Why do people believe that interstellar travel is a possibility given humanity's current aptitude in physics...

the media don't say it's gonna be tomorrow.

i don't have enough knowledge about physics to play around with actual numbers. i don't know how much energy that is. but while bending the whole space between that star and ours might be energetically impossible, it could be possible to bend it just a little. you know, star trek-like. so you can at least exceed the speed of light for an obverser

i don't quite understand how that article proves this

Because it demonstrably is re asteroids.
> Where we are absolutely proves that there is no possible way of traveling with such distances without bringing in /x/-tier stuff.
No it doesnt, build biosphere stick it behind a shield and attach a solar sail.

You know literally nothing about any of the dozens of relevant fields, stop spreading your retarded opinions.

You must have a better working theory to explain gravity then? Oh you dont? Then youre retarded.

You gonna need to read that article one more time.

Space curvature is a thing if light curves around black holes or any significant density anomaly, or if light has a speed limit.

A man can dream, can he not?

Why do people believe we are made of tiny balls
given humanity's current aptitude in physics?

Why do humans believe we are made of tiny jelly things given humanity's current aptitude in physics?

Why do people believe that the sun isnt a giant ball of fire given humanity's current aptitude in physics?

Why do people believe that there is another landmass on the otherside of the globegiven humanity's current aptitude in physics?

Why do people believe that giant metal birds can flygiven humanity's current aptitude in physics?

Humans dont know everything, and there is still absolute proof of Einstein's crap since we havent tried accelerating matter to near the speed of light.

>proves that there is no possible way of traveling with such distances
>given humanity's current aptitude in physics

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Or maybe tomorrow. We just found a cure for tooth decay when we were looking for a cure for Alzheimer's

weforum.org/agenda/2017/10/scientists-have-found-a-drug-that-can-repair-cavities-and-regrow-teeth

>we havent tried accelerating matter to near the speed of light.
i hope this is part of the joke

We HAVE tried accelerating matter to near the speed of light. Happens daily in Europe.
Einstein was right.
In fact, clocks are so good today that time dilation can be measured even at the speed of a man jogging.

We certainly don't know EVERYTHING, but we know SOME THINGS which I don't expect to ever be overthrown.
Interstellar flight is possible -- but it'll be slow, expensive, and likely nothing like Star Trek or Star Wars.

>nothing like Star Trek

Right.
"Give me a lever and a place to stand and I will move the world!" has been replaced by
"Give me a stupendous amount of negative mass/energy (if such exists) and I will travel faster than light!"

The point is it's possible. When it's possible, it will without a doubt be a thing in the future.

1. You haven't shown it's possible. Negative mass may not exist. The universe wasn't designed for human's convenience.
2. Even when things are possible, that doesn't mean they'll be done. Duplicating the Great Pyramid would be only a medium size engineering job today. But who would want an artificial mountain for a tomb?
Human-powered flight is possible and has been done. Not a big market for it though.

>Why do people believe that intercontinental travel is a possibility given humanity's current aptitude in oceanic navigation? Where we are absolutely proves that there is no possible way of traveling with such distances without bringing in /x/-tier stuff. Why do media outlets that are supposed to be factual, preach to people that planetary domination is just within our reach? Is it political? In my personal opinion, research in the ocean should be centered around keeping Europe safe from a cataclysmic event like a big wave, not putting an outpost on an inhospitable continent when we are really not ready for something like that.

>the universe wasn't designed for human's convenience
we don't know that, after all if the strong nuclear force were 2% stronger [math]^2_2He[/math] would be stable, potentially fucking up nuclear fusion and ridding the universe of it.

this infinitely many times over

>the solution to the fermi paradox is to be a spineless cuck and hide away in a box
you can stay in your shed, I'm going to claim glory in the heavens

it isn't possible though, you fucking retard
Negative mass and energy do not exist, thus they cannot be used to make magical time breaking FTL drives

The barrier to intercontinental travel was going as fast as the wind could push you. The barrier to interstellar travel is the laws of physics.

