Ah, my bad then. I agree that their are multiple hurdles to overcome, however small scale is a start none-the less.
I realise exotic matter would be something like the dilithium crystals from star trek. I only used graphene as an example because the advances in electronic world created a need for a new material and eventually scientists managed to create graphene.
I understand dilithium crystals are fiction but with all the research going into subatomic particles at places like CERN and astrophysics hell bent on understanding dark matter and dark energy (the 96% of universe), who knows what wonders are waiting around the corner?
We went from a 'cellphone' weighing as much as a brick and able to make only very bad quality voice calls to smart phones in 15-20 years. I for one am excited by this, even though this might be all we hear about warp drives for the next 10-15 years...it's still good to know that the dream of inter stellar travel is alive.
Dilithium is fictional but not exotic (in this sense), although since I don't actually watch Star Trek I could be wrong about that. The biggest obstacle to the concept is that it requires matter that has negative energy density, which is not exactly allowed under normal laws of physics (hence exotic). My understanding is that Quantum Field Theory potentially allows some limited amounts of this stuff, but the article in the OP is sadly uninformative about how they seek to achieve this.
They are probably at the moment planning to use particle beams and lasers to create and measure microscopic space-time distortions in order to establish in what way we can use technology presently available to manipulate space time and what the general energy requirements for said manipulation are.
No, the extraordinary claim for me is that they are going to actually try and test it in the laboratory. That they are going to distort spacetime, no matter how small the amount.
I don't doubt the theory, but i never heard that the technology available to us was able to do just that. With laser interferometry? uh... how? This is just a fault of mine, but i don't know how that can distory spacetime.
So yeah, i will believe it when i see it published. And replicated.
[/QUOTE]
Clearly you are expecting regular journalism to be as informative as a scientific publication. I do not see any point in arguing with you seeing as how you only seem to impress upon how difficult this might be to achieve and not upon the fact that we went from needing universe scale energy to a spacecraft scale. I can not change your opinion and it is not worth trying.
Also, "decades" in my remark was to indicate that scientific publications will not publish a theory till it has at least a 3-4 sigma level, which it would take at least a decade for this theory to achieve.
---------- Post added 2012-09-19 at 05:16 AM ----------
And what this poster said is the main implication. They are at least going to work on it now even if at a atomic level.
Can you elaborate on the mechanics of how they're going to generate this distortion? I gathered from White's 2011 paper that he want to use a He-Ne laser to measure it, but I don't quite understand how the warp field can be generated.
---------- Post added 2012-09-19 at 05:32 AM ----------
No, I was expecting a somewhat more meaningful discussion of the actual science behind the concept. But apparently all you care about is chest-thumping over how great you perceived whatever development to be.
You have no idea what my opinion is. The fact that you keep wanting to turn it into an attempt to win arguments, over your own faulty interpretation of one sentence, shows we aren't even in the same conversation. So yes, there's no point indeed.I do not see any point in arguing with you seeing as how you only seem to impress upon how difficult this might be to achieve and not upon the fact that we went from needing universe scale energy to a spacecraft scale. I can not change your opinion and it is not worth trying.
Apparently you don't realise that scientific publications also publish findings without requiring it to be developed into a full scale theory.Also, "decades" in my remark was to indicate that scientific publications will not publish a theory till it has at least a 3-4 sigma level
And god forbid anyone asks how they are going to work on it.
Last edited by semaphore; 2012-09-19 at 05:33 AM.
fuck warp drive. teleporting is teh shitz!
http://www.time.com/time/health/arti...874760,00.html
It's not an extraordinary claim if you're aware of the fact that you're distorting space too. Every single thing that has mass distorts space. So what's so extraordinary about a couple of scientist taking this a step further? You also shouldn't forget this is going to be on a microscopic level, with, probably, even smaller energy scales. The distortions aren't going to be god-knows how strong.
Which is why I asked gheld exactly that, so what's your point in restating what I just said?
It's okay that you obviously don't understand the physics involved, nobody asked you.
You don't have a clue about my "scientific knowledge". But clearly making random assumptions that put others down makes you feel better, so I won't bother trying to have an actual scientific conversation with you.and you lack the scientific knowledge to understand what a sub-atomic scale means.
Seriously, throwing a hissy fit over me saying "the article in the OP is sadly uninformative about how they seek to achieve this". How much more petty can you be?
Last edited by semaphore; 2012-09-19 at 12:39 PM.
All I can say is this scientist had better not accidentally blow up Houston. The experiments he's talking about doing are basically just up the road from my apartment.
'Twas a cutlass swipe or an ounce of lead
Or a yawing hole in a battered head
And the scuppers clogged with rotting red
And there they lay I damn me eyes
All lookouts clapped on Paradise
All souls bound just contrarywise, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!
'Twas a cutlass swipe or an ounce of lead
Or a yawing hole in a battered head
And the scuppers clogged with rotting red
And there they lay I damn me eyes
All lookouts clapped on Paradise
All souls bound just contrarywise, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!