Alcubierre Warp Drives: Faster Than Light Technologies

[@DrShaym]

Question: what would happen if an Alcubierre spacecraft crashed into a planet or a star while traveling at warp speed? Would the expansion of spacetime just move the matter out of the way, allowing the craft to pass through it, or would the gravity of the planet or star disrupt the warp field and cause catastrophic failure, or would it just smash into it like a ludicrously fast meteor? Also, what would happen if two warp-capable spacecraft crashed into each other at warp speed?

[@starmessenger8468]

You've been watching too many re-runs of "Star Trek" from the 1960's.

[@raydlee.mobile]

Never cross the streams. Just don't even think about it.

[@haroldkline4898]

If the ship and planet have mass and are made of matter, there will most definitely be a collision regardless of the "shape" or state of the space-time in the immediate area, and will result in the release of insane amounts of energy, in my opinion. In order to pass through solid matter, which we know to be mostly empty space, we would have to find a way to temporarily turn off both nuclear forces at the atomic level, and then hope these quadrillions of free-flying protons, neutrons, and electrons came back to their original atomic relationships when those forces were turned back on, once they've cleared the planet. If these particles decide to grab onto new atomic partners, that's where it gets ugly. Mathematically, there will be some collisions. Those collisions will release energy that could reek havoc on nearby particles, distorting their atomic structures and could possibility cascade into the complete destruction of their matter, their physical form.

[@LaSt_HiT_cRiTiCaL]

one day we might find out until then its anyone's guess

[@timothymclean]

Jon, there _should_ be an answer indicated by the same math which suggests these things are possible. The warp-capable ship would definitely collide with a planet; however, I'm not enough of a physicist to know if it would do ridiculous amounts of damage to the planet (possibly up to an earth-shattering kaboom), if it would distort the planet around it enough that there would be minimal damage beyond the points of entry and exit, or somewhere in between. (I've heard from Randall Munroe, who actually is a physics major of some sort, that a bullet made of hyperdense matter comparable to neutron stars would pass through the ground like that.) I know even less about what would happen if two warp bubbles collided. It probably wouldn't be good; my intuition about _how_ it isn't good is that the heavily-distorted space in front of the two warp bubbles would interact in a way which had the potential to create black-hole levels of energy density, but I don't know enough about the physics to say for sure. Sounds like a good answer for a sci-fi novel, though!

[@De4sher]

i already said you have the most interesting online content at the moment, but i think it's a good idea to repeat myself

[@montikore]

Still accurate

[@cluckeryduckery261]

Isaac Arthur: "he took the idea of the warp drive from impossible to almost certainly impossible..." Me: "welp, I'm off to join Starfleet. Isaac confirmed star trek is real." My wife: "that's not what he said and where the hell did you get that uniform???"

[@iamothien9420]

Get your head out of Isaac's ass because you're a moron

[@Voivode.of.Hirsir]

Liam White the Nerd What’s your point?

[@Gabriel-br4qe]

@@iamothien9420 whatever nerd

[@daunbozq7076]

@@Gabriel-br4qe why shithead like this is even here?

[@Ryukachoo]

9:20 lowering inertial mass is actually the core concept of the eezo drive in the Mass Effect series and they do go into the implications of being able to screw with inertial mass

[@intecrisis]

What is interesting is in mass effect 1 at least, they have the lower inertial mass active in their guns as well, which should mean it obliterates anything in one shot. But alas that'd probably be OP

[@ENCHANTMEN_]

intecrisis That's because they explain everything with mass effect fields. Like, literally everything.

[@loumorningstar7709]

I mean, they also have Aliens that can survive 50,000 years in an unpowered stasis pod and wake up completely unharmed. Oh, and giant killer shrimp robots. Oh and let's not forget the smaller killer flashlight head robots created by a race of space Gypsy's. And psychic people, made psychic by being poisoned with space fuel (Eezo). I think the drive systems are quite possibly the only semi believable thing about the Mass Effect trilogy! 😂

[@boobah5643]

@@loumorningstar7709 The 'psychic' powers supposedly work by manipulating eezo in the body, through a combination of the nervous system and an external computer, which is why the big 'psychic' attack is gravity manipulation, too.

[@palfers1]

That was a great trip. I have no idea how you sustain such a high intensity and quality level of video production!

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Coffee, lots and lots of coffee :)

[@NathanaelCrapo]

And a passion for the subject.

[@sam-zb1jy]

Nathanael Crapo nah just coffee

[@Anacronian]

Passion is good..coffee is better. :p

[@closair]

Andrew Palfreyman he probably never sleeps

[@mongevoador]

Fantastic video. I never looked at warp drives with this level of detail. As I said on other posts, Isaac takes us to meet the Universe like we were kids looking at the telescope for the first time. It's mind blowing! I'm already sad I'm almost completing the collection of videos. Every new one is an adventure!

[@Ryukachoo]

2:20 even if the hawking radiation issues keep one of these from going FTL, this is the most important aspect of this design, you can go 0 to 100 to 0 essentially instantly with no problems! Pretty much the best thing ever for sublight travel

[@MrPobanz]

@anonymous: Actually not since the space you are in is moving not your ship itself (no matter if FTL or not, the system works the same afaik), so it would be no problem doing surgery while flying from Moon to Jupiter with a short stop at the McD fly-in at Mars orbit.

