The radio signal and the ship leave from points that are near each other in the space-time metric. In other words, simultaneous from a reference frame in which they are physically close.
You’ve moved space around, but only for a small local (space-time wise) area; you haven’t permanently moved the two stars closer together.
If the radio signal ever touches the bubble, it arrives before/with the non-light content of the bubble.
You’ve moved space around, but only for a small local (space-time wise) area; you haven’t permanently moved the two stars closer together.
The point of departure is now six years away from points that it was previously nearby.
Imagine a strip of topology rubber running the length of the trip; you start next to one end, but instead of moving along the strip, you compress it in front of you and stretch it behind you.
And in any case, you’ve moved a ‘cylinder’ of spacetime roughly 6 light years long. Just because you’ve expanded just as much as you’ve compacted doesn’t mean you’ve expanded the ‘same’ spacetime that you’ve compacted.
So go around the radio. Or use a laser beam or high energy particle beam (near-c, not c, obviously) if you’re worried about diffraction and aiming or refraction of your bubble.
When you get there and turn off the warp drive, space is now flat. (We’ll assuming no one else is making the journey recently / soon / nearby / whatever.) You’re saying the original point of departure is now near where you ended up. I say that’s a distinction that doesn’t matter, and all that’s relevant is that you were near one star, now you’re near another, and at no time were those stars near each other. And you got there faster than a photon / high energy particle / whatever could have, via the normal route.
What experimental result do you anticipate, that distinguishes between the “original departure point” having moved, versus my assertion that all points in space are distinguishable only by things like what matter / energy is occupying them (and the curvature that results)?
A suffienctly flexible braided rope, fixed to Earth and some point beyond the destination, with a splice in it at the point of departure: the splice will end up at the point of arrival, but the number of braids on either side will remain constant and no tension will be noted at either end.
A lack of time-dialation effects on the transported cargo-an atomic clock that made the round-trip would remain synced with one that didn’t, showing that it hadn’t moved.
I’m saying that the path you took is shorter than the naive one. There is no meaningful discussion of instant distance between two points/objects in general relativity; that’s a holdover from Euclidean geometry with time-variable additions.
Finally, the math.
The radio signal and the ship leave from points that are near each other in the space-time metric. In other words, simultaneous from a reference frame in which they are physically close.
You’ve moved space around, but only for a small local (space-time wise) area; you haven’t permanently moved the two stars closer together.
If the radio signal ever touches the bubble, it arrives before/with the non-light content of the bubble.
The point of departure is now six years away from points that it was previously nearby.
Imagine a strip of topology rubber running the length of the trip; you start next to one end, but instead of moving along the strip, you compress it in front of you and stretch it behind you.
And in any case, you’ve moved a ‘cylinder’ of spacetime roughly 6 light years long. Just because you’ve expanded just as much as you’ve compacted doesn’t mean you’ve expanded the ‘same’ spacetime that you’ve compacted.
So go around the radio. Or use a laser beam or high energy particle beam (near-c, not c, obviously) if you’re worried about diffraction and aiming or refraction of your bubble.
When you get there and turn off the warp drive, space is now flat. (We’ll assuming no one else is making the journey recently / soon / nearby / whatever.) You’re saying the original point of departure is now near where you ended up. I say that’s a distinction that doesn’t matter, and all that’s relevant is that you were near one star, now you’re near another, and at no time were those stars near each other. And you got there faster than a photon / high energy particle / whatever could have, via the normal route.
What experimental result do you anticipate, that distinguishes between the “original departure point” having moved, versus my assertion that all points in space are distinguishable only by things like what matter / energy is occupying them (and the curvature that results)?
A suffienctly flexible braided rope, fixed to Earth and some point beyond the destination, with a splice in it at the point of departure: the splice will end up at the point of arrival, but the number of braids on either side will remain constant and no tension will be noted at either end.
A lack of time-dialation effects on the transported cargo-an atomic clock that made the round-trip would remain synced with one that didn’t, showing that it hadn’t moved.
I’m saying that the path you took is shorter than the naive one. There is no meaningful discussion of instant distance between two points/objects in general relativity; that’s a holdover from Euclidean geometry with time-variable additions. Finally, the math.