time is still normal. To the guy on the ground however, the clock on board the space ship is slowing down. At best moving at speeds near the speed of light will be like a one-way forward moving only time machine.
Think of how the F-14 Tomcat tricks the laws of physics by sweeping it's wings back to gain airspeed. More surface area = more drag. The plane still has the same surface area, just configured differently.
Either my idea is good for us or just a great original example for a new sci-fy verse, lol.
Sweeping wings does not "Trick" Laws of physics and sweeping wings does not "gain" airspeed, nor does it reduced drag by reducing surface area (insignificant amount anyways). The problem that sweeping wings solve is that when you are flying near the speed of sound, shock waves develops over the surface of your wings (Like the wakes coming from the bow of a ship) and these cause a lot of drag. Because when you are flying near the speed of sound, some parts of your aircraft will have air that is moving faster than the speed of sound, shock waves develops even though you are moving at less than sound speed. A rule of thumb is, the thicker your wings the easier it is for shockwaves to form. What sweeping the wing does (from 1 point of view) is to reduce the effective thickness to chord (length of the wing) ratio thus delaying development of shockwaves on the wings. And with an lower effective thickness to chord ratio, the shockwaves that does form are weaker thus drag is reduced significantly.
All of this is fluid mechanics and really have nothing to do with the physics that governs relativity.
I have always understood that for a warp drive to you it would need to bend the laws of physics by removing you from this universe for travel. So instead of you moving from A-B faster than the speed of light, you follow a law of quantum physics that allows you to be in two locations at once (though very briefly). I also think this is how transporters will eventually work. It won't tear you apart and put you back together, it'll create a situation where you exist in two locations at the same time. From your perspective, you wouldn't realize you are in two locations...it would seem like you instantly appeared at your destination.
Theoretically, a warp drive works by bending space around you so that space itself is denser near to you. Thus if you bend space enough so that space is very very dense near you, then when you move (relative to you) at sub light speed, to an observer in the bent space you are moving faster than the speed of light. What you were describing are wormholes.
Transporters (according to Star trek Lore) works on the principle that mass and energy is interchangeable. So at one end of the transporter, your mass is converted to energy, then the transporter "beam" (thus why it is called "beam me up") that energy to another transporter pad and then your energy is converted back to matter in it original form. Theoretically this is possible, but Heisenberg uncertainty principle kinda throws a monkey wrench into all of this even at a theoretical level. If you can't know position and the momentum of a particle at one point in time and space, how do you capture it and convert it into energy?
Actually the swept back wing wasnt to increase speed. The swept back wings which was experimented with by the germans in 1938-1939 on the German Messerschmitt Me-262 jet aircraft it was found out that with straight wings when you approach the sound barrier you became what was called a "brick". You lost all control of your plane as your control surfaces were no longer getting air over them as the flat wings distorted the air at those speeds. The germans combated this by sweeping their wings back as well as forward on another experimental design and found out that they could reach the speed of sound and not lose control of the control surfaces.
There was one american, i cant think of his name though, flying a P-38 Lighting during WWII, he saw a fellow P-51D Mustang under attack by two Focke-Wulf Fw-190A-8`s and dove to attack. Well in his dive at full throttle he quickly got going too fast and it took all his strength to get the plane to pull out of the dive. The flight stick was very hard to pull back on to pull up out of the dive and his alerions were dead as air wasnt moving across them. This was all because of a straight edge wing. It is a problem in high speed control cause it distrots the air flowing over your wing to your alerions and then you have excessive air on your elevators which makes it hard to move them up or down resulting in a brick aircraft that you cant really control as you cant pull out and you cant slow down cause gravity is going to keep you accelerating reguardless of if your engine is running or not.
Actually the ME262 had swept back wings to solve center of gravity issues. But the Germans did research swept wings and it was not for controls issues since Adolf Busemann propose the idea of using swept wings to reduce wave drag in the early 1930s.
The shockwave problem (see previous post) causes the control problems (like on the P-38) because the air after going through a shockwave is very turbulent and chaotic (like when you turn on your facet to full vs turning on your facet on a little). Straight wing aircraft usually have straight wing control surfaces (on the tail) so when the aircraft is moving near sound speed, shockwave develops on the wings, and it develops on the control surface. At near sonic speeds, the moving part of the control surface (trailing edge) is now acting on air that is chaotic and disordered, thus reducing or eliminating its effectiveness and thus loss of control of the aircraft. Although sweeping the control surface is one way to reduce this problem at near sonic speeds, this solution doesn't work for super sonic speeds (it can actually cause control reversal), the general solution to the problem was making an all-moving tail. For an all moving tail, at subsonic speed the leading edge of the control surface is still effective. If you look at super sonic fighters the entire tail moves as oppose to commercial airliners. where only the trailing edge of the tail moves.