[@FireAngelOfLondon]

A superb balance in this between the appropriate realism and scepticism and some optimism too. This is very rare. Thanks for the video, I will be watching more of yours for sure.

[@ravern1000]

All i can say is Wow ,loving your channel .some of it is very deep and slightly over my head but that's what i like .

[@Baleur]

If we never let something go over our heads, we can never progress. As a technological civilization, as well as in procreation lol

[@mortechrome]

I regret I didn’t invest myself into learning more than just the more basic maths in schoo (and that school had made maths more interesting, like implementing its use in astronomy instead of the tedious math problems we were presented with), that way I could better have understood things that are now ”over my head”...this subject to a large extent is, but nevertheless his videos teaches me something about the universe and physics😊 even with the limited math knowledge I have. And astronomy definitely is as interesting as anything gets!

[@maersklandro]

English is my second language and I have no trouble understanding, conservatively, 90~95% of what you're saying. My first language is Romanian.

[@ozdergekko]

me neither. German(Austrian). It's only one phonem (ö(a) like in earth replaced by another: o(a))

[@grimjowjaggerjak]

Same i'm french. He speaks more clearly than most of native english speakers.

[@davidclarke4301]

If you're English he just mispronounces words that all of the southern States mispronounce :P And I'm pretty sure that if he came from northern England it would disappear as we tend to use shorter clipped vowels. Saying that, I like your voice. Makes you sound like a friendly southern professor :)

[@chrisw1462]

Actually, Southern USA dialects mis-pronounce the 'R' sound, but also tend to draw it out. New Yawkas howevah, of which I am one, mis-pronounce it and cut it off. So to me, it almost sounds like a strong Brooklyn accent. And, like everyone else, no issues understanding it at all.

[@PreservationEnthusiast]

I've no issues understanding it. I don't think his r sound is too bad at all. The thing which makes it strange is that he pronounces "er" as "or" So water becomes wator and faster becomes fastor etc. Once you can get over that it's as clear as crystal.

[@Drew_McTygue]

You're amazing Issac Arthur! Ensign, warp 9!

[@ozdergekko]

make it so!

[@chrisgaming9567]

TLDR starting around 21:25: "So, if we can come up with negative mass, if we don't need whole planets' worth of it, if it turns out we can keep the feild stable and either there is no Hawking-Unruh radiation burining you, or you can sheild yourself from it, and if you can build one without needing to pre-position mass with an FTL ship, then we finally do have a working FTL ship."

[@rgbreeding]

That's a whole lot of ifs.

[@AmiratheAlligator]

Circumnavigating the globe required a lot of ifs, and it was done. Reusable rockets required a lot of ifs, and it was done. Flying itself required a lot of ifs, and that was done too. Want more?

[@chrisgaming9567]

^none of those examples make the fermi paradox fifty times as difficult

[@rgbreeding]

{Insert Offensive Meme Here} it's rather ignorant to make those analogies. The Alcubierre Drive is an "interesting" idea not a blue print. Next you'll tell me that quantum entanglement communication will be a possibility.

[@AmiratheAlligator]

RGB Reading I have watched Isaac's videos on this and, as a result, will not be saying that. It is very unlikely that Alcubierre drives will become a thing. Buuuuuuuuuuuuut, there is so little we don't know. Only 5% of the universe has a decent explanation and even then, once you go to the quantum level, your calculations go out of the ballpark and onto the other side of the galaxy. You'd be stupid to think you will get a perfect score on an exam where you only have an understanding of 1 20th of the topics. Ever heard of the X? Probably, except you call it "Deoxy-Ribo Nucleic Acid". Y'know, the thing that could allow us to keep us alive indefinitely? TL;DR Watch this space.

[@finarii1975]

As someone who tries to incorporate real science into his science fiction writing, I dearly appreciate the work you do here as it's not only clarified many things, but has opened my mind to new and exciting possibilities. Thanks for the great content and I can't wait to see the episode on wormholes.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

+Finari'i Glad to hear that, that's what the vids are for :)

[@jays1416]

You have the best channel for finding simple explanations for complex topics on KZbin you make all of these things understandable

[@morph261]

10:50 - 11:55 you are the first person ever to explain this concept to me where i actually understood it. Thank you soo much for that. Simple. Accurate. and easy to digest.

