Warp speed, Scotty?...

[keithisco]

Faster Than Light (FTL) travel, oft mooted as impossible (however not by me), NASA are funding research into Warp Technology that does not break any Einsteinian Theories.

"In the "Star Trek" TV shows and films, the U.S.S. Enterprise's warp engine allows the ship to move faster than light, an ability that is, as Spock would say, "highly illogical."

However, there's a loophole in Einsteins General Theory of Relativity that could allow a ship to traverse vast distances in less time than it would take light. The trick? It's not the starship that's moving — it's the space around it."

Read More (Courtesy of NBC News): http://science.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/14/18253709-warp-speed-scotty-it-may-actually-be-possible?lite

[krypter3]

They've been experimenting with warping space into a bubble for a while.

[Lilly]

Now all we need is a Zephram Cochrane (sp?) to develop the engine technology and off we'll go!

[Rafterman]

Now all we need is a Zephram Cochrane (sp?) to develop the engine technology and off we'll go!

Could we skip the WWIII part though?

[bison]

Interesting experiment Dr. White and company are doing at NASA. They use an electric charge in the vacuum side of the interferometer path to disrupt the ground state and, they hope, produce negative matter. The objection to the Alcubierre space warp, of which Dr. White has devised a more efficient version, has always been that negative matter is required, and we don't know if it exists, or how to produce it at will, if it does.

If the experiment can eventually reduce the 'noise' factor enough, they may, just possibly, produce evidence of both negative matter, and a space warp. More power to them, say I. otherwise it may be necessary to reproduce, at least in part, the conditions that existed in the very early universe, if we want to control gravity and warp space.

In the very early time, the forces of gravity and electromagnetism had not yet become separate forces. Under those conditions, controlling electromagnetism, which we find fairly easy, may also allow the control of gravity.

Edited May 23, 2013 by bison

[Lilly]

Could we skip the WWIII part though?

Absolutely, skipping that is a great idea.

[bison]

Experimental fusion reactors and particle colliders are becoming more powerful all the time, able to more and more closely mimic the conditions of the very early universe. Given the unity of forces under these conditions (see my previous post), a beam of electromagnetic energy sent into one side of the critical area of one of these machines just might cause a bean of directional gravity to emerge from the other side, or produce other, detectable gravity anomalies.