Actually the ME262 had swept back wings to solve center of gravity issues. But the Germans did research swept wings and it was not for controls issues since Adolf Busemann propose the idea of using swept wings to reduce wave drag in the early 1930s.
The shockwave problem (see previous post) causes the control problems (like on the P-38) because the air after going through a shockwave is very turbulent and chaotic (like when you turn on your facet to full vs turning on your facet on a little). Straight wing aircraft usually have straight wing control surfaces (on the tail) so when the aircraft is moving near sound speed, shockwave develops on the wings, and it develops on the control surface. At near sonic speeds, the moving part of the control surface (trailing edge) is now acting on air that is chaotic and disordered, thus reducing or eliminating its effectiveness and thus loss of control of the aircraft. Although sweeping the control surface is one way to reduce this problem at near sonic speeds, this solution doesn't work for super sonic speeds (it can actually cause control reversal), the general solution to the problem was making an all-moving tail. For an all moving tail, at subsonic speed the leading edge of the control surface is still effective. If you look at super sonic fighters the entire tail moves as oppose to commercial airliners. where only the trailing edge of the tail moves.
It wasnt done just for the loss of control at high speeds. It was one of the contributing factors. The shockwave problem is what its called but in the end the air is being disrupted to the point that the plane becomes uncontrollable. The swept wings helped on the ME262 not because it was supersonic nor that it was close to breaking the sound barrier. It could in a dive but not in level flight. It wasnt till the Bell X-1B that Chuck Yeager was flying broke the sound barrier in level flight. That craft even had a straight knife edge wing and not a swept back wing.
Had to read your last part twice, didnt realize you were talking about the elevators being one piece of the horizontal stabilizer that moves. When you were saying all moving tail I was thinking maybe you ment the wings that sweep back and forward like on the F-14.
1) Mass iand energy are conserved quantities. You can't change their sum but can only change its form, energy -> mass or mass <- energy. At the speed of light your mass must be zero.
2) I think you are forgetting the relativity part of the theory of relativity.
That's exactly what I'm trying to say. I know that time for us in the ship would be just as normal as ever but there is something going on to cause such an event to happen. The laws of physics in this case seem to defy common sense for some reason or another. I think that when we are traveling at near C or at C we become so heavy all the way down to the atomic level that electrons can't even move or move very slowly. So, that seven years to us is seven of 'our' years that we experience. If you think about it like that, technically we did make to Alpha Centari in the planned mission time just at our 'temporal pace' if you will. So, that is what leads me to believe there is a hidden energy that we may be able to manipulate much as we do Ohms Law (the big chart). If you know anything about series and parallel circuits you'll get what I just said
I do agree with your argument though, I really do because I believe the same thing however I think we as a people need to start thinking outside the proverbial box. I think of old physics as something you saw on TV. A point of view so to speak. It doesn't make that person right. If we star succumbing to the accepted norm we will never be truly above average. I'm pretty sure there real scientist's in this forum. Trekkie's are everywhere for Pete's sake. Maybe we can peek their interest and we can all start throwing ideas around like a consortium?
I also just though of a nacelle where electrons are accelerated through the middle of it. So it basically acts like a track track does. Except it's space that is being pulled through it and accelerating the ship. Then again I would know if the crew would experience extreme G-forces or not?
Allow me to throw some wrenches/toys in this thread for general playing:
1. No one has for certain pinned down that gravity propagates at the speed of light. There is some evidence to suggest that it does so instantaneously. If you could, therefore, somehow turn yourself into gravitons, then your travel would be very, very fast if not instantaneous.
2. No one can ACCELERATE to the speed of light. It doesn't say anything about suddenly being at FTL speeds. Although this method would be similar to trying to get the universe to divide by zero without it noticing (as an instantaneous acceleration has an a=(s1-s2)/t denominator of 0).
3. None of it's been verified. That's always the fun one. I like to imagine I live in a universe where, when someone attempts to accelerate to FTL, they approach the speed of light, hit it, and just keep going without a problem.