[@Hy-jg8ow]

Can you please comment on the following: "The NASA research team led by Harold White and their university partners currently aim to experimentally evaluate several concepts, especially a redesigned energy-density topology, as well as an implication of brane cosmology theory. If space actually were to be embedded in higher dimensions, the energy requirements could be decreased dramatically and a comparatively small energy density could already lead to a measurable (i.e. using an interferometer) curvature of spacetime.[3] The theoretical framework for the experiment dates back to work by Harold White from 2003, as well as work by White and Eric W. Davis from 2006 that was published in the AIP, where they also consider how baryonic matter could, at least mathematically, adopt characteristics of dark energy (see section below). *In the process, they described how a toroidal positive energy density may result in a spherical negative-pressure region, possibly eliminating the need for actual exotic matter*.[4] *In the process, they described how a toroidal positive energy density may result in a spherical negative-pressure region, possibly eliminating the need for actual exotic matter*. So apparently the negative mass-energy (which is exotic matter) cab be circumvented. PLUS: "The NASA research team has postulated that their findings could reduce the energy requirements for a spaceship moving at ten times the speed of light ("warp 2") from the mass-energy equivalent of the planet Jupiter to that of the Voyager 1 spacecraft (~700 kg)[3] or less.[19] By harnessing the physics of cosmic inflation, future spaceships crafted to satisfy the laws of these mathematical equations might actually be able to get somewhere unthinkably fast and without adverse effects.[20] Physicist and EarthTech CEO Harold E. Puthoff has explained that, contrary to widespread belief, even the highly blue-shifted light seen on board such a spaceship would not fry its crew, being bathed in strong UV light and X-rays. It would, however, be dangerous to anyone seeing it fly by closely.[10]"

[@nil981]

Even at 10c it would still take 5 months to get to alpha centauri. The alcubierre-white warp drive as it stands now is simply insufficient for any civilization looking to colonize their galaxy. The same 10c speeds would take 10,000 years to cross the galaxy. So clearly something better must be invented. And the only superior options are wormholes or the musha jump drive.

[@Hy-jg8ow]

@@nil981 It would still be better than rockets, it would allow to explore the neighboring star-systems quite efficiently.

[@Hy-jg8ow]

@Brandon Miraglia You'd probably fly traditionally almost out the solar system before you engaged the field + the negative mass is truly a huge issue, but maybe there is a substitute for exotic matter.

[@Hy-jg8ow]

@Brandon Miraglia But sound is a phenomena which needs air or water or some other medium to propagate, sound is basically displaced air or water molecules. Since space is basically a vacuum, you can't use sound. By negative pressure I don't think the authors mean pressure like tire-pressure or air-pressure, but something more like a field which repulses mass alone, an "anti-gravity"-effect. I am sadly not an expert on such a degree to judge whether or not the things Harold and co. speak about is even feasible, I only understood it to a degree to find it interesting and hopeful for a future in which there could be a realistic way to the stars within the time-frames of an individual life-span. But I am certain that sound can not be used in space, since sound does not propagate in space, so...

[@MilanSvitek]

... I just wanted to say that your channel may be the single greatest and most informative channel I've ever had the pleasure of watching. You make the most difficult subjects rather simple to understand, and have taught me more in a few weeks than years of school. Thank you for taking your time to make these.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Thanks Milan!

[@cliffhregis]

That was the best explanation of the Alcubierre Warp drive I've seen so far. thx!

[@MatthewCampbell765]

I haven't seen the video yet, but question: what happens if you hit an object (I.E. A planet-hopefully uninhabited) at FTL speeds with an Alcubrie Drive?

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Debatable, but it's generally explosive.

[@nwrked]

how would you hit it since you don't move?

[@MatthewCampbell765]

nwrked You don't move through spacetime, but the spacetime does move and carry you with it. Ergo, that bubble (and thus, you) would hit the object, hard.

[@nwrked]

I mean, my understanding is that the space inside the bubble is the "original" space, and that we compress/decompress (or, I learnt here, delete/create) space-time around, so I'm not sure we can even have the possibility of hitting. Expressing the other side of the debate, I suppose :) If this is how it happens in the case where we manage to build this warp-drive, it would then solve a big problem...

[@SargeRho]

Anything you hit will probably be destroyed, wholly or partially, and later released in the form of a gamma ray burst when you turn the drive off.

[@theotshabalala7840]

This guy is awesome, he makes something so complicated sound so easy! ☺ keep it up bro!

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Thanks Theo!

[@cluckeryduckery261]

subscribed. i love how you present highly complex ideas without being condescending. that's impressive. well done, sir

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Thank you, and welcome to the channel!

[@jesselun9535]

I think this is the first video/article/anything really which I've ever encountered that actually talks about what would happen if you look behind you after going FTL. Almost all other sources just say basically "who cares it's impossible anyways" and never talk about that black hole behind the ship @14:20 nor the white hole ahead of it. Thanks! 😃

[@jlselc]

Amazing what a couple of years of research can do. This is 2022 Jan. Last year it was suggested mathematically that negative energy was not needed to achieve warp drive. Not that much either. Doable but more power than is available now.

[@boots4yew]

Great video as always Isaac! I tell everyone with even the remotest bit of scientific curiosity that I meet about your channel. Thanks for your abundant time and effort. :)

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

+boots4yew Thanks!

[@CheifMcCloud]

Even if a warp drive is limited to sublight speeds, they would be extremely useful. Also, would a spaceship have to be in a vacuum in order for the warp field to work?

[@ericgolightly8450]

It could work around matter. It might create a black hole though.

[@ArchangelLucifer0]

I still believe the key to interstellar travel, warp engines etc. - is understanding the basics. If you want to manipulate mass, energy, gravity and spacetime you have to know what they are, what makes them them, how and why. Without it this is just pissing in the wind.

