"Miracle" tech in Science Fiction

[Joelist]

YES! Stephen Hawking came to mind but I couldn't remember Kip Thorne. Thanks for that.

I recently watched a show on Discovery Science dedicated to the science of warp drive and its feasibility for real life application. They were saying that the tech for such an endeavor was 100 years away. Funny thing, though, they're always saying stuff like that is "100 years away", including time travel. I think time travel is impossible because, IMO, time is nothing more than how we perceive the progression of events and not some dimension through which we can travel but I digress.

Plus when used in Science Fiction it avoids all of the relativistic issues. And it has the side benefit of allowing military science fiction to incorporate it into the story as part of the tactical narrative. For example a plan of attack involving using an extremely precise space folding FTL "jump" to have a ship appear in a precise spot at a precise time.

 

[shavedape]

I think you're misunderstanding what warp drive is. There is no violation of relativity because faster than light travel by warping space involves no movement per se. You're not actually moving faster than light. You're bending space and bringing two vastly distant points close together. The warp bubble is merely a small area of space immediately around the ship that isn't warped.

Okay but in relation to the ST universe then why, if they're bringing two vastly distant points close together, does it take them time to reach those points in certain (or most) instances? Why would they even need a numerical warp scale ("Mr. Crusher, set a course to Romulus, warp 5")? And why do they whoosh off into the distance instead of just winking out like on BSG since, by your own words, there isn't any movement per se?

The whole ST warp model implies movement, a need to get moving very fast (warp speed) in a certain direction to reach the desired destination. And those destinations all take varying times to reach. And, from what I understand the whole warp scale leads up to 9 which is as close to light speed as they can get without actually matching the speed of light.

So, what I'm saying is that in the ST universe they literally move via propulsion (which takes time) verses BSG where they simply jump thru a "door" that leads instantaneously to another point in space. Is this not correct? Edify me here.

 

[SciphonicStranger]

Okay but in relation to the ST universe then why, if they're bringing two vastly distant points close together, does it take them time to reach those points in certain (or most) instances? Why would they even need a numerical warp scale ("Mr. Crusher, set a course to Romulus, warp 5")? And why do they whoosh off into the distance instead of just winking out like on BSG since, by your own words, there isn't any movement per se?

The whole ST warp model implies movement, a need to get moving very fast (warp speed) in a certain direction to reach the desired destination. And those destinations all take varying times to reach. And, from what I understand the whole warp scale leads up to 9 which is as close to light speed as they can get without actually matching the speed of light.

So, what I'm saying is that in the ST universe they literally move via propulsion (which takes time) verses BSG where they simply jump thru a "door" that leads instantaneously to another point in space. Is this not correct? Edify me here.

Ah yes, and there was even an episode that had speeds above warp 5 "damaging" space in certain areas. A guest character even died over that one dammit!

 

[shavedape]

Ah yes, and there was even an episode that had speeds above warp 5 "damaging" space in certain areas. A guest character even died over that one dammit!

Yes, but the guest character who died was an alien so it's not something that should have really bothered the humans very much. After all, there was always another alien (replete with reconfigured putty on the bridge of the nose) to look forward to the next week. They are, in the ST universe, a dime a dozen.

 

[SciphonicStranger]

Yes, but the guest character who died was an alien so it's not something that should have really bothered the humans very much. After all, there was always another alien (replete with reconfigured putty on the bridge of the nose) to look forward to the next week. They are, in the ST universe, a dime a dozen.

I think it only bothers those humans who want to banish all "magic" from our favorite sci-fi shows.

I need another drink...

 

[Bluce Ree]

Okay but in relation to the ST universe then why, if they're bringing two vastly distant points close together, does it take them time to reach those points in certain (or most) instances? Why would they even need a numerical warp scale ("Mr. Crusher, set a course to Romulus, warp 5")? And why do they whoosh off into the distance instead of just winking out like on BSG since, by your own words, there isn't any movement per se?

The whole ST warp model implies movement, a need to get moving very fast (warp speed) in a certain direction to reach the desired destination. And those destinations all take varying times to reach. And, from what I understand the whole warp scale leads up to 9 which is as close to light speed as they can get without actually matching the speed of light.

So, what I'm saying is that in the ST universe they literally move via propulsion (which takes time) verses BSG where they simply jump thru a "door" that leads instantaneously to another point in space. Is this not correct? Edify me here.

Ships in ST have two means of travel. Impulse power, which is regular propulsion that physically moves the ship around, and warp drive.

Theoretical warp drive involves compressing space in front of you and expanding the space behind you. When I say "vastly distant points", I'm talking about millions to billions of kilometers. In ST, Warp I allows the ship to travel 2 million km per second. What that means is the power used to travel at that speed is sufficient to compress and expand 2 million km of space every second. Assuming the average distance between Earth and Mars is about 225 million km, it would take 112 seconds, or 112 compressions and expansions, to get there.