This was retarded but honestly pretty entertaining to read

I think most of it stems from the galactic-civilization trope of scifi. Interstellar travel is absolutely a desired ability if it is even slightly feasible, and there's no real reason to rule it out per modern physics. It is absolutely a ridiculous, near insurmountable technological challenge, but 300 years ago, so flight through our own skies.

General relativity admits many peculiar things which may be of help in achieving this goal, but to be honest, those solutions aren't really understood all too well. This is especially interesting in the light of a quantum theory of gravity. Humans have become very good at manipulating individual atoms, but not so much at manipulating objects of solar mass or greater. So classical solutions to the Einstein field equations can't really be engineered [citation needed], but who's to say that the same is really true of quantum solutions?

If you look at the ways people 500 years ago thought we'd be getting around, it's all quite ridiculous, so speculation about the year 2518 or even beyond is probably wildly inaccurate. If interstellar travel is feasible, somebody needs to imagine how it might work first, lest we have no starting point.

>Negative mass may not exist
Negative mass is not a concept in physics. Negative energy density is a thing, but mass is a distinctly non-negative quantity.

>if the strong nuclear force were 2% stronger Helium-2 would be stable
I'm gonna need your source for that one.

>Negative mass and energy do not exist
The potential energy of ground state hydrogen is negative. So is the energy density of the Higgs field in the standard model. The accelerating expansion of the universe is consistent with a constant negative pressure proportional to the energy density of empty space.

Negative mass IS a concept in physics and is related to negative energy density.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_mass
It would have most peculiar properties.
All objects, regardless of mass-sign, fall "down" in a normal gravity field. To do otherwise would violate the Equivalence Principle.
All objects, regardless of mass-sign, fall "up" in the field surrounding a negative mass object.
Hence, a matched pair of positive and negative masses would accelerate indefinitely. Their net kinetic energy and momentum would remain unchanged.

I am not arguing for its existence. In fact, I consider it most unlikely. But physicists have considered the possibility.

The "negative energy" ground state is a sign convention. The gravitational potential energy of a baseball sitting on the ground is also negative. If there is an attractive force between objects, zero potential energy means they are separated by an infinite distance. It's an arbitrary definition, but it simplifies the arithmetic. A falling object is "gaining" negative potential energy at the same rate it's gaining positive kinetic energy. But that sort of potential energy doesn't "bend space" the other way.

The funniest thing about it all is that even if the theoretical methods for FTL, or FTL-like travel were possible, the amount of energy required would cause immense destruction upon your destination, that they would serve better use as a weapon, not as a method for travel.

You reminded me of the work of Morton Spears.

Interstellar exploration is a possibility. I'm just in favour of sending unmanned probes and satellites to nearby star systems. Sure it will take years and year for the data to get back but it will be exciting. I think we are at least 100-200 years if not more from launching a manned interstellar mission though. Then again, if we absolutely had to launch one now in order to save the human species from some kind of extinction event, who is to know what sort of classified technology the government has which could make this more feasible?

Nobody believes that it's currently possible, but if you think that it'll never be possible you're fucking retarded.
Given enough time, humanity will do it.

I bet we could do interstellar travel if people
spent their lives in spaceships and had children
while traveling.

>Why do people believe that interstellar travel is a possibility given humanity's current aptitude in physics? Where we are absolutely proves that there is no possible way of traveling with such distances without bringing in /x/-tier stuff.

Unfortunately I understand how you feel about getting into the x-tier stuff, but understand that to understand the universe we must first understand how it works. Science had brought us a great distance in figuring out this question, but we have to rely on the metaphysical aspect of things when it comes to how the universe works.

People have forgotten that meta-physics and physics are the essentially the same thing. They both rely on observations, the math behind it is simply based on recordings AFTER said even happens. We as a whole have been given a scenario in which we can't actually see things for what they are, even with machines we can only see so much. We smash bits of inertia together in giant magnetic fields hoping that they'll hit each other the right way to find a result that we hypothesize, all while overlooking the very method we use to smash said particles in the first place.