[@jonathanhensley6141]

Even older videos are great. With work i haven't been able to watch as much but nothing like watching Isaac arthur on my days off.

[@scottfree6479]

I can't stop binge watching! These are seriously the best documentaries I've seen in years, maybe decades. Edit: Mass Effect uses a sci if element zero to alter the mass of an object to accelerate it.

[@griffinbeaumont7049]

Good video. I really like the detail in your vids, gives me deeper insight than most

[@scannerman777]

This is the best theory I've heard yet. Sensible, logical, probable and likely true :)

[@90lancaster]

+2:31 I've been pondering these questions as it crossed my mind what (fictional) technologies in Star Trek are essential (in that universe) to get a warp drive working and not killing yourself in the process - and the whole initial dampening & deflector issue was on my mind with regard to the Warp Vessel 'The Pheonix' how primitive can you get - do you need to be able to have Anti-Matter as a power source, do you have to have some form of artificial Gravity - or mass-dampers - what about acceleration - do you need to accelerate to warp or can you start motionless or at just a few KPS. Did the Enterprise E Crew actually install anachronistic technologies on the ship to make sure it worked? I guess I wonder about it as I wonder how essential gravity control is to FTL of some sort.

[@marsupiallion94]

Lowering inertial mass is used in Alastair Reynold’s “Revelation Space”

[@IONATVS]

E.E. “Doc” Smith’s “The Chronicles of the Lensmen” is a hard to find book series famous for being the ORIGINAL (ie long before Dune) Space Opera, and for its massive scale (by the end they’re using fleets of Trillions of ships and snashing planets between 2 other planets moving at opposite relativistic speeds. More pertinent to this discussion, however, the author was called “Doc” because he had a Ph.D. in astrophysics, and so his FTL drive is really interesting and while he makes no speculation on how it could actually be done, he explores the consequences of it in great depth. The drive is called the “inertialess” drive and based and is a consequence of what would happen if you could reduce your relativistic inertial mass to 0 (Note that even light, which has a zero rest mass has a nonzero *relativistic* mass). If this could be made to work (again, no theories are put forward by the author, as even making a competent theory would require knowing whether or how different properties of mass can be manipulated independently), but woth such a drive your speed limit is a simple balance of the force your ships engines can exert vs the resistance of the interstellar medium, with all acceleration occuring instantly, and once they drop out of this inertialess state to return to normal einsteinian operations, they return just as quickly to whatever momentum they had when they turned the drive on (in-universe they call this the craft’s “intrinsic” velocity/momentum). And since the intergalactic medium is so much thinner, a jump between galaxies becomes only a few times longer than a normal interstellar jump, so there’s that. It’s a really fun drive system I wish more Sci Fi used (Mass Effect sorta does, but doesn’t do nearly as much to explore the tech’s implications).

[@grahamsawyer831]

I finally have got to post a comment; this channel is the pure D.L., I've recommended it to so many people - covers so many different topics in just enough detail to explain while avoiding drowning in detail. ALSO I really really dig the scale this guy is working to; if only half of our leaders, representatives etc. could see the big picture like this we wouldn't be in the sh-t like we are. bring on the future! I'll gladly go to Titan for starters even (especially?!) if it's a one-way ticket.

[@randomuser9001]

You should check out a program called SpaceEngine, it is a free universe simulator planetarium. You can get some pretty high quality visuals from it for future videos like this, it currently has warp drives and wormholes rendered near realistically, same for black holes, stars, planets, galaxies, and a lot more.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

A couple others have suggested that recently too, I'll have to look it over at some point.

[@ShanerTheGrey]

In my recommended feed 3 years later here in 2019. Wow the channel has come a LONG way Mr. Arthur!

[@natehigman3987]

Welcome to one of the most awesome youtube channels on the internet. Also I discovered the channel this year (last year?) myself.

[@SkyeRequiem001]

There is one a formulation which carries it's own problems for a warp drive which solves the hawking radiation problems, which is that the interior of the bubble may be causally disconnected from the exterior, however this appears to create the problem of not being able to disengage the drive from inside the bubble.

[@John77Doe]

I think I heard that one in the channel with the two guys with beards, the Good Stuff channel or something like that.

[@markchristiansen5683]

Wow, it's weird going back to watch this older episode after seeing all the new ones. It's amazing how this channel has evolved.

[@siimkivisild2251]

Its evolved but it was still great even back then

[@shaunhumphreys6714]

Trully awesome video on the alcubierre drive, basically giving us the equivalent of a ride simulation of it.

[@ytreview4390]

In general gravitation is an example of negative energy. Any object that want stay new some gravitation object - for example Eaath, Sun etc. should have some energy - kinetic or potencial to compensate gravitational field. Rocket to get into orbit near Earth should spend a huge amount of energy to get to stable orbit with defined kinetic energy. Saw gravitational energy is like a vector that always toward to the point in time and space where this energy is most lowest from all posible points in the space. And this is entropy that say that All objects try to get the Lowest Power as possible. As consequence from this hypotheses we need to create a low energy potencial on the front of spaceship. All energy behind will we positive and push spacecraft towards of this direction.

