isn't it funny how me will technically be sailing in space just like how we sail on the sea and travelled the unknown sees in the first-place, except wind will now be photons aha!!
Well did you know the sci fi audio book the sojourn is based on sailing? I think you should watch it! You'll love it! Include theirs lore and stuff on YT and such and their dis'cor'd and web'site it's on Go'ogle books and such
I sent this video to my little brother because i want him to become interested in physics like I am. However it's hard to compete with social media for his attention. I'm really interested in science communication but seems like I can only reach people who have already decided for themselves to become interested.
isn't it funny how me will technically be sailing in space just like how we sail on the sea and travelled the unknown sees in the first-place, except wind will now be photons aha!!
Overall this is a great video, and I love the animation style. I wish I was able to hire someone to do that type animations for some of my technology videos. Anyways, a few things are off on this video. I got a degree in Aerospace, and I have a background with NASA before the man spaceflight went away. There is a lot of people at NASA that thinks it is possible to travel faster than light. You simply won't be able to see the object, and might not even be able to measure it due to the speed. A lot of these people will point out how back in the day they use to think you can only go up to 60 mph, then it was 100 and something, and now the speed the speed of light. A side from the speed of light one, each time the number only increased because something did go faster than that speed. (It's been pointed out math is highly unreliable on these types of subjects. Mathematically, elephants should be able to fly due to the surface area. In fact, mathematically you should explode if you go 60 mph in a tunnel (This actually was pushed as facts when trains were first coming about) That being said, mathematically, a warp drive is possible.) Keep in mind, all of that is theoretical. One of the places the video got it wrong is 1:35 It's not an infinite amount of energy. It's the object of mass will have an infinite amount of drag going such speeds. Everything else is spot on.
Tyler Sammy That's a big thing they were pushing into us when we were in school and when I was at NASA. A lot of this stuff is purely theoretical and can't be proven one way or another at this time. Most of it works, and the theory is just there to explain a possible reason why something works, or in this case a possible limitation. I think the reason why NASA and my schools were pushing that into us is because the information you learn could be wrong, and you need to be able to look up the info to make sure it's still the common belief, or if someone proved it wrong. Sadly, most people don't see a lot of this as theories, and treats almost all major theories as facts. This in itself can and has caused some major problems.
+Tech Reviews and Help So true. We should always be reminded that the current theories of how things work should never hold us back from finding new ways to interpret and understand the universe.
I also wish I had animation capabilities for my science videos. But I don't really have time to learn it at the moment so have settled for just focussing on my words for now
NASA has an inertia accelerator. A "kenitic drive." a primitive WARP Drive. A pinball machine type spring and ball that "pushes" objects to lightspeed or faster. FUNDING THOUGH EHHH
Great video! Have you considered adding an option for the community to add captions ? I could translate into Czech and I'm sure there's more people that would love to translate aswell. Thanks alot!
This laser propulsion system seems awesome!! I hope so much that someone, public or private, will try to built this tiny exploring ship as soon as possible!! This way we could really explore, at least visually, the universe around us. :D
Am I the only one who thinks its crazy how Einstein's work (a man who has long passed away) still continues educating, surprising, compelling, astonishing and setting the foundation for every new era of people from BEFORE his own time and ever SINCE his own time?
in my opinion, the reason why travelling as fast as the speed of light is impossible is that, with the faster speed, time slows down, and, when approaching the speed of light, say e-1^-100, time slows down significantly, and, as speed gradually approaches light-speed, time shall slow down, or stop, while you shall travel to the end of existence, trillions upon trillions of millenniums after the heat death the universe, and, in my opinion, at that time, time would be meaningless. so that, Lim V->E VT. please point out the problems or improvement for my argument. :)
hyperdiamond is believed to be as hard as diamond but with better wear resistance. Lets say you can make the body of the little space craft out of this material. You still have to worry about the softer components, like lenses, ccds, sensors, etc. All of that would have to be able to withstand those colossal forces. Im not saying this isnt possible, its just that the people involved are making it seem like its something doable now. The tech to do this is still very far off. What about star dust erosion on the sail or the craft? at 25,000km/sec it would be significant.
An easy solution is to just have the lasers be less powerful, have fewer lasers, or have the lasers flash on and off with a pattern to get slower acceleration
That would then not be 25% of c in 10 mins. By using fewer lasers or intermittently, there is less acceleration. I was pointing out that this video didn't address the obvious problems with accelerating that fast.
explain what happens to a human body travelling that fast. Are there other concerns? Do we survive? Despite time dilation, what about radiation build up from travelling that fast? What kind of impact would particle sized space debris have on the ship? Or do we need to invent a deflector dish too?