I mean, we are the species that was fairly certain we would vaporize our own atmosphere, and did it anyway. We've been wrong before, and I think the constant appearance of 'dark X' as explanations for things is telling us we might have to re-examine our systems.
Allow me to throw some wrenches/toys in this thread for general playing:
1. No one has for certain pinned down that gravity propagates at the speed of light. There is some evidence to suggest that it does so instantaneously. If you could, therefore, somehow turn yourself into gravitons, then your travel would be very, very fast if not instantaneous.
2. No one can ACCELERATE to the speed of light. It doesn't say anything about suddenly being at FTL speeds. Although this method would be similar to trying to get the universe to divide by zero without it noticing (as an instantaneous acceleration has an a=(s1-s2)/t denominator of 0).
3. None of it's been verified. That's always the fun one. I like to imagine I live in a universe where, when someone attempts to accelerate to FTL, they approach the speed of light, hit it, and just keep going without a problem.
I mean, we are the species that was fairly certain we would vaporize our own atmosphere, and did it anyway. We've been wrong before, and I think the constant appearance of 'dark X' as explanations for things is telling us we might have to re-examine our systems.
Thats the problem we need to start re thinking our views but we wont. Our schools as far as I know are not teaching that Einstein`s ideas are now being questioned as we have satilites that are not doing what they should be based off Einstein's theory which everyone takes as the real deal truth.
Comments
Well, NASA hasn't ruled it out yet.
When brainstorming on ideas, one thing you have to keep in mind is that things like energy and momentum have to be conserved. Changing the mass of something is cheating because it would change the object's momentum and kinetic energy to do so. You'd end up getting something for nothing.
I have a headache already.
Relativity is called thus because you always have to keep track of what you're measuring in relation to what else. If you're measuring things from your own perspective, a lot of values are going to be fixed. I used to know this stuff back before I went crazy. :rolleyes:
For a few examples, regardless of your apparent speed to other people:
Meanwhile, your preceptions of *others* moving quickly relative to yourself will change:
The equations to work out the changes are very simple, thankfully. The hard part is all in trying to figure out things will look from the different perspectives and work in the correct perspective to get the answer you're looking for. Instincts are useless here, as well.
I am now afraid because i always thought the bird was a cheerio or fruit loop rather than... a braim.
I'd still rather have a TARDIS.
Don't worry, my brain oozed out long ago.
Ohhh look, a shiny!
-hops away to stare at shiny-
With regards to the F-14 Tomcat in the OP, the increase in speed through the sweeping back of the wing is not a trick, just aerodynamic drag reduction.
When the wings are forward, there is a large frontal area trying to force its way through the air (which feels thicker the faster an object is going, try sticking your hand out the window slightly when out in a car).
At the speeds the Tomcat flies at, this relative air density is possible equivalent to trying to swim in treacle, so in order to maximise speed potential with a limited amount of thrust (can't always add thrust, remember :P), the tomcat reduces its forward surface area by sweeping back the wings, thus there is a reduction in pressure*.
An analogy for this could be trying to make a hole in a wall using a pick and a hammer, where a fixed amount of force applied with each tool results in greater penetration into the wall by the pick, while the hammer makes a larger dent.
*Pressure as per the physics definition (number of particle impacts on a given area over a designated timeframe)
You're right! Hrmmmm I should've said the flashlight was moving around the observer in a big circle at relativistic speeds.
But this is the part that makes no sense. In terms of our perception, people moving away at Warp speed are slowing down (assuming you could watch them). But people moving toward us at warp speed are speeding up. My question is this, if you put a quantum clock both on the ship traveling and the people sitting still, is there difference. To me, it never made any sense why there would be.
The time change isn't due to the arrival of the light at the observer, the time really is changing. The arrival of the light is just in there to confuse you more. It's evil that way. :mad:
If you really want to give yourself a nosebleed, read about the Twin Paradox. Arghhhh, brain hurt.
For example, take a clock with its 12-hour increments. Place a ring around the clock suspended via an EMF, so that's spatially locked but with free rotation. Inside the ring, at each hour increment is a warp core containing neutronium. Spin the warp core, controlling its speed with plasma flow. The faster we spin it, the greater the warpiture.
You activate only two drives, one at 7 o'clock, and one at 1 o'clock. The 1 o'clock warpiture should be twice as large, forcing the 7 o'clock warpiture to revolve. Then you activate/de-activate impulsively to push the saucer along like a wheel along an invisible plane.
