Starships will never exist. Except in dreams.
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- Опубліковано 3 кві 2024
- Elon's Starship will never reach the stars, but as a symbol it has great power
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Public understanding of General Relativity misses what the theory says about the nature of reality. General Relativity states at a philosophical level that there is no absolute space. Fundamentally, this is not about a limit on the speed that we travel through space. It is that we don't actually travel through "space", at least not in an absolute sense. Instead, we travel through spacetime with the"speed" of light defining its fundamental structure. Simply put, Alpha Centauri, or any other location, represents a location in both space AND time. Therefore, when we speek of traveling faster than light, we are talking about traveling to a location in spacetime that doesn't exist. This is a fundamentally existential assertion and not a limitation on our engineering. In other words, there is no clever way to travel to somewhere that doesn't exist.
Yes. I wanted to explore this in the video essay but we're still at the stage of public understanding where asserting this will be treated as heresy. Good comment, thank you.
--- THANK YOU . . . for the facts. Now, what matters most is finding proper actors for the fantasy movies.
speak*
But it’s important to remember it is possible to travel to other stars without going faster than the speed of light, so don’t get hung up on FTL.
thank you
one of the most profound videos to watch is from Fermilab and it explains why we can’t travel faster then light
one can not skip ahead of causality
you sit in a room. you sit in your frame and you travel through spacetime at the speed of light
look at you
most of you are sitting or laying there, static in your local frame
and the speed of the flow of time is the speed of light
I don't remember who said it (Asimov?): "Just because some things that were once thought impossible became possible does not mean that all things that are thought impossible will become possible."
If you can think it, it is possible. Question: will you do it or not? It may require great intellect and effort. Not something humans can easily do. We still think aliens built the pyramids...lol. AI can help us with intellectual thought. Effort and will is up to us. Moon by end of century. The will was there. Nothing is beyond us. AE was wrong. Space and time are not one as electricity and magnetism aren't one.
From Hogfather by Terry Pratchett. The conversation between Susan and her grandfather, Death.
Death’s dialogue is in caps.
‘HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.’
‘Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little -’
‘YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.’
‘So we can believe the big ones?’
‘YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.’
‘TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET - Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME…SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.’
‘Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point -’
‘MY POINT EXACTLY.’
‘YOU NEED TO BELIEVE IN THINGS THAT AREN’T TRUE. HOW ELSE CAN THEY BECOME?’
Yeah definitely and I agree but I still think this will be possible one day.
But in an infinite Universe, all things are possible.
@@obsidianjane4413 No. But everything possible will happen an infinite number of times
"Starships will never exist. Except in dreams."
Well not with that attitude. "Never" is a long time.
Physics doesn't care about your attitude.
@@devthis5135And that can justify belief in anything. We might discover unicorns.
@@devthis5135 Starships. Are. Imaginary.
@@DamienWalter Or even *gasp* _genetically engineer_ them?
@@DamienWalter "Starships. Are. Imaginary." Has anyone ever told you you're kind of a condescending prick? Your definition of starship is completely arbitrary and you make statements like they're fact, but when someone confronts you with a reasonable explanation you say "you're just speculating." You are too.
I will leave it up to the scientists and engineers who continue to push the research and technology to determine what is possible in the end, not youtubers.
Well, it's fair to speculate based on the knowledge of the rules of the universe.
@@NoidoDev You're right... but... when those UA-camrs get empirical fact's wrong in their videos it doesn't lend a great deal of weight to their argument.
If the title of this video was 'The _Fictional_ Starships as Portrayed by Hollywood et al, Will Never Exist' then I'd generally agree, but not because a video essay outlining some of those shows/novels says so.
@@NoidoDev Is it fair? What do you think people thought the world would be like just 50 years ago?
@@fpvx3922
50 years ago they thought we’d be on Mars already. I was born the year we went to the moon.
Einstein holds us back.
@@greggstrasser5791 We could have landed on mars 30 years ago. It was not the technology that prevents us. It was the cost back then. We keep putting back the mars missions further and further back because noone wants to pay for it.
The most unfathomable aspect of interstellar space is not its sheer size, but its desolate emptiness. To the crew of a cramped spaceship, a journey to even the closest stars would be an experience of total isolation. After leaving the solar system behind, there would be no sense of motion, no sense of time passing, nothing but a visibly fixed star field outside. The only practical way for human beings to endure such an interminable void would be to construct a completely self-contained habitat capable of sustaining multiple generations of human progeny, a world unto itself whose path through the cosmos can be steered between the stars.
This was exactly the concept of Arthur C Clarke's "Rendezvous With Rama" trilogy.
So what? The ship is not empty, and the cyberspace isn't.
There are "rogue planets" on the way.
So, like 600 years ago, when crossing the ocean was exactly like that?
Ya, so you accept this defeatist Pharasitic concept & doom your grandchildren to a life of imprisonment.
All because you can’t imagine Einstein was, not only a bad husband who stole his wife’s work, but he was wrong.
The best FTL I have seen is in _Space Battleship Yamato_ (2012-). The ship creates a surface around it, and dives like a submarine into an ocean-like hyperspace.
According to Greek mythology, the Phoenix lived for 500 to 1461 years. It was a radiant and solitary bird, with only one Phoenix living at a time. At the end of its life, the Phoenix would build a nest made from aromatic wood. It would then set the nest on fire and become consumed by the flames. From the ashes, a new Phoenix would emerge.
In short, a mythic bird that dies and is reborn about every thousand years or, in other words, a Millennium Falcon.
Thank you, for the connection I had never thought to make. It brings a smile to my minds eye.
Now I know what the inspiration was for the Phoenix ultimate in WarCraft 3 had such a quirky dynamic: would live for a short while after being summoned, then would turn into an egg that'd fall to the ground, then if it wasn't destroyed for another short while would hatch to a full Phoenix again. Thanks for the anecdote on mythological history :-)
Han Solo flying a Flamingo .. now that is a Picture I needed :)
My understanding is that Serenity is a spaceship, not a starship - it stays in a single solar system.
Not at all, they jump to warp like every episode
@@thecianinator No, "full burn" in Firefly is not FTL. The whole show takes place within a single multi-star system.
@@garbagefreak I thought they were attacked by pirates spotted a couple light years away, etc.
Never say never.
SpaceX Starship isn't a real starship but using it as a single use booster brings a lot to the table.
Like the early attempts to run computers using steam and mechanical gears, we just lack a key piece of knowledge to make it work.
We've done this countless times in the past with heavier than air craft, going faster than 60 mph that back then was thought to be deadly to humans.
Humans don't know everything.
We don't know what we don't know.
We have to try...
There is already the idea of Alcubierre Drive. And Krasnikov tubes. And there seem to be a few other hypothetical musings for some sort of warp drives. Now, with the rules used they would be impossible right now, needing what doesn't exist or would be needed in such huge quantities that it is impossible... but perhaps the main thing here is that those ideas actually don't seem to break what is now known of the laws of physics. So... who knows.
Give physicists a few more decades, or centuries, to play with those ideas, while learning more and more of what our universe really is like. Frankly, do we really assume we know everything now - or is it more likely we still are where physics was in the late 19th century, thinking that they knew almost everything and needed just to fix a few little things in order to know it all, except then new scientists figured out that was had been known was just a part of the whole. And now, there still are a few small things, just some small refinements, until we should know everything. Right?
No telling what the next generations of physicists might come up with. And yes, since we already have a few ideas for warp drives that don't seem to break what we now know of the laws of physics, perhaps warp drives will actually turn out to be possible once we learn more.
