Jun 21, 2021 03:50 PM
(This post was last modified: Jun 21, 2021 04:11 PM by C C.)
(vehicles) Why Flying Cars Could Be Here Within the Decade
https://singularityhub.com/2021/06/21/wh...he-decade/
INTRO: Flying cars are almost a byword for the misplaced optimism of technologists, but recent news suggests their future may be on slightly firmer footing. The industry has seen a major influx of capital and big automakers seem to be piling in.
What actually constitutes a flying car has changed many times over the decades since the cartoon, The Jetsons, introduced the idea to the popular imagination. Today’s incarnation is known more formally as an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft.
As the name suggests, the vehicles run on battery power rather than aviation fuel, and they’re able to take off and land like a helicopter. Designs vary from what are essentially gigantic multi-rotor drones to small fixed-wing aircraft with rotors that can tilt up or down, allowing them to hover or fly horizontally (like an airplane).
Aerospace companies and startups have been working on the idea for a number of years, but recent news suggests it might be coming closer to fruition. Last Monday, major automakers Hyundai and GM said they are developing vehicles of their own and are bullish about the prospects of this new mode of transport.
And the week prior, British flying car maker Vertical Aerospace announced plans to go public in a deal that values the company at $2.2 billion. Vertical Aerospace also said it had received $4 billion worth of preorders, including from American Airlines and Virgin Atlantic.
The deal was the latest installment in a flood of capital into the sector... (MORE)
(travel) Warp tech of theoretical “Lentz Drive" finally does away with exotic matter
https://thedebrief.org/theoretical-lentz...a-reality/
EXCERPT: . . . In his current proposal, Dr. Lentz not only looked to do away with exotic matter, but also left open the possibility of traveling at and above light speed.
“This is the first example of hyper-fast solitons resulting from known and familiar sources,” says the abstract of the published paper, “reopening the discussion of superluminal mechanisms rooted in conventional physics.”
To explain how his concept is different from those already proposed, Dr. Lentz first pointed The Debrief to the physical structure of the classical Alcubierre Drive, on which nearly all other solutions are more or less based.
“The Alcubierre solution provided an intuitive picture of what a warp drive would do: contract the space immediately in front of the central region containing the ship or transport, and expand the space immediately behind,” he said. “This gives us the picture of the warp drive as a wave of curvature on which a ship will ride to its destination.”
It is without a doubt an image that has become inextricably linked with pretty much all scientific literature on warp drives, including those previously covered by The Debrief. However, says Lentz, “this picture is not an essential feature of a warp drive.”
Instead, he says, a solution proposed by physicist Jose Natario back in 2002 showed that the expansion and contraction wasn’t necessary to transport the ship forward. That work, says Lentz, led him to rethink how a warp could be created using only traditional matter and not exotic matter. “[Natario] showed that the expansion could be trivial (zero) everywhere and still perform the same task of transporting a ship.”
This is a significant breakthrough, he says, because it means that exotic matter that warps the space in front of the theoretical passenger as well as behind them in nearly all theoretical warp drive solutions is no longer needed. And, says Lentz, by building on Natario’s theory he has created his own variation that he believes is even more viable because it is rooted in conventional physics. Of course, Lentz does freely admit that his theory is somewhat novel even in this highly theoretical arena. “The expansion factor in my proposal is stranger still [than in Natario or Alcubierre], having regions of large expansion and contraction of space surrounding the central region containing a ship.”
Aside from this key material difference, Lentz indicated that his solution also differs from Alcubierre and most others geometrically, due to how the energy is placed around the warp bubble.
“In the Alcubierre solution, the energy density and curvatures are maximally separated, with the energy being restricted to a small torus between the regions of high contraction and expansion,” he said, once again evoking the classic image of the Alcubierre Warp shown above. “The curvatures and sources in my proposal are instead highly correlated, with the regions of high energy density and high expansion and contraction overlapping almost exactly.”
It is these “geometric” distinctions between his concept and the traditional concepts that Lentz says make it a potentially more viable warp solution than those previously proposed.
Of course, like all of the drive concepts proposed since Alcubierre, the “Lentz Drive” is still completely theoretical. He does, however, see a few steps that can be taken right away to try to move his version closer to reality, which like all previous drive theories includes reducing the amount of energy needed.
