https://blog.georgovassilis.com/2023/12/23/detecting-ftl-travel-with-ligo/ Skip to content George's Techblog George Georgovassilis writes about information technology architecture Detecting FTL travel with LIGO George Georgovassilis off topic 23 Dec 202323 Dec 2023 TL;DR: a warp trip will show up on a gravitational detector because the space ship's mass instantly disappears and later re-appears somewhere else. [uss_enterprise_alternate_reality_at_warp]Enterprise at warp. Copyright Paramount Comms. There is some interesting foundational research [ALC] into faster than light [FTL] travel, but by everything these theories tell us, the ingredients for such modes of transportation aren't available in the universe. FTL should be possible because the universe expands [EXP] at speeds greater than that of light, as [EXP] eloquently states: "galaxies that are farther than the Hubble radius, approximately 4.5 gigaparsecs or 14.7 billion light-years, away from us have a recession speed that is faster than the speed of light". Since it is unclear whether the material needed for an FTL drive will ever be available, funding research in that direction could be a waste of resources, unless synergies emerge. In the spirit of respecting taxpayer's money, I think FTL research should try to exploit - and generate - synergies with other fields of research. FTL research might lie in the intersection of two such fields: the search for extraterrestrial intelligence [SETI] and observation of gravitational waves [LIGO]. If FTL-capable civilisations exist out there, their use of FTL technology should produce observable interactions. Maybe warp drives paint bright orbits into the sky by emitting radiation or their space-bending drives disturb particles in the space ship's path that emit radiation. But, since we don't know the mechanism with which an alien FTL works, such direct observations may not be possible. What we do know, however, is that a warp trip between A and B starts with a mass instantly disappearing from point A and appearing sometimes later at point B. Changing/moving masses produce gravitational waves and the trip should show up as two blips: one when the ship disappears from A and one when it re-appears at B. It is conceivable that the mass is reduced (fuel consumption) during the trip or that there is a gravitational trace along the path of the ship, but the start and end of the trip should show up as two distinct events. Assuming FTL-capable civilisations concentrate their populations in certain parts of the galaxy, just like we live in cities, a spatial concentration of those blips would be a good indication towards someone having invented FTL. Edit: HN user pavel_lishin points out that the gravitational signal generated by the start end end of a trip might not look like spikes or blips. In case the trip involves long phases of slow acceleration, the signal might indeed not be there. Edit: HN user sigmoid10 objects that the initial and terminal events might not be detectable (presumably because of sensor sensitivity limits). FTL trips close to our solar system might show up in LIGO data. [ALC] Alcubierre drive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive [FTL] Faster than light https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTL:_Faster_Than_Light [EXP] Expansion of the universe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expansion_of_the_universe [SETI] Search for extraterrestrial intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Search_for_extraterrestrial_intelligence [LIGO] LIGO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LIGO Related * Tagged * Aliens * FTL * LIGO * SETI * Warpdrive Published 23 Dec 202323 Dec 2023 Post navigation Previous Post LLMs and the Extended Mind Thesis Leave a Reply Cancel reply [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] D[ ] This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. 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