@@pohjanakka4992 All that stuff is BS man. It's just pandering to the laymen for attention. Gullible rubes love to live in the fantasy, just tell them what they need to hear and they will pay attention with devotion... make them feel like existence is a little less mundane, it's all they really want.
In the published novel "20,000 Leagues", there is NO mention whatsoever of Nemo's nationality. Verne removed it from the book due to an argument with his publisher. Nemo was intended to be "Count Andre Dakkar", a POLISH prince who was betrayed by the Russians in a real-life incident, and Verne was always more interested in geography & history than science. But France & Russia were allies at the time, and Russia was a big part of their buying audience, so making the Russians villains was considered "politically incorrect".
The idea that Nemo was Indian came from "The Mysterious Island", a book that originally had NO connection whatsoever with "20,000 Leagues". Again, Verne's publisher complained it was dull and "needed something extra". In sheer frustration, he added Nemo AFTER-THE FACT. This caused serious continuity problems, as the dates the 2 books take place make it appear both books happened AT THE SAME TIME. When I learned all this, I decided I preferred Nemo as Polish.
The 1929 MGM film "THE MYSTERIOS ISLAND", which is not in any way an adaptation of the novel of that name, is instead a prequel to "20,000 Leagues". It takes place in the fictional country of "Hetvia", and depicts the Royals, the Democrats and the CRIMINAL GANGSTERS who over-ran the country. Someone at MGM must have known about what got cut out of the Verne's "20,000 Leagues", because the film is a THINLY-disgused depiction of then-recent Russian history, and how the Democratic revolution over-threw the Czars, but before they could solidify their victory, the BOLSHEVIKS overthrew the Democratics. CRIMINALS were running Russia for decades after that, people who were NEVER "Marxists" or true "Communists". It was all a colossal CON-JOB foisted on the Russian people. The 1929 film may not have been an adaptation of any Verne book, but it was very much in the style of his writing.
So, pardon me, but I really hate when people insist Nemo was INDIAN. Hell, in Disney's "20,000 LEAGUES", he was BRITISH, and in Harryhausen's MYSTERIOUS ISLAND... actor Herbert Lom was CZECH.
Hm, didnt Nemo mention he was indian himself, when he saved the life of the indian diver? I have to read that book again and find out if recent changes were made.
Yep
Eh, if Verne made a decision to make Nemo Indian for the sake of a storyline, then so be it, it was his book. And after it became public domain casting directors can choose whatever they will.
@@ABW941nope, he only said that this diver is a member an oppressed nation, same like Nemo. Only mentions of Nemo being Indian come from Mysterious Island, in 20000 leagues Verne hinted at his original idea by having Nemo hang a portrait of Kościuszko in his room.
I love the starsghips of the Imperium of Mankind (Warhammer 40k). They are beautiful huge cathedrals in space, true works of art and science, glorious monuments to the machine god, humanity and the God Emperor - yet they are also brutal tools of oppression and extermination, many of them being casually equipped with planet killer weopons. They feature luxurious quarters for the higher-ups that put any royal castle to shame but on the other hand thousands of press-ganged humans toil below deck under horrific circumstances for the rest of their short and miserable lives. And they are just regarded as some sort of fuel that has to be resupplied from time to time. These startships represent the best and the worst of humanity at the same time.
Mostly the worst of humanity, though. 40k is a satire of a lot of militaristic Science Fiction and it's (internally) unacknowledged dystopian consequences
Starfleet's General Order 24 .... every (interstellar) starship would be planet killer, if used properly.
The luxury vs. near slavery sounds philosophically similar to Titanic-era ocean liners.
We'll never cross the Atlantic either.
Or build a railroad across a continent.
Or fly.
Or split the atom.
Or run a mile in less than 4 minutes.
Or break the sound barrier.
Or go to space at all.
Or go to the moon.
In many of these cases, math proved that we couldn't do these things. Until we did them and then realized the math was wrong, anyway.
So I didn't learn until just this year that an "Imperial Star Destroyer" isn't a "Destroyer of stars". But is the space equivalent of a naval destroyer.
Growing up, I was always confused by this. "What is so special about a battle station that is a planet destroyer? They have STAR destroyers flying around everywhere!"
On top of that, they're actually the equivalent of a battleship or carrier - because they're used as fleet capital ships - with "star destroyer" being just a fittingly menacing name.
Naval term 'destroyer' originated from '(torpedo boat) destroyer' - light & fast escort vessel.
@@piotrd.4850 Yes, exactly, while these spaceships carry large caliber firepower and smaller armed craft. Apparently the SW term "star destroyer" is just descriptive of their power.
Everyone compares the star destroyer to battleships and carriers, but you gotta remember that this is a universe where things like the super star destroyer exist. A Venator is 12 kilometers or so, and the imperial star destroyer is only 1.6 kilometers. Sure, in terms of design and usage they resemble battleships and carriers, but within it’s own continuity it’s just a destroyer.
@@antonberkbigler5759 Nope, the Venator is 1.2 km long not 12
"What, sir, would you make a ship sail against the wind and currents by lighting a bonfire under her deck? I pray you, excuse me, I have not the time to listen to such nonsense." Napoleon Bonaparte, when told of Robert Fulton's steamboat, circa 1800.
Napoleon was not a physicist.
@@DamienWalter The hell you say! I wouldn't have used that quote if he wasn't a physicist. Unless I meant something else by it entirely :)
I suspect the big secret to practical interstellar travel may not be an exotic FTL drive but just post-human immortality and a lot of patience.
Fun Fact: If you stay in cryogenic suspended animation long enough, the decay of radio-isotopes in your body will kill you.
@@ozzymandius666 that just sounds like another problem to fix, not a deal breaker
@@lukemcniven4131 Its a deal breaker for long-term cryogenic suspension, but I think its in the thousands of years.
Maybe if we can get to the point of being able to transfer a consciousness into a computer and back into a body, we could spend that time in a virtual state and then just clone and grow new physical bodies upon arrival, or just upload into robots.
@@jeffreystewart9809 Personally I suspect interstellar travel soon evolves everyone who does it enough into fully spaceborne machine entities who don't need to leave themselves vulnerable to anything like suspended animation or life support. Though in practice it might not seem that different from what you described since you'd probably spend most of a voyage either in a trance or "daydreaming" in a VR-like imagination, and then explore & interact at the destination by fabricating whatever avatars you pleased.
I'm not quite sure how to take your titular statement. Those cool starships we see in the stories, that make interstellar travel casual and make it possible to have a cohesive interstellar society, yes, those are unlikely to exist for the foreseeable future, if ever, even though they have a role in our dreams in spite of that. Meanwhile, I still think that human beings will reach other stars some day, simply because it's physically possible. Likely not before we have an interplanetary society within our own system, at least in form of a significant permanent industrial presence on the Moon, since the technologies facilitating that would be required for the vast effort an interstellar expedition would take. Also, not faster than at 5-10% of lightspeed, but I think it will be done if we don't regress as a society, culturally and technologically. Which is, unfortunately, a distinct possibility.
It seems credible, because it's so often represented. But it's no more or less a realistic possibility than portals to other dimensions. At such a degree of speculation anything is possible.
@@DamienWalter I suppose they might've said the same about Johannes Kepler when he proposed to build 'ships suitable for the winds of the heavens' in his commentary on Galilei's Nuncius Siderius in 1610, or when Cyrano de Bergerac wrote 'Les États et Empires de la Lune', arguably an early SF work, some years later. There was certainly a lot of far-flung dreaming and not a lot of realism in all that at the time, yet here we are, 400 years later and humans have actually been on the moon. To me it seems that the step from the present-day technology to STL starflight is conceptually smaller than that from Kepler's spaceships to the rockets of today. Portals to other dimensions are a completely different thing, since, as opposed to the stars, we don't even know these dimensions exist. Both ideas may play similar roles in SF writing, but while futurism may overlap with SF, it is not the same.
