03-15-2018, 10:55 AM | #21 | |
Join Date: Aug 2008
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Re: Alcubierre warp drive
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03-15-2018, 12:06 PM | #22 | |
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Albuquerque, NM
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Re: Alcubierre warp drive
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03-15-2018, 05:15 PM | #23 |
Join Date: May 2009
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Re: Alcubierre warp drive
I read the paper. I understood most of the words, but the math means nothing to me. It might as be written in Martian for all it means to me. Please explain to me what it means in words. Why can't people just use words? I still don't understand how a spaceship could go into a wormhole without being crushed by gravity and everybody getting killed. I had to look up some words that I didn't understand.
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03-15-2018, 06:19 PM | #24 | |
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: Alcubierre warp drive
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So: (1) Create your pocket universe (in this context, I'd really rather call it "subspace" for obvious reasons :) with a big wormhole to normal space; (2) Move the ship into subspace through the big wormhole; (3) Shrink the wormhole to tiny size; (4) Warp somewhere, enjoying the benefits of your not-quite-entire-bubble with tiny connection; (5) At your destination, expand the wormhole again to get the ship out of subspace and back into normal space. |
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03-15-2018, 06:20 PM | #25 | ||
Join Date: Aug 2008
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Re: Alcubierre warp drive
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Because math is the language of science. Quote:
|..........|..........|..........|..........|..... .....|..........|..........| Each tick is a gradation on the number line. You might have something that has a dimension of 3 ticks: .......................___________________ |..........|..........|..........|..........|..... .....|..........|..........| Now you might use some exotic material or some such to compress spacetime locally, decreasing the space between ticks, but retaining the length of in number of ticks: ......................____________ |..........|.........|......|......|......|....... ..|..........| The line is still 3 ticks long. It is still in the same location: starting at the third tick. The space it exists within is simply curved so that, relative to the rest of the space, the line is shorter without actually changing any of the line's properties - it remains 3 ticks long. Compress your bubble small enough, and it just might fit through your wormhole. Incidentally, this is the way in which spacetime is already curved by gravity. This probably isn't the best analogy, but it's better than just throwing out a trite "compress spacetime" as an answer. I hope it helps.
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03-15-2018, 07:09 PM | #26 |
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Albuquerque, NM
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Re: Alcubierre warp drive
Also because it often takes a *lot* longer to say with words. Compare "Energy equals mass times the square of the speed of light" to "e=mc^2"; that's a very simple bit of math to put into words, and it still takes almost eight times as many characters.
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03-15-2018, 10:24 PM | #27 |
Join Date: May 2009
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Re: Alcubierre warp drive
I did understand it in words. I don't care that math is the language of science, it's extremely elitist. Alan Alda is right when he says that scientists can't communicate with average people. But I still don't know how the warp bubble can shrink and fit into a wormhole. The paper written by Alcubiere doesn't mention how to shrink it.
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03-16-2018, 03:27 AM | #28 | |||
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Albuquerque, NM
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Re: Alcubierre warp drive
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Imagine talking about GURPS without using any GURPS terms. Possible in some cases, yes, and even necessary starting out. But if you're getting into a discussion of, say, whether modifiers for Appearance apply to Fast Talk rolls, it would certainly expend a lot of time and effort and would probably not be possible. I don't see how that's "elitist." Quote:
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Last edited by MrTim; 03-16-2018 at 03:43 AM. |
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03-16-2018, 03:35 AM | #29 |
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
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Re: Alcubierre warp drive
It's because mathematical expressions are designed to denote the sorts of relationships among their elements that turn out to be important in physics (and some other sciences), whereas sentences, being linear, are not. That makes it much, much easier to describe those sorts of relationships in explicit detail, unambiguously, and compactly if you use an mathematical expression.
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03-16-2018, 12:29 PM | #30 | |
Join Date: Aug 2008
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Re: Alcubierre warp drive
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As for physics using mathematics to explain things, it's because math lets you lay out definite and concise relationships and, more importantly, make predictions that can later be tested. Words don't do this. For example: "Gravity only acts downward" "An object in motion stays in motion until otherwise acted upon by a force" "Acceleration is the time-rate change of velocity" "Velocity is the time-rate change of position" That's four bits of rudimentary high school physics in words. Now tell me how far downrange a shell fired with a muzzle velocity of 800 m/s at an elevation angle of 23 degrees while sitting on a 12-foot-high hill above a plain, neglecting friction. You can't without using math: d = [v^2/(2g)]*[1+sqrt(1+(2gh)/(v^2*sin^2(theta)))]. And you can't get that formula, if you don't first describe gravity mathematically: g = -gj = [dv/dt]*j, velocity mathematically: v = x_doti + y_dotj = ds/dt, and finding useful relationships between them: v_f^2 = v_i^2+2as s_f = s_i + vt + 0.5at^2 v_f = v_i + at Now you can actually start to dig into science. And if this process seems difficult, all I can say is that there's probably a reason some jobs require more schooling than others. If you put in the time to learn some basic math, you can follow a great deal of physics, and the bits that require stuff like set theory, tensor calculus, and differential geometry aren't readily explained in anything less than broad brush strokes. His paper isn't about shrinking things. It's about a means of superluminal travel.
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