Beam me up, Scotty

I thought he was dead all ready? Still, whose going to give Captain Kirk more thrust now?

That new yoghurty breakfast cereal seems to be giving Kirk all the thrust he needs....

... but there's Klingons on the starboard bow....

Klingons get a lot of stick...

to raise the tone... n Star Trek, the USS Enterprise is powered by what is called a "warp drive" and at the moment only Paramount Pictures know its secrets. But new, highly mathematical research may have brought us one step closer to being able to explore the Universe in a starship capable of travelling faster than the speed of light. The analysis of the concept of a warp drive by Chris Van Den Broeck of the Catholic University in Leuven, Belgium means that building a starship Enterprise is a little closer. Dr Van Den Broeck was reanalysing ground-breaking calculations made five years ago by Mexican mathematician Miguel Alcubierre. Alcubierre said that it was possible to imagine how a warp drive would work by distorting the fabric of space. Starships would ride along waves in so-called spacetime, like surfers do along waves in the sea.

Ye canna change the laws of physics, Jude

Laws are made to be broken... (or at least bent slightly)

That might be Jude, but everyone would still end up at the back of the ship, pulped to a red thin layer by the g-force of such a drive. If they solve the propulsion, it is the dampening that they'd have the most trouble with. Engage...splat!

I do believe we will never truly explore much of space, which is a shame cos I'm sure I wound up on the wrong planet. I can dream though!!!

Never is a long time!

Relatively speaking. [%sig%]

Never is a long time but quote Douglas Adams "Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space."

If you warped space, g-force wouldn't be an issue, it would be analagous to freefall. Zoltar on the other hand...

"Space, like time, engenders forgetfulness; but it does so by setting us bodily free from our surroundings and giving us back our primitive, unattached state" - Thomas Mann You know I actually dreamed that Darth Vader was my Father last night.

Fear not, Scotty will explore it for us. His ashes are to be sent into space. You couldn't make it up...

It would be nice to think we could go faster than the constant of the speed of light, which in terms of the local galaxy, it's just way too slow. And of course, even if we could travel at the speed of light, it'd take years to get up to speed, and to slow down again!!! We have to ecsape Earth though and bio-engineer ourselves to live in all environments. We only ahve a small window to do this I believe. Maybe, we will crack it - we are the eternal tool-makers and problem-solvers afterall. I hope so. Shame I won't be around to see either way.

What amazes me is how people take a television series and turn it into a way of life and thinking, as if it was real. Scotty (Doohan) was Canadian and in truth couldn't stand Captaini Kirk (Shatner).

C Has no Constancy! It creates its own amplitude barea that prevents a photon velocity greater than C1. Stop thinking 3 dimensional. ~:

C's do have Constancy. What about CF and CM?

Who cares whether he liked Shatner? It was a TV show, after all, not a documentary.

>>> If you warped space, g-force wouldn't be an issue, it would be analagous to freefall. ...yes, but how... I mean how, really... do you know? Have you ever warped space? Hmm??? >>> You know I actually dreamed that Darth Vader was my Father last night. ...I rarely dream about anything so interesting - recently I dreamt I had not one, but !*!TWO!*! pencil sharpeners... oh hurrah...

Gee, lot's of constant C's in the stables tonight ... neighhhhhhh *snot snort*

Ooops ... duck Pepsi! That last photon torpedo weren't aimed at you, me pretty!

I am not a duck! * ribbit * ...see.

Obviously ...*smile* As for the g-force effect and warping space waffle, an antimatter drive is required! But to create such a device, the instant it is switched on, everything else is turned off? Leeloo: "Butta Bing Butta Boom" Bruce W: "Yes, big boom"

Is an "antimatter drive" a drive that doesn't matter? ( sorry )

The production of antimatter is routine now. Soon we will have developed a more effective way to contain it for longer periods of time. CERN.

"...yes, but how... I mean how, really... do you know? Have you ever warped space? Hmm???" I warp space as much as the next guy (but not as much as the fatty next to him)

hahah.. excellent reply.. hahahahahahah!

the speed of light isn't a constant, it depends on what it's travelling through, it's been recorded as slow as 37mph. THIS IS NOT A JOKE.

Still to fast for a built up zone then.

yeah know thats why light refracts through glass, cos it slows down. C'mon Ely thats GCSE physics

Does it speed up if you throw the torch?

Relatively speaking.. No. ~:

Light refracts through glass due to chromatic dispersion. Your GCSE physics instructor may have not mentioned incoherent light sources and Snells law's of refraction. Does reflected light slow down?

err, chromatic dispersion is due to refraction, refraction is due to change in velocity between different mediums. [%sig%]

I don't remember but he had really smelly breath and nicotine stained fingers

Chromatic refraction is due to light of different wavelengths taking different paths through a refractive medium. Refractive index...blue light, red light, what ever, will take a different angle through glass, it doesn't slow down, it refracts. Jeeze...we've turned to a physics debate over an actor's death hahahaha...

A fellow geek informs me that light slows down momentary at the point of refraction and as a consequence of small change in wavelength for different mediums. Mind you. He dose come up with all sorts of crack pot theory's. Whats all this about some one dying?

He would have wanted it that way. Anyway, I'm right and here's a non-authoritative source to back me up

As I said. ~: I don't know Dan, these nerds have nothing on us geeks.

Ahhh, so this goes back to my previous question.... Does reflected light slow down? Common sense would say, it actually stops at the point/moment of reflection...but does it? To slow down or stop, it would have to change wavelength...(doppler effect or something like that), but you can reflect a columnated coherent light source and it remains at the same wavelength at the output of the reflector as it was before it entered the reflector. So, it can't be slowing down. Which begs additional questions...Why would columnated pure light not change frequency if it is slowing down (or stopping). If it did, why can't one change the color of light with a series mirror? Answer, you can't. Perhaps light refracts/reflects at the same speed that it travels. It's all a function of wavelength.

Back to Scotty: when aged 80 he (actor James Doohan) became a father for the seventh time with the birth of his daughter Sarah! I'm fairly sure that he also invented the basics of only known alien language (credited to Dr. Okrand). Heqhlu'meH QaQ jajvam.

Refraction is the bending of the path of a light wave as it passes from one material to another material. The refraction occurs at the boundary and is caused by a change in the speed of the light wave upon crossing the boundary. The tendency of a ray of light to bend one direction or another is dependent upon whether the light wave speeds up or slows down upon crossing the boundary. The speed of a light wave is dependent upon the optical density of the material through which it moves. so I just read

oh come on jude, that's primary school singalong that is!

Are you trying to tell me that the Starship Enterprise wasn't real? [%sig%]

In other words. C is not constant.

yeeeaaas... *she says in Little Britain's Mr McCloonys voice*

Don't worry Hox - it is real. We know this because so many Americans have visited it. And we know they don't lie, don't we?

If light slows down (refracts) when entering more denser matter, why does it speed up (refracts) when exiting that same matter? Don't all light wavelenghths travel at the same speed in the same medium. How can a passive device such as glass, make light travel faster after slowing it down? Energy can't be created where none exists. If light exits a prism at the same speed it enters, how can one prove that it slows down? And an even greater question...if you were watching a star trek rerun in deep space, would it be possible to see the ending of the show before the beginning of the show.