Hyperdrive. Looks like it's coming, but is it real?

[McC]

The volume of existing data is not going to abruptly change, so any new theories would have to incorporate all of that data and thus produce predictions very similar in most situations to existing theories.

Newton, meet Einstein. Your point is...what, exactly? Unless I've missed something flagrant, Droscher-Heim doesn't suggest to throw anything out, but rather look at it in an utterly new way. "Einstein shall be proven wrong!" is not even remotely what I'm suggesting. Newton was 'wrong' but we still use his work all the time.

You are echoing the idiocy of "intelligent design" fucktards by confusing the body of scientific observations with scientific theories and assuming that one is just as subject to revision as the other. Any new scientific theory can only live in the small spaces of uncertainty and inaccuracy left by the existing data.

This theory may be one of those cases; it is not actually ruled out by anyone.

See above, case dismissed.

But the blanket statement that scientists should never say something is impossible is utterly retarded.

I agree. Re-read the quote. "Never" is not a word used therein.

For fuck's sake, it's an Arthur C. Clarke anecdotal quote, and you want to manipulate the conversation to the point where you're pretending I'm using it as some kind of formula to prove something. Let it be what it was meant to be.

[Darth Wong]

Newton, meet Einstein. Your point is...what, exactly?

My point is that the quote is wrong. What the fuck is so difficult for you to understand about that?

Unless I've missed something flagrant, Droscher-Heim doesn't suggest to throw anything out, but rather look at it in an utterly new way.

What does that have to do with your idiotic bullshit about scientific "revolutions" happening in our future, and the arrogance of scientists for daring to think they know anything?

For fuck's sake, it's an Arthur C. Clarke anecdotal quote, and you want to manipulate the conversation to the point where you're pretending I'm using it as some kind of formula to prove something. Let it be what it was meant to be.

It's a quote that's wrong, and your clarification was even more wrong.

[McC]

My point is that the quote is wrong. What the fuck is so difficult for you to understand about that?

See final paragraph.

What does that have to do with your idiotic bullshit about scientific "revolutions" happening in our future, and the arrogance of scientists for daring to think they know anything?

Keep twisting my words. I don't mind, really. I said it was the height of arrogance to assume that what we know now is the extent of what there is to know. Here, look:

And, frankly, thinking that we are so advanced and so perfect in our understanding of the universe is the highest order of pretention and arrogance.

Save your venom for someone who doesn't hold scientists in the highest regard and find new discoveries fascinating, rather than threatening.

And, unless you're purposely just trying to be a shithead, Newton -> Einstein counts as a "revolution" as far as I'm concerned. Einstein -> Droscher-Heim might be the same thing, or it might not. Remains to be seen. I am actually interested in finding out if DH has something to offer, or if it's bullshit. Heim's work has proven remarkably accurate in the past. There's some premise, then, for subsequent work to have at least the potential for merit.

It's a quote that's wrong, and your clarification was even more wrong.

Do you get off on this? I mean, seriously. Yes, the quote is hyperbole. Congratulations, you have deemed a quote hyperbolic in nature. Have a medal. Quotes that mean to make a point (i.e. be a little humble about presuming to know everything) tend to do that. If you seriously want to continue with the premise that ACC was trying to say, "Scientists who say 'X' cannot happen are always wrong and stupid," be my guest. You only make yourself look like a moron.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Given BAE Systems and NASA have spent millions trying to get Podkletnov's experiments reproduced, I no longer hold out much hope for anti-gravity engines. They seem to be quite elusive at the very least, if not impossible.

This theory appears to have nothing to do with those experiments, though. At all.

Those that have sat down and gone through his math, and claim to understand it, seem to think its possible Mathematically, whether its possible in practise we'll see if they ever get around to testing it.

People are quick to say "not possible" but have you looked at it and understood it and come to that conclusion, or are you simply saying that because thats what your knowledge of physics says can happen?

From my understanding of that article this seems to be a whole new way of looking at relativity type physics as we know it, so its quite probable it could suggest things are possible that are impossible with what we've seen.

if its observably correct then we could have another revolution in scientific theory, in which case. Awesome. If not then nevermind its not the end of the world.

This could end up being like the, wormholes are possible in theory or the Time travel is possible, in theory situation.

What we need is peer reviewed experiments, which haven't taken place yet due to the resource requirements for such experiments.

I'm not going to proclaim its impossible until somebody comes out and proves all that maths wrong. Which hasn't happened. To do so would be shortsighted. But i'm not saying it is possible simply because i don't understand any of it.. beyond what the article explained.