Our imaginations and dis infoalso get the best of us. We have illogical notions that the universe could be a simulation, or that there's 12 or so "dimensions", or that something somehow came from nothing and will return to nothing for no reason (bigbang/heatdeath). All of these are backed with "math" which may be true, but so what. Math is simply a language, made by humans. The universe is incommensurable, perhaps if we worked like it more instead of using our tech on improving iphones and VR videogames.

On, off, on, off. That is all these devices do. The universe does not turn "on and off".

I had to look up Spears.
Sounds like a crackpot.

On the other hand, negative mass is a real CONCEPT which is (maybe) allowed by what we know of physics.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_mass
I don't know of anyone who serious expects to find it REALLY exists.

There's a current thread on Veeky Forums with a picture of a guy who used to head Lockheed's "skunk works". HE claims we know all about anti-gravity and FTL travel and all that. But the Government has suppressed it all.

If that's an accurate quote of what he said, I'd say he's bonkers. But it's an exaggeration to say "nobody believes". You can always find SOMEBODY hanging out with the flat-Earthers here.
I believe Interstellar flights WILL occur someday (if we don't do something stupid in the meantime) but it's centuries away and will be slower-than-light.

youre retarded lmao lemme see dem credentials

We could but we'd have to do an unmanned prove to the destination first because we'll never be able to tell if a planet X lightyears is habitable just by observing it from Earth. Imagine sending a generation ship on a several hundred year journey and then they arrive at an inhospital rock. Would be nightmarish.

then we said fuck the wind and invented the steam engine

We just need to shrink space by building space roads.

Ancaps lose again.

See Larry NIven's "Known Space" series.
The unmanned probes were set to look for "a habitable point". Then Earth followed up with a (much slower) colony ship.
Plateau was colonized -- a single outcrop the size of California, sticking up out of a Venus-thick atmosphere.
Jinx was colonized -- a moon distorted by tidal forces into an egg-shape. The ends are in vacuum and the air is too thick at the equator, leaving two narrow habitable bands.
And so on.

Do you guys think it would be possible to save
everyone on the ship using Cryogenics?

In the Niven stories, all the colonists WERE in cold sleep.
But the ships had only enough fuel for the one-way trip. So they had to do the best with the planet they had.

Niven collaborated with another author on a novel, "Building Harlequin's Moon", which WASN'T set in his usual "universe". The crew leaves the colonists frozen for a millennium while they take turns supervising the machinery which terraforms the planet.

>regrow teeth
Interesting.
Wonder if this could be used to enhance bone length and make people taller? Or make women curvier?

Be gone degenerate infidel.

the amount of energy you would need to bend space time, is about the same as you would need for FTL. Sort of defeating the purpose.

I thought interstellar travel meant traveling to at least the closest star... ? Am I wrong?

You're right.
Were you replying to a particular post which suggested otherwise?

It does, OP is talking about FTL travel as his posting of a picture of a wormhole should have made clear.

>Because it demonstrably is re asteroids.
Wait, you think asteroids come from interstellar space? HAHAHAHAHAHA

>>if the strong nuclear force were 2% stronger Helium-2 would be stable
>I'm gonna need your source for that one.
Do the calculations yourself brainlet.

Only brainlets think FTL is possible.

If time dilation is real (it's not), why don't astronauts on the ISS just buy lottery tickets since time goes slower for them, they can get the winning numbers by looking through a telescope.

...

>no possible way of traveling with such distances without bringing in /x/-tier stuff.
youtube.com/watch?v=xRB7a89Jh7w
Isaac Arthur's channel is probably something you should watch as it may change your view of what is possible within known physics.

You need to find a more "How braindead can someone be and still breathe?" reaction image.
This one isn't a tenth of what demands.

Some dimwit non-scientists' fanfic will "open my mind" will it? Fuck off, brainlet. Try studying actual science, you MIGHT come across as less of a total moron.

>dimwit non-scientists
How do you know that he is not a scientist?
>fanfic will "open my mind" will it?
That is what fiction is used for.
>Try studying actual science, you MIGHT come across as less of a total moron.
Why would I care.

