Can We Travel Faster Than Light? with Dr. Miguel Alcubierre 

Love the show and congrats on the first anniversary!

I could not be more happy for this show. And specially this episode. Congrats!!

Congratulations on one year! I've been with this channel from the beginning. I'll pick up one of your books one of these days as a show of support, who knows they might actually be good.

Wow it's been an entire year already? It sure doesn't seem like it. Time does fly when your having fun. I'm eagerly looking forward to the coming year to. Thanks for a great year John.

Cracking video buddy!!! 😊

I give you a Lemonorick award for that one :)

I agree 👌

This was used on a the 1986 Alphaville album Afternoons in Utopia. The first song, "IAO" (which stands for International Aquarian Opera), begins with the word "night" and fades into the short IAO chorus (which itself is a lyric from the song "Afternoons in Utopia"). The album ends with the song "Lady Bright", a limerick about relativity, wherein the Lady Bright leaves one day and returns "the previous ...[night]", with the word "night" omitted. Thus the album loops back to its beginning. (quoted from Wikipedia)

@@glenmatthes8839 Just blew my mind listening to that albums beginning and end in sequence! 🤯🤯🤯 The other thing is that the album’s length should be infinite because in a way it literaly loops and never ends.

There is a 5k race in Atlanta (the Race Against Time) that starts at midnight before daylight saving’s time change... so that the runners have a negative time upon completing the race. It is very reminiscent of your poem.

Lmao...

MGTOW FTW! 😏😏😏

LMAO

Ayye ohhhh.... This guy...

John do now that's funny right there

I was seeing the episode title in my feed and only noticed the words ... warp drive .. faster than light ... interview with Dr.Alcubierre. Wait ... John got an interview with fucking Alcubierre ?!

In warp drive we can't communicate and if you open any light you will not see any light because you're traveling faster then light. Looks impossible but good thoughts I respect his theory. Our body create infrared light we can detect it. Then, what happen to body. Does we suddenly stop glowing infrared light due to speed faster then light.

Star treks father of warp drive: Zefrem Cochrane Real Life father of warp drive: Michael Alcubierre

Shoaib Nature ur stupid lol u wouldn’t see anything outside but the light inside whatever ur vehicle is is still traveling at the speed of light+whatever speed the vehicle is traveling at so u would still see inside ur vehicle and light would still work normally inside it.

@@naturemc2 although relative to an outside observer you would be traveling faster than light inside the bubble you would be traveling much slower than light speed so this shouldn't be a problem.

Thanks for watching!

Agreed.

But ih

@@Calmdownchrisbut ih ???

Actually is was made for funny kitten videos but this isn't bad.

Gabriel Gonzalez it’s not education! It’s nonsense! It’s completely impractical!

Jack Hay Open your mind dear boy, you’ve listed a qualm of *Theoretical* physics. The greatest achievements are from the edge of the practical and impractical, e.g. the history of flight (Wright Bros) or history of medicine, for example. This is the very beginning of a long journey to find ways to travel through space at the fastest speeds we know how.

Gabriel Gonzalez boy? I’m 59 it’s as open as it’s going to get!

@@gabrielgonzalez1993 I agree. Eventually it may become practical though an FTL warp drive is a tall order but as a Peter F Hamilton fan I hope it can become reality even though it won't be within our lifetime

@@jackhay4478 We can tell

Glad you found us. Subscribe for more

@@EventHorizonShow My ex wife could provide him sufficient negative energy to power an ENTIRE fleet 😈

its only 10 pages long

@@spaceagemonkey8889 😂

Zephran Cochrane is just Miguel's nickname.

Love it!

LMAO that is a great comment. take care.