[@TheLargeHardonCollider]

I want to write a sci-fi set in near future after we've colonized Mars and are looking for faster means of transport to colonize more distant objects. Earth's Interplanetary Society decides the Alcubierre drive is now feasible enough they try to build one, but when the first crew turns it on they mess up their relativistic time calculations so instead of a short hop from here to Mars, they end up half-way to Alpha Centauri stuck in deep space, over 2 light years away from Earth.

[@thesage1096]

well talk about a fuck up.

[@DrewLSsix]

The Large Hardon Collider. they didnt include a reverse gear?

[@TheLargeHardonCollider]

Lack the energy to get back, or something. I realize it's a silly idea. I just like to think of us experimenting using this technology before we truly understand it. Like Apollo 13 :)

[@antifusion]

It's not silly, get stuck in!

[@STSWB5SG1FAN]

Actually that's a pretty cool idea for a TV / book series. Earth's first FTL capable ship gets stranded out in the unknown reaches of the galaxy. As her diverse crew struggles to find their way home they discover dozens of alien races, some who help some who hinder, on their journey and encounter all sorts of strange phenomena never even dreamed of.

[@johnkerr762]

I quote... "Detail is what this channel is about" Hallelujah!

[@garyk3478]

IIRC, the interior of the Alcubierre bubble is supposed to be unable to control the bubble's course or speed -- which would mean that you're depending on something at the destination to sotp you, and your aim had better be really, really good. But could an Alcubierre bubble be made unstable, maybe with its interaction with matter and radiation during its travel? If the bubble went away on its own every few hours / days / whatever then whatever is inside the bubble could just keep making new bubbles until it got to where it wanted to be....?

[@John77Doe]

The bubble destabilizing in the classical sense of instability with poles in the right hand planes of the x-y, x-z, and y-z plane.

[@maxnul]

My new favorite channel

[@digitalsurreal98]

another great video as usual!

[@wilz9388]

Flight or travelling into space seemed impossible for people of the past, yet here we are.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

That notion gets overused, for one thing I don't think any scientists were ever saying flight was impossible or space travel was impossible, and for another mathematicians tell us 2+2=5 is impossible, that seems to have held.

[@KuraIthys]

Whether 2+2=5 is possible or not depends on the axioms in use, I should think. (also the definitions of the symbols). Given that fundamental axioms are by their nature kind of arbitrary (if they aren't, then they likely aren't fundamental). However, having said that, it's unlikely you can construct a logically coherent model where 2+2=5 and 2+2=4 are both valid at the same time. (and if you could it would likely have a lot of other peculiarities that don't fit into our conventional mathematical framework either) The simplest case under which 2+2= 5 is valid is if course to swap meaning of the symbols 4 and 5, but that's kind of trivial and ignores the intention somewhat.

[@henryfleischer404]

In the lensmen series, the method of ftl travel is a machine that makes everything in a specific area have no inertia, and when the machine is turned off, the objects regain the previous inertia. The implications of this are explored fairly thoroughly, up to and including using it as a superweapon, and making aerodynamic spaceships reasonable.

[@wolfgangrohde6770]

Excellent videos. Great stuff! Wished this would have exist while I was studying physics. Most of my profs are not even close to the level of clarity.

[@linleyfamily8758]

Are you sure of the Planck Density at 17:05? Is it supposed to be a sectional density? I have never run across this before.

[@1503nemanja]

Great stuff again. Can't wait for the Transhumanism and Simulation episodes since those are of great interest to me, especially the former.

[@chrisryan5071]

Id just like to say thank you! I enjoy your videos. You truly are brilliant !!

[@furbs9999]

Where do i get one of these "woop" drives? lol. Again another great vid, so glad i found this channel, love it.

[@chipkrug4191]

In your slide at 17:15, should the Plank Density be cm^3 rather than cm^2?

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Yes, yes it should, good catch.

[@thefran901]

Question: When you are using this method for FTL travel, and for example, if you are traveling to a place 10 light years away, do you also get the effect that almost no time passes for the traveler as he approaches light speed, while an observer on the destination perceives that 10 years passed from his point of view? Or that's only for when you are actually moving your mass close to the speed of light?

[@alexanderkracinovich6123]

9:37. If you lowered the initial mass of fuel of the rocket, wouldn't that proportional decrease the energy of the fuel, since energy = mass * c^2?

[@willimo8565]

Picture the example, I have an electromagnet that bends space time whenever electricity is applied, this electromagnet bends space time positively and creates a small gravitational pull (as any positive energy form will bend space time positively), when electricity is taken off the electromagnet, the space time returns to its resting position (the position where the space time was without the electromagnet being powered), if you thought of it in 2 dimensions you could say the space is rising up when looking at it from a horizontal angle. Is this a negative effect on space time whenever it rises up, whenever the space time is returning to the state of where is was when the electromagnet was powered off?

[@twt3716]

David Adair and myself made one of these in the eighties. The problem we found wasnt so much the power consumed, but the cooling of the engines. After testing many synthetic coolants we had to settle on old fashioned glycol.