Agreed. We see ships in The Expanse traveling between Earth and Saturn; we also see out of scale solar system models. Often. Neither takes into account how impossibly far away Saturn really is - JUPITER is mind boggling far away, Saturn almost doubles that distance! We also often use the Cassini spacecraft as an indicator we’ve conquered the distance, forgetting it took 7 years for the probe to arrive at Saturn, as well ignoring that its size and mass are trivial compared against the dimensions required by a spacecraft able to carry a large crew, possibly passengers, AND be capable of performing commercial operations - all at significant profit.
Simply having a base on The Moon will hardly be sufficient for the impossible journey to a random star system - random not in the sense of distance, but in commercial and civilization sustaining viability. Colonies won’t be sufficient either - full fledged, civilization sustaining societies which have their own governments, economies, and self sustaining industrial and agricultural sectors will be required, well before any government or corporation will speculatively fund such a massive, and likely generational, undertaking. Solar system settlement on such an enormous scale, separated by even more enormous distances, will be on the order of a thousand, likely thousands, of years.
Humanity will have fits and starts of regressions, certainly. But from what I see of humanity, I have much faith in us as a species - in fact, I have so much faith in humanity branching outward into the solar system over timeframes of thousands of years, I really don’t consider it faith at all. I take it for granted humanity will survive, until external circumstances dictate otherwise. Until then, humans will keep on doing what humans do: explore, take part in commerce, make laws and governments, war, expand, exploit resources…. My Faith in God is what gives me a certainty of faith for humanity, but that’s just me. Others who believe otherwise will take part in the journey of humankind - maybe even more; I don’t know, belief being a uniquely individual trait of humanity.
At any rate, as it pertains to expansion, settlement, and civilization, I believe the solar system is it, with the possible extension towards the exploration and exploitation of the Oort Cloud - which in itself is impossibly huge. Voyager I is about 120 Astronomical Units away, having taken almost 30 years to traverse this distance. The Oort Cloud STARTS ten times further - 1,000 AU - disappearing into interstellar space a hundred times its start - 100,000 AU - which is then only 10% the way to our nearest star system.
This will be no small feat, by the way, and definitely something to be proud of for our species to accomplish.
As far as speculation goes, sure, anything can be possible…in the Art of Science Fiction. Perfectly fine with me. I love not much more than a complex space opera storyline, which is the best FTL time machine humanity will experience. And only.
@@Alexander_Kale We're going to find you a short course in the meaning of the word "certain".
@@Alexander_Kale + basic logic, before you start ranting about Kubrick directing the moon landing
It's a shame to see E.E. 'Doc' Smith omitted from this chronology, as his 'Skylark of Space', begun in 1916, was influential in establishing the idea of travel beyond the solar system. And I think you can draw a direct line from his Lensman series to the space opera and massive scale starships seen in Star Wars.
Absolutely, and some of the best science fiction in the first half of the last century.
guess he didnt want to get angry lawyer letters cause he didnt mention the massive gothic floating cathederals of WH40K
No mention of Red Dwarf. Scandalous.
Our visions of 'starships' are basically cultural and technical extensions of naval vessels + plot device drive. We know who to build spaceships - we "only" like drive technology allowing us to move beyond nearest start within human liftime.
The naysayer has access to all information that is accessible at the time. "Nay," says the naysayer. "It will never happen."
The wellwisher also has access to all information that is accessible at the time. "Good luck," says the wellwisher. "Figure it out, if you can."
Don't be the naysayer. Be the wellwisher.
"Good luck riding your unicorn. Figure it out!"
@@DamienWalter Reductio ad absurdum, ad nauseam, et cetera
I think the Forbidden Planet soundtrack was done with electronic equipment, but not the theramin.
Yep, what a mistake for him to make re those well known 'Electronic Tonalities' the Barrons created.
The couple who came up with the Forbidden Planet electronic score were not able to be nominated for an Academy Award because they were not union musicians.
A theramin is electronic equipment. Not to argue this point too much, I have forgotten the score to Forbidden Planet, and honestly, I didn't even like the film.
"the man who already has the entire 7 season dvd box set of star trek the next generation can be tough to buy gifts for" LOL
😂😂😂😂
I mean ... how about all 7 seasons on Blu Ray? 🤷♂️
That explains why I never get any gifts. I'm regretting getting the entire 7 season boxed set of TNG now
Thanks for posting the joke, the rest of us couldn't watch the video.
I heard they are re releasing it on VHS.... seriously. The idea is to be able to watch it as close as possible to the original.
Without exotic physics, it's still possible to reach other stars in a reasonable time using stellasers and light sails.
Aerodynamics was once considered "exotic physics"...
Correct. And the probes going far distances might just be like a little nano factories, restarting civilization, at some point recreating humans from DNA data, which will be raised by robots.
As long as you don’t have to support biological organisms like hunans
Near light speed starships will certainly exist.
Err, no.
You can SUBJECTIVELY exceed lightspeed. As you approach the speed of light, time slows for you. For example, you could traverse 1 lightyear in 6 months... according to your wrist watch. Just ignore that pesky clock back home that says 1+ year elapsed.
You're on the right track, the only thing you've missed here is that on a relativistic starship, time is OBJECTIVELY slowing down relative to Earth time, _not_ subjectively so. On the contrary, to an onboard observer time would pass at the normal rate. Case in point, although satellites comparatively have extremely tiny velocities, engineers are already forced to make tiny adjustments to account for time dilation for your GPS to work in the first place. Relativity really is a thing, not a trick of the mind.
I would argue that a generation ship traveling at 2% the speed of light, powered by a laser sail or an Orion nuclear pulse engine, on a 250 year journey to Proxima Centauri, would still count as a starship.
0.2% if you're lucky
title should be "sharships will likely neer exist"
UA-cam titles are not the place for subtleties. Also when something is so unlikely, do we really have to include the possibility of it still happening? Do I really have to say: "Three green clown girls with yellow noses and green hair will LIKELY never dance on your grave to an Elvis song covered by Metallica?" It won't happen but yeah, it COULD happen. What I just said about the clown girls is more likely than space ships, but it's unlikely enough.
@@bened22 Clickbaiting is necessary and annoying.
@@bujinkanatori real
Another shoutiout: treeships from Hyperion. "a single, massive living tree harvested from the island of Hokkaido on God's Grove, which is then made spaceworthy through heavy use of containment fields generated by ergs." Two of these ships are known from the novels Yggdrasill and Sequoia Sempervirens
The Voyager series of spacecraft are now considered 'Starships' as they have entered deep space beyond our solar system.
75,000 years to Proxima, but going in the wrong direction and can't steer. Not much of a starship.
@@DamienWalter Also, and I feel this is a crucial distinction, no crew.
I've only read Rama, not the sequels, and I got the impression that the 'passengers' were less passengers and more part of what maintained the ship (so more like a Von Neumann probe than a starship). I could be splitting hairs here.
There's more to it in the sequels
the rama had robotic/cybernetic maintenance population, thats true. Its purpose is elaborated on in the sequels and they are quite worth reading. The first novel feels like a mere introduction. Part 2 was very good, more interesting to me. Later parts get a bit wild but it never truely loses the plot. Read on man, its a great series.
