NASA is working on faster than light warp drive. Yes, that's right. You didn't read the first sentence wrong. Faster. Than. Light. Warp. Drive. But..that's supposed to be impossible, right? Wrong...sort of.
According to Einstein's theory of General Relativity, nothing can travel faster than light. And so far, it hasn't been disproved, so how is NASA working on something that can be faster than light?
18 years ago, someone came up with a "radical-sounding hypothesis" about faster than light travel between stars. In his paper, "The Warp Drive: Hyper-fast travel within general relativity", Miguel Alcubierre proposed a way to accomplish faster than light speeds withing the bounds of Einsteinian relativity. His idea. in a nutshell, was to "bend space-time in front of and behind a vessel rather than attempting to propel the vessel itself at light-speeds." He theorized that you would create a "warp bubble" around the object that would give it faster-than-light travel without actually moving the object itself at light speed. However, Alcubierre also acknowledged a catch; you would need"“exotic matter” (matter with “strange properties”)" to be able to distort space-time...and the amount of energy necessary to power it would be on par with the mass energy of Jupiter, the planet. Because of that small technicality, the hypothesis was relagated to the basement of science.
However, NASA physicist Harold White has found a way to overcome his problem. After making minor tweaks to it, it is possible using only something with a mass the size of the Voyager 1 probe (that's a huge reduction: from +300 Earths to just under 1600 pounds). His new findings change the warp drive from "impractical to plausible and worth further investigation." This now brings subjects that were banished to the realm of science fiction into something that could happen.
While we may not be galaxy hopping anytime soon, eventually, we may be able to at least visit Alpha Centauri.
Source: http://techland.time.com/2012/09/19/nasa-actually-working-on-faster-than-light-warp-drive/?iid=obnetwork
According to Einstein's theory of General Relativity, nothing can travel faster than light. And so far, it hasn't been disproved, so how is NASA working on something that can be faster than light?
18 years ago, someone came up with a "radical-sounding hypothesis" about faster than light travel between stars. In his paper, "The Warp Drive: Hyper-fast travel within general relativity", Miguel Alcubierre proposed a way to accomplish faster than light speeds withing the bounds of Einsteinian relativity. His idea. in a nutshell, was to "bend space-time in front of and behind a vessel rather than attempting to propel the vessel itself at light-speeds." He theorized that you would create a "warp bubble" around the object that would give it faster-than-light travel without actually moving the object itself at light speed. However, Alcubierre also acknowledged a catch; you would need"“exotic matter” (matter with “strange properties”)" to be able to distort space-time...and the amount of energy necessary to power it would be on par with the mass energy of Jupiter, the planet. Because of that small technicality, the hypothesis was relagated to the basement of science.
However, NASA physicist Harold White has found a way to overcome his problem. After making minor tweaks to it, it is possible using only something with a mass the size of the Voyager 1 probe (that's a huge reduction: from +300 Earths to just under 1600 pounds). His new findings change the warp drive from "impractical to plausible and worth further investigation." This now brings subjects that were banished to the realm of science fiction into something that could happen.
While we may not be galaxy hopping anytime soon, eventually, we may be able to at least visit Alpha Centauri.
Source: http://techland.time.com/2012/09/19/nasa-actually-working-on-faster-than-light-warp-drive/?iid=obnetwork
No comments:
Post a Comment