[@lawrenceworrell591]

In regards to the black body radiation. So wouldn't the amount you get bombarded with depend on the size of the black hole (or its acceleration equivalent), due to tidal forces? or do you mean that the black hole would be a fixed size regardless? Would it be a Planck sized black hole in order for it to hit you with the highest temp possible? Also the black hole would form inside the warp bubble? I thought the space inside was at a stand still. The reason I ask this is because if it forms behind you outside the bubble, but follows you, wouldn't you be moving to fast for it to catch you, considering the radiation is only moving at the speed of light? Could you hit it with your negative mass ray to negate it? Would the White Hole in front absorb the black body radiation or contribute to it? Could you bleed of the possible energy build up on the front with a ramscoop of some type?

[@arthurdsjrjbr]

14:15 If the Space Compression is on the front, and the dilation is on the back, why when FTL the Blackhole is formed behind and the White Hole at the front? Wouldn't It be the inverse?

[@DerBingle1]

Very recently in our history it was believed that the speed of sound was the absolute top speed before hitting the "sound barrier". The speed of light it the same thing. One day, we'll be able to break the light barrier and get around the our local region of the galaxy pretty fast.

[@BeastKing00]

Right? It's a trope that replays itself seemingly endlessly in history. "You can't fly, only birds can fly" "A human can't go faster than an automobile, they'll die" "Humanity will never leave the earth" "There is nothing west of Europe" and so on. The ideas we have today about how FTL will work are probably way off track to how they will actually play out in the future when it occurs, but that isn't to say it will never happen. The beauty and abomination of intelligent creatures is their separation from nature and the ability to imagine. We will keep scratching at our next obsession until it happens; maybe not the way we intended it to be, but it will.

[@MrStevetmq]

I don't know if I misunderstand/stood. A laser across a room if that room is moving up will make a dot on the opposite wall a little lower. This example was used to suggest that the beam was bent. However the beam is not bent it is just that the room has moved in relation to the beam making it look as it it was bent. (No warping of spacetime just movement though spacetime). But hay I'll keep with it and watch the rest.

[@Elliandr]

Question: Doesn't the existence of hawking radiation require the existence of negative mass particles and therefore makes artificial black holes a route of obtaining the exotic matter needed to create a warp drive? To explain, hawking radiation works via virtual particles. A negative mass particle forms inside the event horizon while it's pair, a positive mass particle, forms outside of the event horizon. Since nothing can leave the event horizon, the two particles become real with the negative mass staying inside the black hole negating some of it's mass and the positive mass particle having a chance of either falling into the black hole itself or leaving it. This is a completely random process, but over time results in the black hole evaporating mass. The thing is though, nothing in this model shows me that it can't happen the other way around. Couldn't a negative mass particle appear outside of the event horizon while a positive mass particle appears inside the event horizon? and if it is possible, why would black holes favor one process over another? In any case, even if the chances of getting a negative mass particle is significantly smaller than getting a positive mass particle, I would expect that if a tiny black hole could be created in a super collider - even one that would evaporate almost immediately after coming into existence - we should see at least a few negative mass particles. and if we can do that, despite the extremely high cost of building exotic matter literally atom by atom, that would at least make it possible, and if it's possible despite those high costs someone would inevitably try to do it because the first country or organization that has a functional warp drive has control over the universe around us. One country could even decide to leave Earth entirely and just not share it's tech with the rest of Earth. The ability to do such a thing could make any price worth it, even for the value of raw materials alone.

[@Baleur]

But my concern isnt if this works or can be done.. My concern is, what effect does this have on the space around it? If you activate this thing in near earth orbit and fly to an intergalactic trade outpost, what effect does it have on things around it? Would it fuck up a piece of the earth due to space being distorted? Creating time dilation effects until it left? Would it cause ships around it to "fall" into (or "fall out of", if its an expansion of space rather than compression) the spots ahead or behind your warp drive? Is it more destructive than useful? Or could the warped space region be made so narrow and precise that it would only affect a cubic meter of space in front and behind your ship? But wouldnt that still behave as a singularity with the same falloff? Wouldnt you still influence the area around you and any planets or ships nearby? How do you "box in" the spacetime warp effect so it doesnt interfere with the outside world?

[@DobleWhiteAndStanley]

Woah... my brain. I can understand everything you said easily enough... it's the sheer scale of it.

[@AMC2283]

I think we'll eventually have warp drive. The fact that galaxies move apart faster than light means it's possible.

[@natehigman3987]

I do agree with you that we will eventually have one (whether or not it will allow us to go FTL would remain to be seen until we try, even if it doesn't, at least we tried and at least it would give us an open system reactionless drive) I do have a small correction to the 2nd half of your comment: Galaxies are not moving faster than light, the space between us and them is expanding "faster" than light.

[@cormacphillips2585]

"Burnt to a crisp inside the bubble" Love your narrative dude. 😎

[@gammafreightllc1770]

you should have been born 3000 years from now.

[@sethapex9670]

there's also a way to check whether you're in free fall or orbit/interstellar space. take two objects, hold them still, and release them. if they come closer together you are in free fall because the space between them gets compressed as you approach the center of gravity. if they just hang there you are either in interstellar space or in orbit. if in orbit you will likely feel small jumps of acceleration as the ship adjusts its trajectory.

