Hyperspace Drive?

[Atrocities]

Well I don't know if any one of you will buy this, I am skeptical to beat all hell, but if your into believing that we can develop technology to go faster than the speed of light, check out this web page. BS to Get a Defense Grant

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Also, if a large enough magnetic field was created, the craft would slip into a different dimension, where the speed of light is faster, allowing incredible speeds to be reached.

Ayep. You could reach speeds greater than the speed of light. But you still need to provide a little something called "thrust" and "thrust" requires a nasty little thing called "fuel", and not just that, but "thrust" does not necessarily mean speed, you've got to take something called "mass" into account, and current speed. "Acceleration" takes "fuel" and the higher the "acceleration" and the "mass" the more "fuel" is needed to reach a higher speed.

What I'm trying to say is, you might theoretically be able to reach much greater speeds there, but you're still limited by your thrust and fuel. Shunting a ship into another dimension does not (necessarily) give it speed, so like it or not, all you're doing is essentially wasting your energy by getting into another dimension, that really IS all

Not that I don't believe in FTL travel, of course (seriously), but this is indeed BS - albeit not necessarily in the way you meant it; when a fifteen-year-old student can poke holes the size of solar systems into a theory, I think it's time to review said theory. QED

[Renegade 13]

Strategia_In_Ultima said:
Ayep. You could reach speeds greater than the speed of light. But you still need to provide a little something called "thrust" and "thrust" requires a nasty little thing called "fuel"...

Article quoted below said:
The theoretical engine works by creating an intense magnetic field that, according to ideas first developed by the late scientist Burkhard Heim in the 1950s, would produce a gravitational field and result in thrust for a spacecraft.

[geoschmo]

Strategia_In_Ultima said:
What I'm trying to say is, you might theoretically be able to reach much greater speeds there, but you're still limited by your thrust and fuel. Shunting a ship into another dimension does not (necessarily) give it speed, so like it or not, all you're doing is essentially wasting your energy by getting into another dimension, that really IS all

No, not really. The whole theoretical idea of of warping space is that our dimension has curves and folds and by getting to another dimension you may be able to get there by a shorter actual distance traveled. Like a long curvey road that travels 100 miles to get around a mountain. If you could outfit your car with some sort of device that would allow you to drive straight through the mountain from point A to point B your car wouldn't need to be able to go any faster or farther then a normal car but would get there much faster then a car that had to follow the road.

[Parasite]

Also leaving the Earth at Lunch and getting to the Moon in time for Dinner is not going faster than light. Even if the moon in question is around Mars.

It kind of sounds like a reactionless drive they are trying to make. Something like the ones in Alan Dean Foster books.

[Raapys]

Well, as someone mentioned, the probability that computers/humans work in that 'dimension' is far from likely, so how were they planning on getting *out* of it once started?

[Suicide Junkie]

It is not a theoretical engine in the scientific sense, but rather just a hypothetical one.

You don't get a scientific theory without evidence.

[El_Phil]

SJ has hit the nail on the head, it's not even theoretical. It's an idea someone had and has written convincingly about.

But it is s a hell of a theory. Ballsy doesn't even cover it. For it to work you need not only four new dimensions above the usual three and time, you also need two new fundamental forces.

Hell you even need "Graviphotons" so you can "couple together gravity and electromagnetism and allow the conversion of electromagnetic energy into gravitational and vice-versa."

Still the New Scientist has me convinced that it's at least worth looking at. There's something there, his theory is at least self consistent and his predictions match up.

Not that I think it's likely but it's 'Blue Sky' research, the same approach that gave us blue lasers (DVDs) and radar.

This may not work, hell it may be utter rubbish, but that's no reason not to do it.

[Suicide Junkie]

Indeed, even if it is pure balognium, I'd still like to see what happens when we generate insanely huge magnetic fields.

If nothing else, it provides an excuse to try new things.

[Suicide Junkie]

Somebody has been watching too much Babylon 5, possibly while under hypnosis.

I didn't think it was possible to watch too much B5, but there it is.