[Noisebridge-discuss] warp drive

[Andy Isaacson]

On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 02:23:03PM -0700, Jake wrote:
> "The findings I presented today change it from impractical to
> plausible and worth further investigation," White told SPACE.com.
> "The additional energy reduction realized by oscillating the bubble
> intensity is an interesting conjecture that we will enjoy looking at
> in the lab."
> 
> Laboratory Tests
> 
> White and his colleagues have begun experimenting with a mini
> version of the warp drive in their laboratory.
> 
> They set up what they call the White-Juday Warp Field Interferometer
> at the Johnson Space Center...

A much better article about the White project (as well as some others):
http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/09/harold-white-warp-field-mechanics-update.html

and a somewhat in depth paper by Dr White, discussing the experiment; it
souds like science to me, but I'm completely incompetent to judge if it
holds up:
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110015936_2011016932.pdf

I'm most baffled by White's apparent claim that the effect may be
physically realizable; the Alcubierre model demands a "negative energy
density" which I don't think anybody is proposing we know how to create,
but White seems to jump straight to experimental apparatus without
worrying about that.  Maybe it's the "wouldn't it be cool if" model of
lab funding.

-andy