+West996 All shit that's still being worked on. No one's sure how much damage small particle collision will cause during interstellar travel, or how you would block all the radiation coming through the ship and it's passengers. Those are even concerns in interplanetary travel, just getting to Mars.
There's always going to be a Murph that will come along, long after we are all gone and come up with a simple idea and resolution to our entire current ways of space travel. Just like the creators of the first airplane, space shuttle, ship, submarine and car.
I like the most is crash course astronomy. As I got lot of information with cool animation .Thanks for that .And I have a request to make more videos on that. Or any other astronomy related videos . Thanks once again
Great video if only for the last part about phased laser arrays. That immediately made the most sense as something feasible and functional even in solar system travels. Having the arrays in space means one can use a solar collection device that is powered by the high energy particles of the Sun (the stuff the Van Allen belt tends to protect us from on the surface). Put an array at Earth orbit and one around Mars orbit and now there's a quick transport system. Obviously far distant tech, but better than trying to explain fantasy tech like warp drives and worm holes.
hold on a second. If Alpha Centauri is 4 light years away surely if you travelled nearly at the speed of light it would take 8 years for the trip? Not the 1 year it states?
From Earth's perspective, yes. But for the ship, the high relative velocity contracts the distance between Earth and AC, and it becomes much closer, allowing you to get there sooner. This taps into the concept of proper velocity, which has no limit (it approaches infinity as coordinate velocity approaches c). It is the distance traveled as measured by a stationary observer, divided by the proper time, or time experienced by the one traveling. Go fast enough and you can get anywhere in the universe within a human lifetime, even though it will appear to take forever from the perspective of those you leave behind.
Ah ok. I have read that a photon doesn't experience time at all. If you were the photon, you would leave the source and hit the end point whether it be someone's eyeball that's millions of light years away or whatever in an instant.
Sort of... that's kind of the limit for the mathematics. But photons don't experience anything... and nothing that could take measurements or have experiences can move at the speed of light, so talking about the "experience" of a photon doesn't make much sense.
I've seen more articles about laser propulsion but they never answer this question: how would one get back to earth if the lasers being fired FROM the earth..?
Sending something like that into orbit sounds REALLY impractical. I feel like it would be better to have it on the moon, which would remain stationary, and you know, have gravity.
+Alphys yeah, and if it was in orbit it would be behind the earth for half the time. and if you placed the array at one of the poles you wouldn't have to worry about it being behind the moon, not to mention it would be way easier to repair and set up a power source on the moon where there's gravity.
+Jacob Collier Lasers don't need gravity to function. The acceleration of the tiny probes would only take 20 minutes and low-Earth-orbit is ~90 minutes, so the laser station would be well within view of the probe it's launching for the entire acceleration. And bringing equipment to the Moon's surface is more costly than leaving it in Earth orbit, because you have to fight the Moon's gravity well to land on it (and you have to fight Earth's gravity to get it to the Moon).
Hi Thought Cafe! Just seen this video, really love it! May I ask you something? How do you make your animations? Best wishes and a wonderful day, Life is Physics
Amazing video! I have kind of a weird question... your backgrounds and graphics in general are beautiful, how do you do it? How much time does it take, how big is your team etc etc... a Thoutght Café making of would be awesome!
is not the worry of going faster then speed of light, as you approach speed of light, distances shrink thanks to relativity. when travelling like 99.99% speed of light, alpha centari is no longer 4.3 light years, but a near 0.06 light years, to the perspective of the crew. Meaning to the crew, it would take 0.06 years to arrive, but to people viewing on earth, still takes 4.3 years. The ship crew could fly there and turn around and fly back in 0.12 a year, and the people on earth would age 8.6 years. The problem is getting to that speed and the dangers it poses to matter, as you near the speed of light, takes much much more energy and thrust to go faster. Pretty much you are not going any faster, your thrust and energy is just shrinking the universe from your perspective. There can be problems associated with that. You could have a huge fusion reactor aboard that can propel your ship super super fast past 99% speed of light, one small minute piece of dust in your way would explode your ship to dust. A rock would disintergrate your ship and you wouldn't even feel it. Simple radio waves, infrared, light waves start turning into ultraviolet, xrays, and gamma rays to your perspective and will kill you onboard. Then you have to slow down when you get there. you cannot land anywhere at those speeds. You'll need exactly the same amount of thrust going in opposite direction to slow back down. We are not safe for +99% the speed of light travel.