With more power, the drive is capable of compressing even more space, thus achieving shorter travel time. There's going to be some physical limit to this method of travel mainly due to power requirements. Theoretically, though, with infinite power you should be able to compress infinite space but, not being a physicist, I would imagine that would present other problems.

To a stationary observer, the ship would appear to be stretching out into the distance before completely disappearing.

Light travels at 299,793 km per second. Warp I is about 6.6 times faster than light. It doesn't mean the traveler is physically moving through space at faster than light speed, it means the traveler got from A to B in a time shorter than it would have taken light to get there linearly through space.

In Voyager, they destroyed canon by creating this stupid notion that Warp 10 (transwarp) allows the traveler to occupy all points in space at once, thus allowing near-instantaneous travel to any point in the universe. I see two problems with that. First, it was established in "All Good Things" (the TNG finale) that Federation ships in the future were able to travel at Warp 14 and they didn't get anywhere "instantaneously" (neither did the Excelsior, by the way, though, AFAIK, they never established exceeding warp 9.7 as being transwarp). The second problem is that, because of the mechanics of warp drive, occupying all points in space using that technology implies infinite compression of all space, which is a purely stupid notion. The theoretical 4th dimension, or hyperspace, is where one occupies all points in space at once and warp drive has nothing to do with inter-dimensional travel.

ST's warp drive is theoretically possible, according to physicists, given what we know about gravity and its effects on the fabric of space. BSG's dimensional jumps, which is hyperspace just like on Babylon 5 and countless other sci-fi shows that have used that tech, is pure fantasy at the moment as we have no way to know that hyperspace even exists. Wormholes are the closest feasible theoretical thing to instant travel to any point in the universe.

 

[Joelist]

I always wanted them to encounter the alien race of the "Play-doh-ites". Aliens who are completely made out of modeling clay and can be sculpted into any desired shape.

 

[shavedape]

I think it only bothers those humans who want to banish all "magic" from our favorite sci-fi shows.

I need another drink...

Well, the episode you referenced is one that was a poorly disguised vehicle for a message on environmentalism. From what I recall they discovered the fabric of space was tearing due to warp usage but then in later episodes it didn't matter too much as they still zipped around via warp drive. :uncomfortableness:

Between you and me I'll take my scifi shows without the subliminal PSA's thank you very much.

 

[shavedape]

Ships in ST have two means of travel. Impulse power, which is regular propulsion that physically moves the ship around, and warp drive.

Theoretical warp drive involves compressing space in front of you and expanding the space behind you. When I say "vastly distant points", I'm talking about millions to billions of kilometers. In ST, Warp I allows the ship to travel 2 million km per second. What that means is the power used to travel at that speed is sufficient to compress and expand 2 million km of space every second. Assuming the average distance between Earth and Mars is about 225 million km, it would take 112 seconds, or 112 compressions and expansions, to get there.

With more power, the drive is capable of compressing even more space, thus achieving shorter travel time. There's going to be some physical limit to this method of travel mainly due to power requirements. Theoretically, though, with infinite power you should be able to compress infinite space but, not being a physicist, I would imagine that would present other problems.

To a stationary observer, the ship would appear to be stretching out into the distance before completely disappearing.

Light travels at 299,793 km per second. Warp I is about 6.6 times faster than light. It doesn't mean the traveler is physically moving through space at faster than light speed, it means the traveler got from A to B in a time shorter than it would have taken light to get there linearly through space.

In Voyager, they destroyed canon by creating this stupid notion that Warp 10 (transwarp) allows the traveler to occupy all points in space at once, thus allowing near-instantaneous travel to any point in the universe. I see two problems with that. First, it was established in "All Good Things" (the TNG finale) that Federation ships in the future were able to travel at Warp 14 and they didn't get anywhere "instantaneously" (neither did the Excelsior, by the way, though, AFAIK, they never established exceeding warp 9.7 as being transwarp). The second problem is that, because of the mechanics of warp drive, occupying all points in space using that technology implies infinite compression of all space, which is a purely stupid notion. The theoretical 4th dimension, or hyperspace, is where one occupies all points in space at once and warp drive has nothing to do with dimensional travel.

ST's warp drive is theoretically possible, according to physicists, given what we know about gravity and its effects on the fabric of space. BSG's dimensional jumps, which is hyperspace just like on Babylon 5 and countless other sci-fi shows that have used that tech, is pure fantasy at the moment as we have no way to know that hyperspace even exists. Wormholes are the closest feasible theoretical thing to instant travel to any point in the universe.

That's a hell of a lot of words just to tell me that I'm right.