The key is the neutronium. Anyone got any extra in their backpocket? hehehe
Actually the swept back wing wasnt to increase speed. The swept back wings which was experimented with by the germans in 1938-1939 on the German Messerschmitt Me-262 jet aircraft it was found out that with straight wings when you approach the sound barrier you became what was called a "brick". You lost all control of your plane as your control surfaces were no longer getting air over them as the flat wings distorted the air at those speeds. The germans combated this by sweeping their wings back as well as forward on another experimental design and found out that they could reach the speed of sound and not lose control of the control surfaces.
There was one american, i cant think of his name though, flying a P-38 Lighting during WWII, he saw a fellow P-51D Mustang under attack by two Focke-Wulf Fw-190A-8`s and dove to attack. Well in his dive at full throttle he quickly got going too fast and it took all his strength to get the plane to pull out of the dive. The flight stick was very hard to pull back on to pull up out of the dive and his alerions were dead as air wasnt moving across them. This was all because of a straight edge wing. It is a problem in high speed control cause it distrots the air flowing over your wing to your alerions and then you have excessive air on your elevators which makes it hard to move them up or down resulting in a brick aircraft that you cant really control as you cant pull out and you cant slow down cause gravity is going to keep you accelerating reguardless of if your engine is running or not.
Yaaaaay! makes me happy!
I think that it's important to note, when dealing with FTL ideas, that whenever we say "XYZ is impossible," one must include the qualifier "according to physics as we understand it."
The warp drive basically bends the rules of space-time. Although that idea in and of itself may never manage to pan out for a useful FTL drive, that doesn't mean that bending the rules might not be viable at some point in the future. Granted, it may be the very distant future, but the future nonetheless.
I have always understood that for a warp drive to you it would need to bend the laws of physics by removing you from this universe for travel. So instead of you moving from A-B faster than the speed of light, you follow a law of quantum physics that allows you to be in two locations at once (though very briefly). I also think this is how transporters will eventually work. It won't tear you apart and put you back together, it'll create a situation where you exist in two locations at the same time. From your perspective, you wouldn't realize you are in two locations...it would seem like you instantly appeared at your destination.
This method could be used to cause a starship to instantly appear directly in front of where it was sitting. Do this fast enough and, to those looking from the outside, you are going faster than light but you really aren't because there is no inertial motion taking place.
Worm Holes, you step in the entrance of one and instantly you step out of the exit on the other side at your destination. Problem is though it would require more energy than four of our suns put together to create and power a stable worm hole from the US to Egypt.
The path lies through the calabi-yau manifold.
1) Mass iand energy are conserved quantities. You can't change their sum but can only change its form, energy -> mass or mass <- energy. At the speed of light your mass must be zero.
2) I think you are forgetting the relativity part of the theory of relativity. Time dilation only occurs to the observer (on the ground) relative to the moving object (guy in spaceship). If the guy in the spaceship is moving near the speed of light, for stuff that is relative to him time is still normal. To the guy on the ground however, the clock on board the space ship is slowing down. At best moving at speeds near the speed of light will be like a one-way forward moving only time machine.
Sweeping wings does not "Trick" Laws of physics and sweeping wings does not "gain" airspeed, nor does it reduced drag by reducing surface area (insignificant amount anyways). The problem that sweeping wings solve is that when you are flying near the speed of sound, shock waves develops over the surface of your wings (Like the wakes coming from the bow of a ship) and these cause a lot of drag. Because when you are flying near the speed of sound, some parts of your aircraft will have air that is moving faster than the speed of sound, shock waves develops even though you are moving at less than sound speed. A rule of thumb is, the thicker your wings the easier it is for shockwaves to form. What sweeping the wing does (from 1 point of view) is to reduce the effective thickness to chord (length of the wing) ratio thus delaying development of shockwaves on the wings. And with an lower effective thickness to chord ratio, the shockwaves that does form are weaker thus drag is reduced significantly.
All of this is fluid mechanics and really have nothing to do with the physics that governs relativity.
Theoretically, a warp drive works by bending space around you so that space itself is denser near to you. Thus if you bend space enough so that space is very very dense near you, then when you move (relative to you) at sub light speed, to an observer in the bent space you are moving faster than the speed of light. What you were describing are wormholes.
Transporters (according to Star trek Lore) works on the principle that mass and energy is interchangeable. So at one end of the transporter, your mass is converted to energy, then the transporter "beam" (thus why it is called "beam me up") that energy to another transporter pad and then your energy is converted back to matter in it original form. Theoretically this is possible, but Heisenberg uncertainty principle kinda throws a monkey wrench into all of this even at a theoretical level. If you can't know position and the momentum of a particle at one point in time and space, how do you capture it and convert it into energy?