So aka, you want us to tax people more (which are already doing not so great) to fund NASA, so that we could possibly reach a star one day.... for what reason? How about let's use the money and give it to the poor, or back to the tax payers to increase the economy.
it seems to me that, regardless of engineering challenges around propulsion and acceleration, there is also a practical limit to how fast we’d WANT a probe to travel before the effects of Time Dilation get in the way of obtaining results. maybe someone better at physics can correct me, but it seems that you’d want to identify a top end speed that is just right to allow the scientists asking the question to get answers before they die. if the craft is too slow, it simply takes too long to get there, so the scientist dies before a message back is ever sent. if the craft is too fast, there is too much time dilation, so even though the craft gets to the destination very fast (in its frame of reference), the time elapsed on earth is very great due to dilation, so the scientist is also dead before receiving a message. some rough calculations look to me like this optimum speed is about 70% of the speed of light.
The laser space thing will take 2200 years to launch a fully loaded (including humans?) space craft to Alpha Centauri. The "Much Bigger one" I would say would take 20 years for a fully loaded to send to Alpha Centauri. But according to my calculations, If 20 years is what It takes for a fully loaded aircraft, then traveling to mars would take 3 minutes on a fully loaded craft.
The problem with the light sail idea is , we certainly could launch something to a destination, but we would need the same kind of laser array system at that point to launch the probe back to earth . Honestly I think there is something that we’re missing . There has to be a more logical way to accomplish this . One day ..perhaps , it will fall on our lap.
Well, that laser wouldn’t work as well for human spaceships. Theoretically speaking, even if we made a laser array so big that we can go to mars, how would we get back?
Using such a laser Array is quite brilliant, but the power required is still a damn sight more than simply cycling several sections of a space freighter in a sequence to their electromagnetic fields phase. "Think Rail Gun" Having at any given time, most of the bulk of the freighter tied electromagnetically together as a main mass, So that a section which is switched out of phase can be repulsed to accelerate forward and towards the leading section/s, And yes acceleration can be quite intense initially, but once maximum velocity is attained, no more energy used, "acceleration/deacceleration energy can be obtained via solar arrays" only directional navigation will be needed, and even with navigation, much the same principles can be applied, so use of energy would be at minimal. To slow down the freighter, the whole process is to simply accelerate the sections backwards.. It seems absurd, but with the right timing acceleration BTW can be demonstrated by using a toy train "via their shunts or connections removed and then first and last sections tied together via a flexible tether traced through the mid sections so that each section is allowed efficient acceleration" and yes it's all in the timing, that has the whole damn thing with an amazing acceleration..
I'm not sure if I fully understood this. Does that mean the lasers would only be required to accelerate the spaceship? Or would they be powered on the whole time? How would the spaceship decelerate and avoid hitting a planet at full speed?
+Niklas Auinger Think of them more as probes. They would arrive in the system, and take a bunch of data, photos, etc. send it back (not exactly clear on how) and probably continue onward indefinitely, similar to other probes we've sent into space.
So objects in space experience sl9wer time be sure of lack of gravity..and less stress on the cells..next question if everything is weightless in space shouldn't a proton and a rocker have the same footprint in said space..
It wasn't Einstein, rather the Lorentz Transformations that revealed time dilation properly, Poincaré named it after Hendrik Lorentz. Einstein in fact wrongly asserted dilation effects would occur between observers on the equator & the North/South poles.
Um okay, so say you send off a shuttle to another galaxy with this laser array, how is it going to "stop" when it gets there. That would be like trying to slow down a shuttle re-entry with a bottle rocket.
Good animation but one small problem, sure a 70 gigawatt flashlight may be capable of thrusting an object forward but is there any known substance that could take being bombarded with 70 gigawatts of power, let alone something with less mass than an apple? Not only that how could you steer such an object let alone slow it down again to check out a planet?
They don’t consider that you have to slowly increase the speed with humans on board and there’s a limit for electronics too. And when you’re half way there, it starts to slowly decelerate. That probably at least doubles the light speed travel time. You can’t just start right at light speed. You don’t want the acceleration for people to be more than 1x earth’s gravity so people could live on the rear of the ship, with many floors, like a tall building. And then live on the “ceiling” when it starts to decelerate. I’m sure there’s a lot I don’t know too.
If laser experiment succeed for example: as u said it can reach more than 25% of light speed, what about the material, is it gonna bear that drag which is 25% more? Also will that laser radiation effect ozone layer????
Just doing some math of the distances covered by the warp drive. It seems that Warp Factor 1,2 and 3 is that number cubed multiplied by the speed of light. Warp 1 = 1 ^3 = 1 , Warp 2 = 2^3 = 8 , Warp 3 = 3^3 = 27....however if we get to Warp 9 then 9^3 = 729 not 834 ??? So does anyone know how these figures are calculated ?
