Alcubierre Drive and Time Travel

[rah]

Meh, I'm a teacher. Unless otherwise specified I always assume that the person in question knows nothing.

That's only fair, the rest of us non-teachers always assume that you know nothing. (which you seem to strive to prove with every post)

[OneFootInTheGrave]

also

http://io9.com/5963263/how-nasa-will-build-its-very-first-warp-drive

for those who never heard what OP is about like me, SF concept being borderline testable in the lab.

[Lorizael]

Borderline testable, yeah. The Alcubierre drive still requires a type of matter to exist that we currently have no reason at all to believe does exist.

[Ben Kenobi]

I created this thread hoping you would come along and give a dumb answer, allowing me to hurl abuse at you. You didn't disappoint.

Yeah, good luck with your school. You're just pissy I replied and you'd rather *die* than admit I was right about something.

Here's a hint - folks who are actually knowledgeable about the subject don't behave like a dick in the way you did.

Here's another hint, everyone who's actually doing work in the field? Really doesn't give a flying **** about time travel. That's for the folks who have the time to waste on idle speculation.

But then what do you know?

[Ben Kenobi]

SF concept being borderline testable in the lab

Try "fanwank". The only way time travel even becomes a topic that's not fanwank is if we can reasonably establish that it's possible to access all points in spacetime. All this does can be better achieved through say, project Orion, which has actual science behind it.

The point is, time travel really doesn't matter. You can achieve the same results with constant 1g acceleration.

[pchang]

Not really enabling time travel, but equivalent to time travel in some frame of reference.

If two events are separated by enough space that light cannot get from one event to the other event, then there is some relativistic frame in which the order of the events changes. If, however, the two events are separated by enough time that light can get from one event to the other event, then one event will precede the other in all reference frames. The first scenario is called a 'spacelike' separation, while the second is called a 'timelike' separation.

How does this relate to time travel? Well, consider two events, A and B separated by a spacelike interval. If Event A can send a message to Event B faster than light, then that message can travel backwards in time, since in some reference frame Event B happens before Event A.

[My Wife Hates CIV]

if you don't understand the math you'll never understand the theory. it's crazy math. but... it holds up. strange... math don't lie.

[My Wife Hates CIV]

i will say also - i don't get the math... but growing up i did see it. got to meet a few cool people too. Ben Bova was at the house in NH one night for dinner - while he was editor of Analog Magazine. my dad sold a lot of science fiction stories to Analog and Omni. Dinner out when dad got one of those checks! geeze - I've said so much insane stupid stuff on this site - i cant say anything more. crazy!

[Lorizael]

I don't yet and might not ever know the math of general relativity, but the math of special relativity isn't hard stuff.

[My Wife Hates CIV]

it's all cool stuff... real cool. just think... IF all the nations for one year, one ****ing year... put the $$ they spend on defense (weapons) into manned space missions. wow, it's kinda like wtf when you think about.

[Lorizael]

Yeah, like, we might be able to launch the JWST.

Edit: Oh, you said manned. Pretend my cynicism made sense, then.

[My Wife Hates CIV]

we could be on titan. but no... we have putin, Obama and NK fat boy, iran and a party full of fools... i dunno, maybe that's the best we can do.

[My Wife Hates CIV]

ok the first number is billions spent on defense... i guess we would only need the first 5 nations defense $$.

World total 1747.0 2.4 100
1 United States United States 640.0 3.8 36.6
2 China People's Republic of China[a] 188.0 2.0 10.8
3 Russia Russia[a] 87.8 4.1 5.0
4 Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia[b] 67.0 9.3 3.8
5 France France 61.2 2.2 3.5
6 United Kingdom United Kingdom 57.9 2.3 3.3
7 Germany Germany[a] 48.8 1.4 2.8
8 Japan Japan 48.6 1.0 2.8


basa budget...
NASA's $17.5 Billion Budget Request for 2015

i don't know the total of the first 5... but wouldn't be surprised if NASA is the highest.

[Aeson]

Or we could spend the money on improving peoples' lives here first? (Two birds with one stone ... blast impoverished people into space)

[OneFootInTheGrave]

As long as we do not destroy stuff with military budgets, where do you think the money ends up? It ends up with countless engineers so ultimately it feeds people here.

However if we redirected those engineers to work on space stuff instead of destroying stuff - we indeed would be on Titan by now.