I watched first 8 min. or so, then started skipping.
Talks about "how far we can go without FTL" and then segues smoothly over to "suppose we could cross the galaxy in a year." Every time I paused after that I saw clips from StarGate.

Suppose we had "perfect" fusion rockets. By which I mean no energy lost to neutrinos or waste heat. Suppose we wanted to attain HALF lightspeed, coast the majority of the trip, and then slow again. (Ignore the consequences of plowing through interstellar dust and gas.)
You need a mass-ratio over 300,000!!
A 1000 ton ship (small for a multi-decade voyage) would start out massing 300,000,000 tons. We're also assuming the tankage to hold all that fuel weighs nothing.

>Suppose we wanted to attain HALF lightspeed
You would have to be insane to ride in a ship going even 1% of light speed.

>Talks about "how far we can go without FTL" and then segues smoothly over to "suppose we could cross the galaxy in a year." Every time I paused after that I saw clips from StarGate.
He dismisses FTL right after that. That video is part three of a series.

So, briefly, what's his plan to colonize THIS galaxy (to say nothing of others) is less than several tens of millions of years?
Keep in mind that no human society has ever stayed focused on a project for more than a few centuries. These days, "next fiscal year" (or "next election cycle", at most) passes as "long term planning."

That’s less human attention span more flaws and faults with modern government systems. You want a real government? How bout one that’s super gay where traps are a normal thing and everyone’s strapped with equal parts dildos and weapons.

there isn't one
Colonizing the galaxy isn't a singular thing, because it's not going to be done by a singular group
You colonize star systems one by one as individual groups decide to fuck off into the void to claim glory and a system for themselves

The galaxy will be colonized whenever the colonists decide to go and do it, or if someone is given a good enough reason to do it

youtube.com/watch?v=3y3MmmfZmP8
In his view we will colonize our galaxy over millions of years but not before saturating our solar system and eventually building a dyson swarm around the sun.

Well, that's a lot saner than many scenarios I've seen.
You realize, of course, that population pressure isn't a good reason to go traveling. Once your planet has been colonized for centuries or millennia (even if you've "gone Dyson") further expansion is no longer an option. The Frontier has moved on. Any worlds you might possibly reach are ALREADY colonized.
So societies will have to solve their problems in some other way -- all of which ultimately hinge on population control, even it you have access to all the resources of a solar system and the energy of a star.

What interstellar expansion does provide is cultural diversity and insurance against "local" disasters; warfare, plague, nearby supernova.

I thought the series gradually went downhill.
I don't know how much is included in the collection shown but Haldeman lost me with the novel in which he introduced, not one, but TWO deus ex machinas (shapeshifters living among us and something which could re-write physics at will.) I considered that authorial cheating.

Humans sending signals into the universe is the counterexample to this explanation, because if life is common it would only take a very small fraction of civilizations like humans to be outputting enough radio signals to be detected by us.

The answer to the Fermi paradox CANNOT be that aliens never decide to output signals, because it literally takes one rich alien to get bored and decide to do it per planet and EVERY planet is sending out signals.

The real answer to the Fermi paradox is that the Drake equation vastly overestimates the likelihood of a bunch of factors in a row, resulting in a result orders of magnitude larger than reality.

Why wait until the solar system is a dyson swarm before colonizing other stars? This guy is overly optimistic about a ton of shit and his thought processes don't make a lot of sense. It seems way more likely to me that as soon as we start building large space stations with rotating habitats etc it won't take long until someone has the idea of clustering a few rotating habitats together with a good stockpile of machinery and spare parts, a big fuel tank, and a fusion engine (assuming we develop something like that, could even be Orion-pulse derived idk), and start attempting interstellar generation ship flights. If we have enough industry to even consider actually starting to build a dyson swarm, we'd have more than enough capability to be able to launch a dozen different ships to a dozen of the closest stars a decade, every decade.

You have an obnoxious way of expressing yourself.

>Why do people believe that interstellar travel is a possibility given humanity's current aptitude in physics?

Hope? Inspiration? I'm sure you knew the answer to this before you posted. I bet you've even had the same feelings at some point.