...interstellar travel constant acceleration (Trappist-1: 1g)... passenger climb in space-elevator to the "Aquarius-1" (starship with 1000*100*100 mts sizes and...), awaits them in asteroid Toutatis at geostationary orbit... THE SHIP TAKEOFF►...at destination passengers disembark: an engineered Terraformed planet from the red dwarf Trappist-1 cool star.
Because, humans are multi-purposed with their own agendas. There are currently 7.53 billion people on earth, do you really think everyone would focus on ocean floor exploration? and by 2100 we will have reached 11 billion people. With rival private and government space agencies, space is the new western frontier and believe me, people will want territories, and the control of resources. To focus on just ocean floor exploration is foolish, we've already discovered 5% of 75%. Limiting yourself in this world is what gets you killed. Just ask the Conquistadors who razed the Aztecs. Don't think for a moment there wont be war in space, that is immature and childish. War happens on earth and it will happen in space. Control and power is what every great country wants, you have that, you control the future and legacy of mankind above the stars.
Sooo a few questions? If the laser can move the sail? What’s the laser gonna do to the ship and it’s contents that’s behind the sail, because it has to pass threw it to the sail. Also if it’s traveling 25% the speed of light, hows the probe gonna slow down once it’s to its destination in 20 years?
2:39 That reference made me snort out my coffee. Totally didn't expect it.
Anyone who played Metal Gear Solid will understand it :)
I CLAPPED WHEN I HEARD THE NOISE, I KNOW WHAT THAT IS!
isn't it funny how me will technically be sailing in space just like how we sail on the sea and travelled the unknown sees in the first-place, except wind will now be photons aha!!
What will we use in place of limes?
Well did you know the sci fi audio book the sojourn is based on sailing? I think you should watch it! You'll love it! Include theirs lore and stuff on YT and such and their dis'cor'd and web'site it's on Go'ogle books and such
I sent this video to my little brother because i want him to become interested in physics like I am. However it's hard to compete with social media for his attention. I'm really interested in science communication but seems like I can only reach people who have already decided for themselves to become interested.
I hear you loud and clear
I struggle with the same problem
I love science and struggle to understand it when explained this video explained it so well
The art, animation, and explanation in this video are amazing!
Thanks for watching, everyone! Make sure to share this video if you enjoyed it!
We could use Mass Relays.
Crash Course brought me here at the speed of light and I stayed great channel!
isn't it funny how me will technically be sailing in space just like how we sail on the sea and travelled the unknown sees in the first-place, except wind will now be photons aha!!
the character in the ship is cute
I love u😍😍
Yes! Finally you guys uploaded another video!
visuals are outstanding
Overall this is a great video, and I love the animation style. I wish I was able to hire someone to do that type animations for some of my technology videos.
Anyways, a few things are off on this video. I got a degree in Aerospace, and I have a background with NASA before the man spaceflight went away.
There is a lot of people at NASA that thinks it is possible to travel faster than light. You simply won't be able to see the object, and might not even be able to measure it due to the speed.
A lot of these people will point out how back in the day they use to think you can only go up to 60 mph, then it was 100 and something, and now the speed the speed of light. A side from the speed of light one, each time the number only increased because something did go faster than that speed. (It's been pointed out math is highly unreliable on these types of subjects. Mathematically, elephants should be able to fly due to the surface area. In fact, mathematically you should explode if you go 60 mph in a tunnel (This actually was pushed as facts when trains were first coming about)
That being said, mathematically, a warp drive is possible.)
Keep in mind, all of that is theoretical.
One of the places the video got it wrong is 1:35
It's not an infinite amount of energy. It's the object of mass will have an infinite amount of drag going such speeds.
Everything else is spot on.
+Tech Reviews and Help Thanks for sharing that very valuable information. This is my fav part "Keep in mind, all of that is theoretical."
Tyler Sammy
That's a big thing they were pushing into us when we were in school and when I was at NASA.
A lot of this stuff is purely theoretical and can't be proven one way or another at this time. Most of it works, and the theory is just there to explain a possible reason why something works, or in this case a possible limitation.
I think the reason why NASA and my schools were pushing that into us is because the information you learn could be wrong, and you need to be able to look up the info to make sure it's still the common belief, or if someone proved it wrong.
Sadly, most people don't see a lot of this as theories, and treats almost all major theories as facts. This in itself can and has caused some major problems.
+Tech Reviews and Help So true. We should always be reminded that the current theories of how things work should never hold us back from finding new ways to interpret and understand the universe.