[@rhuiah]

Great episode.

[@John77Doe]

Planck distance, the smallest possible distance before you start to get quantum overlap with two different particles occupying the same position because they act like waves and have a probability density function of occupying points in space. Planck time, the smallest possible interval of time before you start to get quantum overlap with no way to even measure time because everything is completely reversible. I almost skipped over this video and I am glad that I did not because I learned a new concept. Planck temperature, a temperature so energetic that you start to get quantum overlap and cannot go to a higher energy state. A temperature where you go beyond ionized plasma. A temperature where all the forces holding particles together is exceeded?

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

That's one of the common assumptions yes, that at Planck Temp all the forces are unified or cease working.

[@cyaneyed7146]

Thanks for sharing your knowledge, as always authoritative and entertaining

[@alflud]

I once heard it said that it may be possible to use a machine that can warp or bend spacetime to pull distant regions of spacetime to your location, switch off the machine and then get dragged along with spacetime while it returns to it's natural shape. It does seem like spacetime is malleable to some degree .... might this not be a better way to make use of a warping technology? Also ..... wouldn't any such device technically be warping/bending/pulling or pushing time as well as space?

[@florh]

just don't point your ship at your destination during decellaration, isn't it safer to just stop accellarating, rotate 180° and start the warp drive again to slow down?

[@jfair1006]

Dr. Who music covering a Star Trek Invention with Mass effect ruling the comments. I love this channel.

[@brookestephen]

sounds like turning space-time into a conveyor belt. I like it what happens when a piece of dust hits your bubble, while the bubble is traveling faster than light?

[@shrekgrinch5933]

What about a Alcubierre-Froning drive? It solves a lot of the problems/roadblocks of the Alcubierre-White drive mentioned in this video.

[@Enceos]

What happens to a ship's inertia after it reaches another star using a warp drive? Will it have the same speed relative to its home star? Will it have to cancel the inertia using conventional propulsion after it reaches its destination?

[@adamoneal6476]

So, let me get this straight, because gravity is functionally the same as acceleration it is assumed that it acts the same in all areas? And the act of observing a speed generated black hole creates it?

[@garrettord3304]

Would hawking radiation from the trailing black hole actually be a problem? If the event horizon of the black hole is behind the "warp bubble", the heat shouldn't catch up to the ship. Or is there some reason to believe the event horizon would overlap the warp bubble?

[@joshuahunt3032]

I didn't know lowering inertial mass of a spacecraft would have that insane of an effect! In a science fiction novel series I'm writing, I came up with a sort of device known as a "Quantum Vacuum Float," also known, more comically as the Loan Shark Drive. The Loan Shark Drive can be used to generate energy, while leaving negative mass behind. As energy is paid back, the inertial mass is leveled out, but if the negative mass exceeds the dry mass of the ship, the Loan Shark Drive breaks, sending negative mass flying everywhere, cancelling out chunks of the ship. Thankfully, the negative mass can be cancelled out by a secondary power source when not needed. So I'm guessing the Quantum Vaccum Float would temporarily improve efficiency of a fictional spacecraft way more than I was intending for my novels.

[@mmicoski]

Fantastic! As always, very good research and presentation!

[@estonianman]

Fantastic channel Isaac

[@My_Name_Josh]

Do you have any ideas for other applications of arbitrary space-time gradients? If you can expand and contract space like that, you could probably do other things with that concept besides FTL travel.

[@user-wy4mp9ts3u]

Maxwell found that by tweaking his formulas he could calculate the speed of electromagnetism ,basically the speed of light is determined by permittivity and permeability of free space so by creating an energy vacuum the speed of light around you will be almost infinite relative to outside and time will be so fast that everything outside will be standing still.Of course normal time dilation will occur at relativistic speeds but to you that will mean you are traveling many many time faster that the seed of light to an outsider but in fact you will be doing below the speed of light relative to your vacuum and because of time dilation your time will have slowed down to normal outsides time so you will not age excessively in the process as long as you move very fast.So really this is a form of time travel,space time travel.I believe this is possible using electromagnetic forces to force a vacuum bubble.How this is done I have no idea but somebody does,whether it be Aliens or humans I know not.

[@superpartes4990]

If such a spacecraft departed, "traveled"/let itself be warped through space in a circular path and eventually arrived at the point it departed from, would its arrival time be in the past, in the future or on the same instant relative to its departure time?

[@scorbiot]

I haven't watched every and each of your videos, but to hear from you that, for the first time, something that supposedly breaks laws of physics might not actually do so is amazing.

[@piguyalamode164]

If you did your acceleration correctly, would the hawking radiation decrease? After all, we do have black holes that emit less radiation. Also, if all of space is accelerating at the same rate, you have no crazy tidal forces to rip the virtual particle pairs apart.

[@ZeeWebbose]

Even if we can't produce the energy levels required to use this technology to travel FTL it would be amazing if we could use it to travel near light speed! Traveling to the nearest stars in a single lifetime would still be a huge milestone for the human race. I hope this research leads to something practical. That would be way cool!

