Decius comments on Closet survey #1 - Less Wrong

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Comment author: Decius 08 January 2013 04:37:56AM -1 points [-]

It's distance and time which are more malleable; if light travels through a vacuum and arrives in x time, the arrival point is defined as being x distance away from the departure point of the light when it arrives. The Alcubierre drive would (given a couple of facts not in evidence) allow you to change the distance. Light emitted from you at the time of departure would still beat you to the destination.

Comment author: wedrifid 08 January 2013 08:54:19AM 1 point [-]

It's distance and time which are more malleable; if light travels through a vacuum and arrives in x time, the arrival point is defined as being x distance away from the departure point of the light when it arrives.

Sure, so long as the space being traversed remains consistent. Which it doesn't (always) given General Relativity. Hence Alcubierre drives.

The Alcubierre drive would (given a couple of facts not in evidence) allow you to change the distance. Light emitted from you at the time of departure would still beat you to the destination.

No, it wouldn't. The drive in question is described thus:

The Alcubierre drive or Alcubierre metric (See: Metric tensor) is a speculative idea based on a solution of Einstein's field equations as proposed by Miguel Alcubierre, by which a spacecraft could achieve faster-than-light travel if negative mass existed.

Notice the link there to faster than light travel. That title is a literal description.

For emphasis: This is General and not Special Relativity.

Comment author: [deleted] 08 January 2013 10:09:45AM 0 points [-]

No, it wouldn't. The drive in question is described thus:

Have you finished reading the paragraph the sentence you quoted comes from? And section "Alcubierre metric" from that article, in particular the fourth sentence?

Comment author: wedrifid 08 January 2013 12:23:55PM 2 points [-]

Have you finished reading the paragraph the sentence you quoted comes from? And section "Alcubierre metric" from that article, in particular the fourth sentence?

Of course I have finished reading the paragraph. As soon as I encountered the notion. Because math that allows what is for most intents and purposes a warp drive within general relativity is freaking awesome. Even if it relies on pesky things like negative mass and ridiculous amounts of energy. Oh, and would utterly obliterate the destination. Still damn cool.

In answer to the presumed (and I hope I'm not misrepresenting you here) rhetorical intent of "The first paragraph demonstrates that your claim is wrong" I would (unsurprisingly) disagree.

The paragraph in question is:

Rather than exceeding the speed of light within its local frame of reference, a spacecraft would traverse distances by contracting space in front of it and expanding space behind it, resulting in effective faster-than-light travel.

And, assuming I can count periods correctly, the fourth sentence in the passage you refer to is:

This method of propulsion does not involve objects in motion at speeds faster than light with respect to the contents of the warp bubble; that is, a light beam within the warp bubble would still always move faster than the ship.

Both of these are precisely correct. And the claim:

Light emitted from you at the time of departure would still beat you to the destination.

Is false. Light continues to be faster than you locally. That is, within the bubble. And the bubble goes faster than the speed of light. Light not inside such a bubble goes at the speed of light. You can get to a destination before that light does. Which is the entire point of a Faster Than Light drive.

Comment author: [deleted] 08 January 2013 07:33:27PM 0 points [-]

I was assuming Decius wasn't assuming the light doesn't go through the bubble.

Comment author: wedrifid 09 January 2013 05:28:32AM 1 point [-]

I was assuming Decius wasn't assuming the light doesn't go through the bubble.

Rather than not assuming that it doesn't he would need to be actively assuming that it does, or he would have to make a different, more specific claim. And that more specific claim (that applies to light that travels in the the bubble) would not have supported the point Decius was using his claim to make in the context.

Comment author: MugaSofer 08 January 2013 01:35:14PM -1 points [-]

Even if it relies on pesky things like negative mass and ridiculous amounts of energy. Oh, and would utterly obliterate the destination.

I understand recent formulations are better in this regard. </nitpick>

Comment author: wedrifid 08 January 2013 03:15:05PM *  1 point [-]

I understand recent formulations are better in this regard. </nitpick>

I assume you refer just to the ridiculous amount of energy required being a half dozen orders of magnitude less ridiculous than first calculated? Not that there are actually formulations that don't require negative mass? or don't obliterate the destination?

Comment author: MugaSofer 08 January 2013 03:33:18PM -1 points [-]

Oh, yeah. They're smaller, but they still need negative energy and they still obliterate anything directly in front of them - although that's hardly an impossible drawback.

Comment author: wedrifid 09 January 2013 04:55:11AM 2 points [-]

they still obliterate anything directly in front of them - although that's hardly an impossible drawback.

Definitely. Especially when it comes to one of the first uses people would consider putting this (or most other) technology toward. No need for a payload!

