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Questions tagged [warp-drives]

warp drives are generic conceptual space travel mechanisms that try to work around physical limits in the speed of propagation of light imposed by special relativity. Usually they resort to speculative science (exotic matter), or phenomena that are not yet well understood or is hard to make validation experiments (non-eternal rotating black holes)

2 votes
2 answers
183 views

Calculating proper volume in the Alcubierre spacetime

I'm trying to calculate the proper volume of a portion of the alcubierre spacetime to see how it compares to the euclidean volume element. As I understand it, the proper volume element in cartesian ...
user345249's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
216 views

Could Dark matter manipulation meet the negative energy requirements for an Alcubierre drive?

The biggest issue with the Alcubierre drive is that in order for it to expand the space behind the spacecraft, it would require negative mass with repulsive gravity. No such negative mass is known to ...
Ben Warner's user avatar
-2 votes
1 answer
403 views

Why would FTL travel break causality, as oppose to the relative time reconciling as in the Twin Paradox? [duplicate]

I have heard that if faster than light travel were ever made possible, such as by an Alcubierre drive, the user would be taken backwards in time, violating causality. This is odd to me, as it already ...
Ben Warner's user avatar
13 votes
2 answers
3k views

Why does an Alcubierre drive, travelling FTL, violate causality, if the universe expanding FTL doesn't?

An Alcubierre drive seems to be plausible as a means to travel faster than light, because it doesn't move the object itself, but the space around it. it's said that matter and information can't move ...
Prido1024's user avatar
  • 151
0 votes
1 answer
146 views

Einstein propulsion system

Will an extended body(cylinder) with asymmetric energy distribution across its H axis experience free-fall(geodesic)acceleration in free space(outside of any influences) in vacuum because of the time ...
Alien's user avatar
  • 11
1 vote
1 answer
50 views

Is it possible to make something similar to Alcubierre's drive but in gas/liquid instead of spacetime?

Is it possible to use something similar to the Alcubierre's drive for traveling in the water or air? How could it be done? Is it possible to make water flow around bubble keeping it non-disturbed ...
Robotex's user avatar
  • 768
1 vote
1 answer
115 views

Could Gott's Cosmic String Time Machine hypothetically be used as a poor man's Alcubierre drive?

I have read much speculation about Gott's theoretical use of cosmic strings for time travel, but if the colliding cosmic strings accelerated the spacecraft faster than light, as Gott theorizes, could ...
Ben Warner's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
349 views

How was this warp bubble generated?

The Debrief just reported that DARPA just "accidentally" created the world's first warp bubble. The actual paper is available here. My layman understanding is that warp drives were so far ...
Ruslan Oblov's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
154 views

"Swimming" in flat spacetime

Is it possible for a machine with a velocity of zero to translate its position in a perfectly flat region of spacetime? This is possible in curved spacetime https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/users/...
William Duff's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
229 views

How warp drive could be faster than light? [closed]

If the speed of gravity is as fast as the speed of light then there is no way a warp drive could curve the fabric of spacetime faster than the speed of light. Then how does a warp drive actually make ...
Kemsikov's user avatar
  • 141
8 votes
3 answers
665 views

How to make a warp bubble moving?

In answer to this question it is stated that: In summary, warp drives move because they already move, or else they need to propel, and their movement is not related to spacetime expansion or ...
Martin Vesely's user avatar
4 votes
3 answers
318 views

When can information escape from a black hole through a warp bubble-like spacetime?

It is well known that nothing can escape a black hole, including gravitational radiation. Many questions have been asked here about this topic, such as: Can gravitational waves escape a black hole? ...
Thorondor's user avatar
  • 4,080
4 votes
3 answers
225 views

Shift Vector in Warp Equation

In the Alcubierre metric, why is there a beta with subscript multiplied by a beta with superscript? I know beta with subscript is the shift vector, but what is the difference between the two? $$\text ...
user345249's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
284 views

How would a warp bubble interact with an atmosphere? [closed]

What would happen if a warp drive entered the Earth atmosphere? IIRC some scientists have created mathematical models that have shown that warp bubbles that don't exceed the speed of light may be ...
nick012000's user avatar
  • 1,309
2 votes
0 answers
35 views

Escaping from inside the event horizon [duplicate]

This is a hypothetical question. An Alcubierre Warp Drive can theoretically go any speed because space is moving and the ship is not. Could a ship equipped with this drive escape from inside an ...
Rick's user avatar
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