NASA team led by Harold White has embarked on developing a space deformation engine capable of moving objects are faster than the speed of light. With it, scientists intend to to overcome the 4.3 light years separating us from Alpha Centauri in two weeks. The project is called “Speed”.
A few months ago physicist Harold White stunned the world astronautics, announcing that he and his team at NASA began work on developing a space deformation engine capable of moving objects are faster than the speed of light.
The concept he proposed was a witty rethinking drive Alcubierre, and may ultimately lead to the creation of engine that will transport the spacecraft to nearest star in a few weeks – without breaking the law physics.
White’s idea came to mind when he analyzed wonderful equation formulated by physicist Miguel Alcubierre. In his 1994 work entitled “The Foundation Drive: high-speed travel in general theory relativity, “Alcubierre proposed a mechanism through which space-time can be “deformed” as in front, and behind the spaceship. Essentially, if empty the space behind the spaceship will expand rapidly, and in front shrink, then this will push the ship in the forward direction. Passengers will perceive this as a movement, despite the full lack of acceleration.
A photo from open sources
The curvature engine compresses the space in front of the ship and expands behind, which provides the movement of the ship.
From the point of view of engine mechanics, an object in the form of a spheroid will be placed between two regions of space-time with different properties. Moreover, nothing locally exceeds the speed of light, and space can expand and contract at any speed.
However, space-time is tough enough, so creating expansion and compression effects will require a lot of energy to bridging interstellar distances in reasonable time periods. White’s idea is to change the geometry of the engine itself deformations – he adjusted the shape of the Alcubierre ring, which surrounded the spheroid, making it thicker and meander.
A new approach can significantly reduce the amount needed. exotic matter. White says that deformation of the disk can set in motion so far less mass than the spacecraft Voyager 1
The basis of the engine will be a modified interferometer Michelson-Morley that allows you to measure microscopic perturbations in space-time.
White and his colleagues will try to imitate the optimal disk Alcubierre in miniature using lasers to disturb space-time with a frequency of 10 million hertz.
Initially, the test device implements a large potential energy – by using ceramic rings capacitors charged to tens of thousands of volts.
White points out that, physical forces arising from quantized fields can represent a viable approach and after these experiments, NASA will be able to move from a solution theoretical problems to practical ones.
NASA time
