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You answered with a reason that holds less water than a colander. Thank you. I'm looking at it now. Edit/update: I've already seen that press release. Thanks for looking, though.

So the calculations magically don't exist to be examined? His papers are available on the NASA website and all over the internet.

Which is why I said: At some point, you run into brute facts and there is no explanation other than "That's the way it is". The speed of light is not a brute fact. If space behaved differently with electromagnetic fields, c would be different and we could calculate it with these experimental values. So, the question of "Why c?" does have an answer. The questions of "Why [math]\mu_0[/math]?" and "Why [math]\epsilon_0[/math]?" may or may not have their own answers. They are, though, distinct from the question of "Why c?". At some point, there is a bottom turtle. Are permitivity and permeability of free space that bottom turtle? I don't know, but that doesn't mean it doesn't answer the question. Indeed, you don't need to reach the bottom turtle (or even know where it is) to answer a question.

Your link doesn't show any skepticism about the math in the paper, just about the feasibility of carrying out a successful experiment. Have you seen papers showing that White's energy calculations are wrong? Also, let's assume that they are wrong and you must have the 1994 paper's energy levels regardless of the field shape. Was Alcubierre wrong about being able to use the Casimir effect to provide the negative energy?

I knew about the hawking radiation and superluminal instability issue, but those are relatively recent discoveries. Alcubierre pointed out in his paper 20 years ago that Casimir energy would do the trick. No one in 20 years has tried. Then again, they probably saw the energy requirements of the original paper design and thought it wasn't feasable. However, with the new design from White, a small scale might get some distortion. I'll check out that paper for sure, though. Thanks.

It's not.

Recently it has been shown that Alcubierre drives can be created with orders of magnitude less energy than previously thought if they are done with the negative energy in a certain pattern. In Alcubierre's original paper, he points out that the Casimir effect could perform the job of the negative energy: So, why hasn't there been small-scale tests using plates to try to get the required spacetime geometry using negative energy provided by the Casimir effect? Or have there been such tests? I suspect there haven't, otherwise it would have been bigger news and would have shown up in my search for material. So, there's got to be a reason. Is is the rocket fuel problem? The more fuel you have, the more fuel you need (only this time with plates)?

I guess it depends on what 'first principles' you use as a starting point. As Ophilite pointed out, it is an easily derived consequence of the Maxwell equations for the relations of the electric and magnetic fields. It turns out that the speed term in the wave equation derived from the Maxwell equation is dependent on both the permitivity and permiability of free space. And its value just so happens to be c. So, the 'why' here is answered by two properties of space. But are those properties fundamental, or is there another turtle down? The answer to that, we don't yet know, as far as I can tell. Indeed. Maxwell equations: [math]\bigtriangledown\cdot{E}=\frac{\rho}{\epsilon_0}[/math] [math]\bigtriangledown\times{E}=-\frac{\partial{B}}{\partial{t}}[/math] [math]\bigtriangledown\cdot{B}=0[/math] [math]\bigtriangledown\times{B}={\mu_0}{\epsilon_0}\frac{\partial{E}}{\partial{t}}[/math] These are the equations that describe how electric fields and magnetic fields interact. Think of [math]\bigtriangledown\cdot[/math] as describing whether or not a vector field is pointing inward or outward, think of [math]\bigtriangledown\times[/math] as describing which in which direction and how tightly a vector field is curled, and think of [math]\frac{\partial}{\partial{t}}[/math] as being the rate of change of the vector field. A vector field is a space where there is a vector at every point. A vector is a mathematical object with both a number and a direction. Having no charges to worry about with light, we can set the charge density equal to zero which makes the equations: [math]\bigtriangledown\cdot{E}=0[/math] [math]\bigtriangledown\times{E}=-\frac{\partial{B}}{\partial{t}}[/math] [math]\bigtriangledown\cdot{B}=0[/math] [math]\bigtriangledown\times{B}={\mu_0}{\epsilon_0}\frac{\partial{E}}{\partial{t}}[/math] Now, let's take the curl of the curl equations and see what happens. [math]\bigtriangledown\times\bigtriangledown\times{E}=-\frac{\partial}{\partial{t}}\bigtriangledown\times{B}=-{\mu_0}{\epsilon_0}\frac{\partial^2{E}}{\partial{t^2}}[/math] [math]\bigtriangledown\times\bigtriangledown\times{B}={\mu_0}{\epsilon_0}\frac{\partial}{\partial{t}}\bigtriangledown\times{E}=-{\mu_0}{\epsilon_0}\frac{\partial^2{B}}{\partial{t^2}}[/math] Since [math]\bigtriangledown\times(\bigtriangledown\times{V})=\bigtriangledown(\bigtriangledown\cdot{V})-\bigtriangledown^2{V}[/math] for any vector field V, we can write: [math]-{\mu_0}{\epsilon_0}\frac{\partial^2{E}}{\partial{t^2}}=-\bigtriangledown^2{E}[/math] [math]-{\mu_0}{\epsilon_0}\frac{\partial^2{B}}{\partial{t^2}}=-\bigtriangledown^2{B}[/math] which we rearrange to get: [math]\frac{\partial^2{E}}{\partial{t^2}}-\frac{1}{{\mu_0}{\epsilon_0}}\cdot\bigtriangledown^2{E}=0[/math] [math]\frac{\partial^2{B}}{\partial{t^2}}-\frac{1}{{\mu_0}{\epsilon_0}}\cdot\bigtriangledown^2{B}=0[/math] which are the electromagnetic wave equations. The speed term is [math]\frac{1}{\sqrt{{\mu_0}{\epsilon_0}}}[/math].

