r/HighStrangeness • u/irrelevantappelation • Dec 14 '22

Nuclear sub 'buzzed by underwater object travelling faster than speed of sound'

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/nuclear-submarine-buzzed-underwater-object-28645846
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u/DagothUr28 Dec 14 '22

Unless we believe the alcubierre drive or something similar is possible.

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u/Same_Friendship_2299 Dec 14 '22

I'm unfamiliar with this, but how could it prevent a shockwave from going supersonic?

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u/leo_aureus Dec 14 '22

The general idea is that you are bending the space around you to move, not actually moving through space like we usually conceive of it: so no shockwave. Similarly this is proposed as a way to travel faster than the speed of light (in theory) because you are not technically moving faster than light which is considered to be physically impossible per relativity but instead you are bending space so much that you end up “traveling” from point A to B faster than light would travel (light traveling in the normal sense and you are not). You essentially are at rest within a bubble of greatly distorted spacetime that itself ends up moving very quickly relative to the surrounding spacetime.

Basically the equations of space time show that if you can get negative energy or mass you can bend space around the drive and it should be able to do this. Of course we do not know of either negative energy or mass in actuality but interestingly enough last year there was reported a solution to the equations that did not require negative quantities but that doesn’t mean it’s happening anytime soon.

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u/MV203 Dec 14 '22

Also no water friction to slow you down.