 

[SciphonicStranger]

Well, the episode you referenced is one that was a poorly disguised vehicle for a message on environmentalism. From what I recall they discovered the fabric of space was tearing due to warp usage but then in later episodes it didn't matter too much as they still zipped around via warp drive. :uncomfortableness:

Between you and me I'll take my scifi shows without the subliminal PSA's thank you very much.

Yep, at some point Star Trek became a franchise dedicated to saving things. Hell, in ST IV they even saved the whales.

Using miracle plastic I might add...

 

[Joelist]

Bluce, my understanding of warp drive from pretty much everything I have read is that also involves travel through a realm that is not normal space, namely subspace (as Star Trek calls it). I think that the theoretical Alcubierre drive acts by contracting and expanding normal space but the Star Trek one has the ship enter subspace.

The BSG drive is a different animal. It is much more akin to the jump drive of Asimov's Foundation books, "folding space" in line with M-Theory and superstring theory. In essence a sort of wormhole drive - the ship never actually moves faster than light but moves at normal speeds between the two points that were brought much closer together by folding space.

 

[Bluce Ree]

Bluce, my understanding of warp drive from pretty much everything I have read is that also involves travel through a realm that is not normal space, namely subspace (as Star Trek calls it). I think that the theoretical Alcubierre drive acts by contracting and expanding normal space but the Star Trek one has the ship enter subspace.

The BSG drive is a different animal. It is much more akin to the jump drive of Asimov's Foundation books, "folding space" in line with M-Theory and superstring theory. In essence a sort of wormhole drive - the ship never actually moves faster than light but moves at normal speeds between the two points that were brought much closer together by folding space.

Subspace in ST has nothing to do with travel, as i recall. It's mainly used for communication. Some of the tech specs will detail that the ship creates a subspace bubble around itself, which is the warp bubble, but it never travels into subspace. It still moves about normal space by contracting and expanding space. They've gone into some detail on warp drives tech in both TNG and Voyager.

There were episodes where they've gone into subspace via rifts or subspace alien technology. "Schisms" comes to mind, where the crew were kidnapped and experimented on by aliens who exist in subspace.

Look at it this way. They are able to achieve real-time communication across vast distances of tens, even hundreds, of light years, using subspace. If they were to use subspace for travel, they'd instantly be at their destination and the entire premise of "warp drive" would be moot.

I can't really argue much about BSG's jump drive technology. To be honest, that show barely kept my attention long enough to follow anything of value they may have said, so, I'll have to differ to your expertise on it.

 

[Joelist]

Good enough. The problem of course is that there is warp drive (like what NASA has played with) and Star Trek's warp drive which depending on the show and sometimes even episode changes its characteristics. Remember the "warp drives destroying subspace" silliness? Or the Omega particle?

The main reason the BSG jump drive is something I researched was its resemblance to the jump drives in earlier literary science fiction (Asimov, Cherryh's Alliance-Union stories, etc.). Like warp drive it has a theoretical basis that is better than pure fantasy (it is an extrapolation of superstring and M theories). And both have a similar issue - how to induce the needed effect. We have no idea at all how to induce a warp bubble or even if it can be induced. Likewise, we have no idea of how to induce a sharp enough gravitational gradient to fold space without crushing the ship in the process; not to mention how even to induce such a gravity effect period.

However, I wouldn't call either a "miracle" tech because they don't have the kind of plot issues the TARDIS does or transporters do.

 

[Bluce Ree]

Good enough. The problem of course is that there is warp drive (like what NASA has played with) and Star Trek's warp drive which depending on the show and sometimes even episode changes its characteristics. Remember the "warp drives destroying subspace" silliness? Or the Omega particle?

I remember warp drive creating subspace ruptures in an episode. It got so bad in a particular region of space they couldn't safely travel through it. They've kept fairly consistent with warp drive other than the occasional nonsense, like in "ST V The Final Frontier" how they were able to get to the galaxy's center at maximum warp in a relatively short time despite the distance being 26,000 light years from the Sun to the galactic center. If we use Voyager as a benchmark for distance and time, it should have taken them 26 years to get there.

The main reason the BSG jump drive is something I researched was its resemblance to the jump drives in earlier literary science fiction (Asimov, Cherryh's Alliance-Union stories, etc.). Like warp drive it has a theoretical basis that is better than pure fantasy (it is an extrapolation of superstring and M theories). And both have a similar issue - how to induce the needed effect. We have no idea at all how to induce a warp bubble or even if it can be induced. Likewise, we have no idea of how to induce a sharp enough gravitational gradient to fold space without crushing the ship in the process; not to mention how even to induce such a gravity effect period.

However, I wouldn't call either a "miracle" tech because they don't have the kind of plot issues the TARDIS does or transporters do.

First, we need to figure out what, exactly, is gravity. Its forces are observed but science has yet to figure out how it works and how to capture and/or recreate it. They can't even seem to agree whether gravity is a particle or a wave yet.