[The entire crew gasps in horror] Colonel Sandurz: Ludicrous speed?! Sir, we've never gone that fast before! I don't know if the ship can take it! Dark Helmet: What's the matter, Colonel Sandurz? Chicken? Colonel Sandurz: [voice breaks harshly]Prepare the ship-- [collects himself] Prepare ship for ludicrous speed! Fasten all seat belts, seal all entrances and exits, close all shops in the mall! Cancel the three-ring circus! Secure all animals in the zoo-- Dark Helmet: Give me that, you petty excuse for an officer! [Takes the microphone] Now hear this! Ludicrous speed! Colonel Sandurz: Sir, hadn't you better buckle up? Dark Helmet: Ah, buckle this. Ludicrous speed! GO! [Dark Helmet is screaming as he grips the handrail while being lifted into the air by momentum. Meanwhile, various warp trails are displayed on the monitor, and there are signs lighting up indicating "LIGHT SPEED", "RIDICULOUS SPEED", and a flashing "LUDICROUS SPEED" sign] Dark Helmet: What have I done?! My brains are going into my feet![Spaceball I passes Lone Starr's Winnebago, leaving a trail of plaid light behind them] Barf: [he and Lone Starr quickly duck] WOW!What the Hell was that? Lone Starr: Spaceball I. Barf: They've gone to plaid!...

the bumper sticker on my spaceship is "i

spaceballs !

@@pyrolopez854 ... The fuck......? Dude, do you have the script or something? lol

@The Jim Reaper™ you too my freind and I hope your Swartz is as big as mine!

That's the difference between science and ideology for ya. Science doesn't ask for the truth, but makes the best availeable approximation to reality. Any scientific theory is essentially waiting to be made obsolete by a better model. Proponents of ideologies or religions say what they say because they believe it to be the truth. If they approached morality and philosophy with the same "this will be made obsolete eventually" mindset, those very concepts would become meaningless. If preachers and (honest) politicians assumed themselves to be wrong, they wouldn't say a word. But like it or not, we need those words. Everyone needs a basis to orient their moral compass by. And so we need discourse about morality, on what is right and wrong, and how to make the world better. A discourse you can't have without people holding sinsere convictions that they themselves will not doubt.

So you think that preachers came up with the idea themselves? You don’t put any weight to where that information came from?

@@Captain-Awesome I can put an exact weight... 5g of mushrooms

Ben Scott Ha! It wasn’t God they were meeting on that ride.

@@michaelt.5672 I do not see the problem with thinking that your ideology will become obsolete, because that is frankly the most likely scenario.

It ain't gonna happen. MA took something from fiction (Star-Trek) & gave it a bit of real world math. However those initial calculations simply implied that it was basically impossible because it would require more energy than what was contained in the universe. There was nothing on how to 'warp' space itself, generate the warp bubble etc. Others have brought down the energy requirements to a now manageable degree but there is still nothing on how to make it practical from anyone as of yet.

@@jamesh8862 you never know. In 26 years it went from the entire universe to the size of jupiter. Who knows where the idea might be in another 26 years? 100 years ago we KNEW ours was the only galaxy ever, who knows what we'll know in another 100?

@@Vazik05 Harold White, former head of Nasa's Advanced Propulsion Physics Lab at Johnson Space Center has brought the energy down to 500 kg . He's now left Nasa to work for a non-profit called the Limitless Space Institute to concentrate on advanced space power and propulsion technologies. www.wired.com/story/nasas-emdrive-leader-has-a-new-interstellar-project/

@@peterclark2134 see, already proving my point. We don't know what tomorrow will bring when it comes to discovery.

@@Vazik05 The thing is, 100 years ago, people didn't deny the possibility of other galaxies, they just didn't know their existence. In this case, it's more that people think it's impractical to build this with our current knowledge of the universe. They aren't wrong...for now.

@Albert Jackson Relativity :D

@@MastaChafa special or general?

I'd say pretty special. Bumm Tishhh. Yeah, yeah. I'll get my coat. TAXI.

You mean oh JMG!!

But what he says about it really is not very good. Essentially he says youre sitting in a car and then you are generating a downhill so that you are always going downhill by rising space behind you and lowering it infront. NO explanation on how he would actually do that. So its useless.

