Talk:Alcubierre drive

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Star Trek graphic

The Star Trek diagram in this article has been bothering me for some time and I wanted to test what others think of it. The image licence claims that it was created by the uploader and appears to have been made by plonking a starship image on an Albubierre field diagram. If it is self-created and not based on anything in the Star Trek fictional universe then it is WP:OR and should be removed. The text of this section also seems to indicate that the scriptwriters have not strongly aligned themselves with Alcubierre. Retaining this diagram gives the false impression of the opposite. On the other hand, if it is based on something in the Star Trek technical manuals then a reference should be provided to indicate its in-universe provenance. SpinningSpark 18:39, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Star Trek graphic location

I found the Star Trek diagram on a different website so it is somewhat legitimate, but it should still be referenced. Some of the material used in the main article looks as though it came from this website. The website is http://www.zamandayolculuk.com/cetinbal/HTMLdosya1/AlcubierreWarpDrive2.htm Tathar Lenwe Felagund (talk) 23:05, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

It is quite obvious that that webpage is copied from Wikipedia so has no bearing on this discussion. In any case it does not help with either the origin or notability of the diagram. I propose removing it from the article as unwanted cruft. SpinningSpark 18:42, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Star Trek

Okay, so now we have no mention of Star Trek in the article AT ALL, even though this popular series was in my opinion the biggest contributor to popular knowledge of warp. I propose mentioning it at least, with some erudite commentary at better.--85.71.203.5 (talk) 02:46, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I suggest you go find quality references which verify your opinion is notable before you do any such thing. SpinningSpark 07:33, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Recent edits to science fiction section

The "citation needed" tags were recently removed from two items on the grounds that the book and game are their own references. I accept that they can be their own reference if they do indeed clearly state the thing claimed. However, the referencing is inadequate. For a book a page number is usual and/or a direct quote from the relevant passage. For the game, games usually come with a manual which could be quoted, or failing that, a quote from the dialogue of the game could be provided. Without this, there is a suspicion that the claim is a synthesis by the editor who inserted the claim. If it is indeed a synthesis, then references reviews making that synthesis should be provided. Either way citations are needed.

I also object to the removal of faster-than-light propulsion methods most of which have nothing to do with the Alcubierre drive or any other physical theory. This is indisputably true, a vast phalanx of science fiction writers, including Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein and Larry Niven, have required faster-than-light travel since at least the 1950s, long before Alcubierre's proposal in 1994. Alcubierre has been a boon to science fiction providing a science basis for a faster-than-light drive which is often, inappropriately, retrospectively applied to past works. Citations are certainly important here to make sure Wikipedia is not a party to spreading disinformation.

On a more general point, all science articles that have a "X in popular culture", or similar section, tend to degenerate into unhelpful listcruft. What this section should be doing, but does not, is documenting the spread of Alcubierre in the genre from the its first historic use, through all its innovative appearances, to the status it has today. In other words, there should be a mini-article there, not a list. Insisting on proper citations at least has the benefit of discouraging "drive-by" additions to a non-notable list, and really, we should be rejecting anything there that does not add to an understanding of how Alcubierre drive has developed in the genre, whether it is cited or not. Simply listing every occurence one comes across is as pointless as mentioning every occurence of "dress" found in Mills & Boon novels in a list in the dress article. SpinningSpark 13:11, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I have to disagree with the above. The Warp Drive in Star Trek is clearly doing approximately the same thing as the Alcubierre drive. Alcubierre, in fact, was inspired by Star Trek!!!! "The theoretical physicist wrote in an e-mail to William Shatner that his conceptualization was directly inspired by Star Trek. “The very name ‘warp drive’ means it must distort space.” (Shatner, I’m Working on That) The idea started out as a “lark,” but soon became serious physics. The paper has been hailed by many as a landmark in the transition from warp drive being “merely fictional” to being a real scientific topic. Alcubierre’s scheme violates no known physical laws, and provides a valid mathematical description and metric, based on hyperbolic tangent functions, of the precise curvature of space that would permit round-trip travel between two locations separated by light-years in an arbitrarily short time." I get that quotation from http://www.alan-shapiro.com/the-physics-of-warp-drive/ so...I don't see where you guys are coming from when you claim that the alcubierre drive has nothing to do with warp in Star Trek. I suppose that if someone determines a way to pass into higher dimensions temporarily to cross vast distances in space, you guys will claim it has nothing to do with hyperspace jumps as seen in Star Wars. that's lame. ((eye roll)) No one is saying ST or SW is hard SF, but still, the alcubierre drive concept is an attempt to do warp drive as seen in Star Trek. 68.186.48.171 (talk) 18:34, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm the same person who wrote the above paragraph...plus the paper itself says in the abstract "The resulting distortion is reminiscent of the “warp drive” of science fiction." Where is that phrase most commonly used? STAR TREK!!! So, I don't see how it can be claimed that it "has nothing to do with" Star Trek. to get the actual research paper see this link: http://arxiv.org/abs/grqc/0009013 from the wikipedia warp drive entry, "the warp drive does not permit instantaneous travel between two points; instead, warp drive technology creates an artificial "bubble" of normal space-time that surrounds the spacecraft" sounds like the alcubierre drive to me. 68.186.48.171 (talk) 18:49, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Mention

