They found a new "Earth-like" planet!

[Anonymous]

Hmm... So now all we need is some anti-matter... develop a reactor to harness a matter / anti-matter reaction. Then figure out how to use that energy to fold space time into a warp field and we're set to go visit Gliese 581 c. Oh and don't forget to make sure they live in a democratic and free society... or else we'll have to expand our spread of freedom to an interstellar span. I can just see the headlines now... "CIA says Gliesians are developing WMDs to attack earth. Bush XII sends Armed Space Forced to invade."

[Tecknik]

No, we need to make a dark matter engine.  It will allow travel between galaxies possible in mere hours by traveling faster than the speed of light!  The trick is, the engines will not move the ship at all!  The ship will stay where it is, and the engines will move the universe around it!

[Ash]

Hmm...Futurama?

[Da6onet]

I think the film version of Lost in Space had it right. It would be more likely that we would send a ship to the destination, then construct two mouths of a wormhole and use some unknown method to bend spacetime between those two portals.
Example:
Analogy to a wormhole in a curved 2D space


Note that a ship passing through the wormhole wouldn't be going faster than the speed of light, merely taking a shortcut through spacetime.

[Jeyk]

I love Futurama.  It's coming back in 2008!

[Anonymous]

Hmmm... I tried to explain to someone earlier how ftl travel would be possible. I told them that Linear travel as we know it would be impossible. I explained the concepts of moving space instead of moving your ship. I brought up bending space/time and bridging two points with a wormhole. They kinda stared at me blankly.
Personally I'm a fan of moving space itself to travel FTL... you may recognize the term Warp Drive... Star Trek FTW!

[Lits]

*bangs head against ship*   Not... *bang* getting it! *bang*   I Hate.... *bang* Math &.... *bang* Science! *bang* *bang*

I'm in the wrong business to be a geek, you know that?

[Pirus]

yep I agree with Dag thats the best way to do it but then of coruse there is the thrill of traveling at 5 times the speed of light just for the hell of it.  At that rate we should get there in 4 years give or take.  And a worm hole could take us there depending on how close it is and how close the exit hole is no more than a few hours.

[Tecknik]

Futurama is right.

[Fuse]

No, we need to make a dark matter engine.  It will allow travel between galaxies possible in mere hours by traveling faster than the speed of light!  The trick is, the engines will not move the ship at all!  The ship will stay where it is, and the engines will move the universe around it!

That episode was on the other week, I think durring CN's Futurama marathon. Which to me is dumb, because it's on about 3 hours each night!

I recenty got rid of cable, but they forgot to turn off Cartoon Network, so I catch it quite a bit.

[Fuse]

*bangs head against ship*   Not... *bang* getting it! *bang*   I Hate.... *bang* Math &.... *bang* Science! *bang* *bang*

I'm in the wrong business to be a geek, you know that?

*bang*

[Pirus]

wow lits what a way to demonstrate the big bang theory wtg!!

[Manic Velocity]

*bangs head against ship*   Not... *bang* getting it! *bang*   I Hate.... *bang* Math &.... *bang* Science! *bang* *bang*

I'm in the wrong business to be a geek, you know that?

Pick up a copy of "A Wrinkle In Time" and you'll understand to a degree.

Imagine holding a piece of string out in front of you and having an ant walk across it.  Think of the ant as a spaceship, and the string as outer space.  To get from your left hand to your right hand, the ant would have quite a long way to travel.

But if you "bend" the string by bringing your two hands together, the ant barely needs to move at all to get from Point A to Point B.

Theoretically, wormholes are a means of "bending the string".

[Ash]

The problem with wormholes is making sure you have 2 connections within the same dimension; that fact that there are either an infinite or 26 makes things a bit hairy.

[Da6onet]

Ha, you and your... third dimension.

What about it?

Oh nothing, it's cute. We have five...
th...thousand.
Yes five thousand
DON'T QUESTION IT!

Oh yeah? Well I only see two.

That sounds like a personal problem.