"If man were meant to fly, he would have been born with wings."
E = MC2
The Galactica is the closest to an actual interstellar ship; long and slender. Large enough for all the resources needed for a crew. The ship must be self sufficient, growing foods, producing oxygen and water; we have this technology now. Man is fast approaching the materials needed for construction and sub light engines capable of 1/25 to eventually 1/5 sublight. The primary technology lacking is long range sensors reaching out tens of millions of miles; this is essential for a starship traveling a million plus KPH.
Credit to Dune and the Highliners in Dune for giving one of the best in-universe explanations for space travel and tech through the in-universe Holtzman Effect, which helped connected and ground a lot of the futuristic space tech Dune featured together in such a comprehensive way that it felt more believable than other sci fi works. Dune also does a much better job of showing how these futuristic tech innovations profoundly changed how the world worked in the worldbuilding. The Holtzman Effrct of the repellance of subatomic particles provided different but connected effects depending on which dimension it was used in.
1 Dimensional Use = FTL Communication
2 Dimensional Use = Shields
3 Dimensional Use = Anti-gravity, allowing flight and the use of Glowglobes
4 Dimensional Use = FTL Travel via Folding Space
Different sci fi future technologies, all united and connected under one sci fi concept that makes sense and how that concept profoundly changed the world.
The spacing guild navigators evolved from psychedelic users who became early adopters of the Spice Melange who realized it helped them navigate foldspace.
And yet, in the Dune universe FTL travel existed before the invention of the Holtzman Effect. Space Folding only became safe to use after the discovery of Arrakis and the spice. So it's not like the entire concept of FTL travel in Dune is without a fair bit of hand waving.
@@rebeccaschade3987hm
Look. This is just hokum dreamed up by the author and has nothing to do with reality.
@@rogerphelps9939 Why did you feel the need to point that out? Who are you arguing with?
I guess the best we can hope for are the likes of the Expanse or the often overlooked Gundam series. Both Sci fi shows dont have starships to begin with, just space worthy ships (Gundam actually shows it better than the Expanse).
The star trek reality never got outside our own galaxy. Thats like going on a journey around the block that your house is on.
“When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.” - Arthur C Clarke
This goes double for science fiction writers.
In a shocking development, quotes from dead scifi writers do not change physics.
Thank you for this inspiring video. I would like to add a few things if you don't mind.
Going back in history the first "spaceship" was a real ship, driven to the moon by a storm. The story, called "True Stories" was written by Lukian of Samosata in the 2nd century. In german, a "starship" is nowadays called "Raumschiff", wich just mean spaceship. And talking about famous starships, i'd prefer the Enterprise as symbol for human curiosity over a tiny old freighter.
If you found this inspiring, then you didn't understand it.
The ONLY thing that makes something "impossible" is just the fact that we havent worked it out yet - thats all
Heh, and physics. And distances and time.
@@ronjon7942 So the human race has a 100% full understanding of physics, or is it just how we understand it now? My statement still stands and it is up to you to prove it wrong. Just because we dont know or understand it doesn't make it impossible. If that was the case we would still believe that travelling over 30mph would kill us
The human race in my belief has a less than 1/10 of 1% understanding of how the universe actually works. We keep finding out how wrong we are. We've been working off the Big bang for decades and now we've decided that well that probably didn't happen.
Yes someday we will understand and we will conquer the thing. The Star Trek universe will come. Just not for several hundred years.@@phoenixmotorsport647
@@phoenixmotorsport647 You're taking the opposite and equally unrealistic tack here. People who say give up and don't even try--they're cynical. You however, are acting like anything is possible, just given enough time. That's not true. I don't need to know 100% about physics to know that if I drive my car into a brick wall, I'll die, or that if I dive too deep for too long, I'll suffocate. Regardless of inventing underwater breathing equipment, lungs can't pull oxygen out of water, only gills can.
@@phoenixmotorsport647Absolutely.
When has "Never" stopped us?
Good luck not dying.
Starships for us are like dragons were to medieval people. They feel like they SHOULD exist.
Technically the first one actually is from "A True Story" a late classical play that was a satirical comedy.
It's just a poor translation.
A pet favourite family of starships for me is the Covenant from Halo, especially the cruiser Truth and Reconciliation (love the names) which you get to fight through in the first game. The bulbous curves and color scheme of metallic purple, pink, indigo, and teal green isn't what you think of when you imagine menacing implacably aggressive aliens but there it is. The aesthetic is unique and to me pretty pleasing to the eye, and is a good contrast to the stark angular grey of the human military's ships.
This should have been titled ''They will never catch on'' and in a video some 70 year old boomer would say it will not happen because some secretly secret research he did in the 80s in some secret government laboratory. It's based on some dude that said self driving cars will never happen because they have researched some shit in a lab in the 80s and it did not pan out... as if technology stands still
That's what they would have said 150 years ago about smart phones, TV's, Jumbo Jets and space shuttles.
"they" not scientists
Experts once declared that man could never fly.
Please, feel free to explain how, given the nature of General Relativity, it could be possible to exceed the speed of light.
@@IanM-id8or Please, feel free to explain how, given the knowledge available to DaVinci, it could be possible to build a practical aircraft from the sketches of his concept of aerodynamics.
@@obsidianjane4413 He knew birds exist, so he knew that the act of flying was possible in participial...
@@Nutzername36 But he had no way of creating it because of the host of technologies that didn't exist yet.
Likewise, we know that a relativistic "warp drive" is possible in principle. But have no more clue about how to build one than he knew how to build even the Wright Flyer, much less a jet engine.
@@obsidianjane4413 "we know that a relativistic "warp drive" is possible in principle" -> lets say "mathematically possible".
Like concepts of higher dimensional spaces, but with no attachment to what is possible in reality.
The Battlestar Galatica has lived in my dreams for decades after the original show came out. Starships are the symbols of our dreams, even if none of us will ever leave this planet. Another excellent essay.
Tis really best not to forget that not that long ago some were dissing steam trains because if they were to exceed 30mph all the air would be drawn out of the carriage and the passengers would all suffocate. Not long ago at all. 🤔🖖
Those people were not physicists.
@@DamienWalter You're probably correct but they were educated to the current level of understanding. I think physicists came along a bit later. I'm sure there were many arguments. But, we have a long way to go before we know everything. I'm just a bit sad I'm gunna miss that. 😭 🤣👍🇦🇺
The Enterprise will always be my first and only love. What a beauty. :)
I assume you mean the refit version from the early movies. Much prettier than the TOS or any of the later ones.
Cant believe you left out one of the most overpowered badass starships to be seen on screen, the daedalus class from stargate sg1.
Starship's are definitely the "stuff hat dreams are made of!"
Dear Walter. I understand that you want us to believe you are an authority on science fiction, but you neglected to mention Robert A. Heinlein's "Orphans of the Sky". This book may or may not be the first mention of a generation ship but it predates Mr. Aldiss's novel by more than a decade.
As to your assertion that starships are impossible, I'll just leave this here:
"If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says that it is impossible, he is very probably wrong." - Arthur C. Clarke.
"Just because some impossible things became possible, doesn't mean that all impossible things will become possible" Isaac Asimov
@@DamienWalter Touché. However, if I ever get to Alpha Centauri, I will send you a post card.🤩
BTW - I thank you for the mention of "Non-stop". I did not know about that story. It is now on my Kendle and is my very next book to read.
""The whole procedure [of shooting rockets into space]...presents difficulties of so fundamental a nature, that we are forced to dismiss the notion as essentially impracticable, in spite of the author's insistent appeal to put aside prejudice and to recollect the supposed impossibility of heavier-than-air flight before it was actually accomplished" -- Richard van der Riet Woolley, Astronomer Royal, 1936.
