7
votes
Accepted
Faster than Light in our lifetime?
Up to now, everything related to faster-than-light travel is pure speculations. You can do some magic with mathematics, insert negative densities for matter or assume the existence of tachyons ...
- 13.3k
5
votes
What methods are known that could be used to travel to another galaxy in a human life time?
No it is not really feasible for a human to travel to another galaxy as the distances involved are simply too great. Some people will not be happy with that answer, however I believe we should always ...
- 5,971
5
votes
Accepted
Could the crew of a spaceship with an Alcubierre warp drive survive if it only performs small "jumps"?
Do warp drives produce radiation? How much? Do small warps produce less?
Physicists agree: We have absolutely no idea.
Compared to the many unknown problems of an Alcubierre drive, dealing with ...
4
votes
Why would a warp drive move you at all?
The essence of the GR (General Relativity) that it describes things in 3 space and 1 time dimensions. This 4 dimensional spacetime is curved.
Thus, for example, this image is false in the sense, that ...
- 3,230
4
votes
Accepted
Does the detection of gravitational waves prove we can travel faster than the speed of light?
No, it does not. Gravity waves can't travel faster than the speed of light in the "direct" path, they will always appear to us as if that is the speed they are traveling. However, if space was ...
- 119k
3
votes
If you travelled at exactly the speed of light, what would the stars look like behind you?
You would not see anything, which is the same as appearing as if time stopped.
As you approach 1c, the light has trouble reaching you and appears to drop in wavelength, becoming redder, and eventually ...
- 4,375
2
votes
What methods are known that could be used to travel to another galaxy in a human life time?
There's nothing in known physics that directly prevents this. You just have to travel really close to the speed of light and you can get anywhere in the universe wihin a human lifetime.
In practice ...
- 4,375
2
votes
Would the ship using the Alcubierre drive need to use conventional propulsion to move during warp? Or would the space-time "wave" push it?
Warp drive or FTL works differently depending on who wrote the book. The Enterprise works differently than the Millenium Falcon. Hyperspace from Babylon 5 is different again. All of this should be in ...
- 147
2
votes
Accepted
Is warp drive a legitimate avenue of scientific investigation?
If you read a lot of Internet forums, like Reddit and Quora, and even this one to some (but lesser) degree, you’ll notice a lot of skepticism about the possible functioning of the Alcubierre drive. ...
- 172
1
vote
Why would a warp drive move you at all?
The two embedding diagrams show you the first half of the answer: the ship is always in an inertial frame, i.e. in free fall, but the local curvature of spacetime means that it’s “falling” relative ...
- 12.3k
1
vote
Why would a warp drive move you at all?
This is a good question that I believe can often be difficult to conceptualize. I would like to start out with that firstly, the physics stack exchange can likely do a better job than I can explaining ...
- 735
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