Some while ago, Daedalus devised a method of warping space itself. He used a big capacitor, across which an a.c. electric field maintained an a.c. displacement current. All dielectrics maintain such a current, as their electrons are shifted by the electric field; a magnetic field imposed on the dielectric therefore exerts a force upon it. Sadly, a resonant system with the magnetic field created by the same coils that generate the electric one fails to work (the resonance comes out wrong), so the magnetic field has to be specially generated.

The original idea was to use the device as an aero engine, propelling air as the dielectric. But Daedalus soon realized that the system has a remarkable property. Suppose the dielectric is a pure vacuum. This sustains a displacement current with the best of them. Yet the magnetic field, which imposes its force on any current-carrying conductor, is now exerting that force on space itself.

Thus Daedalus's gadget is an ideal way of studying the 'flexibility' of pure space. Cosmology currently holds that the entire Universe is expanding, like a balloon with markings on it being inflated — the markings in this case being galaxies, which all seem to be receding from one another. This expansion may be an energetic relic of the Big Bang, or it may be maintained by some unrecognized force. Daedalus now plans to measure that force.

His scheme is to set up a line of his electromagnetic thrusters, all pushing on space in the same direction, and to shine a laser beam across it. When the thrusters are turned on, the beam (travelling in the space above them) will be deflected. Interferometric measurements on the beam will thus calibrate the thrusters against the resulting beam deflection.

From the results, Daedalus hopes to measure the force sustaining the observed expansion of the Universe, and to relate it to that exerted by the Big Bang. Of course, space-warp technology has already been developed so enthusiastically by science-fiction writers that Daedalus sees no point in entering the business himself. Instead, he hopes that the measurements show extreme sensitivity in the beam. This would imply that the galaxies are expanding purely ballistically, as suggested by the Big Bang theory. But a small force, either positive or negative, may be needed to square an exactly closed Universe with the Big Bang theory as currently understood. Such fundamental measurements are always worth making.