@@janusha2253 Well that's because no-one has any idea on how we would do that practically, we don't even know if negative matter is a real thing or not.

@@jeffvader811 Exactly and he decided to skip the details. Just saying if its possible, then its possible. By creating a scenario in which its possible. Its like saying you could go really fast on your bike if you always had down hill. But you dont.

@@janusha2253 I'm not sure what you're complaining about. Dr. Alcubierre said that this is an entirely hypothetical propulsion system that relies on many assumptions, he never claimed that it was possible, in fact he said that he thought there was only a 1 in 10 chance that it would work.

Thanks for listening

No, that would in fact just be an Alcubierre Road Trip. If however he went for a Sunday Drive...

Reality Check nerd joke lol

Yes you would relatively speaking.

@@joedart1465 relativity is important here so how important?

Not if you'd be on first name basis.

ontoverse as well as the first superluminal ship.

@@over7532 There some other ideas of Superluminal ships. Wormholes is likely the most popular one. At least for those are going by actual science. But there are a ton of other ideas out there. One often more wacky then the other. Really popular idea is to use quantum tunnelling or similar effect. Though these ideas from as far as I can tell are often build on misconceptions of quantum physics. I am guessing that if one would make a stargate system with a artificial wormhole that the each end would be called Einstein and Rosen. After Einstein-Rosen Bridge that is the formal name for a wormhole. ;)

@@Cythil I'm of the camp that hopes for Faster Than Light Communication myself, it might be more practical as far as it's energy need go, and more achievable in the near term if we perhaps could find a way to use Quantum Entanglement or a detectable / Re-create able faster than light form of energy perhaps ... or even a very small wormhole conceivably where you make it just big enough to fire a laser threw it to communicate. I'd be too paranoid, personally, over the possibly implications if a FTL drive failed, IE a Warp Drive shutting down mid trip could end with your ship exploding into a burst of high energy radiation when it 's found to suddenly be violating the speed of light, so to speak, by the universe around it

@@UNSCPILOT I am more sceptical. I think much of that come to people misunderstanding how quantum entanglement works. And why is not a good way to communicate new information faster then light. Let me make a analogy to explain. Two entangled particles are like having one ball and two urns. You drop the ball in one of the urns without looking. Then separate the urns from each other. You then look in one of the urns. After looking in that urn you know instantly if the other urn contain ball or not as there was just one ball between the two urns. Even if they separated 2 light years away from each other. So no real magic behind it. (Well there is one bit of magic. And that is that until you look the urns actually act as if both contained a boll and not at the same time. Which means you can do all manner of things with these urns in super position until you look. Note that any method that lets you determine which urn contains the ball will make the waveform collapse. So weighing the urns would not help as a way to get around it. That is why is so hard to keep super position. There so many way information could leak out you could say.)

I think there's a good chance we could have some kind of warp drive or something else, if you read scifi look up Peter F Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy, but anyway I'm guessing we'll have some kind faster than light drive within 100 years, hopefully we'll have fusion power well before that!

@@segura2112 sci fi is great and a lot of ideas come directly from its pages. But if you want to here someone talk seriously about warping space then check out Dr Richard Obousy, who's work builds on Dr alcubierres

Which game you playing?

Carson George At the moment the new Green Planet expansion from Surviving Mars. But I basically played every popular space game. From Knights of the Old Republic to Astroneer.

@@CenarosNL Have you played Starflight 2? Best Space game ever!

Thank you for subscribing.

A weapon I pray never has to see use.

Yes! We shall build a starship with a fictional Alcubierre warp drive, and zip right into a nonexistent hypothetical wormhole first chance we get! Problem solved!