"Starships will never exist. Except in dreams." -- Damien Walter, 2024.
Crackpots doubted rocketry, physicists believed it. Physicists doubt interstellar travel, crackpots believe in it.
@@DamienWalterBoom! Brilliant.
I was going to comment that ‘an incorrect 1936 prediction means obviously FTL is possible,’ but I’m going with yours.
@@DamienWalter Appeal to authority is a logical fallacy.
"That one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum without the mediation of anything else, is to me so great an absurdity that, I believe, no man who has a competent faculty of thinking could ever fall into it." - Isaac Newton
Then Einstein found that spacetime curves around mass, meaning Newton's entire idea of action at a distance was erroneous. His math then led to the Schwarzchild Metric, which was viewed as erroneous math due to involving 2 singularity points. The understanding of the time was Heisenburg's Uncertainty Principle resulted in the electrons creating outward pressure, thus limiting the amount a star can be compressed to a white dwarf. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar was publicly blasted by Sir Arthur Eddington for finding this wrong, saying "There should be a law of Nature that prevents stars from behaving in this absurd way."
Of course, we now know that is wrong, thanks to the ideas of several smart individuals building off each other's math.
General relativity is the best model we have for gravity. Quantum mechanics is the best model we have for the other 3 fundamental forces. Physicists have been trying for decades to reconcile the 2 models as they have fundamental mathematical incompatibilities.
You say physicists doubt interstellar travel while crackpots believe in it. Well, the mainstream view of physicists for decades doubted the existence of black holes too, even just going "well, we don't know HOW it happens, but something prevents singularities." Physicists today can't even create an accurate model of how the universe works without something breaking. We simply don't know enough. Now, if my belief that future discoveries will make generation ships possible makes me a crackpot, well, that label has been slapped on so many visionaries by so many dogmatic individuals who were eventually proven wrong, that I find myself in great company.
Maybe you are right, but blanket statements in science rarely age well.
@@CastFromHitPointsNo, the appeal to the authority of physicists about physics is perfectly valid. You don't understand basic logic, let alone rhetoric.
@@DamienWalter I hate to break it to you, but plenty of physicists not only think its possible to invent the overly abstracted "drives" that would be used to meet your ridiculously over specific definition of "starships" you keep whining about in your condescending rants, but they're trying to work on making them a reality. There's entire research teams dedicated to warping space, and they've had measurable (albeit functionally useless and poorly understood) results, at least since 2015. As a bonus, we've recently discovered quantum teleportation, which may one day make "drives" a completely obsolete concept.
You're not appealing to the authority of physicists, you're appealing to the monolith of science that you've built in your head for use as a rhetorical club that you can beat anyone with a reasonable argument over the head with. That's why you constantly have nothing more to say than a series of dismissive lines about how your logic is valid and therefore no one else's is, my favorite "you're just speculating," and the constant barrage of ad hominem attacks you unleash on everyone who doesn't agree with you.
You're a condescending know-it-all, and rest assured I'm only using such polite terms because of youtube's overzealous censors.
100 billion stars in a galaxy. He said million.
Does it matter? At those numbers?
@@ronjon7942 Yes it matters.
What's three orders of magnitude between friends?
You have three ways to reconcile this:
1) FTL is fundamentally impossible and cannot ever happen.
2) Closed timelike loops (causality breaks) can exist with some way of avoiding contradictions.
3) There is a preferred universal frame of reference (for instance, but not necessarily, one comoving with the CMB).
The most conservative one is to assume 1, but we haven't conclusively ruled out the others.
What's really behind our continuing fascination with the Starship (for that matter, you could have brought Jefferson Airplane into the discussion) is the attitude expressed in the iconic "Beam me up, Scotty, there's no intelligent life down here."
Mhm. just like "humans will never fly, gameboys will never have color screens, only 5 computers will be needed, the internet is a fad"
Some day this videotitle will have aged just as poorly.
If you're expecting the laws of physics to anytime soon, I got news for ya
Not all the Imperial navy are played by Brits and the Star Destroyer isn't named because it destroys stars. It's Destroyer class warship in space. And Tardis came before Enterprise. One is the American living room/office and the other is an English uncle's shed.
I don't remember any destroyer class vessels ever carrying fighter wings. Let alone an entire brigade of armored walkers. You might want to go revisit your navel nomenclature
I believe that the first technical starship in mass media was the Enterprise. Before hand most ships were small, and could only hold a few people or were glorified rockets such as Buck Rodgers's ship. But the more "modern" definition, a ship being able to carry dozens if not hundreds on voyages lasting years, that was the original Constitution Class Starship Enterprise. It was the largest ship in scifi at the time. Now, that being said, FTL is possible. The problem is energy, we just can't produce the energy required. Like people used to claim that ships the size of the Titanic was impossible, now we have ships so big they could hold the Titanic with room to spare crashing into bridges. Even just yesterday (from when I am writing this) they figured out way to make warp drive work without needing negative energy. The problem is, we have no use for the technology now. No purpose. So we aren't really trying to do anything about it.
Maybe read your Einstein in more depth.
While Giordono Bruno was a brave martyr for science, his heliocentric view and notion that stars were just more distant suns was predated by Aristarchus of Samos in the 3rd century BCE.
For size and power, I'd take an Imperial Guard Flotilla Battle Planetoid from David Weber's "Armageddon Inheritance."
Now your talking!
I really like the spaceships from Octavia Butler's Xenogensis. They're grown, they're alive and they can be communicated with by touch. But I suppose that's even more farfetched.
Commenting for that Eternus ring! Cheers Damien.
Keep making videos. These are fantastic and my reading list is growing exponentially :)
In 1678, the Dutch scientist Huygens first used the concept of waves to explain double refraction. It was, Maxwell, however, who actually showed that light waves exist in 1865. While we could do some simple manipulations with light previously, the first actual manipulation of light using the wave property manipulation by Maiman in 1960, and it was a century after the actual demonstration of light waves, 1965, that a tunable laser, by Mary Spaeth, which could actually change the wavelength manipulated.
Gravitational waves were first detected in 2023. Gravity is an integral part of Einstein’s General Relativity, which is what most scientists use to assert that FTL travel is impossible. But, if we learn to manipulate gravity in the next century, as we did with light, is it possible that this will be the one paradigm shift referred to in referred to in this video, that’s necessary to give us FTL speeds?
I guess we won’t know until it happens. And while I won’t live to see it, I hope that my children or grandchildren will.
“Never” Is a very strong word. They said humankind would never fly. We did. The four-minute mile would never be broken. It was. We were determined to fly to the moon. We did. Humankind is incredibly smart, and we learn new things every day.
I absolutely believe we will travel between the stars, in starships, one day, because we want to.
Cheers,
"I absolutely believe we will go to Narnia, through wardrobes, one day, because we want to"
@@DamienWalter now you’re just being silly… 🤣
@@Wolf359inc If you think a starship is any less fantasy than magical portal, you're dreaming.
My favorite drive, is the Holtzman drive from Dune. Dune's starships, the Heighliners, 'fold' space and cross distances between the stars instantly. But, these huge ships, a are transports. Cargo ships that move in a loop along pre-ordered rotues, moving people and goods around the galaxy in a manner not dissimilar to a city bus. Dune's starships do not resemble the free-wheeling ships of Star Wars or Star Trek at all. My 2nd choice, would be, the Alderson Drive from the shared universe of Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. Ships can cross space in a instant, but, once they arrive at a star, have to use entirely conventional propulsion systems to move about. The Alderson drive is constrained and can only move between stars that have 'Alderson point tram-lines' linking them.