 

[Joelist]

Exactly. In that respect both methods are still fantasies.

 

[shavedape]

and im bowing out of this BS thread.

 

[SciphonicStranger]

 

[mzzz]

Honestly, to me, as you start learning more hard science, nearly all of the sci-fi shows become fantasy; same with philosophy but everything becomes fantasy. But there is a good amount of inspiration to be drawn from sci-fi.

One thing that has always been a miracle thing to me in space sci-fi is that the ships always manage to jump or arrive or travel through unobstructed empty space. Granted, most space is empty but still when they are traveling at high velocities and such (motivating an inconsistency later on). I mean, are they actively mapping out the region of destination in real-time prior to arriving to find a safe place to pop out, or map out things beforehand with scout ships, or just pressing a button and just blindly hoping it's empty space?

Now about the inconsistency, there's one other thing that could possibly make sense which is large range sensors. Now the complexity of these sensors would have to be very high, because they'd not only be able to map out relatively static objects but dynamic objects as well along with their relative trajectories. It would have to be so taxing to figure out those things and figure out a safe path. I guess they do do this in the end and always manage to find safe places to drop out and 'jumps' maybe circumvents the issue altogether. But how are these sensors operating? Circumventing spacetime altogether? I mean, it's kind of like when you look out at the night sky, and everything star you're seeing, you're seeing them as they were years ago, not how they are now. Are the sensors circumventing the time differential altogether?

This brings me to my inconsistency, if they do have such complex sensors and consider the complex computer responsible for such things, when they are in battle, couldn't they always figure out when, where, and how to hit enemy ships with the computer, after sending in an initial wave to compute firepower capacity? Couldn't they relay the information of the relative motions of the enemy ships to a ship that sends out missiles with 'jump' capacity right next to the enemy ships and just blow them up with high accuracy and just wipe the floor with the enemy? The accuracy would be high because they're getting real-time information and just have the computer compute high level precision of missile jumps to just wipe out the enemy. Sorry if none of that makes sense, ignore it then.

 

[Bluce Ree]

Honestly, to me, as you start learning more hard science, nearly all of the sci-fi shows become fantasy; same with philosophy but everything becomes fantasy. But there is a good amount of inspiration to be drawn from sci-fi.

One thing that has always been a miracle thing to me in space sci-fi is that the ships always manage to jump or arrive or travel through unobstructed empty space. Granted, most space is empty but still when they are traveling at high velocities and such (motivating an inconsistency later on). I mean, are they actively mapping out the region of destination in real-time prior to arriving to find a safe place to pop out, or map out things beforehand with scout ships, or just pressing a button and just blindly hoping it's empty space?

That's a really, really good point. At the mind twisting speeds the ships travel in ST, for example, I don't see how they could map anything in real time. I recall an episode from Voyager, I believe, where they stated the ship can't turn while in warp but would momentarily stop, alter course and continue.

Now about the inconsistency, there's one other thing that could possibly make sense which is large range sensors. Now the complexity of these sensors would have to be very high, because they'd not only be able to map out relatively static objects but dynamic objects as well along with their relative trajectories. It would have to be so taxing to figure out those things and figure out a safe path. I guess they do do this in the end and always manage to find safe places to drop out and 'jumps' maybe circumvents the issue altogether. But how are these sensors operating? Circumventing spacetime altogether? I mean, it's kind of like when you look out at the night sky, and everything star you're seeing, you're seeing them as they were years ago, not how they are now. Are the sensors circumventing the time differential altogether?

The problem I see is that these long distance sensors would require sending out particles or waves that would return information to the sensors at speeds far exceeding the ship's speed through warped space. Furthermore, they'd be traveling through normal space so, if I'm not mistaken, they'd be subject to relativity until (if) they return through the warp bubble.

This brings me to my inconsistency, if they do have such complex sensors and consider the complex computer responsible for such things, when they are in battle, couldn't they always figure out when, where, and how to hit enemy ships with the computer, after sending in an initial wave to compute firepower capacity? Couldn't they relay the information of the relative motions of the enemy ships to a ship that sends out missiles with 'jump' capacity right next to the enemy ships and just blow them up with high accuracy and just wipe the floor with the enemy? The accuracy would be high because they're getting real-time information and just have the computer compute high level precision of missile jumps to just wipe out the enemy. Sorry if none of that makes sense, ignore it then.

Mind = blown.

It does make sense. I guess the short answer would be because it would make for very boring TV and movies with conflicts not lasting longer than an order from the captain to obliterate the enemy ship(s).

 

[mzzz]

Think you guys might find this interesting:

http://what-if.xkcd.com/1/

lol, if there are spaceships that can accelerate those gigantic things close to the speed of light then surely then can accelerate a baseball towards an enemy ship and watch the fireworks, lol

Just keep clicking next to read more interesting stuff on the site