@@NondescriptMammal 😉

Merely "moving the hill" does not mean that you wouldn't flatten out - I know what you meant but poor choice of words. Secondly, even if you "continually "elongated" the slope hill, at some point your speed would plateau - even in a near-zero vacuum - you would need a "differential" somewhere in order to obtain more speed. If both the contraction and the pushing are equal, then your speed will neither increase or decrease. In my opinion, this was not about traveling faster than light, it was about the energy required to create enough of a gravity field to warp space - if you can "fold space" space, then does it matter how fast you're going...not in my opinion. Now, if you need to travel a few hundred million miles to access said "fold" in said "space", then you may want to consider beefing up the speed of your craft!

DERRICK LANDERS Why not “Fold” over and over again?

You mean Zeffram Cochrane stole the work of others on a usenet group and claimed credit for it too? :O

The idea of warping space-time in a useful way to achieve FTL travel, didn't begin with him...*or* Star Trek. The latter merely popularized it.

A borderline addict who steals/commandeers a ICBM after WW3 and tinkers with it, putting some Warp Nacels on the side and gets a statue of him self pointing towards the stars...

Not yet. We need to build this thing and test it successfully first. Our limit here is the insane amounts of energy required for such a thing.

Except it's not gonna actually work in the real universe.

I'd say he clarified a few of the "warped" views some of the people working on this subject tend to develop as a result of the "lensing effect" caused by incomplete math's.

I mean that is the job of a scientist to prove and to disprove because they are the seekers of truth not the seekers of glory.

It's full of bubbles as it is.

@The Jim Reaper™ I suspect his work centers around finding and proving a given thing...............not engineering it. Spending some time as A science communicator will not hurt. Approaching 100K views in less than a week. Clearly people have interest in the topic and this is not some dumbed down content geared for click baiting idiots with the attention span of a fly on crack like 85% of youtube making it all the more impressive.

@The Jim Reaper™ a joke? A JOKE? AAAA JOOOOOOOOKE?!?!?!?! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Its "Hyperion" mate, and yes, a good read:)

Make sure you read all 4 books in the series. Few writings can eclipse the grandeur of the Hyperion series. Rama series by A.C. Clarke rings a bell.

Hyperion Cantos is on my reading list. I'm finishing the Remembrance of Earth Series first.

Thanks! Many more shows to come!

What's that all about?

The Betteridge's law of headlines.

I have headlines from computer magizens decades ago that claimed solid state and virtual memory would never work. In reference to the video it should be, at current technology, no; in a few more tech leaps, yes.

Alamyst2011 The thing is if you’re harnessing the power of a black hole or even just a sun then, once in a while an accident will destroy a solar system or worse. So to test such tech you would want to take it to a safe distance, and that would take decades.

@@parajacks4 I agree. My only point was that now the tech is not there. Ask the question again in 50 years.

If you're talkin Stargates wouldn't there be 2 Stargates sandwiching you in the center

More like about space trains.

I also want to thank all people involved with the visual elements that support the spoken element.

Me too!

lol

The brilliant Mark Rademaker! He’s a friend and gracefully gave us permission.

It really is amazing. Love Mark Rademaker's work.

Given the length of the human intestinal tract that might give you time to get to the bathroom.

@@nukemars9445 maybe we should look into using Carolina Reaper peppers for upper stage fuel, due to their high ISP

Taco Bell may be faster :)

You are most welcome!

I thought keeping a wormhole from collapsing almost instantly required negative energy. I need to double check. But I think that's at least one of the other major problems with it.

Glad you found us. This is his second, long format channel.

@@EventHorizonShow yeah its pretty interesting. You need a long format to parse a lot of these topics out properly.

Great! Enjoy!

@@EventHorizonShow the most wonderful part of even having the knowledge that this theory exists, is that human history shows us that; as far as mechanics and engineering of our physical world goes, whether it is 50 years or 500 years, if we can imagine it, we can create it . From DaVinci's theoretical flying machines, to cellular technology, facetime technology....whatever it may be, we eventually create it. So, Alcubierre created a theoretical paper that may have a much greater impact on our future than he even is aware of. Gene Rodenberry probably never dreamed that his Starfleet computers were in his near future, and were actually not imaginative enough to compare to what we now have. The Alcubierre shows a model of theoretical working....it's not impossible to imagine this now. It's one of the least hyped piece of theoretical physics out there, but it's actually profoundly interesting. I imagine that his current studies are the closest thing for now to understanding a theoretical "fuel" for this dream, even if that's not his intention. Sorry, I get excited about this. My science education led me into a satisfying life of tattoo art, so I admire these great minds.