I also wish I had animation capabilities for my science videos. But I don't really have time to learn it at the moment so have settled for just focussing on my words for now
NASA has an inertia accelerator. A "kenitic drive." a primitive WARP Drive. A pinball machine type spring and ball that "pushes" objects to lightspeed or faster. FUNDING THOUGH EHHH
That FTL reference! Really cool to have those in the video!
FTL, Adventure Time, Metal Gear, Wilhelm Scream... So many references!
Also very cool video. :)
+IstasPumaNevada oh my glob!
Awesome video. biggest issue I see with the laser array idea is everything is a 1 way trip. :)
unless you sent a laser array first or soon after.
+Joe Olenick Thanks! We have discussed the one-way trip issue and it's exciting to think about the possible solutions.
Unless, you used the ships to break down material at their destination and use that to create laser arrays to send them back.
That's what I was thinking too. Then you could just re-use the same ship.
its also worth noting that when the probe reaches alpha centauri that it will need to SLOW DOWN thats gonna be really hard at 25% light speed!
2:38 METAL GEAR SOLID sound effect lmao 😂
Someone at Thought Café likes their space lumpy.
Very smoooooooth animations
4:02 that sounded scary!!
Guys,
skip this weird Time Dilation stuff and just build a Tardis.
+Hellocatz a TARDIS isn't built, it is grown! It isn't just some machine.
oh my gosh i forgot! sorry.
Hellocatz I only know because I am a nerd and I was part drunk.
Sebastian McIntyre i should have really known that because my bother is SUPER in to it.
Really awesome animation !! with real good info put into it !! keep up the good work.
OMG Metal Gear!
There you go! Instant Sub!
Keep up those animations, they're amazing :D
Great video! Have you considered adding an option for the community to add captions ? I could translate into Czech and I'm sure there's more people that would love to translate aswell. Thanks alot!
This laser propulsion system seems awesome!! I hope so much that someone, public or private, will try to built this tiny exploring ship as soon as possible!!
This way we could really explore, at least visually, the universe around us. :D
fr tho
No Mans Sky reference 2.43
:)
+Shawn Pool It was originally going to be a Borg ship, but we thought something more recent would be better.
+Shawn Pool Also a MGS alert sound!
Thought Café I love all the little easter eggs in your videos there fun to spot.
+Shawn Pool I only caught the FTL reference :-P
+Simon Als Nielsen nope i did
Loving this fam!
Awesome Shining easter egg at 1:41
Am I the only one who thinks its crazy how Einstein's work (a man who has long passed away) still continues educating, surprising, compelling, astonishing and setting the foundation for every new era of people from BEFORE his own time and ever SINCE his own time?
No.
in my opinion, the reason why travelling as fast as the speed of light is impossible is that, with the faster speed, time slows down, and, when approaching the speed of light, say e-1^-100, time slows down significantly, and, as speed gradually approaches light-speed, time shall slow down, or stop, while you shall travel to the end of existence, trillions upon trillions of millenniums after the heat death the universe, and, in my opinion, at that time, time would be meaningless. so that, Lim V->E VT. please point out the problems or improvement for my argument. :)
Actually Universe is expanding faster. So you will never reach the dark age or the end of all. IF that's how it eeally ends
The phased laser array idea is giving me nerdgasm.
I just realized I was subscribed to this channel.
25% of light speed in 10 min??! The G forces would turn the micro-craft into vapor.
There is nothing currently available that could handle that. Not even carbon nanotubes or graphene.
hyperdiamond is believed to be as hard as diamond but with better wear resistance.
Lets say you can make the body of the little space craft out of this material. You still have to worry about the softer components, like lenses, ccds, sensors, etc. All of that would have to be able to withstand those colossal forces.
Im not saying this isnt possible, its just that the people involved are making it seem like its something doable now.
The tech to do this is still very far off.
What about star dust erosion on the sail or the craft? at 25,000km/sec it would be significant.
An easy solution is to just have the lasers be less powerful, have fewer lasers, or have the lasers flash on and off with a pattern to get slower acceleration
That would then not be 25% of c in 10 mins. By using fewer lasers or intermittently, there is less acceleration.
I was pointing out that this video didn't address the obvious problems with accelerating that fast.
icwiz Ah, okay
i like that the FTL ship "the kestrel" was featured
kudos to you
explain what happens to a human body travelling that fast. Are there other concerns? Do we survive? Despite time dilation, what about radiation build up from travelling that fast? What kind of impact would particle sized space debris have on the ship? Or do we need to invent a deflector dish too?