Or gravity isn't actually one of the fundamental interactions, but rather, is purely geometric.

We've known since 2005 that Einstein-Rosen Bridges (also known as 'Wormholes') can generate a Casimir effect. In a new paper, it has been shown that if the throat of a wormhole is sufficiently longer than its mouth is wide, then the Casimir effect is strong enough to keep the bridge open without the need of exotic matter. This means that the real hurdle in engineering traversable wormholes is just making one in the first place. The extreme energy requirement has, just as with warp drives, just been reduced by orders of magnitude. The new paper, again, can be read on arxiv.

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There is a short window where you can change it, but like iNow said, it's not advisable. One of the staff members could change it if you have a good reason, but most of the time our answer will be 'no'. Why must you tempt me like that?

It's also something we've unfortunately had to explain several times to trolls.

There was that one guy a while back that had like four or five distinct characters.

You should start simple. It sounds like you've been reading a lot of popsci that's not exactly conducive to actually learning the science. As a first go around, I'd highly suggest Leonard Susskind's series "The Theoretical Minimum". There is classical mechanics and QM. Reading textbooks yourself is dry and sometimes you need to already have an idea of what you're looking at. Read the Susskind books and then you're ready to pick up a Lagrangian Mechanics textbook and a QM textbook (assuming you can at least follow calculus and linear algebra).

Or, as I said, multiple waves.

That is not freedom, that is intolerance. Your freedom does not extend to robbing other people of their freedom. Not being like you does not make anyone a 'freak'. Diversity is good. If you separate out an entire class of people and deem them as subhuman and subjugate and oppress them, there is no freedom. There isn't freedom unless there is freedom for all. Remember the veil of ignorance I mentioned earlier. What if YOU were the 'freak'. Would you still think you were free?

How? How does failing to oppress people for who they are ruin mankind? Oppressing people for a fundamental aspect of who they are is the exact opposite of the freedom of spirit you mentioned before. Why do you get freedom of spirit, but the people who aren't like you don't?

How, exactly, is oppressing people for a fundamental aspect of their personal identity 'freedom of the spirit'?

And that's exactly what the laws in Russia do. They tell people what kind of spirit they can't have. If you have laws against speech and laws against a fundamental aspect of your personal identity, then you have no 'freedom of spirit', only oppression of spirit.

Your freedom of the spirit is no such thing. It's oppression of the spirit of those unlike the administration. The USA, on the other hand, does have 'freedom of the spirit'. The situation in your OP is an ironclad demonstration that Russia has no such freedom.

Indeed. So, the group that wants to be nude goes around nude and the group that doesn't want to be nude wears clothes. Problem solved.

That's why laws are ideally written with Rawls's veil of ignorance in mind. The best laws are laws you would agree with if you didn't know what your position in society would be. Often times, as Phi, pointed out, there is corruption. However, this veil of ignorance is how laws are supposed to go. This is how freedom is supposed to work. If you're not interfering with the freedom of other people, and you're not hurting them, then what you are doing is just fine 9 times out of 10. We require a reason (a non-religious reason, in fact) to make something illegal. Your freedom doesn't extend to forcing people to do what you want them to do.

Being free to say only what the administration of your country likes is no freedom at all. And there is no interpretation of any federal law in the USA that would grant us the right to kill people for no reason. A general rule: If you're not hurting anyone, it's probably ok. It's not normal where you are. It's perfectly normal in certain parts of Europe. There's nothing bad about the human form. It just is. And there's nothing bad about 'swear words'. The more examples you bring up as things that should be illegal, the more draconian you make Russia look. Yeah, for the most part, if you do not apply physical harm, or cause the possibility of physical harm, then it's probably just fine. As for sex in a theatre, that's a public health issue.