A Potential Model for a Real Physical Warp Drive
upstart writes in with an IRC submission:
A potential model for a real physical warp drive:
A pair of researchers at Applied Physics has created what they describe as the first general model for a warp drive, a model for a space craft that could travel faster than the speed of light, without actually breaking the laws of physics.
[...] Imagine a napkin. If you had to traverse its entire surface, it would take a certain amount of time. But what if you folded the napkin in half and moved through and across the folds? You could get to your destination in almost no time. In this new effort, the researchers have taken a previous idea based on warping space-time a step further to create a model for a warp drive that they believe could be feasible in the future.
[...] Bobrick and Martire suggest instead that a massive gravitational force could be used to bend space time. The trick is finding a way to compress a planet-sized mass to a manageable spacecraft-module size in order to use its gravity. Because of the implied difficulties, a warp drive created from the model developed by the researchers could not be built today, but it does suggest that someday it might be possible.
Journal Reference:
Alexey Bobrick, Gianni Martire. Introducing Physical Warp Drives, Classical and Quantum Gravity (DOI: 10.1088/1361-6382/abdf6e)
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