The paper posits that one can apply Einstein to 8-dimensional space and come up with a number of new interactions. That's fine. You can use these interactions to generate a repulsive force through the interaction of gravitons and 'positive gravitophotons.' That too is fine, and could possibly yield neat antigravity technology . . . though you need a rotating electromagnetic coil with several hundred thousand turns capable of supporting a current density of 100 amperes per square millimeter and a torus comprised of a good insulator with a lot of hydrogen in it. The coil would have to be a superconductor, as that sort of current density would turn any normal conductor into a fast-dispersing cloud of superheated vapor. So there would be few engineering hurdles to overcome.

The FTL aspect, on the other hand, requires a coil with over a million turns, capable of withstanding double the current density, and capable of sustaining an even higher magnetic field. This would act on similar torus containing a "material other than hydrogen" and would accomplish FTL travel through a transform through a parallel space. A few more engineering hurdles to overcome, possible use of unobtanium, and a shortcut through a parallel space that doesn't even begin to address the issues of causality and potential time-travel that kills every other FTL scheme dead-right-there. (Though the transit-through-higher-order-space thing may actually have a use for producing virtual high fractional-c velocities, which are perfectly a-okay as you don't violate causality in doing so. However, this part of the package is already on very shaky ground, and may not stand up to rigorous consideration.)

The subluminal aspect of it is very cool, and there may be something to it. The FTL aspect of it, on the other hand, seems to be so much wishful thinking.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Am I the only one who thinks that if this works it would still be incredibly dangerous? Who knows what happens to a person passing through a six-dimensional space? For that matter, what happens if you open a hyperspace "something" on earth?

[Turin]

Am I the only one who thinks that if this works it would still be incredibly dangerous? Who knows what happens to a person passing through a six-dimensional space? For that matter, what happens if you open a hyperspace "something" on earth?

Um, okay... and let's say you send some kind of probe (or whatever, some kind of macroscopic object) into a multidimensional hyperspace where the "constants of nature could be different." What do you think you're going to get out of the other end of the trip? Metallic goo, or a cloud of charged particles, I suspect.

Nope, you're not the only one. If you're passing through a "space" where the laws of physics aren't the same, I can't think of any particular reason every chemical and nuclear bond in your body wouldn't just fall apart. You come out the other end (if you come out at all) composed of an "ooze" of subatomic particles.

[Patrick Degan]

It's fringe-science at best, and given how we still have yet to observe an FTL event in nature, quite dubious —any future "revolution of understanding" notwithstanding.

On an unrelated note, it would be interesting to see how much of science fiction can trace its roots to discussions of this idea back in the 1950s.

[Molyneux]

Oh please oh please oh please...
*crosses fingers and hopes*

Hyperdrive . . . please. FTL isn't possible, and there are numerous threads here describing in loving, erotic detail why that is so. The real benefit behind anything realized from this . . . should it turn out to be a fully-workable theory with realizable engineering growing from it, is the capability to visit Mars for lunch and be home in time for supper. Which would make the entire solar system our bitch. And, which . . . admittedly, would make conventional slower-than-light travel between the stars vastly more tolerable.

It would also lend some "hardness" to a sci-fi tale, but that's about it.

1) If it lets us get to Mars in a matter of hours, then that's still fucking awesome.

2) I didn't say that it's possible, I basically said that I really hope that it's possible. You're telling me I can't hope, now?

[LordShaithis]

Throw it on the "sounds pretty cool, do more research please" pile.

[starhunter]

I'm an incurable optomist on this subject.....we'll find a way to travel light-years in hours or days, but how to I cannot say for sure.

[LordShaithis]

It's kinda like "Well, it's 99.99% likely that this is utter tripe." Followed by "There's a 0.01% chance that someone has discovered the most important thing since fire! To the laboratory!"

[Crayz9000]

It's my understanding that if there are actually more dimensions, since they're orthogonal to the dimensions we all know and love they simply exist as extensions of reality. That makes them pretty much harmless, it's not like you can get hurt by having a reaction with time now, is it?

[Surlethe]

It's my understanding that if there are actually more dimensions, since they're orthogonal to the dimensions we all know and love they simply exist as extensions of reality. That makes them pretty much harmless, it's not like you can get hurt by having a reaction with time now, is it?

If there are more dimensions, then they're extremely small, "curled-up" dimensions, which is why your guts don't fall out into a fourth spatial dimension, and why gravity's strength decreases with the square of the distance, rather than the cube or fourth power. It also is why we have absolutely no empirical evidence of other spatial dimensions; as things stand, extra dimensions are mathematical niceties which exist to help theoretical physicists marry QM and GR, not actual physical entities with any sort of meaning.