Thanks for watching!

Half the things we send to mars doesnt even make it, i have a hard time beliving that we would get to the right planet or what ever even tho we could travel extremly fast

What about a version of base 8 math?

The clue...? ‘Spooky science. Certain atoms that once shared electrons, when one is affected, the other reacts even though light years apart. I don’t know (wish I did) but believe that there are things we don’t know or understand- and Einstein had a partial understanding- but not complete to the marvels of the universe. CERN allowed us to see quarks, and spooky science, so I feel this is our next generation’s of scientists clues to build and expand on...

@@mikejo8083 Bill said it best in Hamlet. "There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio than are dreamt of in your philosophy".

Yup we've got one chance to live, protect what we have. Earth

You’re bleeping welcome!

These longer ones are the best. I hope there's some good over the edge clips.

Holy shit indeed... time to make some hot chocolate....

centuries off.

Give me a break

Plenty of space to build out in space. Can you build a generator. Larger be make star gate i have videos on chain wormholes

This is way more than flying tho

Only people that never seen a bird do it.

@@dankhill7917 Flying is much more than driving tho. (Jokes aside, we never know what's possible until we do it. Even then, if FTL is proven completely impossible, there will still be some people trying to do it.)

Well this isn’t like flying. Don’t get your hopes up

@@wyattmurphy7153 I'm making a point about how we think things are impossible with no evidence to back it up. Not about flying. Travelling at over 100mph was once thought impossible. We don't know that c is the universal speed limit. It probably is impossible to exceed, but we don't know that yet. We are still very primitive and under developed we aren't even close to the speed of light.