+West996 All shit that's still being worked on. No one's sure how much damage small particle collision will cause during interstellar travel, or how you would block all the radiation coming through the ship and it's passengers. Those are even concerns in interplanetary travel, just getting to Mars.
I loved your video with ASAP science!
You literally gave me so much HOPE with that laser tech thing😭
There's always going to be a Murph that will come along, long after we are all gone and come up with a simple idea and resolution to our entire current ways of space travel. Just like the creators of the first airplane, space shuttle, ship, submarine and car.
I like the most is crash course astronomy. As I got lot of information with cool animation .Thanks for that .And I have a request to make more videos on that. Or any other astronomy related videos . Thanks once again
Amazing as always
Props for the Mae Jemison reference!
Great video if only for the last part about phased laser arrays. That immediately made the most sense as something feasible and functional even in solar system travels. Having the arrays in space means one can use a solar collection device that is powered by the high energy particles of the Sun (the stuff the Van Allen belt tends to protect us from on the surface). Put an array at Earth orbit and one around Mars orbit and now there's a quick transport system.
Obviously far distant tech, but better than trying to explain fantasy tech like warp drives and worm holes.
"Some challenges remain".
So many optimistic ways of saying we have no idea how this would work.
+Elliott Collins We have ideas, it just involves developing technology we already have the basis for.
2:40 nicely done
Make him stay Murph!
S......T.......A.......Y COOP
omg love that movie
2:42, GOD DAMN IT SEAN! MURRAY!
Thats freaking awesome. Solar sail!!!
hold on a second. If Alpha Centauri is 4 light years away surely if you travelled nearly at the speed of light it would take 8 years for the trip? Not the 1 year it states?
From Earth's perspective, yes. But for the ship, the high relative velocity contracts the distance between Earth and AC, and it becomes much closer, allowing you to get there sooner. This taps into the concept of proper velocity, which has no limit (it approaches infinity as coordinate velocity approaches c). It is the distance traveled as measured by a stationary observer, divided by the proper time, or time experienced by the one traveling. Go fast enough and you can get anywhere in the universe within a human lifetime, even though it will appear to take forever from the perspective of those you leave behind.
Ah ok. I have read that a photon doesn't experience time at all. If you were the photon, you would leave the source and hit the end point whether it be someone's eyeball that's millions of light years away or whatever in an instant.
Sort of... that's kind of the limit for the mathematics. But photons don't experience anything... and nothing that could take measurements or have experiences can move at the speed of light, so talking about the "experience" of a photon doesn't make much sense.
Informative, great video after watching a bit disappointed I can't take a trip in the Enterprise D to look around even our own solar system.
this question has been in my head for ages. thanks for the answer! ❤️
that's incredible. Absolute genius.
I've seen more articles about laser propulsion but they never answer this question: how would one get back to earth if the lasers being fired FROM the earth..?
That was incredible!!!!
Sending something like that into orbit sounds REALLY impractical. I feel like it would be better to have it on the moon, which would remain stationary, and you know, have gravity.
but then it would rotate with the moon
+Alphys yeah, and if it was in orbit it would be behind the earth for half the time. and if you placed the array at one of the poles you wouldn't have to worry about it being behind the moon, not to mention it would be way easier to repair and set up a power source on the moon where there's gravity.
In orbit it would also rotate around the earth, did they already account for that?
Jacob Collier yes putting it on the poles will help but bringing the array to the moon is less cost effective then just putting it in orbit.
+Jacob Collier Lasers don't need gravity to function.
The acceleration of the tiny probes would only take 20 minutes and low-Earth-orbit is ~90 minutes, so the laser station would be well within view of the probe it's launching for the entire acceleration.
And bringing equipment to the Moon's surface is more costly than leaving it in Earth orbit, because you have to fight the Moon's gravity well to land on it (and you have to fight Earth's gravity to get it to the Moon).
Loved it!
Hi Thought Cafe! Just seen this video, really love it!
May I ask you something? How do you make your animations?
Best wishes and a wonderful day, Life is Physics
OMG you're too good, awesome videos
cool channel! :) It's good to push something more meaningful.
Neat. AsapScience brought me here.
So we launch 40,000 small projectiles at our neighbors, at the speed of light, with no way to slow down? Lol intergalactic war here we come
Amazing video! I have kind of a weird question... your backgrounds and graphics in general are beautiful, how do you do it? How much time does it take, how big is your team etc etc... a Thoutght Café making of would be awesome!
Hi! Thanks for the suggestion, we'd love to make a behind-the-scenes video soon!
Me: bye guys I'll be back tommorrow
*1 day later*
Me: I'm back!
