NASA reportedly broke the speed of light

gotWXdagain said:
Every time you pop out of warp after having been there for two seconds meanwhile everything you've ever loved has now been dead for 10,000 years.
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In this case you wouldn't see the effects of traveling near the speed of light such as an increase in mass and time dilation. You're not exceeding the speed of light, basically space is moving around you instead of you moving through space.
 
RDoug said:
Not quite correct either. In warp, space is compressing in the direction of travel, and expanding behind you.
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What are the effects on the craft traveling in warp? Would it experience time dilation? To what extent? This stuff is wonky.
 
I'm probably wrong but it seems this new form of space propulsion is a big leap forward. Even for just Earth orbit stuff. Isn't this why satellites time out? Because they fall back to the earth? They run out go juice or whatever and they can't maintain orbit?

So BOOM big problem solved. And it proves, yet again we humans shouldn't be so smug about possibles.

I won't hold my breath about deep space travel but 70 days to Mars is a big improvement with non Star Trek travel options. This is simply amazing. Now the speed of light stuff. Whateves. I stopped getting my hopes up about that when I was a teenager. WTF is wrong with ya'll :D
 
BEEF SUPREME said:
I'm probably wrong but it seems this new form of space propulsion is a big leap forward. Even for just Earth orbit stuff. Isn't this why satellites time out? Because they fall back to the earth? They run out go juice or whatever and they can't maintain orbit?
So BOOM big problem solved. And it proves, yet again we humans shouldn't be so smug about possibles.
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This. There are so many opportunities if this form of propulsion actually works. There's a reason we're not the only ones looking into it. Here's a few that I can think of:

-Cubesats could stay in orbit, creating very low cost LEO platforms
-Powered geostationary orbit could be possible, vastly reducing launch costs to GEO (right now...only few nation states are even bothering to put anything up in GEO).
-Space-based wireless networks may become possible
-Very cheap kinetic kill space weapons... that's scary.

Interesting side note: I'm willing to bet the patent expires before the technology becomes commercially viable.
 
jtrain609 said:
Exactly.

An ER bridge solves that problem.
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How so? If you're in warp, you're stationary.. No time dilation. Alcubiere solves that problem. Besides, at the speeds so close to the speed of light, what kind of energy is required for EM drive to be effective with the substantial increase in mass? Or does it even matter?
 
Richman said:
Why are we not excited? Because we've heard this, and anti-gravity, and home energy fusion reactors, and cures for all sorts of ailments time and time and time again on Slashdot, Reddit and all of the other hyperventilating science blogs.

None of them ever panned out. Not one. We can't even get Mr. Harriman's rocket off the launch pad without going blooie.

Big science makes little news. Big science news ain't. You want to get freaked, check out Crispr. That's the stuff that's actually happening.

Richman
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Allright, so being "stationary" inside a warp field negates inertia then as well? I mean, we don't want our astronauts turned to jello against the inside stern hull plating.
 
gotWXdagain said:
Allright, so being "stationary" inside a warp field negates inertia then as well? I mean, we don't want our astronauts turned to jello against the inside stern hull plating.
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It doesn't really negate inertia. Whatever momentum they had entering warp will be the same when they exit. There can be no acceleration during warp and they can start and end their journey at rest--so no acceleration, no inertia.. The only acceleration they would feel would be while traveling through flat spacetime using conventional propulsion. I'm not sure if they must enter warp while at rest or if they can enter while moving. Maybe if they entered while moving they would "splat" when exiting.
 
RDoug said:
No. There is an unsubstantiated claim that a laser exceeded the speed of light. And when one considers that C is 299,792.258 kph, a claim of exceeding C by 207.542 kph — which just "coincidentally" rounds out the speed measurement to a perfectly round 300,000 kph — this sounds suspiciously to me as if someone at the lab got unduly excited because someone else in the lab rounded up when they verbally announced the speed measurement. Because I find it suspicious that the measurement was an even number, and if C had truly been exceeded then the exact measurement to a hundredth of a meter would have been announced.
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Quoted for truth. You can't just throw around figures like AROUND 300,000 kph when you're talking about this stuff. Photons ALREADY travel AROUND 300,000 kph on their own...with no help. And nobody measures the speed of particles/waves in kph anyway; at least nobody in a lab instrumented to do so.

I thought the Higgs Boson got a lot of press for what it was. This would get way more press than that if it were what we're trying to make it.
 
Scientist 1: "Sir, our test appears to be a success. The EM drive is working flawlessly. What should we do next?"

Scientist 2: "shoot lasers at it of course!"

Also, who knew there were so many quantum scientists on JC. Any NASA engineer reading these comments probably feels like y'all do when cnn has an aviation expert on.
 
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NovemberEcho said:
Also, who knew there were so many quantum scientists on JC. Any NASA engineer reading these comments probably feels like y'all do when cnn has an aviation expert on.
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Well actually my major in college was Aerospace engineering (with a side order of law and comp sci).

The article isn't a peer reviewed publication. Its a science news blog not written by actual scientists. Its only scientific staff is an ex-Microsoft programmer and failed neuroscientist (guess he dropped a brain on the floor during surgery?), and a zoologist by training (spent a summer volunteering at the zoo?). Everyone else is a writer by trade and likely not qualified to understand the technical jargon submitted in a peer reviewed paper. So its possible the source of the article said something to the effect of 1.21 Gigawatts and the writer wrote it as "over 1 Gigawatt".
 
Just because I will use any excuse to post any of Neil's videos and share the amazing and profound musings of his beautiful, dynamic and unique mind and his wondrous, inspirational perspectives.....




 
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NovemberEcho said:
Scientist 1: "Sir, our test appears to be a success. The EM drive is working flawlessly. What should we do next?"

Scientist 2: "shoot lasers at it of course!"

Also, who knew there were so many quantum scientists on JC. Any NASA engineer reading these comments probably feels like y'all do when cnn has an aviation expert on.
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I think it's awesome that people have even a basic interest in this topic.

I wish there was a lot more interest in this stuff, even if we're not astrophysicists because, as a nation, we're more engrossed with email servers, medieval-tech border walls and who Taylor Swift is grinding gonads with.

Space on, folks. Our technological competitors (and eventual future overlords) certainly are. College is dumb.
 
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