DARPA researchers believe they accidentally created an actual WARP BUBBLE

[Verteron]

Full Article

Warp drive pioneer and former NASA warp drive specialist Dr. Harold G “Sonny” White has reported the successful manifestation of an actual, real-world “Warp Bubble.”

To be clear, our finding is not a warp bubble analog, it is a real, albeit humble and tiny, warp bubble

This gave me goosebumps:

Whether by pure coincidence or some sort of personal destiny, it appears that one of the handful of engineers on the planet who would immediately know what it was he was looking at when conducting his Casimir cavity research was in the exact right place at the exact right time to notice a striking similarity to his warp drive passion project and his current research, an observation that may have otherwise gone unseen.

I know we're likely a long way from anything practical. But this is incredible news. I look forward to hearing more from this team in the next few years.

 

[Santaman]

Interesting!

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

It'll be interesting to see if they can scale it up into something practical.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Awesome, if this can bring Warp Drive to humanity one day, it'll be game changing.

We can thank the "Alcubierre / White" Warp Drive design for it.

 

[Christopher]

Uh-oh. Now I'm worried about the viability of my Arachne/Troubleshooter SF universe, where warp drive isn't achieved until the mid-23rd century and requires an extremely advanced form of exotic matter. It might turn out my predictions were too cautious.

Well, even if this is really happening on a nanoscale, it might be hugely impractical to realize on a scale feasible for human travel, so it might well take centuries to crack. Or it could be that it only works subluminally (because superluminal could create runaway Hawking radiation and such) and would at most be feasible as a reactionless sublight drive.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

A negative energy bubble is likely to have some interesting properties, perhaps a different value for c. Maybe it can be used to create a stable wormhole connection for communication. Determining the speed and dispersion over such a link could open new theoretical avenues. Manipulation of the space-time metric at all could be a game changer. If everything goes dark about this, it's probably been co-opted by the military.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Uh-oh. Now I'm worried about the viability of my Arachne/Troubleshooter SF universe, where warp drive isn't achieved until the mid-23rd century and requires an extremely advanced form of exotic matter. It might turn out my predictions were too cautious.

Well, even if this is really happening on a nanoscale, it might be hugely impractical to realize on a scale feasible for human travel, so it might well take centuries to crack. Or it could be that it only works subluminally (because superluminal could create runaway Hawking radiation and such) and would at most be feasible as a reactionless sublight drive.

April 4, 2063, instead of Zefram Cochrane, maybe we can get a small RC-scale Warp Flight of a remote controlled test Warp Ship in the shape of the "Phoenix"?

 

[NCC-73515]

Just don't leave your mom in it, it'll become the nature of her universe.

 

[Verteron]

Uh-oh. Now I'm worried about the viability of my Arachne/Troubleshooter SF universe, where warp drive isn't achieved until the mid-23rd century and requires an extremely advanced form of exotic matter. It might turn out my predictions were too cautious.

Well, even if this is really happening on a nanoscale, it might be hugely impractical to realize on a scale feasible for human travel, so it might well take centuries to crack. Or it could be that it only works subluminally (because superluminal could create runaway Hawking radiation and such) and would at most be feasible as a reactionless sublight drive.

From what I gather, this effect wouldn't scale up without the things we already thought might be required for the Alcubierre warp theory, e.g. negative energy / exotic matter still.

However, the idea that this happened at all and was observed is still be a major step forward on that road. Up until now, it was all just theoretical.

 

[Christopher]

From what I gather, this effect wouldn't scale up without the things we already thought might be required for the Alcubierre warp theory, e.g. negative energy / exotic matter still.

Ah, okay, so I'm still good. This is more just a proof of concept.

 

[XCV330]

Sonny White was involved in some of the testing work done on the EmDrive a few years ago. I didn't know EagleWorks was still ongoing. IIRC it's the last vestige of NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Labs, which was a really amazing program.

 

[Verteron]

Sonny White was involved in some of the testing work done on the EmDrive a few years ago. I didn't know EagleWorks was still ongoing. IIRC it's the last vestige of NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Labs, which was a really amazing program.

Yeah this is not some fringe perpetual motion company trying to dupe investors, they're a legit group funded by DARPA with some real brains in the room. From what I gather the EmDrive itself has been largely ruled out as generating any real propulsive force but they're still looking at the Casimir effect and possibilities therein.

 

[DEWLine]

This is going to be interesting to watch over the years ahead. Probably decades, but patience is logical and pragmatic.

