Is it possible to "move" space, rather than a space vehicle, to make the vehicle travel faster?

Question

I have never heard of "Futurama", which I take is possibly some kind of sci-fi series. This question is fundamentally philosophical one as much as a physics one.

Answer 1

That's the general idea behind an Alcubierre drive, to create a bubble of space around a vehicle which can then "move" arbitrarily fast (faster than the speed of light even):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_...

There are a few problems with it though, the ship inside can't create the bubble around itself, something else has to do that. It therefore can't exit the bubble when it reaches it's destination, and so it will simply keep going.

Also, such a bubble requires negative energy to keep it open, and we have never observed this, and do not know how to create it.

To create a bubble would also be another show stopper, even if we had all the negative energy we wanted. Some have theorised that it would require an already existing bubble in order to create a new one, and so far we haven't found any.

An alternative to moving space is to simply stretch it (which we also don't know how to do), and create what is called a Krasnikov tube:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krasnikov_T...

For this you would travel at a high velocity to your destination, creating the tube as you go, then when you want to come back, travel back down the tube and get back home near instantaneously. Assuming you can go fast enough, you would be able to travel to practically any point in the universe in what would appear to be a very short amount of time, and then get back shortly after you left. In fact, in you create tubes in both directions, you would effectively have a time machine.

In a Krasnikov tube, the distance back is far far shorter than the distance there.

Answer 2

Not that good with quantum physics  the man (link below) is better qualified to answer your question.  

Answer 3

you mean from futurama? XD not YET, but maybe.......

Answer 4

in vaccuum...cant.  

Answer 5

youve been watching too much futurama , its not possible

Answer 6

Theoretical -- yes

Acutally possible -- No.

This basically is what happens in Star Treks' Warp Drive. Space is "warped" (folded), then the ship travels across the "warp" at a sub-light speed. Kinda like a tank tread.

Einstein says that this is possible.  We have PROVEN that space can be warped by a sufficiently large gravity well, like around a large planet or a sun.  Such a large gravity will even warp light.

But it is NOT practical to do it.  First off, no one has yet figured out how to generate Gravitons -- the "particles" that "carry" gravity.  In fact, no one has yet proven that they exist.  It is just a theory that gravitons exist.

Second, if it WERE possible, it would take a HUGE amout of power to generate them. In Star Trek, the Warp Drives generate a gravitational field that is much bigger than a planet or a small sun could make.  And to do this they need a matter/anti-matter power source.

But so far, we don't have that.  Scientists think that all of the anti-matter in the universe was used up during the Big Bang.  It is possible to make antimatter, but so far all that we've made could fit in a thimble, and when we DO make it it reacts with ordinary matter and destroys itself almost as fast as we make it.

So right now we have some really massive roadblocks to "moving space" through a "warp drive" -- no real  evidence of gravitons, no way to produce them, and not enough power.

Answer 7

You can't move space without tearing it apart, which I think would have cataclismic effect on our Universe.

Space, however, is bent by gravity, causing any mass to "slide" towards the source of gravity. This can make a spaceship travel faster, and this has been used by NASA to make their deep space probes go faster, using the plantes in our solar system as "slings".