As for getting hurt, imagine this: a two dimensional organism, with internal organs and all the baggage necessary to live (ignore its impossibility for the moment) suddenly gets transported into a three-dimensional environment. What happens? The third spatial dimension is an extension of the two he's used to; however, that doesn' mean he can survive at all in three dimensions.

[Molyneux]

It's my understanding that if there are actually more dimensions, since they're orthogonal to the dimensions we all know and love they simply exist as extensions of reality. That makes them pretty much harmless, it's not like you can get hurt by having a reaction with time now, is it?

If there are more dimensions, then they're extremely small, "curled-up" dimensions, which is why your guts don't fall out into a fourth spatial dimension, and why gravity's strength decreases with the square of the distance, rather than the cube or fourth power. It also is why we have absolutely no empirical evidence of other spatial dimensions; as things stand, extra dimensions are mathematical niceties which exist to help theoretical physicists marry QM and GR, not actual physical entities with any sort of meaning.

As for getting hurt, imagine this: a two dimensional organism, with internal organs and all the baggage necessary to live (ignore its impossibility for the moment) suddenly gets transported into a three-dimensional environment. What happens? The third spatial dimension is an extension of the two he's used to; however, that doesn' mean he can survive at all in three dimensions.

Why wouldn't your body parts tend to stay in the same two-dimensional 'slice'?

[Alan Bolte]

Huh...would never have expected this sort of thing. A unified model of physics from the 1950s that hardly anyone has looked at because of inpenetrable math...just odd.

[SirNitram]

It's kinda like "Well, it's 99.99% likely that this is utter tripe." Followed by "There's a 0.01% chance that someone has discovered the most important thing since fire! To the laboratory!"

Pretty much. Ergo it's time to expend some of those infinite resources called Grad Students and have them crunch numbers until we change the odds to either greater than point-zero-one, or to zero.

[Darth Wong]

Keep twisting my words. I don't mind, really. I said it was the height of arrogance to assume that what we know now is the extent of what there is to know. Here, look:

And, frankly, thinking that we are so advanced and so perfect in our understanding of the universe is the highest order of pretention and arrogance.

Save your venom for someone who doesn't hold scientists in the highest regard and find new discoveries fascinating, rather than threatening.

Listen up dipshit, my whole point was that the line you so conveniently quoted from yourself IS A GIGANTIC MISREPRESENTATION OF WHAT SCIENTISTS ARE SAYING WHEN THEY DISMISS SOMETHING, YOU FUCKING MORON. Scientists are not claiming omniscience every time they make a firm declarative statement about science, you stupid asshole. Accusing me of a strawman for trying to tie your statement to the original proposition is the height of fucking stupidity.

And, unless you're purposely just trying to be a shithead, Newton -> Einstein counts as a "revolution" as far as I'm concerned.

Bullshit; Newton is still used. If it were a revolution, Newton would have fallen by the wayside like gradualist crater formation theories.

Do you get off on this? I mean, seriously.

On what? Pointing out what some fucking idiot totally misrepresents what scientists are saying when they declare that something won't work? It has always been the province of creationist idiots to declare that every time a scientist makes a declarative statement, he is "arrogant" to presume omniscience, as if omniscience is necessary for any firm declarative statement on matters of science. Your use of this idiocy is inexcusable, period.

[mr friendly guy]

Ok, since the Heim-Droescher theories was an attempt at to be a "theory of everything", is there some physicists who can explain whats sort of the main differences between this and the other theory of everything, string theory.

I know most physicists can't comprehend the mathematics of Heim-Droescher theories, but perhaps somewhere they can explain the non mathematical parts in simple terms the same way Brian Greene does it with string theory.

[Surlethe]

If there are more dimensions, then they're extremely small, "curled-up" dimensions, which is why your guts don't fall out into a fourth spatial dimension, and why gravity's strength decreases with the square of the distance, rather than the cube or fourth power. It also is why we have absolutely no empirical evidence of other spatial dimensions; as things stand, extra dimensions are mathematical niceties which exist to help theoretical physicists marry QM and GR, not actual physical entities with any sort of meaning.

As for getting hurt, imagine this: a two dimensional organism, with internal organs and all the baggage necessary to live (ignore its impossibility for the moment) suddenly gets transported into a three-dimensional environment. What happens? The third spatial dimension is an extension of the two he's used to; however, that doesn' mean he can survive at all in three dimensions.

