# Nasa Paper: "Warp Field Mechanics 101"

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasa-paper-warp-field-mechanics-101/602135>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [November 7, 2011, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasa-paper-warp-field-mechanics-101/602135 "2011-11-07T03:56:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
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**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\
**Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nasa-paper-warp-field-mechanics-101/602135/15 "2011-11-10T11:36:42Z")

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Thanks **Spacial Rift 47**. I was hoping that someone like you would respond.

I guess what confused me is that, given my limited understanding, it seems to be saying that he believes it can be done with a **positive** energy density.

One of the diagrams (on page 31 of the PDF, but labeled as page 21 on the document) states:

[quote]  
[ul]  
[li]The figure depicts a modified Michelson-Morley Interferometer setup that makes use of a 1 cm diameter toroidal-ring of positive energy density on one leg of the interferometer.[/li]  
[li]a He-Ne laser beam(λ = 633 nm) is split allowing one part of the beam to pass through the center of the ring and hence the spherical warp field region.[/li]  
[li]This warp field region will induce a relative phase shift between the split beams that could be detectable provided the magnitude of the phase shift is sufficient.[/ul][/li][/quote]  
It seems to assume that the effect will be produced with a toroidal-ring of positive energy. Is he simply wrong about this? Does the paper give his reasons for believing this? Am I just completely misunderstanding the whole thing (a real possibility)?

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