 

[XCV330]

Yeah this is not some fringe perpetual motion company trying to dupe investors, they're a legit group funded by DARPA with some real brains in the room. From what I gather the EmDrive itself has been largely ruled out as generating any real propulsive force but they're still looking at the Casimir effect and possibilities therein.

EmDrive has been, it seems yes. Woodward Drive has not. And then there is the Quantum Inertia theorist. I forget his name. I don't understand his theory so I won't comment on it. I don't like his politics and it leaves me biased.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

EmDrive has been, it seems yes. Woodward Drive has not. And then there is the Quantum Inertia theorist. I forget his name. I don't understand his theory so I won't comment on it. I don't like his politics and it leaves me biased.

Mike McCulloch

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

I wasn't aware of his politics, with which I do not agree, but I can ignore that aspect as he doesn't seem very voluble about it and it doesn't appear to taint his research.

 

[XCV330]

He's been known to block people on twitter who criticizes his theory. I kind of get that, as theoretical work that far off the standard model is going to get a lot of accusations by people who enjoy taking potshots at would be crackpots, but at the same time he needs to be able to wait until his work is falsified or holds up. He's certainly not beyond giving his own opinions about things outside his own scope. The last thing people in that line of work need is an echo chamber.

At the same time i am grateful there is real work going on on breakthrough propulsion. It may all amount to nothing, but it's worth looking into.

 

[Ronald Held]

This is all simulations. When they build a physical device and take measurements, then I will be more interested.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

He's been known to block people on twitter who criticizes his theory. I kind of get that, as theoretical work that far off the standard model is going to get a lot of accusations by people who enjoy taking potshots at would be crackpots, but at the same time he needs to be able to wait until his work is falsified or holds up. He's certainly not beyond giving his own opinions about things outside his own scope. The last thing people in that line of work need is an echo chamber.

At the same time i am grateful there is real work going on on breakthrough propulsion. It may all amount to nothing, but it's worth looking into.

I don't go near Twitter and other (anti)social media so I don't know what he gets up to there. He seems to understand the scientific method but he needs to compartmentalise his political musings and his research so they do not overlap. He wouldn't be the first physicist who is perhaps a bit of an a-hole in real life.

This is all simulations. When they build a physical device and take measurements, then I will be more interested.

The warp bubble is a side effect of the Casimir effect in a real-world experiment, I believe. I might be wrong as I only have access to the article linked by the OP - it's not peer-reviewed research.

ETA: They've updated the article today to emphasise that this is a theoretical prediction - @Ronald Held - you are correct. So probably it's just another case of poor science journalism getting ahead of itself.

 

[XCV330]

only he's (going back to McCullough just a bit longer) is dealing with Casimir effect on the ahem Grand Scale:
https://arxiv.org/abs/0712.3022

I am not sure what he means by Hubble Scale Casimir effect. Does he mean Hubble Sphere as in combined Casimir effect within the entire observable universe?

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

only he's (going back to McCullough just a bit longer) is dealing with Casimir effect on the ahem Grand Scale:
https://arxiv.org/abs/0712.3022

I am not sure what he means by Hubble Scale Casimir effect. Does he mean Hubble Sphere as in combined Casimir effect within the entire observable universe?

Yes, as far as I can tell.

In the new study, McCulloch expands on his model, called Modification of Inertia resulting from a Hubble-scale Casimir effect (MiHsC), or Quantized Inertia. This model proposes that accurately calculating an object's inertial mass involves accounting for the emission of photons, or Unruh radiation, that occurs as a result of the object's acceleration with respect to surrounding matter. The existence of Unruh radiation is a subject of some dispute, since it is unclear whether it has been observed.

In the MiHsC model, a Hubble-scale Casimir effect, which can be thought of as a vacuum energy arising from virtual particles, imposes restrictions on the Unruh radiation wavelengths. As an object's acceleration decreases, Unruh wavelengths lengthen to the Hubble scale, and more of them are disallowed. Because this radiation is assumed in MiHsC to contribute to inertial mass, a decrease in acceleration leads to fewer Unruh waves and a gradual decrease in the object's inertial mass.

https://phys.org/news/2012-09-dark-effect-inertial-mass.html

McCulloch also has ideas about reducing effective inertial mass by using metamaterials. That would be a neat trick and experimentally falsifiable.

It would help for credibility if Unruh radiation were to be observed experimentally. As far as I know it hasn't been.