Great point

15:50. Speaking of misunderstanding. Quick side note Dr Alcubierre. While space can be distorted. When this happens you cannot really describe this as stretching. In the same way if I crinkle up or fold a piece of cloth. I am distorting it shape. But I am not stretching it. If I want the cloth to be bigger. I have to add cloth. Now you might ask where is cloth coming from In this two-dimensional analogy of a 3 dimensional function?. And the answer is Everything that exists!. And even everything that doesn't. As we know matter is energy. And eventually all of that matter will return to being energy. When this happens new space is created. And the universe expands. So entropy is the cause of the expansion of the universe. Not stretching. The expansion of space is due to the accumulation of space. Not the stretching of it. Gravitational fields themselves are a compression of space. Which is a distortion. But not a stretching of Space. And well I too am guilty of using a two dimensional description to describe a three-dimensional function. It is this original description given by Einstein. That leaves the impression of a stretching action. When the reality is inverst or opposite. It is Spatial density. That can be used to describe gravitational field strength. Not the metaphorical gravitational well. That best describes the distortion of Space we call Gravity. So not stretching. Compressing!. Hope that was helpful. 17:15 Also if there is no limit to the speed at which space can expand or contract as you say. Then why do gravitational waves only move at the speed of light. Therefore you're warp field would only move at the speed of light as well. However the rate at which new space is accumulated can be more surface area then light can travel in the same amount of time it takes to create that additional space. Allowing space to expand faster than light. But one day the universe will run out of fuel. And come to a stop. And with no moving space. You cannot have time. So with the last bits of matter in the universe so to go the last bits of time. At which point the universe will reach maximum inflation with perfect spatial uniformity. And prepared for recompression. But that's a different story. I hope also this piece of information was helpful for you. 22:25. Literally. That is exactly how it can be and should be described. You were correcting his previous assessment and or terminology. But turns out you were totally wrong on both counts. It is 100% best described as "Spatial Density" !. What you should have corrected him on. Was the order and or direction. He said a lower "Spatial Density" in the front. And a greater "Spatial Density" in back. When obviously it's greater "Spatial Density" in the front. And lower "Spatial Density" in the back. But what ev. 24:20. As far as I know negative energy is created every day in the lab. We obviously can't make very much of it. Not even a fraction of a fraction of what is needed. But as far as I know negative energy has been proven to exist. 30:20. You think negative mass is hard to do. Try negative motion. 31:00. You mean the way you understand it. 33:30 Maybe they were stable. But like antimatter reacted with all available substances. And know all that's left is normally charged baryonic matter. 33:55. Yes.! In fact that's where most of Space comes from. It was the entropytal reaction between matter and antimatter during the initial expansion of the universe. That produced most of the space. And therefore most of the expansion of the universe. 34:28. We are an imbalance in the matter to anti-matter ratio. Indeed we are left overs. But I think the real question is. Was this intentional.? 35:30. It wouldn't be anti-gravity. It would be anti-gravitational. Just saying. 40:11. I mean I know it's your theory man. But that's not how it would work in real life. Sorry man. 40:25. It's called the Doppler effect shift. 40:32. You got it. 41:10. An obvious solution to those problems would be to reduce the possibility of any interaction. By reducing the mass within the warp field. Essentially turning the ship into a WIMP. Or a "Weekly Interacting Massive Particle". Like a Neutrino. Which could be done with a negative energy field. Much like the warp field. Perhaps doing it intrinsically. It would not only increase efficiency. But safety as well. Everything would just pass right through it. !! 47:33. The thing about Stephen Hawking's test. Is that it depends the future humans going to the past. But perhaps this is the first go-round. And we just haven't gotten there yet. Once we do. I guess at that point maybe in a parallel reality. Someone would show up to the party. But certainly I don't see how anyone could show up before time travel is invented. Mechanically speaking. that's as far back as you should be able to travel back in time. If you are at all able to do so. Which I don't think it's possible. Considering the function of time. In a traditional mechanical sense that is. 49:05. Well everything is traveling through time. And in that sense everything is a time machine. However even further time dilation occurs with increased velocity. So even if you weren't traveling back in time. You would still be traveling slower in time. And could still be considered a time traveler. Same thing if you went into orbit around a black hole. However. If you attempt to travel faster than the speed of light. You would in fact start moving backward in time. And that would absolutely make you a time traveler. So literally in every sense of the word. A time traveler is exactly what you would be. In every way that you could be. And by your own admission as soon as that reverse time dilation occurred. It would immediately be destroyed. Negating any faster-than-light travel. So yeah that statement is definitely wrong. I don't feel like you've given this enough thought man. 49:45. Because the warp field bubble could not travel faster than the speed of light. If it attempted to do so. It would be subject to the same effects. Regardless of the flow of time within the warp field. It would still produce feedback and it would still blow up. It would absolutely be a manipulation of time.

Thanks Strick! Glad you enjoyed the episode and thank you for supporting us on Patreon.

mmmm .... warp speed LeBaron. Even 65 mph would be nice.

Thanks! Much more to come!

Thank you Kenny. Glad you found us.

@@EventHorizonShow your welcome

lol it's like going straight to running before learning how to walk

You don't "travel" trough dimensions

@@jamesthegood123 I mean strictly you do. Dimensions are scalar values that can be measured and represent something in the physical world. With our current definitions we have 3 dimensions of space through which we can translate (or travel). However, the OP is also off the mark. The only known way to traverse dimensions of space is through time. You cannot "travel" through space without time. A movement of a given distance in zero time is teleportation. Travelling through dimensions of space in a given time is, by definition, speed.

@@solaryon8711 It's not time travel. Traveling faster than light will be achieved by utilizing the fifth dimension, bu warping part of the third dimension where it exists within the fifth dimension, as explained in A Wrinkle In Time.