Comment author: Decius 08 January 2013 05:53:56PM *  0 points [-]

What happens when the bubble overtakes light? Per my understanding, virtually all of the light emitted within the bubble in the direction of travel ends up in one front at the front of the bubble, along with all of the light overtaken. All of the matter overtaken accumulates along the edge of the bubble where space warps at their velocity, after experiencing some effects of misunderstood severity when space warps around them (does interstellar atomic H-1 fuse into He-2 when the distance between atoms falls inside the region where the weak force dominates? What happens when a solid chunk of mostly Pb-206 has the distance between multiple atoms is reduced to below the range of the weak force?). What happens when the bubble overtakes the gravity effect of the matter within the bubble?

'Obliterates the destination' might be a little bit of an understatement.

Comment author: wedrifid 09 January 2013 05:23:53AM *  0 points [-]

after experiencing some effects of misunderstood severity

Do you mean 'poorly understood' rather than misunderstood? When talking about using negative mass and enormous energy to warp space itself to travel faster than freaking light. Most with even the most rudimentary grasp would see that the effects are inconceivably severe in relation to such a small object and bubble. Being unable to conceive of the scope or currently not knowing in detail is a very different state of knowledge to misunderstanding. At least, it is difference in epistemic states that seems rather important to me. (A wrong map leads you to walk into quicksand. An known to be incomplete map leads you to watch where you are walking or google up a better one.)

What happens when the bubble overtakes light?

The same thing that happens when I overtake a car. I go around. What I definitely do not do is go around saying "Um, the current definition of speed prohibits FTL motion" because whenever I am racing light I must handicap myself and take the light I am racing along with me for a ride.

Comment author: Decius 09 January 2013 12:23:10PM -1 points [-]

I meant "Everything that we currently understand about the phenomenon is almost certainly completely wrong." That's after accounting for what we know we don't know.

How, exactly, do you "go around" a wavefront which is propagating out from you in all directions? I'm still hazy on what the effects of autogravitation would be; once you overtake the light/gravational effect from you, are you accelerated towards your prior location proportionally to your mass and the inverse of the cube of distance from yourself?

Of course, if the travel is at some speed slower than that of light, no self-interaction effects are required. The warp drive doesn't beat the speed record, it beats the distance record.

Describing a method of travel as "faster than x" when x departs at the same time and arrives before you is the opposite of plain language. Distance and elapsed time between events is already agreed to be not constant even between colocated observers. That is an effect of postulating that light propagates at the same speed for all observers.

Comment author: nshepperd 09 January 2013 12:59:35PM *  1 point [-]

If you leave Earth in a spaceship using an alcubierre drive and simultanously have someone emit a radio signal from Mars, reach alpha centauri in half an hour, then observe that same radio signal arrive at alpha centauri after approximately six years of lounging around on an alien planet, then you have beaten that light to your destination. You have traveled faster than light.

Your other questions, about your own gravitational force, I assume need to be answered by an actual expert on general relativity.

Comment author: Decius 10 January 2013 02:17:17AM -1 points [-]

What do you mean by "simultanously"? You've used it to refer to events which do not occur at the same place.

I think that you've shown that the distance between your departure point and Mars is six light years; you've done that by moving space around such that the point you departed from is in the vicinity of Alpha Centauri.

Space and time aren't defined to be static in the way the math I understand requires it to be.

Comment author: nshepperd 10 January 2013 06:15:35AM *  2 points [-]

What do you mean by "simultanously"? You've used it to refer to events which do not occur at the same place.

The details are not significant. Simultaneously in the rest frame of earth. Whatever. Or send a timing signal from Mars to Earth at the same time as the radio message is emitted toward Alpha Centauri, then leave Earth when you receive the timing signal. You'll still arrive before the radio message, even though you've given it a head start.

I think that you've shown that the distance between your departure point and Mars is six light years;

The distance between Earth and Mars is 225 million km on average, or 12.5 light minutes.

If you like, you can send your radio message from the same location as your departure point. First emit a (directional) radio signal from earth toward Alpha Centauri. Then depart in your spaceship, just making sure not to collide with the radio signal on your way there (go a different way, say by taking a pit stop at Vega). You'll still get there before the light signal.

you've done that by moving space around such that the point you departed from is in the vicinity of Alpha Centauri.

In a sense, yes, that is exactly what an alcubierre drive is meant to do. The trajectory that starts at Earth, enters the bubble, sits there a while, exits the bubble and arrives at Alpha Centauri travels "locally" less than six light years. The bubble train might be analogised to a wormhole in that it establishes a shorter path between two otherwise distance places.

But unlike a wormhole, the Alcubierre drive doesn't require you set up the path and destination in advance (unless Krasnikov is right, and there aren't any tachyons), and it's an effect confined to the vicinity—in space and time—of the ship using it. So in all meaningful senses it can reasonably be described as a faster than light drive, as opposed to a bridge, which is what a wormhole is.

Comment author: evand 10 January 2013 05:06:03AM 0 points [-]

The radio signal and the ship leave from points that are near each other in the space-time metric. In other words, simultaneous from a reference frame in which they are physically close.

You've moved space around, but only for a small local (space-time wise) area; you haven't permanently moved the two stars closer together.