People: thought you would arrive back 2 days ago
I hope I live to see anything like this
It wont be by SPEED, but by a "Physics Shortcut"---Such as space warping or "space Jumping"---without the time disruptions or energy problem.
is not the worry of going faster then speed of light, as you approach speed of light, distances shrink thanks to relativity. when travelling like 99.99% speed of light, alpha centari is no longer 4.3 light years, but a near 0.06 light years, to the perspective of the crew. Meaning to the crew, it would take 0.06 years to arrive, but to people viewing on earth, still takes 4.3 years. The ship crew could fly there and turn around and fly back in 0.12 a year, and the people on earth would age 8.6 years.
The problem is getting to that speed and the dangers it poses to matter, as you near the speed of light, takes much much more energy and thrust to go faster. Pretty much you are not going any faster, your thrust and energy is just shrinking the universe from your perspective. There can be problems associated with that. You could have a huge fusion reactor aboard that can propel your ship super super fast past 99% speed of light, one small minute piece of dust in your way would explode your ship to dust. A rock would disintergrate your ship and you wouldn't even feel it. Simple radio waves, infrared, light waves start turning into ultraviolet, xrays, and gamma rays to your perspective and will kill you onboard. Then you have to slow down when you get there. you cannot land anywhere at those speeds. You'll need exactly the same amount of thrust going in opposite direction to slow back down. We are not safe for +99% the speed of light travel.
Let's stop putting our resources into making Donald trump merchandise and start funding the fuck out of Nasa
Hilary Clinton will fund NASA... just saying.
and 5 months later are both of you just as much hillary and trump supporters and before
Fund NASA they'll merge with those companies and create one super space company
Good point. I really want them to though.
So aka, you want us to tax people more (which are already doing not so great) to fund NASA, so that we could possibly reach a star one day.... for what reason? How about let's use the money and give it to the poor, or back to the tax payers to increase the economy.
it seems to me that, regardless of engineering challenges around propulsion and acceleration, there is also a practical limit to how fast we’d WANT a probe to travel before the effects of Time Dilation get in the way of obtaining results. maybe someone better at physics can correct me, but it seems that you’d want to identify a top end speed that is just right to allow the scientists asking the question to get answers before they die. if the craft is too slow, it simply takes too long to get there, so the scientist dies before a message back is ever sent. if the craft is too fast, there is too much time dilation, so even though the craft gets to the destination very fast (in its frame of reference), the time elapsed on earth is very great due to dilation, so the scientist is also dead before receiving a message. some rough calculations look to me like this optimum speed is about 70% of the speed of light.
Finally!
same for sound
The laser arrays kind of give off a mass relay vibe
POPPP! that was my brain exploded
if i go at the speed of 2c would i calculate the the time experienced like sqrt(1-(2c)^2/c^2)^2 to make it a real number ? or
-sqrt(abs(1-(2c)^2/c^2))
The laser space thing will take 2200 years to launch a fully loaded (including humans?) space craft to Alpha Centauri. The "Much Bigger one" I would say would take 20 years for a fully loaded to send to Alpha Centauri. But according to my calculations, If 20 years is what It takes for a fully loaded aircraft, then traveling to mars would take 3 minutes on a fully loaded craft.
Wow - very well made!!
The problem with the light sail idea is , we certainly could launch something to a destination, but we would need the same kind of laser array system at that point to launch the probe back to earth . Honestly I think there is something that we’re missing . There has to be a more logical way to accomplish this . One day ..perhaps , it will fall on our lap.
Well, that laser wouldn’t work as well for human spaceships. Theoretically speaking, even if we made a laser array so big that we can go to mars, how would we get back?
Using such a laser Array is quite brilliant, but the power required is still a damn sight more than simply cycling several sections of a space freighter in a sequence to their electromagnetic fields phase. "Think Rail Gun" Having at any given time, most of the bulk of the freighter tied electromagnetically together as a main mass, So that a section which is switched out of phase can be repulsed to accelerate forward and towards the leading section/s, And yes acceleration can be quite intense initially, but once maximum velocity is attained, no more energy used, "acceleration/deacceleration energy can be obtained via solar arrays" only directional navigation will be needed, and even with navigation, much the same principles can be applied, so use of energy would be at minimal.
To slow down the freighter, the whole process is to simply accelerate the sections backwards.. It seems absurd, but with the right timing acceleration BTW can be demonstrated by using a toy train "via their shunts or connections removed and then first and last sections tied together via a flexible tether traced through the mid sections so that each section is allowed efficient acceleration" and yes it's all in the timing, that has the whole damn thing with an amazing acceleration..
