TyMoore - 4/2/2007 5:26 AMLook at the hornet's nest that Miguel Alcubier created when he published his "The Warp Drive: Hyperfast Travel within the Context of General-Relativity." This stunning work--which created a lot of excitement on both sides of the fence--illustrated the possibilities that may in fact be available when one tries "Metric Engineering," the idea of working Einstein's field equations backwards. Of course nobody can do it yet, and nobody really knows what 'negative energy' is (physicists do not really know what energy is for that matter too!) but there are intruiging possibilities. Quantum vacuum energy may be the answer...who knows. But I do know that nobody had any kind of incling how it could be really done until Miguel pointed the way. And THAT was pretty exciting!
scienceguy - 3/2/2007 11:43 AMThank you for that thorough explanation. I see that it is improbable that we will be traveling to epsilon eridani with antimatter engines anytime soon.I am beginning to see that space travel is very difficult. We may just have to be satisfied with 6 people going to Mars in 30 years, unless something incredible happens, like Heim's hyperdrive working.
mong' - 4/2/2007 5:04 AM(highly speculative mode on)for what could actually give us some kind of "warp drive", I really can't say. research on the zero point field and its possible connection to inertia is interesting, the extended heim theory seems promising (and testable) and various strange quantum effects that have the benefit of working with established theories. still I suspect it will come from a totally unexpected reasearch area that wasn't looking for that in the first place, after all Newton was teaking a break when he saw the apple fall....for those of you who are still hopeful here are some things to keep an eye on :gravity probe B and its test of gravitomagnetism (or frame dragging). results should be published in aprilUC berkeley testing of the heim theory, results should arrive this yearLHC, should be operationnal by november. some exciting discoveries may await us at those collision energies(highly speculative mode off)