“Fortunately, there are a number of very effective energy-saving mechanisms for the Alcubierre drive described in the literature,” he told The Debrief... (MORE - details)
https://singularityhub.com/2021/06/21/wh...he-decade/
INTRO: Flying cars are almost a byword for the misplaced optimism of technologists, but recent news suggests their future may be on slightly firmer footing. The industry has seen a major influx of capital and big automakers seem to be piling in.
What actually constitutes a flying car has changed many times over the decades since the cartoon, The Jetsons, introduced the idea to the popular imagination. Today’s incarnation is known more formally as an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft.
As the name suggests, the vehicles run on battery power rather than aviation fuel, and they’re able to take off and land like a helicopter. Designs vary from what are essentially gigantic multi-rotor drones to small fixed-wing aircraft with rotors that can tilt up or down, allowing them to hover or fly horizontally (like an airplane).
Aerospace companies and startups have been working on the idea for a number of years, but recent news suggests it might be coming closer to fruition. Last Monday, major automakers Hyundai and GM said they are developing vehicles of their own and are bullish about the prospects of this new mode of transport.
And the week prior, British flying car maker Vertical Aerospace announced plans to go public in a deal that values the company at $2.2 billion. Vertical Aerospace also said it had received $4 billion worth of preorders, including from American Airlines and Virgin Atlantic.
The deal was the latest installment in a flood of capital into the sector... (MORE)
(travel) Warp tech of theoretical “Lentz Drive" finally does away with exotic matter
https://thedebrief.org/theoretical-lentz...a-reality/
EXCERPT: . . . In his current proposal, Dr. Lentz not only looked to do away with exotic matter, but also left open the possibility of traveling at and above light speed.
“This is the first example of hyper-fast solitons resulting from known and familiar sources,” says the abstract of the published paper, “reopening the discussion of superluminal mechanisms rooted in conventional physics.”
To explain how his concept is different from those already proposed, Dr. Lentz first pointed The Debrief to the physical structure of the classical Alcubierre Drive, on which nearly all other solutions are more or less based.
“The Alcubierre solution provided an intuitive picture of what a warp drive would do: contract the space immediately in front of the central region containing the ship or transport, and expand the space immediately behind,” he said. “This gives us the picture of the warp drive as a wave of curvature on which a ship will ride to its destination.”
It is without a doubt an image that has become inextricably linked with pretty much all scientific literature on warp drives, including those previously covered by The Debrief. However, says Lentz, “this picture is not an essential feature of a warp drive.”
Instead, he says, a solution proposed by physicist Jose Natario back in 2002 showed that the expansion and contraction wasn’t necessary to transport the ship forward. That work, says Lentz, led him to rethink how a warp could be created using only traditional matter and not exotic matter. “[Natario] showed that the expansion could be trivial (zero) everywhere and still perform the same task of transporting a ship.”
This is a significant breakthrough, he says, because it means that exotic matter that warps the space in front of the theoretical passenger as well as behind them in nearly all theoretical warp drive solutions is no longer needed. And, says Lentz, by building on Natario’s theory he has created his own variation that he believes is even more viable because it is rooted in conventional physics. Of course, Lentz does freely admit that his theory is somewhat novel even in this highly theoretical arena. “The expansion factor in my proposal is stranger still [than in Natario or Alcubierre], having regions of large expansion and contraction of space surrounding the central region containing a ship.”
Aside from this key material difference, Lentz indicated that his solution also differs from Alcubierre and most others geometrically, due to how the energy is placed around the warp bubble.
“In the Alcubierre solution, the energy density and curvatures are maximally separated, with the energy being restricted to a small torus between the regions of high contraction and expansion,” he said, once again evoking the classic image of the Alcubierre Warp shown above. “The curvatures and sources in my proposal are instead highly correlated, with the regions of high energy density and high expansion and contraction overlapping almost exactly.”
It is these “geometric” distinctions between his concept and the traditional concepts that Lentz says make it a potentially more viable warp solution than those previously proposed.
Of course, like all of the drive concepts proposed since Alcubierre, the “Lentz Drive” is still completely theoretical. He does, however, see a few steps that can be taken right away to try to move his version closer to reality, which like all previous drive theories includes reducing the amount of energy needed.
“Fortunately, there are a number of very effective energy-saving mechanisms for the Alcubierre drive described in the literature,” he told The Debrief... (MORE - details)