People do realize we do at least have interstellar probes already right? The Voyagers still work
I'm not sure if I fully understood this. Does that mean the lasers would only be required to accelerate the spaceship? Or would they be powered on the whole time? How would the spaceship decelerate and avoid hitting a planet at full speed?
+Niklas Auinger Think of them more as probes. They would arrive in the system, and take a bunch of data, photos, etc. send it back (not exactly clear on how) and probably continue onward indefinitely, similar to other probes we've sent into space.
I have a question, if we build a huge array for us to get to proxima b...how would we slow down
So objects in space experience sl9wer time be sure of lack of gravity..and less stress on the cells..next question if everything is weightless in space shouldn't a proton and a rocker have the same footprint in said space..
It wasn't Einstein, rather the Lorentz Transformations that revealed time dilation properly, Poincaré named it after Hendrik Lorentz. Einstein in fact wrongly asserted dilation effects would occur between observers on the equator & the North/South poles.
This stuff is fascinating
AWESEOME!
I just posted to +1 the FTL reference. Nice.
+ibanix2 Hah, and wilhiem scream at 4:00
Um okay, so say you send off a shuttle to another galaxy with this laser array, how is it going to "stop" when it gets there. That would be like trying to slow down a shuttle re-entry with a bottle rocket.
Good animation but one small problem, sure a 70 gigawatt flashlight may be capable of thrusting an object forward but is there any known substance that could take being bombarded with 70 gigawatts of power, let alone something with less mass than an apple? Not only that how could you steer such an object let alone slow it down again to check out a planet?
I wish to be reborn in 2000 years while I have my memory right now
1:50 Lumpy Space Princess
good work einstein!
They don’t consider that you have to slowly increase the speed with humans on board and there’s a limit for electronics too. And when you’re half way there, it starts to slowly decelerate. That probably at least doubles the light speed travel time. You can’t just start right at light speed. You don’t want the acceleration for people to be more than 1x earth’s gravity so people could live on the rear of the ship, with many floors, like a tall building. And then live on the “ceiling” when it starts to decelerate. I’m sure there’s a lot I don’t know too.
If laser experiment succeed for example: as u said it can reach more than 25% of light speed, what about the material, is it gonna bear that drag which is 25% more? Also will that laser radiation effect ozone layer????
The animation in so awesome.
How do u make the animation??👌
Just doing some math of the distances covered by the warp drive. It seems that Warp Factor 1,2 and 3 is that number cubed multiplied by the speed of light. Warp 1 = 1 ^3 = 1 , Warp 2 = 2^3 = 8 , Warp 3 = 3^3 = 27....however if we get to Warp 9 then 9^3 = 729 not 834 ??? So does anyone know how these figures are calculated ?
Adventure time~
This video makes me depressed, "born to late to explore the world but to early to explore the galaxy".
Great video
That Stephen Hawking drawing is so cute
Great video. I just want sci-fi level space travel without any downsides! Get cracking, people! K thx bye!
I like the fact that the spaceship used here is the Kestrel from FTL.
Were the hell did they get that from?
2:30
...interstellar travel constant acceleration (Trappist-1: 1g)... passenger climb in space-elevator to the "Aquarius-1" (starship with 1000*100*100 mts sizes and...), awaits them in asteroid Toutatis at geostationary orbit... THE SHIP TAKEOFF►...at destination passengers disembark: an engineered Terraformed planet from the red dwarf Trappist-1 cool star.
Why go to space when we dont even know what the ocean is
Oxy Clean fuck the ocewn
Becuz u don't don't know what the ocean is...world doesn't know what space is..
Yeah we should know more about our own planet too
Because, humans are multi-purposed with their own agendas. There are currently 7.53 billion people on earth, do you really think everyone would focus on ocean floor exploration? and by 2100 we will have reached 11 billion people. With rival private and government space agencies, space is the new western frontier and believe me, people will want territories, and the control of resources. To focus on just ocean floor exploration is foolish, we've already discovered 5% of 75%.
Limiting yourself in this world is what gets you killed. Just ask the Conquistadors who razed the Aztecs. Don't think for a moment there wont be war in space, that is immature and childish. War happens on earth and it will happen in space. Control and power is what every great country wants, you have that, you control the future and legacy of mankind above the stars.
Lezbeun we just need Thanos
Sooo a few questions? If the laser can move the sail? What’s the laser gonna do to the ship and it’s contents that’s behind the sail, because it has to pass threw it to the sail. Also if it’s traveling 25% the speed of light, hows the probe gonna slow down once it’s to its destination in 20 years?
That is one of the problems they are trying to figure out.
Traveling at light speed sounds like time travel