And yet, for every video like this one, there's a new news report that says, "Warp drives may someday be possible, new study suggests."
"news reports" 🤣😂
@@DamienWalter Yep, earlier today. I Googled it after watching your video. Guys like you do tend to fall by the wayside.
I look at cellphone back in 1965 gene roddinberry imagined a comunicator for science fiction star Trek and today we have mobile computer in everyone's pockets as long as humans can imagine something they can build it
Mmm, the glorious implications of a starship 'Kitty Hawk' type rush is terrifying but utterly exciting
Forbidden Planet is the best Sci-fi movie every!
I wouldn't go with ever, but its definitely up there
No way! 2001: A Space Odyssey ❤
Forbidden Planet has my vote too!
Purely as a footnote: E. E. Doc Smith was most certainly, if not the first, certainly foundational in the concept of starships and interstellar travel/civilizations. (Although he used the term spaceship.) Reading his work (if you can stand it) you get the feeling you’re reading draft outlines of Star Trek, Star Wars, and more.
Spaceship/Starship is a lot like boat/ship. Ships are boats, but not all boats are ships. Same that all Starships are spaceships, but not all spaceships are starships.
Ah, I missed this comment and just posted something similar. Agree too that he's tough to read (though I loved him as a pre-teen).
@@Tannhauser62 I also enjoyed him thoroughly as a teenager. I certainly see how later episodic space based tv shows could be derived iterations on his stories. I'm curious about how far back the idea of space travel goes. I'm aware that people thousands of years ago had a concept of places that weren't Earth and that we might be able to travel to them.
Cyrano de Bergerac wrote of a space ship travel a full 200 years before his countryman Verne would.
I guess the question is, would a starship even be the most practical way to reach distant worlds? Like... why not just start looking into creating wormholes? We wouldn't really need to go faster than light or build generation ships if we could find a way to bend spacetime in such a way that we arrive instantly a few galaxies away... the level of tech needed to make a starship work really suggests that by the time we could make one, we might not need to make one. I mean, if we had things like transporters and replicators, and an understanding of wormholes or even time travel, why would we ever want to spend the energy needed to travel faster than light in ordinary space?
I was in the minority answering Serenity in the last survey. The reason is that lived-in vibe. Each crew member has a unique space - the engineer lives in the engine room, the Consul has a lush elegant cabin, etc.
She does not live in the engine room. She just has a hammock in there to take naps, have some tea while talking to the ship. She has a room just like all the “crew”. The rooms that River, Simon, and Shepard Book sleep in are in a different area. Indra sleeps on one of the shuttles that she rents.
@lloydlego6088 yes, right, just a hammock, thanks. Still furthers my point that living space is fleshed out most in
Firefly.
I reject your reality and insert my own.🙃
Actually, the Millenium Falcon was "inspired" by the starship in the French comic series Valerian. The carbonite trap was also copied from there.
I would also add the Normandy from the Mass Effect series, one of the most iconic vessels ever.
The Skylark of Space. 1928 relies on a higher order of forces. First Lensman 1934 relies on an inertialess drive. If there is no inertial, there is no speed limit.
What I always wonder why one F/SF series is always forgotten. But I guess it is because it never got much recognition outside of Germany. That is "Perry Rhodan", a classic space opera centered around the titular character as the "Heir of the Universe". It started in 1961, which is well before "Doctor Who" and "Star Trek" with the publication of weekly novellas that is unbroken (unlike Doctor Who) til today, counting 3270 issues (as of this posting) in the main series. It starts out with humanities dream of reaching the moon in a chemical rocket ship and finding an alien spaceship there marooned, because the advanced civilisation that build it is also on the decline and dependent on their technology and thus not able to repair their ship. Terran ships are build after that example. They are just boring sphericals with the charme of the Death Star. From there on humanity is trying to find their way and place in the galaxy and the rest of the universe. As a way to keep the series going for so long the main characters get a finite amount of devices called "cell activators" early on in the series. These devices prevent cell degeneration, but are still prone to dying from accidents. Anyway around each cycle (about 50 to 100 issues) the technical advancements picked up during the cycle are reaching maturity and result in a new flagship that will be the template for the rest of the fleet from there on.
Anyway I digress. I just have it on my bucket list to catch up to the current events starting at the begining. And there actually exists one (very bad!) movie from 1967 Mission Stardust. I guess these comic book like serialisation of novellas as pulp-fiction never really caught on outside Germany. In Germany they exist for a lot of genres: Hospital series, Romance, Horror and F/SF and electronic publication keeps them alive more than ever.
I read the first thirty-ish books. My dad had a box full of old sci-fi novels and Hardy Boys. If I recall correctly in the PR universe there were mutations as well like the X-Men. The one guy who could teleport I remember vividly.
Sounds like the guy who shut down the patten office because everything had been invented.
It's a daunting task to be sure, but so is traveling across the US in five hours.
Ugh, no kidding. Especially when you have to go back and DRIVE that same distance in 5 days.
He didn't shut down the patent office, he was the then-head of the US patent office in Washington DC, and in the late 1800s claimed that nearly everything had been invented, and patent claims would fall off because there wouldn't be much more to invent. He was remarkably short-sighted, but at least get the history right.
@@rikk319 just repeating what I heard...everywhere
@@rikk319 He did not understand svcience, especially physics.
Technically, according to the story, Serenity in _Firefly_ is not a starship, as it does not travel between stars. It travels between planets and moons of a much larger solar system than the one Earth is in. That system was reached by at least one large generational ship and FTL travel does not exist in the _Firefly_ universe. The various planets and moons have been terraformed to support life, and life native to Earth has been transplanted to them. Also, in the _Firefly_ universe no life has been discovered that did not originate on Earth, at least so far.
There are plenty of practical problems with the story in _Firefly,_ but they decided not to use the common science fiction tropes of FTL travel and extra-terrestrial life.
Hmm. I had assumed this was all well-understood by most people who were fans of sci-fi, both real engineering and science people and those who interested enough to learn about it.
If we just make two reasonable assumptions:
1) We're talking about moving the mass of at least 1 human to another star system.
2) We're not relying on new physics, or subsequent materials, that we have no conception how they could work. E.g., creating of wormholes or warp physics that requires mass with negative energy density, or assuming that the current wormhole physics that mass can't pass through will be proven wrong, etc.
With those assumptions, it's not clear how we could ever get very far. We might be able to get to Proxima Centauri, but even at 1/10 C that would take approximately 40 years, even if we had the energy source for that. There are few stars that would be within a human lifetime travel, so you'd need multi-generational ships, with years to decades to communicate with Earth.
What would be the point of that exactly? The people who get there wouldn't be the ones who volunteered. The ones who volunteered would not see the discoveries at the other end. The worlds wouldn't be habitable. They'd just spend lifetimes reaching a nearby star, then what? Transmit a selfie to Earth to record who was the first person to perhaps land on a planet (maybe) in another solar system? Then come back, with future generations arriving back at Earth just to re-unify?
It would be an enormously hard undertaking just to reach a few nearby stars and doesn't make any sense why humans need to be there, or why anybody would volunteer, or be cruel to subsequent generations that didn't sign up for it.
More realistically, we'd send robotic ships.
I just don't see the case for thinking we'll travel to other stars, short of a few trivial cases that have a lot of problems.
It's heartwarming to find someone who gets it. No, it's not well understood at all, apparently.