Having said that, maybe we won't! Maybe it's not even possible for us.

>humanity is eternal

it's entirely possible
there's absolutely fucking nothing complex about speeding up and slowing down

manlet detected

he never said that we'd completely finish a dyson swarm before starting interstellar operations
he said we'd do it WHILE we construct one, meaning at the same time
people need to learn how to pay attention instead of being dumb

What the fuck am i reading

Except the UFOs exist. Now that NYT has published that, I can't see how you can maintain that dogma. The truth must be /x/.

I know this is a joke, but it's too much.

>Human are one uniform creature...
>Without bringing x tier stuff

>fermi paradox
>they will assume
>survival

Just bring out the plasmaguns already.

I see no issue with interstellar travel. Just keep sending generation ships out as we're producing enough people to keep filling them easily. One of them is bound to get there in time.
Your argument is invalid.

I'm still right. UFOs exist, and break the known laws of physics. So out theories must be wrong.

I mean, there are official videos and documentation about this.

With enough advances in particle physics we should be able to create massless particles that can move faster than light in about 700 years.

Nothing in physics prevents this.
The hard part will be convincing the taxpayers to fund all those generation ships.

Solar system domination is possible, just not with our political framework. Interstellar travel is possible, but with machines and over long time periods. Interstellar domination is questionable.

>given humanity's current aptitude in physics?

Imagine describing the internet to a person in the 1920's

The world would be worse.

>break the known laws of physics.
They don't seem to use reaction mass based propultion like we do, but that doesn't mean they break physics.

>the taxpayers
>Implying a society capable of building interstellar ships could do so without exploiting the resources of the whole solar system.
>Implying a society with such abundance of resources and automation wouldn't be post scarcity.

The space program and the superconducting supercollider were drop-in-the-bucket items compared with other expenses. Still killed.
Resources are ALWAYS finite, even with fusion energy and robotics -- whereas there's no end to what people want. You ALWAYS run into limits. Though they may not be the ones you're used to thinking of.
And I never said any thing about "exploiting all resources".

>And I never said any thing about "exploiting all resources".
Yeah but I did. There's a lot more stuff hanging around in the asteroid belt than most people imagine. Everything we would need to farm proteins and sustain immense populations, and build massive automated mining operations and shipyards and manufacturing plants.

At this point the sky isn't the limit anymore, it's the Oort cloud.

The only way I can see that warp would work is if our universe exists on the surface of a hyper-sphere. Otherwise, suppose you can shift into a higher dimension which is orthogonal to ours, then actually there's no point, because the distance traveled multiplies.

Agreed. But there are still limits.
Even "immense populations" have limits.
Asimov did the calculation once; assuming a very low reproductive rate, converting ANYTHING into food (and ultimately, human beings), and intergalactic travel no more difficult than walking through a doorway -- we still run out of resources in a surprisingly few number of millennia.
Of course, any real system would break down long before we reached that point.

At any level of technology, would people prefer investing in interstellar travel (long term investment, but possibly saving the species) or new iPhones (short term investment, but look at all the cool new features this has!!!!)
I think history has shown how that works out.

>curvature
Yes
>bending backwards out the other side of butthole
Just a mathematical possibility because y=x^2 has both + and - solution. Might as well be invalid part of equation as it is with many real, physical systems.
The equation was written just to describe "entrance" of black hole. We have not yet observed a physical exit. Only back holes ejecting mass, which is different process.

Time dilation doesnt exist and it would take a 10ghz processor to match and record the amount of cycles defined by the redefined second from the 60's being related to caesium-133 oscillating at over 9ghz, which the fastest processor ever built even up to 2018 has only managed sub 5ghz, nevermind in the 60's they had sub 1mhz.

Speed of light also has not been accurately defined or recorded.

Jetfuel can't melt steel beams.

Welcome to reality, you're surrounded by liars begging for attention.

actually it was more of a navigation and construction issue. A medieval carrack wasn't much faster than a Phoenician galley but the latter didn't have trigonometry for navigating and water mills to manufacture giant ocean going ships.