Near future
Contacts
  • Home
  • Tech
  • Health
  • Environment
  • Architecture
  • energia
  • Transportation
  • Spazio
  • AI
  • concepts
  • Gadgets
  • Italy Next
  • H+
May 20, 2022

Coronavirus / Russia-Ukraine

Near future

News to understand, anticipate, improve the future.

No Result
View All Result

News to understand, anticipate, improve the future.

Read in:  Chinese (Simplified)EnglishFrenchGermanItalianJapanesePortugueseRussianSpanish

Physicists take a step towards space travel beyond the speed of light

Moving through other star systems at the speed of light is a dream: now we have taken a small step in its direction.

draftingdi drafting
in Spazio
Share3704Pin835Tweet2315SendShare648ShareShare463
speed of light
February 20 2022
⚪ Reads in 3 minutes
A A

Being able to travel "beyond the speed of light", overcoming the known limits of space and time: this is one of the greatest and most important dreams and objectives of modern physics. Over the years, enormous strides have been made in this direction, towards a new type of inter-space travel.

But let's start from what we already know, let's start from the basics and then get to explain what are the steps forward made by science.

The first attempt

A first study on traveling at the speed of light was carried out by the Mexican scientist Miguel Alcubierre in 1994. His plan was based on a well known principle: the distortion or curvature of space-time.

Maybe you are also interested

Carbon foam probes for very fast interstellar flights

In the Star Trek series and films, the crew exploits distortion to allow the ship to move with a speed equal to the speed of light. Space and time behind the spaceship expand while space and time ahead compress. 

Alcubierre tried to do more or less the same thing, but he ran into a problem. The negative energy caused by the distortion would have caused the ship to lose control and stability, too great a risk.

This is why spaceships like the one from Star Trek have never been made into reality.

Light speed
Miguel Alcubierre

Speed ​​of light, one step ahead

Today, however, there are some news. A study conducted by Erik Lentz published Classical and Quantum Gravity offers new food for thought.

To be precise, scientists from Lentz's team have found a solution to the negative energy problem we just talked about. How did they do it? They built a new class of hyper-fast "solitons" using sources with positive energies, capable of ensuring the journey at very high speeds (even at the speed of light).  

Solitons represent a type of wave that holds its shape and energy while moving at a constant speed. According to Lentz, these components would be able to exclude negative energy and eliminate the problem in the bud. 

With the right energy and the right control, one could go beyond space-time, approaching an experience never yet experienced.

How much energy would it take?

The current answer is still "too much energy".

As Lentz himself explains: “The energy required for this impulse which travels at the speed of light and extends over a spacecraft with a radius of 100 meters is of the order of hundreds of times the mass of the planet Jupiter. (…) Energy savings should be drastic, about 30 orders of magnitude to be within the reach of modern nuclear fission reactors ”.

The physicist also expressed an opinion on what he believes to be the "next step", the next step:

The next step is to figure out how to reduce the astronomical amount of energy needed within the range of current technologies, such as a large, modern nuclear fission power plant. So we can talk about the construction of the first prototypes.

Erik Lentz

If we ever succeed, the next goal would surely be Next Centauri. Such a planned journey would allow us to come and go in years, rather than decades or millennia.

The prospects are certainly attractive, but we would have to wait several more years before receiving an answer. For the moment, we just need to know that science is moving in the right direction.

tags: Interstellar travel
Previous post

Google and Waymo 'unleash' autonomous vehicles by creating San Francisco VR

Next Post

A startup wants to drill 20km deep and obtain unlimited energy

COLLABORATE

To submit articles, disclose the results of a research or scientific discoveries write to the editorial staff
  • Domus trimaran

    Domus, crazy zero-emission trimaran

    11595 Shares
    Share 4636 Tweet 2897
  • Create 'renewable' or rather 'perpetual' bio photovoltaic cells

    8212 Shares
    Share 3284 Tweet 2052
  • Plastic recycling, shock report: "it doesn't work, and it will never work"

    4351 Shares
    Share 1740 Tweet 1088
  • Unreal Engine 5, crazy: it doesn't stand out from reality

    5832 Shares
    Share 2332 Tweet 1458
  • Hermeus tries it: hypersonic planes of 6000 kilometers per hour

    2328 Shares
    Share 931 Tweet 582

archive

Have a look here:

digital nomads
Society

Digital Nomads: Their rise tells us a lot about the future of remote working

There is an elite of workers who have already experienced a return to work closer to home, family, nature ....

Read More

Here is the new artificial skin from MIT

Electric car is better than the traditional one

For the planet, the electric car is better than the traditional car, isn't it?

puffer fish houses

Puffer Village, the 'puffer fish' houses against rising sea levels

Hi-tech capsules for homeless people: in Germany they test the Ulmer Nest

Next Post

A startup wants to drill 20km deep and obtain unlimited energy

The daily tomorrow

Futuroprossimo.it provides news on the future of technology, science and innovation: if there is something that is about to arrive, here it has already arrived. FuturoProssimo is part of the network ForwardTo, studies and skills for future scenarios.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Environment
Architecture
Artificial intelligence
Gadgets
concepts
Design

Staff
Archives
Advertising
Privacy Policy

Medicine
Spazio
Robotica
Work
Transportation
energia

To contact the FuturoProssimo editorial team, write to redazione@futuroprossimo.it

Chinese Version
Édition Française
Deutsche Ausgabe
Japanese version
English Edition
Edição Portuguesa
Русское издание
Spanish edition

The daily tomorrow

Futuroprossimo.it provides news on the future of technology, science and innovation: if there is something that is about to arrive, here it has already arrived. FuturoProssimo is part of the network ForwardTo, studies and skills for future scenarios.

Chinese Version
Édition Française
Deutsche Ausgabe
Japanese version
English Edition
Edição Portuguesa
Русское издание
Spanish edition

Staff
Archives
Advertising
Privacy Policy

Subscribe to our newsletter

To contact the FuturoProssimo editorial team, write to redazione@futuroprossimo.it

Categories

This work is distributed under license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.
© 2021 Futuroprossimo

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Tech
  • Health
  • Environment
  • Architecture
  • energia
  • Transportation
  • Spazio
  • AI
  • concepts
  • Gadgets
  • Italy Next
  • H+
This site uses cookies. By continuing to read it, you consent to their use.