Actually the ME262 had swept back wings to solve center of gravity issues. But the Germans did research swept wings and it was not for controls issues since Adolf Busemann propose the idea of using swept wings to reduce wave drag in the early 1930s.
The shockwave problem (see previous post) causes the control problems (like on the P-38) because the air after going through a shockwave is very turbulent and chaotic (like when you turn on your facet to full vs turning on your facet on a little). Straight wing aircraft usually have straight wing control surfaces (on the tail) so when the aircraft is moving near sound speed, shockwave develops on the wings, and it develops on the control surface. At near sonic speeds, the moving part of the control surface (trailing edge) is now acting on air that is chaotic and disordered, thus reducing or eliminating its effectiveness and thus loss of control of the aircraft. Although sweeping the control surface is one way to reduce this problem at near sonic speeds, this solution doesn't work for super sonic speeds (it can actually cause control reversal), the general solution to the problem was making an all-moving tail. For an all moving tail, at subsonic speed the leading edge of the control surface is still effective. If you look at super sonic fighters the entire tail moves as oppose to commercial airliners. where only the trailing edge of the tail moves.
It wasnt done just for the loss of control at high speeds. It was one of the contributing factors. The shockwave problem is what its called but in the end the air is being disrupted to the point that the plane becomes uncontrollable. The swept wings helped on the ME262 not because it was supersonic nor that it was close to breaking the sound barrier. It could in a dive but not in level flight. It wasnt till the Bell X-1B that Chuck Yeager was flying broke the sound barrier in level flight. That craft even had a straight knife edge wing and not a swept back wing.
Had to read your last part twice, didnt realize you were talking about the elevators being one piece of the horizontal stabilizer that moves. When you were saying all moving tail I was thinking maybe you ment the wings that sweep back and forward like on the F-14.
That's exactly what I'm trying to say. I know that time for us in the ship would be just as normal as ever but there is something going on to cause such an event to happen. The laws of physics in this case seem to defy common sense for some reason or another. I think that when we are traveling at near C or at C we become so heavy all the way down to the atomic level that electrons can't even move or move very slowly. So, that seven years to us is seven of 'our' years that we experience. If you think about it like that, technically we did make to Alpha Centari in the planned mission time just at our 'temporal pace' if you will. So, that is what leads me to believe there is a hidden energy that we may be able to manipulate much as we do Ohms Law (the big chart). If you know anything about series and parallel circuits you'll get what I just said
I do agree with your argument though, I really do because I believe the same thing however I think we as a people need to start thinking outside the proverbial box. I think of old physics as something you saw on TV. A point of view so to speak. It doesn't make that person right. If we star succumbing to the accepted norm we will never be truly above average. I'm pretty sure there real scientist's in this forum. Trekkie's are everywhere for Pete's sake. Maybe we can peek their interest and we can all start throwing ideas around like a consortium?
The Japanese did it simpler.
They just sent F-14s out into space
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/55/VF_25_Superpacks.jpg
1. No one has for certain pinned down that gravity propagates at the speed of light. There is some evidence to suggest that it does so instantaneously. If you could, therefore, somehow turn yourself into gravitons, then your travel would be very, very fast if not instantaneous.
2. No one can ACCELERATE to the speed of light. It doesn't say anything about suddenly being at FTL speeds. Although this method would be similar to trying to get the universe to divide by zero without it noticing (as an instantaneous acceleration has an a=(s1-s2)/t denominator of 0).
3. None of it's been verified. That's always the fun one. I like to imagine I live in a universe where, when someone attempts to accelerate to FTL, they approach the speed of light, hit it, and just keep going without a problem.
I mean, we are the species that was fairly certain we would vaporize our own atmosphere, and did it anyway. We've been wrong before, and I think the constant appearance of 'dark X' as explanations for things is telling us we might have to re-examine our systems.
Thats the problem we need to start re thinking our views but we wont. Our schools as far as I know are not teaching that Einstein`s ideas are now being questioned as we have satilites that are not doing what they should be based off Einstein's theory which everyone takes as the real deal truth.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/04/killer_warp_drive/
Makes sense. We are wanting to mine the moon and mars for resources. But I guess doing it to a barren landscape is better than to a thriving world.