Folding Space? Sounds difficult

Over the years Ive heard the phrase "folding space" or "space fold drive" as a means of interstellar travel, on the show 'Macross' or 'Robotech' (depending on where you live) they use space fold to zip around taking on 50ft aliens, Ive even seen it mentioned on this sight a couple of times but what I don't quite understand is how the hell does it work? I don't get the physics of it could someone please explain in laymans terms? Please

Somewhat easy to understand summary of the idea.

Think of space-folding as a way of bringing the destination closer to you. A good way to imagine this is to take a piece of paper, mark one end "a" and the other "b." Now imagine an ant crawling across the paper from "a" to "b." If you leave the paper flat on the table, that might take a little while. Now pick up the paper and fold it so that "a" and "b" are right next to each other. Now imagine the ant trying to get from "a" to "b." It's much faster. Essentially, this is what space folding does, except it works in three dimensions rather than two.

If M-theory or Superstring theory turns out to be true, then there may be easier ways to travel vast distances of space in short amounts of time.

What I want to know is how do you fold the paper?

Put two dots on a piece of paper.
The shortest distance between two dots is a straight line, right?
Wrong.
Fold the piece of paper to where the two dots now meet.

You've just demonstrated the "folding" of space.

Instead of using propulsion to get to point B, by manipulating space/time, you "bring" point B to you.

Google on "wormholes" for some more reading on it.

I understand the theory of it...but would one achieve such a thing? How do "fold" something that is not an animate object......something one can not grasp such as space?

What I want to know is how do you fold the paper?

Well, if we could answer that, we'd be on other star systems by now, wouldn't we?

The thing is...gravity can warp space/time. (this is why we can see stars that are actually behind the sun...the sun's mass and gravity causes space to "bend" and so the light waves do likewise, enabling us to see those stars).

So, we know that gravity can "bend" space. So the principle seems sound. We just need to figure out how to generate and manipulate gravity enough to "bend" it enough to "fold" it over on itself. Make more sense now?



[edit on 30-3-2005 by Gazrok]

Originally posted by Gazrok
We just need to figure out how to generate and manipulate gravity enough to "bend" it enough to "fold" it over on itself. Make more sense now?

I understand that...it's probably been figured out else where.... LOL

This technology wont be in any of our life times, we cant even manage to create a efficient artificial gravity machine....to be able to generate the sort of power to be able to manipulate gravity so the extent of bending the galaxy.......unless we can harness the energy of a super nova somehow.

I'd bet good money, that if you went up to a farmer in 1901 and asked if we'd go to the moon in his lifetime, he'd be pretty confident in saying "no way". Don't underestimate good old human ingenuity...

Originally posted by Gazrok
I'd bet good money, that if you went up to a farmer in 1901 and asked if we'd go to the moon in his lifetime, he'd be pretty confident in saying "no way".

Awwww...but the question is, did we really go to the moon!?






















Just foolin' with ya Gaz! LOL

I have only one question. Gravity is kind of important when talking about how our planets and such are locked into their orbits and positions....
by folding the paper, aren't you disrupting the gravitational forces of all those various planets and thus, probably throwing them out of orbit?

Hey, maybe this was how the big bang started to begin with....someone folded the paper...

That's an interesting question dawnstar. I suspect space/time is elastic as well, so the deformation is "local," meaning it won't affect a huge area. Of course, if space time is elastic, it can break ... so what happens when you break space/time?

Black Holes?

Originally posted by Miramafia
Over the years Ive heard the phrase "folding space" or "space fold drive" as a means of interstellar travel, on the show 'Macross' or 'Robotech' (depending on where you live) they use space fold to zip around taking on 50ft aliens, Ive even seen it mentioned on this sight a couple of times but what I don't quite understand is how the hell does it work? I don't get the physics of it could someone please explain in laymans terms? Please

"Folding Space" was first coined by the author Frank Herbert for his series of books beginning with "DUNE", everyone else stole the phrase after that.


...except me cause that's how I got here in the first place.

Originally posted by Chuck Stevenson

Originally posted by Miramafia
Over the years Ive heard the phrase "folding space" or "space fold drive" as a means of interstellar travel, on the show 'Macross' or 'Robotech' (depending on where you live) they use space fold to zip around taking on 50ft aliens, Ive even seen it mentioned on this sight a couple of times but what I don't quite understand is how the hell does it work? I don't get the physics of it could someone please explain in laymans terms? Please

"Folding Space" was first coined by the author Frank Herbert for his series of books beginning with "DUNE", everyone else stole the phrase after that.


...except me cause that's how I got here in the first place.

Dune is an awesome series of books. I seriously recommend it. That's an interesting piece of trivia, though.

As far as dawnstar's concerns go, I'm not sure there is anyone here that could answer that question properly. I don't know the answer to it. We'd have to find a Genuine Physicist(TM) (by the way, that's me being silly, so laugh) to answer that question.

Anyway, one interesting thought that General Relativity brings to this is that there really is no such thing as "anti-gravity" since gravity isn't a real force. It's simply space "pushing" down on you because it's bent. "Anti-gravity" could be simulated by creating small "bubbles" in space-time where either (a) space-time is "straightened" out so as to cancel the effects of gravity or (b) space-time is warped to a degree greater than whatever nearby objects are already warping it, but calling either of these "anti-gravity" would be rather disingenuous. That would give people the wrong impression of how gravity works, though I guess that's not that different from how most people think of gravity anway.

Folding is relatively simple in theory. You just take a few massive bodies that warp space, and travel along the warped space. It's the practice part that is the hard part...

'Folding the paper' is gravity acting, so things will respond to it as they would normally to a strong gravity force.

What do you mean by 'breaking' spacetime?

I think what dawnstar means by "breaking" space is that maybe space is not elastic and one can bend or fold it to a certain point then BANG! broken more like trying to fold a pencil as opposed to a piece of paper

An interesting idea... We really don't have much to conclude what would be the result...

"my god...they've gone to plaid!"
"they must have overshot us by a week!"
Spaceballs

I thought "Breaking" spacetime was the point. Isn't that how wormholes are theoretically created? Instead of folding space ala star trek I'm think more like Stargate allthough the actualy gate would have to be gargantuan.

If you folded spac it would require there be a 4th dimension. When you fold a peice of paper you change it from 2 to 3 dimensions. Wouldn't that mean that to fold space we would first have to learn more of this 4th dimensions