Why wouldn't your body parts tend to stay in the same two-dimensional 'slice'?

The same reason your guts would fall out when your belly gets sliced open; there's inward pressure on your guts to keep them in your body. Think of squeezing a bottle of toothpaste without a cap on: it's constrained in two dimensions, but it can fall out the third. Even if there were no inward pressure, there would be no constraint in the new dimension, so if you tried to move, you'd start to fall apart. Also, presumably this "hyperspace" is a vacuum; there's no spacesuit protecting the space travelers from the extra dimensions, so the ship, suits, and astronauts would depressurize.

[Dooey Jo]

I know most physicists can't comprehend the mathematics of Heim-Droescher theories, but perhaps somewhere they can explain the non mathematical parts in simple terms the same way Brian Greene does it with string theory.

Basically, the idea behind it is to expand the way general relativity interprets gravitation to all forces. So electromagnetism, strong interaction and even mass and charge are supposed to be consequences of the structure of the space-time. That's why they need all those extra dimensions.

Also, there isn't one string theory, there is a bunch
All of them are supposed to be special cases of "M theory", but unfortunately, no-one quite knows yet what that theory is like...

[Nyrath]

http://www.adastragames.com/news.cgi?msgid=471
http://www.adastragames.com/news.cgi?msgid=473

[drachefly]

And, unless you're purposely just trying to be a shithead, Newton -> Einstein counts as a "revolution" as far as I'm concerned.

Bullshit; Newton is still used. If it were a revolution, Newton would have fallen by the wayside like gradualist crater formation theories.

You know, APSnews, the official monthly newletter of the American Physical Society does refer to 1905 as a revolution.
How about you two stop arguing since you agree on every point except the definition of a few words and what the other meant by what he said?

::sigh::


Now, I had a thought recently, that makes me think this isn't so far out.

Imagine a large vector potential uniformly directed through space. This is just another choice of gauge, so if there is true gauge freedom, we can just say it's there, and there's no E-field or B-field associated with it. This is important. There is no EM field in the region.
Now, send a large neutral mass through the region. Where the mass passes, the vector potential is distorted, thus creating electromagnetic waves.

Therefore, gauge freedom isn't, in GR, and there is a nontrivial coupling between the EM and Gravitational fields.

If this is the same effect, then I wouldn't go so far as to say this would create a field of antigravity; rather, it creates an EM field which is proportional to gravity. This would have much the same effect for practical purposes, though.



ALSO -- getting out of the Earth's gravity well does require quite a bit of energy, yes; but our current means of doing it, via rockets, are extremely inefficient. If this just provided an efficient means of doing it, then we'd be in business just on the basis of that.

[darthdavid]

And, unless you're purposely just trying to be a shithead, Newton -> Einstein counts as a "revolution" as far as I'm concerned.

Bullshit; Newton is still used. If it were a revolution, Newton would have fallen by the wayside like gradualist crater formation theories.

You know, APSnews, the official monthly newletter of the American Physical Society does refer to 1905 as a revolution.
How about you two stop arguing since you agree on every point except the definition of a few words and what the other meant by what he said?

::sigh::


Now, I had a thought recently, that makes me think this isn't so far out.

Imagine a large vector potential uniformly directed through space. This is just another choice of gauge, so if there is true gauge freedom, we can just say it's there, and there's no E-field or B-field associated with it. This is important. There is no EM field in the region.
Now, send a large neutral mass through the region. Where the mass passes, the vector potential is distorted, thus creating electromagnetic waves.

Therefore, gauge freedom isn't, in GR, and there is a nontrivial coupling between the EM and Gravitational fields.

If this is the same effect, then I wouldn't go so far as to say this would create a field of antigravity; rather, it creates an EM field which is proportional to gravity. This would have much the same effect for practical purposes, though.



ALSO -- getting out of the Earth's gravity well does require quite a bit of energy, yes; but our current means of doing it, via rockets, are extremely inefficient. If this just provided an efficient means of doing it, then we'd be in business just on the basis of that.

Hells yeah. Best case scenario as I see it is that this does create FTL. Middle ground is that it allows for much cheaper surface to orbit flight. Worst case is that millions get spent and it ends up blowing up or something.

[drachefly]

Worst case, it works, opens up a new dimension, creates a door to a parallel 'brane that happens to be full of antimatter at high pressure, it spews out, we all die.

Wasting a couple million dollars for an experiment where we can't even get a negative result would be disappointing, though