How To Detect Faster Than Light Travel

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Warp drives may or may not be possible, but if they are then could a distant alien civilization’s warp fields produce gravitational waves that we could see here on Earth? According to a recent study.. Actually maybe, at least eventually. And we now know just what to look for and how to look for it.

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[jajssblue]

I'm glad to have lived through the first era of Gravitational Wave detectors.

[samsmith]

So this is how the Vulcans detected Zefram Cochrane's first Warp Vessel....

[jounik]

9:52 A spherical Klingon in a frictionless vacuum: "Moo."

[Yongle]

Warp bubble collapse "probably very bad for the aliens but maybe good for us" 🤣🤣 7:25

[AlecTalan]

As Douglas Adams once pointed out: Nothing travels faster than the speed of light with the possible exception of bad news, which obeys its own special laws.

[ThisOldSkater]

Love that "you didn't think I was gonna get there, did you" smirk at the end.

[BrentHollett]

This is my preferred Fermi solution.

A Lightspeed+ capable civilisation is spreading to the "home-like" planets of the universe. Because they can go Lightspeed+, communication is done by packet on couriers rather than radiowaves or other loud moving noise.

So they're a very quiet, pin point islands, type of civilisation.

We won't detect them until a scout ship appears in our solar system, and says "Hi, we weren't expecting anyone else"

[dddd]

Achieving "1% speed of the Sun" requires some truly exotic physics!

[livinlicious]

It's funny because in Star Trek they always say "detecting xyz warp signature".
Basically we can argue they have sensors on board that analyse the gravity waves of different warp technologies.
So you can scan for actual warp drives around you.

Now imagine this technology to measure these gravitational waves becomes so small it fits into a small device you can just have in your ship.
Similar to how big cameras were 100 years ago and now we have tiny sensors that are basically cameras the size of needle heads.

That's my head canon now.

[chuckkv]

I remember getting mocked out of the "Cool Worlds" channel comments a few years ago, for suggesting we should figure out what warp bubbles would look like, if an alien species happens to be using them, and if we can observe them while we're looking at the universe. This episode makes me so happy to see people are working on that very idea.

[cosmotect]

Alien civilization: gets a flat tire
Humanity (squinting through LIGO): gotcha.

[Directrkrennic]

I'd like to propose the Laser Interferometer for Gravitational Mass Analysis, LIGMA

[rossburnett]

When space time posts, I'm there

[campursarian]

This is the subject I was interested in as a teenager. I wanted to get a PhD in physics and invent warp drive. I am a trekkie, so... I was fascinated in engineering, physics, and astronomy as a child.

[thewatcher]

14:22, the speed of the sun? I think you meant the mass of the sun. Love the content btw, keep up the great work!

[jkRatbird]

The fact that we have so few ideas about what we’ll see when we make a high frequency gravitational wave detector makes me want one even more!

[echosixbravo]

I am no where near a physicist or mathematician so I can’t understand the equations but thank you for putting these in a language I can at least follow.

[xoonn]

It makes feel proud to know there are people out there working on such complex topics. Thank you!

[ivandjurdjevic]

I ordered the Higgs boson merch from Serbia. Still hyped for it to come!

[FrenkMelk]

I had read years ago that the "WOW! SIGNAL", of the '70s was early on speculated to be just this.

The notion of which really filled me with a lot of fascination and made my imagination go nuts!