It seems that most people simply want to believe that space exploration is just like crossing the Ocean and that crossing the Ocean was just an ego trip like XIX-century propaganda sold them.
Even with robot ships, what's the point? The people who spent billions building them won't see any result, nor their descendants nor the descendants of their descendants. If Galileo sent a probe at a dazzling 1% of C toward Proxima Centauri, and it survived the journey, we would be getting its message just now. Would the rulers of his time fund something so useless? Would we?
Don't bet on it. If it can be done, we'll do it.
And if it can't be done, we'll still do it.
Absolutely wrong.
@@rogerphelps9939 Prove it.
If we can determine there is a habitable planet around Proxima I think we will have the technology for humans to make the journey in a human scale timeframe within the next 200 years, although I would also speculate the trip will take around 30-40 years one way. The people that go will either be there to stay, or it will be a generational round trip journey. It would require an average speed of 0.1c or higher to be practical and useful. Technically we could build such a ship today but it would require a huge percentage of the worlds GDP to build it. What would really be different in 200 years is the the cost of access to low earth orbit will continue to drop making the construction of a huge ship to sustain the crew and make the trip plausible. The only obstacle will be the willingness to do it. Even traveling around 0.1c will be hazardous since even the few specs of dust per km squared will do damage to the hull and even something like a single grain of sand at those speeds could do significant damage to even an armored spaceship.
getting to the stars for people in their lifetime is quite easy - just constantly keep accelerating with enough fuel... just getting back to see loved ones in your lifetime is more difficult. everyone talks about time dilation, but tend to ignore length contraction... close to the speed of light distances become relatively short for those travelling - you could get to the edge of the universe within 50 year around 75% speed of light. but when you return home, earth / solar system would be long gone.
@@dookdomini6535 The observable universe from Earth is 5 billion light years in any direction. How would that be crossed at .75c in 50 years? By my math you would travel around 37.5 light years at .75c in 50 or hardly anywhere in our Galaxy (100k light years across) which is but a tiny fraction of our Universe..
@@larrybremer4930 this is because of length contraction to near zero at the speed of light.. but i was wrong to state 75% more like 99% speed of light. at the speed of light, if you could reach it, you couldn't, distances to the traveler would contract to near zero. 1- v2/c2, where c is the speed of light, and v is velocity. so at 99% speed of light the length contraction to the edge of the universe would be to 0.01% of a stationary observer.. so yes, if you went fast enough you could get to the edge of the universe in your own lifetime.
@@dookdomini6535 I see where your going if your using the traveler as the frame of reference for time, however its still incorrect because time dilation is non linear. Traveling at 0.99c is still only going to decrease your time to rest frame time by a 7x (1 day for you is 7 days on Earth). Some of the final numbers before infinity (time stops at c) are 0.999999c where 1 day is nearly 2 years, and 0.99999999999999c where 1 day is just short of 20k years.
@@larrybremer4930 agree non-linear but the relationship is sqrt root of squared ratios.. if constantly accelerating from the frame of reference of the traveller (no idea where rofl they get the fuel from) others have done the maths and it's possible to get to 'the edge' of the universe.. the biggest flaw in argument is IF the universe is expanding from the point of view of the earth reference.. eventually over time, IF the universe expands, the distances between galaxies would literally surge daily... however even if the universe expands the other assessments ignore length contraction which is the real reason the traveler could get get long distances in their lifetime, not time dilation as often quoted, a super fast traveller.. at exactly the speed of light (impossible) all distances to anywhere contract to zero.
O yeah? Tell that to Jefferson Starship.
Should have stayed an airplane. 😉
My assumption with starships is that they will purely be automated. Sending out thousands of probes in to space and giving them directives to seed life or collect materials to infinitely expand. You wouldn't even need a drive, life support systems, or be forced to use human architecture. The only thing you need is good enough robots that can competently execute their orders and ships that are durable enough to survive the copious amounts of floating death just outside our solar system.
Till someone comes who didn't know that it was impossible and just did it
Yup
Some of the comments here just goes to show how desperately people need to believe a Star Wars like fictional universe will eventually exist.
No shit, right? It’s not that it’s sad, because imagination is a wonderful gift. But wishing, no - BELIEVING - the pages of sci fi will become some routine reality, is. Especially when said sad person uses the Dick Tracy wrist communicator -> Apple Watch analogy.
I love sci fi like the next guy. A lot. But…
You both nailed it and missed the point in your response. You give an example of how science fiction inspire change in the modern world while you're saying that this science fiction will never inspire change and will never happen. Hello? @@ronjon7942
You have to believe it before you can build it. The people who believed man could never fly never built 747’s
The jury is still out on FTL. We know space can expand faster than light but we don't know how and we don't know what space is. We know quantum effects can ignore distance - or the speed limit - but we don't know how and don't know how the quantum world works. We don't know what black matter is - or if there is no black matter we don't know how gravity works - we don't even know which one. We don't know what dark energy is. Imagine a caveman who feels very clever because can make stone axe and use fire. That's where we are standing.
I prefer Babylon 5 to all these mentioned here.
I think you're forgetting the real science of the Alcubierre Drive. It hasn't been proven yet, but it is based on real science, doesn't break the rules of Relativity, and has been refined further in recent years. I think it points the way to real FTL possibilities in humanity's future.
As someone who studied General
relativity at uni a million years ago, I would he does a really good job without getting into the weeds. “Speculative Geometry” is exactly right. Alcubierre violates the weak energy condition, which is sort of a rule … so while consistent with the equations of General Relativity the solution is considered to be unphysical. Other unphysical GR metrics include Morris-Thorne wormholes, Gödel’s rotating universe, Tipler’s Time Machine etc etc. Just because you can write the equations out doesn’t mean it maps to reality. But useful furniture for science fiction writers who want a sniff of credibility …
You could argue that the argument is circular though ‘the weak energy condition is an axiomatic statement on what is physical’ ‘the Alcubierre metric is unphysical because it violates the WEC.’ Otoh the WEC does seem to be essential for a lot of GR. So … who knows? Intellectually there are good reasons why physicists assume FTL and time travel are impossible, and the WEC seems to somehow enforce this, but the universe has a way of confounding our expectations. For example, modern cosmological models violate another Energy Condition (the strong)
It requires negative energy density, which is not a thing in the real world. Its fantasy
Even without a form of warp drive, it is possible to accelerate to significant subluminal speeds, and with relativity, you could get quite far without needing a generation ship. The problem is the dust and gas in space, while extremely sparse, does add up over long distances. And you need to also decelerate on the other end.
@@KatharineOsborne true… (there’s also the issue of fuel.)
If we keep the attitude that starship will never happen the chances of having starships will go down but if we think starships will exist the chances go up.
Physics doesn't care about your attitude
@@DamienWalter
Our understanding of physics continues to improve.
@@DamienWaltersturbbon people like you are the only thing holding mankind from achieving it
Nuclear drives can reach around few % C Fusion around 12% C, but if we put propulsion outside ship example with lasers at starting system and destination we can reach much higher fraction of C and final speed will limited by how effective will be our method to protect against near C collision.
A collision with something tiny at even a very small proportion of C would be devastating to any currently known material solution for a hull. It's bad enough already just with fragments of paint and suchlike in sat orbits doing a few km/sec. Hence the presence in space fiction of concepts such as shields and fields that somehow solve this problem, though of course it is for the moment entirely fiction. Thicker hulls also don't help that much, Newtonian physics being the total pain that it is, plus anything beefier means carting up into orbit a lot more mass, unless a vessel can be constructed elsewhere with a lower gravity well (Moon, asteroids, etc.)
