This is one of the reasons why I sometimes wished I lived hundreds if not thousands of years in the future, because that would be incredible to live in a society that can travel to other planets/galaxies in a reasonable time. Maybe it's impossible, but if humanity survives long enough, I'd imagine we'd figure it out somehow. Hopefully this guy and White at NASA are on the right track at least.
unless we end up shutting down space programs because we realize what a waste of our resources they are
Ah! Close-mindedness on the crutches of hindsight sprinkled with a dash of righteous indignation. Delicious! But at least you have enough self-awareness to recognize that you probably would have dismissed the Wright brothers just the same. This guy much more likely than not will amount to nothing, but to be so quick to dismiss him as a chump, fraud and kook is even more laughable.
Warp engine built in a garage? <IMg src="http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/images/5/5d/Cochrane_glaubt_Riker_nicht.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20120122124040&path-prefix=de" width=600> Zefram was a full professor btw
Scientific discoveries can be genius, hard work or accidental side effects. You never know. If he is positively engaged (entertaining himself) and not blowing anybody up, I'm all for him.
Righteous? you. Indignation? that's you again. Did I introduce the terms "chump," "fraud," or "kook." No again. Laughable? Eye of the poster, I suppose. You seem very ready to rage against some straw-man establishment scientist. Or just fling poo at another poster I guess. I don't get it. In truth, I'm not close-minded. I'm glad somebody is thinking about warp drive. We agree this is probably not how warp drive is going to happen though. According to GR, we need massive energies to bend spacetime to our whim. 100 Watts? ... He needs to develop an entirely new (and testable) theory of universal gravitation before we can really consider warping effects using the energy of a cheap hair dryer. That's not close-minded. It's actually just a thoughtful approach to this "report," and that's what somebody requested. And I'm right to call out your disingenuous comparison of this guy to the young Albert Einstein. It's not a fair comparison. Einstein's ideas really did build on all the ideas coming before him, and he addressed them with eventually testable proposals. His papers stood on their own and got published in top journals after careful review. (Special relativity is in many ways the crowning jewel of all the classical physics that came before it, and the work directly builds on both Galileo and his contemporary, Lorentz.) Einstein also worked with pencil and paper, which were readily available to a patent clerk! This guy with the warp drive really would seem to need more than access to a Lowe's, a very modest budget, and a standard wall outlet before building a machine that distorts spacetime. It doesn't make one close-minded to rationally point that out. If so, the scientific process is necessarily close-minded, from Galileo onward.
Couldn't agree more whole-heartedly. Faraday didn't look very promising when he started tinkering in labs.
In case anybody wants to know what somebody who knows what they are talking about sounds like. http://nextbigfuture.com/2014/12/dr-sonny-white-updates-on-space-warping.html?m=1 <iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Wokn7crjBbA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> A long time ago, I heard an astrophysicist talking about all the crazies that walk through the door (according to this guy he was faced with a nonstop stream of frauds claiming to have created the next big thing). He said that when they walk in the door they cans sound incredibly convincing - like they really know what they are talking about - right up until the point that you start to discuss the math behind what they are saying. If they can't walk you through the math, they are just parroting things they've heard elsewhere.
In case you didn't notice, the poster I responded to did. And then you joined the discussion. Yes, invoking Einstein rubbed you the wrong way. But of course you had no issue making comparisons to those mere mechanics the Wright Brothers. If anything this shines a brighter light on (faux) intellectual elitism in this thread that I'm "raging" against. You mean the guy who was sent to the Inquisition for daring to defend the theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun? Oh the irony! You know what this thread reminds me of? It reminds me of this: Toss this guy in the pile of cold fusion. I don't care. But people in this thread so quick and willing to dismiss the guy as a liar and daydreaming on a crazy project because he's a disgruntled half-wit educator who can't get published (oh the horror!) is disgusting.
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/dlvE7qZrk2o" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Rocket River
I have always been fascinated how theoretical math translates into real world science e=mc^2 = Big Ole Bomb. when in that tiny equation does it say use Uranium and this kind of wire. . . . Rocket River
I'm sure no one intended to insult your dad. Outside the garage he's probably a normal guy and great dad.
You seem to care, a lot. The would-be inventor in the story doesn't seem nearly so injured by the doubts of others, and good for him. I'm not defending name-calling, including yours. But asking someone to publish a scientific idea -- to submit to peer review -- is not "disgusting." Oh the horror? Yeah, it can be tedious and frustrating to get new ideas in print, to have people take the ideas seriously. It can take a lot of time and sweat. (Shrug.) It's part of the scientific process, and it beats the alternatives. Still don't understand the ad hominem fury, but it might fit better in the D&D forum, for future reference. It's a good place to, for instance, compare a mindset that mildly disagrees with you... to the censoring, all-powerful Catholic Church of the 17th century. Cheers.
