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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)

1 vote
2 answers
284 views

What exactly is the motion in Warp drive?

I know that there exists something like the Alcubierre warp bubble, and there are many threads here about it, but unfortunately the answers didn't help me to understand what the basic principle is... ...
Charles Tucker 3's user avatar
-1 votes
4 answers
588 views

Does this research paper prove that warp drives are impossible? [closed]

Does this preprint prove that warp drives are impossible? J. Santiago, S. Schuster and M. Visser, "Generic warp drives violate the null energy condition" It states that the NEC (Null Energy ...
Local45953's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
43 views

Energy distorting space

We know that mass distort space and time. Can energy do the same? How much heat will it take to create an observable effect? can we make a warp drive on that principle? By heating one end of a space ...
gunslinger's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
50 views

Warp drive small scale experiments "proof of concept" [duplicate]

Possible small scale warp drive experiments, or small scale experiments with quantum mechanics to model space-time warping? Why is it so difficult to engineer a small scale warp drive even though ...
Local45953's user avatar
9 votes
3 answers
3k views

Erik Lentz's faster-than-light soliton

It's well known that, in relativity, if you can go faster than light, you can go backwards in time and create a paradox. Also, attempts to create "warp-drive" space-times in which something ...
Mitchell Porter's user avatar
6 votes
4 answers
2k views

Analogy for Lentz soliton

Analogy for Alcubeirre Warp Drive: Every explanation of warp drive in layman terms has this sentence in it: "The Warp Drive will contract space in thier front and expand space behind." (I ...
Rounak Sarkar's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
131 views

Testing space-time warp on a smaller scale, "Breaking the Warp Barrier: Hyper-Fast Solitons in Einstein-Maxwell-Plasma Theory" [duplicate]

So according to this paper it creates a warp drive without the need of negative energy to operate which many think does not exist in reality. So my question is what would you do to experimentally ...
Local45953's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
63 views

The center of energy of a closed system maintains constant velocity in the vacuum of space. How can a warp drive overcome this rule?

In the following paper Introducing Physical Warp Drives by Alexey Bobrick, Gianni Martire they state 5.2. Constructing warp drives: Warp drives, being inertially moving shells of normal or exotic ...
Chahé Adourian's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
224 views

Will an Alcubierre Drive arrive before a beam of light, if sent between two stationary observers?

First, I'm not a physicist, just an engineer, and my first language is not English, so forgive any strange wording. I have a simple thought experiment about Alcubierre Drives: Imagine two stationary ...
foolo's user avatar
  • 143
2 votes
2 answers
76 views

Compressing the Earth to a 20-meter-wide sphere would only subtract one hour of time? (General relativity)

The Internet has exploded with news that the Applied Physics Institute of New York published a paper claiming that superluminal speeds can be achieved using a type of Alcubierre Drive, but without the ...
Kurt Hikes's user avatar
  • 4,509
1 vote
0 answers
215 views

Could LIGO detect an Alcubierre drive being used within 10 light-years of the Solar system? [closed]

Maybe this question is too speculative... But is it possible that LIGO would detect the ramp-up and ramp-down of an Alcubierre drive being used within 10 light-years of the Solar system? Also, if the ...
user1402154's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
300 views

Warp drive causality issue, and a possible error in a paper?

Take a look at this paper on "Warp Drives and Causality:" https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.53.7365 The author attempts to argue that the Alcubierre Drive spacetime could exhibit Closed ...
Joeseph123's user avatar
0 votes
1 answer
84 views

In an Alcuibierre like warp drive, what is the velocity of the object after the warp trip?

Presume a ship is traveling in an Alcubierre-like warp bubble. For concreteness, let us say that it began in a geostationary orbit (that term is used to indicate that the ship is in fact orbiting ...
Michael Stachowsky's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
59 views

Late time behaviour of the Alcubierrie warp drive metric

The Alcubeierrie Warp Drive metric looks like $$ds^2 = -dt^2+(dx-Xdt)^2+dy^2+dz^2$$ where $X = v_s(t)f(r_s)$ and $r_s = [(x-x_s(t))^2+y^2+z^2]^{1/2}$. Now, $f(r_s) \approx 1 \quad 0 < r < R$ ...
Dr. user44690's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
127 views

Geodesics in an Alcubierrie Warp Drive metric

The geodesics in an Alcubierrie Warp Drive metric are given by $$\dot{t} = 1 \quad \dot{x} = X\dot{t} \quad y, z = \text{constant}$$ where $X = \dot{x}_s(t) f(r_s)$. Here $f(r_s)$ is a shape function ...
Dr. user44690's user avatar

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