No need for lasers though, a maintained small acceleration (let's say the equivalent of 1g for onboard human convenience, imagine a chunky ion drive or somesuch, nuclear or whatever powered) will eventually reach whatever sub-c speed one desires; 1g is enough to reach Mars in just three days, though of course once a vessel approaches c, the acceleration gained declines for the same energy expended (I graphed the curve long ago, the exponential loss is amazing). An ion drive that could manage 1g is well beyond current tech of course, but even a small fraction of that (say 0.0001g, ie. about 1mm/s^2), pushing a ship which created its own internal simulated gravity for the delicate humans aboard (spinning torus or somesuch), would reach Mars in about 9 months at worst, which ain't bad. Such a design is likely within current technology, though even then the peak velocity (relative to the Sol system) achieved half-way would still be almost 13km/sec, and thus require some kind of enhanced protection against spaceborn debris (current tech could probably deal with the tiny stuff, but larger chunks would be a problem; one solution may be the same as used in the days of the great ocean liners, ie. multiple bulkheads and compartments, which if punctured won't endanger the whole vessel by being pressure isolated).
Note that 0.001g would mean about 3 months to Mars, 0.01g would take less than a month, and 0.1g would take about 10 days. All of these assume the worst possible Earth/Mars alignment (the best case scenario would mean each estimate would be shortened by about two thirds). It's funny, I worked out the math for this long ago, turned out Andy Weir used almost exactly the same numbers for, "The Martian", choosing what equates to about 0.0001g with a 9 month transit, ie. the ship turns round half way and uses the same force to decelerate. Note that a drive that could manage 1g would reach 0.3c in less than 4 months. Note I've not here taken into account what the actual required mass of expelled material would be in order to achieve each fraction of g
A far bigger pronlem than all of the above though is simply being able to construct something that is *reliable*. We need new methods of engineering, especially for software, baring mind that any modern vessel would have a great many computerised functions, and thus a horrendous number of bugs unless the code were written in a better way (this can be done, but it's horribly time consuming and expensive). Likewise, the modern tendency is to use off the shelf ICs rather than more resilient simple component circuits, but this means greater vulnerability to cosmic rays and other issues (knowledge of analogue has largely been lost, despite its many advantages). In all aspects of engineering and design, it means employing methods that don't cut corners, an approach rarely used by modern companies.
It also means having management structures that don't incentivise cost cutting for its own sake. OTOH doing it via state run entities would likely be even worse, due to traditional lack of accountability and oversight. The economics of such a grand venture tend to be ignored in popular discussions; Star Trek got round the issue by simply declaring that at some point in future history, the world stopped using "money" entirely, but then ST always was a bit of a collectivist utopia in that regard.
Either way, what this all means is that, even if someone did have technically viable ideas for a propulsion system and shields, at the moment we don't yet know how to reliably construct such a thing, ie. we need advances in production process management aswell as materials science and other fields. We could achieve a breakthrough in plysics, but construction methods and materials have to be top notch aswell. Musk ignored all of this, along with many other practical problems, when promoting his ides about colonising Mars.
The technology of now was unimaginable 400 years ago.
But none of it breaks the laws of physics.
@@DamienWalterblack holes and neutron stars don't break the laws of physics but they were imputed first within the laws of physics. This process is not complete, dark matter and strange matter are hypotheticals that are implied within the laws of physics but as yet undetected. Our laws of physics are foundational but incomplete and it may be via the exploitation of an ever deeper understanding of physics that hitherto unimaginable or unlikely things could come about.
@@mirarstudios You know that this will not change the fact that c is an absolute and a constant, right?
@@durshurrikun150I am not talking about faster than light or even using propulsion to go very very fast. What I am saying is that our understanding of physics is not complete therefore one can not reasonably say something is 'impossible', this strikes me as hubristic and limited in view. So you go tell yourself starships are impossible and I will go continuing to believe that progress in forms we cannot imagine may be Infront of humanity hundreds or thousands of years from now as our physics understanding continues to evolve.
@@mirarstudios "herefore one can not reasonably say something is 'impossible"
Errr, you can.
Faster than light travel is impossible, since c is a fundamental constant of the universe.
You can also claim with certainty that you can't cool anything to 0 K.
That also expands to chemistry (which is, in the end, an expansion of physics): for example, you can claim that you can't reduce CO2 to methanol without coupling the process to a thermodynamically favourable process.
You can claim that the bisulphate ion will never act as a base in DMSO for alkanes.
"this strikes me as hubristic and limited in view" Only if you are scientifically illiterate.
"So you go tell yourself starships are impossible"
Physics tells that, general relativity especially.
And that's not getting into the practical problems of interstellar travel.
I mean, humans can't even reliably go to Mars or Venus.
"I will go continuing to believe that progress in forms we cannot imagine may be Infront of humanity "
So you confirm that all you have is belief, not scientific knowledge and not any sort of rationality.
You made science fiction your object of worship.
The understanding of science will evolve, but what has been discovered will remain.
And c will always remain a limit.
This is why reality is useless
The Sheer Hubris of Damien Walter
"I want to believe"
@@DamienWalter Then change the title ^^ 🫂
@@Fedaygin"I want to believe"
Many things are impossible. Kirk’s communicator that allowed him to talk to his ship or indeed communicate to an entire planet is .. wait that’s a flip phone. OK how about transparent Aluminum that’s impossible.. oh that’s actually a real thing nowadays. Then how about a sensor array that can scan distant planets in other galaxies and suns and… oh that’s a real fact too….
I’m going to say that once many things were considered impossible. Our knowledge of physics ,biology and quantum mechanics are really in their infancy if you think about it.
A.I. may discover things unknown to me and you now.
A good scientist will always leave wiggle room for the unknown.
I cant even imagine the cost and effort to build one ship like the enterprise. it would cost the entire wealth of the entire earth to even start the project.
I saw a UFO as a kid, I got no clue how fast those things go, but they can go from horizon to horizon in a blink of an eye. I can't say if they are interstellar or interdimensional craft but it seems something intelligent has been able to circumvent some of our known laws of physics through some kind of transmedium mechanism.
Personally I find it incredibly hubristic to think that current Humanity knows even a significant fraction of how the universe truly works. We know the very, very, VERY basics. If Humans can figure out how gravity truly works, that could easily unlock a whole series of tech breakthroughs possibly including FTL travel
aren't YOU the one exercising hubris right now?
@@xBINARYGODxhow nobody and I mean nobody knows what is going to happen 2-500 years from now honestly this guy is full of shit on the video it’s like the middle age kingdom saying nobody will ever fly or be able to communicate instantly ever
@@xBINARYGODxhow? Nobody and I mean nobody knows what’s going to happen 2-500 years from now this guy is a moron in the video it’s like somebody from a mid evil kingdom saying nobody will ever fly or communicate instantly ever
@@invictus2578 Do you have another version of your comment?
@@xBINARYGODxAgreed. This blind, baseless daydreaming gets exhausting. And worrisome.
Sleeper Service is only playing at War. The "Mistake Not My Current State Of Joshing Gentle Peevishness For The Awesome And Terrible Majesty Of The Towering Seas Of Ire That Are Themselves The Mere Milquetoast Shallows Fringing My Vast Oceans Of Wrath" was built for it.
See my upcoming 2 hour Banks video for more on this.
A starship is by definition a vessel that can travel between stars, it doesn’t have to be quick and by the time we can realistically such a journey the time it takes to do a so simple might not matter.
Yes like breaking the sound barrier or going to the moon, Oh wait...