Red/Blueshift Effects on Warp Drive

Ronald Held

Why would a divergence of quantum vaccuum energy if presence in four dimensions prevent a vessel from exceeding the speed of light.

While this is not necessarily on topic, wouldn't using quantum vaccuum energy run the risk of halting and even causing the universe to ultimately implode?


CuttingEdge100

 

CuttingEdge I do not understand your question as it pertains to this thread.
A device which used quantum vacuum energy would likely take some of the energy per unit volume, not all of it.

 

Yet clearly that was the intent when they started TMP. GR's novelization even mentions the spectral shift and the starbow congealing ahead (pretty much as displayed 5 years later in THE LAST STARFIGHTER), which came straight from the NASA tech guy, von puttkamer.

 

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Ronald Held,

It pertains to the thread in that that information was mentioned in the link you posted.


Trevanian,

The warp-drive as I understand it, the ship inside the bubble feels no motion, the bubble however moves.

Either by spatial compression in front of it which pulls the ship along allows it to traverse more distance than would theoretically be allowed, then normalizing it astern of the vessel which also provides a pushing force, or by somehow taking the fabric of space the ship occupies and somehow making it move faster than the rest of the space near the ship or some bizarre combination of both.


CuttingEdge100

 

I have an illustration that might help. Imagine you had two conveyors moving in opposite directions to each other that met at their ends, and that you put a slinky out over the two. When it hit the second conveyor, that end of the slinky would stop moving while the rest of the slinky which is still on the fist conveyor would continue moving forward, compressing the slinky. The slinky represents a light wave or group of particles, and the conveyors represent the non moving background space and the moving space of the warp bubble. The light and particle groups would be compressed just like the slinky, causing blue shift effects. To simulate red shift at the back of the bubble, reverse the direction of the conveyors and the slinky will be stretched out, just as the light would be red shifted. Now I know the transition from normal space to the warp bubble is a gradient of space moving at increasing speeds, but the total difference in speed is the same no matter the gradient, just as if you had a long enough slinky, the ends would still move towards each other at the same speed, no matter the size of the compression zone. The only problem occurs when the gradient is so sharp that the distance equal to the diameter of the particle has a motion differential greater than light speed, meaning that the particle could not avoid being crushed, even if both halves of it were moving in opposite directions at light speed relative to the space they're in. This would create a huge radiation front for the ship to sail through of the light emitted from crushed particles. Even strangers, if the differential in motion is greater than light speed over one quantum unit of space (assuming space is quantum), then even point particles like photons could not enter the bubble and would be trapped in the leading edge of the warp bubble. The trapped energy may be able to slide off the bubble, otherwise it's just stuck until you decelerate to a point where it can escape, at which point your ship will be instantly vaporized. If the acceleration of the warp bubble is instantaneous and requires no energy, one trick could be to jump above and below this point to release the trapped light in small bursts. The blue shift effect from the front of the bubble is equal to the red shift from the back, so an observer behind the ship would notice no difference. (side question, if light was blue shifted entering the warp bubble, and then reflected off the ship at and angle and left the warp bubble, would it still be red shifted to normal or would the effects be lessened due to the angle of exit?)