[@grimjowjaggerjak]

Thats not that we can't produce enough energy but that the type of energy required doesnt even has been proven to exist.

[@Rokabur]

Being able to just generate a warp bubble would be an achievement. Travel around our solar system in hours instead of years. With either solar sails or fusion rockets, the nearest star would be about a 20 YEAR journey just to get there and another 20 YEARS to return. A warp bubble and sustained speeds would mean a round trip of about 9 years.

[@natehigman3987]

@@grimjowjaggerjak We think that all you would really need is Negative Energy which we have actually created in very, very, VERY small amounts using the Casamir effect. Either way I highly doubt we will get a prototype within our lifetimes, unless we invent Life Extension that is.

[@andor888]

So, how exactly do you start / stop such a drive? From what I understand the negative mass/energy at the back expanding space and the regular (positive) one compressing it at front IS what keeps the ship "going forward". There's something I'm missing here. Do we just politely ask our negative mass/energy supply and our black hole/very large mass to, erm, rest for bit, so we can stop?

[@jengleheimerschmitt7941]

There's an interview with Alcubiere himself where they talk about that. From inside the drive field there is no way to reach the area just in front. .. where the negative mass/energy is. So you would have to have someone else waiting at your destination to let you stop. It would only be practical as a highway system. ...for a given value of practical.

[@yusted1]

So what would happen the the space thats left behind after you leave. The way im thinking about it, wouldn't the bubble kinda rip the stable interior bubble from the surrounding space. Would nothing happen or would there be somthing like a void till surrounding space fills it in again. And would that cause problems with the density of space in the area messing with things orbits

[@timholmes805]

Ok I have a question , if basically you are creating a mini black hole in back and a mini white hole in front why can't you collect the high energy hawking radiation that's you are creating and feed it back into the black hole kinda like a fuel source for the travel, you use a bit of exotic matter like dark energy for the initial kick you need to accelerate faster than light then use a feed back loop to redirect the high energy radiation back to the black hole as a fuel source

[@DogmaFaucet]

There was a mention that suppression of momentum was underutilized in Sci-fi. One of my favorite sci-fi series did use this, the Lensman series by E. E. Smith.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Yeah Doc Smith has sadly fallen a bit out of favor in scifi rankings these days, probably the rampant sexism and eugenics, of course he also just opted to outright ignore relativity as I recall.

[@DogmaFaucet]

Now that you mention it, I don't remember any discussion of relativistic effects. I suppose like so many other sci-fi narratives, it would just get in the way of the story he wanted to tell, like Star Wars. I think he can be defended on the other points though. The view of women in the books was probably a bit progressive at the time, not any more sexist than any movies Cary Grant starred in. And the breeding program that ran through the series was aimed at a particular nearly singular outcome instead of attempting to improve whole races. I might need to back up some on that, though, since the Arisians did ...assist races they thought promising. But nothing like the eugenics we usually think of, working toward a master race of humans, culling the weak, etc.

[@shawnlund]

Love your videos Issac.

[@humzaiqbal3668]

Is there a way we could use this or any way to constrict and contract space time to use it in a way we can manipulate time basically time traveling? Mainly to the past? I know going to the future is relatively simple. But the past is tricker.

[@RamBam3000]

@Isaac Arthur - Have you read "Warp Drive" by scientist Travis S Taylor in which a expy of Taylor himself and his team develop a method of warp drive based on the Alcubierre model *and* the energy source needed to power it? Best of all, it's all done using real physics. It's a sweet read, and not dry at all.

[@Darkrunn]

I have a question about this theoretical method of travel. See, I'm writing a sci fi military novel (well attempting to) and I'd like to base as much as possible on science. So how do you stop the warp drive? Just shut off its power supply and poof, your "bubble" of space disappears and you're back in "normal" space? Or would you have to expend as much energy as you did at the beginning when making the "bubble," in order to apply an equal and opposite force and cancel out the contraction and expansion of space around your ship? Great video btw, answered a ton of questions for me.

[@jengleheimerschmitt7941]

You can't shut it off! The location of the negative mass thingy right in front of your bubble is not accessible from inside the bubble. ...have to have a friend waiting for you at the destination. JMG has an interview with Alcubiere where they address that problem. ...have you finished your book yet!?

[@mosteller1953]

I have an important question, about the atoms in space or any other small debris colliding with the ship at light speed. Would the warp bubble itself protect the ship from this, shouldn’t running into an atom or any other small debris go straight through possibly killing the crew?

[@bpdmf2798]

9:30 Well, Star Wars used hyperspace to destroy a fleet. Kind off makes you wonder why they didn't just send a droid piloted frigate or 2 to the Death Star and blow it up with hyperspace (or in any space battle in the franchise). Goes to show you that even in the best projects there are problems with writing and consistency in world building (not to mention using, intentionally mind you, different directors for the same trilogy). As much fun as I thought The Last Jedi was, I just couldn't get over how they let into canon a tactic in a space battle that petty much completely invalidates huge swaths of previous (and likely future films) in the series. Oh how prophetic you were Mr. Isaac.

[@richardchandler6969]

I must be misunderstanding something here but wouldn't there also be an Unruh effect from Hubble expansion?