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Alcubierre drive
Wow, this could lead to someone having a very bad day. I was reading on the Dvice blog that well say we actually built an FTL drive that really could take a craft trans-light - it seems that anything at your destination would gamma ray and high energy particle blasted into oblivion. Ouch.A team at the University of Sydney in Australia looked at a warp drive concept proposed by theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre. As you might remember this is the system where the ship would be enclosed in a "bubble" of negative energy that would warp space ahead and behind the ship. Ahead, space/time would be compressed allowing the ship to "skip" across the tops of the "folds", and stretched out behind the ship. In theory, once activated the drive would require little energy because space/time itself would "push" against the ship, moving it forward.
However as we have seen with items in the universe that are moving away, there is a red shift. The opposite is true as well, objects moving towards us will blue shift. At trans-light speeds the blue shift would be incredible. The blue shift would come from particles that were pushed along in front of the ship. These high energy particles would emit massive amounts of gamma radiation. Plus there seems to be no limit to how much energy would be built up, the farther you travel the more energy from high energy particles would be released. The result would be very much like a huge GRB very near by. Everything at the destination would be blasted into oblivion.
Here is the link to the Universe Today article
Click picture for the WIKI on the
6 comments:
Possibly that would happen. Considering the field strengths needed for a bubble, and considering the technology needed to create it, I think we could solve that problem. Even so, if we couldn't, space is a big place. And we are only in one galaxy. There should be a way to aim a ship, so that the we would come out of warp outside of a star system (frankly I wouldn't want to try and warp through a system, and also see to it that the gamma burst would be moving through space on a path of non destruction. It would take longer to get to the destination, but aimed properly, the blast would never hit anything. Sometimes science just really screws up my RPG game here. Well, they are across the galaxy now in an experimental ship, and I refuse to go back and change all the tech in my game now. Besides, I still think controlled wormholes are the best idea. If we ever figure that out that is. I'll take anything, just give me a fracking ship, and let me go. I'll make sure i miss the destination point and not fry it to oblivion. No promises about anything beyond that however. Just let me off this planet before the politically religious government sapiens blow it up, and take all of us with them.
Yep Kallamis
One of the bullet points that I garnered from the article that they would HAVE to arrive at their destination with an orientation pointing away from populated areas. The ship and the bubble are not the problem, it is the particles pushed ahead that pick up the energy. I pondered a way to contain and utilize that energy, but when you're talking about gamma levels equal to a small supernova. Not sure how you would do that.
I was too. Figured maybe I could cheat on energy source with this idea. All I could figure out, was some type of field generation, that would kick in right before dropping out, (or preferably in use full warp flight), hold and eject the particles randomly, or transfer a part into a ships reserve energy source, or as a fuel somehow. If I come up with anything, with any reasonable science behind it, I'll let you know. Don't hold your breath however.
Hey Kallamis
you come up with something interesting, entertaining or diverting and I promise it goes on the blog for our next Saturday's broadcast! Anything that can make them think, entertain or even laugh is fair game. So far it seems to be working!
As soon as I get my own computer back, (a new one as mine fried), I will send you what i did to their ship to solve this. I also now get to redo everything, as everything was in my comp. Be back in a few weeks i hope, as soon as I get a new comp. See you all soon folks. And I'll get that to you as soon as I get it redone again.
ouch! I hate it when that happens. ok, let me know when you are back.
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