the drive is mentioned in the recent "escape to witch mountain" movie with dwayne johnson. maybe that's useless. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.51.8.117 (talk) 22:37, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Accidental implicature regarding creation of warp bubble

"However, there are no known methods to create such a warp bubble in a region that does not already contain one" suggests that we know how to create new warp bubbles in the presence of an existing warp bubble; is this true? Otherwise, the misleading phrasing should be changed. Solarswordsman (talk) 02:18, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Reactionless drive?

Would an Alcubierre drive be a Reactionless drive? Wardog (talk) 11:26, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Star Trek comparison in the first paragraph

It seems like an exercise of pointless intellectual masturbation to put a comparison to the Star Trek warp drive in the initial sentence. It should be moved to a popular culture section all the way down the article instead. It'd be like making the initial sentence to the article about general relativity saying that it is also applicable in the Star Trek universe, or pointing out in the article about penises that it resembles my penis. 81.71.164.202 (talk) 17:17, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Alcubierre was inspired by Star Trek, so no. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.167.69.211 (talk) 01:11, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Scale

The article states: "According to Pfenning and Allen Everett of Tufts, a warp bubble traveling at 10 times light-speed must have a wall thickness of no more than 10⁻³² meters. This is only slightly longer than the Planck length, 10⁻³⁵." Although both are very tiny compared to human experience, a 10⁻³²-meter wall is one thousand times thicker than a 10⁻³⁵-meter wall. What the article says is no different from saying that a kilometer is "only slightly longer" than a meter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.24.229.199 (talk) 12:39, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Avoiding the problems about energy requirement and Hawking radiation.

String theory (and all other theories involving hidden dimensions)

predict that gravity and electromagnetism unify in hidden 

dimensions and that the hidden dimensions are indetectible because of their small size. It does also predict that sufficiently short-waved photons, with wavelengths shorter than the size of the hidden dimensions, can enter them. Producing ultra-short photons can thus manipulate gravity, with revolutionizing space travel applications such as cheap anti-gravity launches. The problem that it would require high energy can be practically solved by concentrating several laser beams on a nanoparticle, heating it to locally extreme temperatures. An Alcubierre metric can be created by ejecting multiple nanoparticles from the craft and then beam perfectly timed laser beams on them (fire at the most distant first so that they are

hit simultaneously), so each nanoparticle contributes a slower than 

light effect but together add up to faster than light, creating no discrete event horizon and thus no Hawking radiation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.58.249.18 (talk) 08:24, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Gravitic Cloaking

The Alcubierre drive would need to be tweaked only slightly to make the ship disappear from the local gravity field, wouldn't it? 69.196.167.37 (talk) 06:19, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Theories of Everything to model foundations of warping space/time

James Dunn 15:41, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Is it appropriate to post theories about how the warping of space/time can be achieved?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Qesdunn/sandbox — Preceding James Dunn comment added by Qesdunn (talk • contribs) 15:39, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

No, unless such theories have been published in reliable sources. In any event, they would not be appropriate on the Alcubierre drive page unless they related directly to that subject. I will say some more on your talk page. SpinningSpark 18:14, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

NASA Eagleworks

Interesting news coming out of NASA today... http://gizmodo.com/5942634/nasa-starts-development-of-real-life-star-trek-warp-drive

Apparently, the folks there are looking into measuring warp bubbles, and decreasing the energy requirement to create them. iac74205 (talk) 03:46, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

I can't find any firm sources for this statement, other then a few sensationalist blogposts. Furthermore, the section about this in the article ( currently titled "Recent Discovery Revealed Suggests That Significantly Less Energy Than Proposed By Alcubierre's Theorum Is Required To Achieve Warp Travel") is poorly named and a barely edited copy from the space.com article it references. I think this section should be edited, trimmed and renamed, and probably point to the fact that no firm data or academic work is currently published to support these claims. If noone disagrees, I will make the changes in a few days. wvdschel (talk) 07:34, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Last year's 100YSS presentation is located at NASA site. (http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110015936_2011016932.pdf) contains explanation and presentation slides from Dr Harold White. This years presentation with new claims is yet to be made public. --Mqmpk (talk) 10:30, 19 September 2012 (UTC)