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Warp drives: Physicists investigate faster-than-light space travel

The closest star to Earth is Proxima Centauri. It is about 4.25 light-years away, or about 25 trillion miles (40 trillion kilometers). The fastest ever spacecraft, the now- in-space Parker Solar Probe will reach a top speed of 450,000 mph. It would take just 20 seconds to go from Los Angeles to New York City at that speed, but it would take the solar probe about 6,633 years to reach Earth’s nearest neighboring solar system.

If humanity ever wants to travel easily between stars, people will need to go faster than light. But so far, faster-than-light travel is possible only in science fiction.

In Issac Asimov’s Foundation series , humanity can travel from planet to planet, star to star or across the universe using jump drives. As a kid, I read as many of those stories as I could get my hands on. I am now a theoretical physicist and study nanotechnology, but I am still fascinated by the ways humanity could one day travel in space.

Some characters – like the astronauts in the movies “Interstellar” and “Thor” – use wormholes to travel between solar systems in seconds. Another approach – familiar to “Star Trek” fans – is warp drive technology. Warp drives are theoretically possible if still far-fetched technology. Two recent papers made headlines in March when researchers claimed to have overcome one of the many challenges that stand between the theory of warp drives and reality.

But how do these theoretical warp drives really work? And will humans be making the jump to warp speed anytime soon?

Compression and expansion

Physicists’ current understanding of spacetime comes from Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity . General relativity states that space and time are fused and that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. General relativity also describes how mass and energy warp spacetime – hefty objects like stars and black holes curve spacetime around them. This curvature is what you feel as gravity and why many spacefaring heroes worry about “getting stuck in” or “falling into” a gravity well. Early science fiction writers John Campbell and Asimov saw this warping as a way to skirt the speed limit.

What if a starship could compress space in front of it while expanding spacetime behind it? “Star Trek” took this idea and named it the warp drive.

In 1994, Miguel Alcubierre, a Mexican theoretical physicist, showed that compressing spacetime in front of the spaceship while expanding it behind was mathematically possible within the laws of General Relativity . So, what does that mean? Imagine the distance between two points is 33 feet (10 meters). If you are standing at point A and can travel one meter per second, it would take 10 seconds to get to point B. However, let’s say you could somehow compress the space between you and point B so that the interval is now just one meter. Then, moving through spacetime at your maximum speed of one meter per second, you would be able to reach point B in about one second. In theory, this approach does not contradict the laws of relativity since you are not moving faster than light in the space around you. Alcubierre showed that the warp drive from “Star Trek” was in fact theoretically possible.

Proxima Centauri here we come, right? Unfortunately, Alcubierre’s method of compressing spacetime had one problem: it requires negative energy or negative mass.

A negative energy problem

Alcubierre’s warp drive would work by creating a bubble of flat spacetime around the spaceship and curving spacetime around that bubble to reduce distances. The warp drive would require either negative mass – a theorized type of matter – or a ring of negative energy density to work. Physicists have never observed negative mass, so that leaves negative energy as the only option.

To create negative energy, a warp drive would use a huge amount of mass to create an imbalance between particles and antiparticles. For example, if an electron and an antielectron appear near the warp drive, one of the particles would get trapped by the mass and this results in an imbalance. This imbalance results in negative energy density. Alcubierre’s warp drive would use this negative energy to create the spacetime bubble.

But for a warp drive to generate enough negative energy, you would need a lot of matter. Alcubierre estimated that a warp drive with a 100-meter bubble would require the mass of the entire visible universe .

In 1999, physicist Chris Van Den Broeck showed that expanding the volume inside the bubble but keeping the surface area constant would reduce the energy requirements significantly , to just about the mass of the Sun. A significant improvement, but still far beyond all practical possibilities.

A sci-fi future?

Two recent papers – one by Alexey Bobrick and Gianni Martire and another by Erik Lentz – provide solutions that seem to bring warp drives closer to reality.

Bobrick and Martire realized that by modifying spacetime within the bubble in a certain way, they could remove the need to use negative energy. This solution, though, does not produce a warp drive that can go faster than light.

Independently, Lentz also proposed a solution that does not require negative energy. He used a different geometric approach to solve the equations of general relativity, and by doing so, he found that a warp drive wouldn’t need to use negative energy. Lentz’s solution would allow the bubble to travel faster than the speed of light.

It is essential to point out that these exciting developments are mathematical models. As a physicist, I won’t fully trust models until we have experimental proof. Yet, the science of warp drives is coming into view. As a science fiction fan, I welcome all this innovative thinking. In the words of Captain Picard , things are only impossible until they are not.

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In 1994, physicist Miguel Alcubierre proposed a radical technology that would allow faster than light travel: the warp drive , a hypothetical way to skirt around the universe’s ultimate speed limit by bending the fabric of reality.

It was an intriguing idea – even NASA has been researching it at the Eagleworks laboratory – but Alcubierre’s proposal contained problems that seemed insurmountable. Now, a recent paper by US-based physicists Alexey Bobrick and Gianni Martire has resolved many of those issues and generated a lot of buzz .

But while Bobrick and Martire have managed to substantially demystify warp technology, their work actually suggests that faster-than-light travel will remain out of reach for beings like us, at least for the time being.

There is, however, a silver lining: warp technology may have radical applications beyond space travel.

Across the universe?

The story of warp drives starts with Einstein’s crowning achievement: general relativity. The equations of general relativity capture the way in which spacetime – the very fabric of reality – bends in response to the presence of matter and energy which, in turn, explains how matter and energy move.

General relativity places two constraints on interstellar travel. First, nothing can be accelerated past the speed of light (around 300,000 km per second). Even travelling at this dizzying speed it would still take us four years to arrive at Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to our Sun.

Second, the clock on a spaceship travelling close to the speed of light would slow down relative to a clock on Earth (this is known as time dilation). Assuming a constant state of acceleration, this makes it possible to travel the stars. One can reach a distant star that is 150 lightyears away within one’s lifetime. The catch, however, is that upon one’s return more than 300 years will have passed on Earth.

This is where Alcubierre came in. He argued that the mathematics of general relativity allowed for “warp bubbles” – regions where matter and energy were arranged in such a way as to bend spacetime in front of the bubble and expand it to the rear in a way that allowed a “flat” area inside the bubble to travel faster than light.

Read more: Don't stop me now! Superluminal travel in Einstein's universe

To get a sense of what “flat” means in this context, note that spacetime is sort of like a rubber mat. The mat curves in the presence of matter and energy (think of putting a bowling ball on the mat). Gravity is nothing more than the tendency objects have to roll into the the dents created by things like stars and planets. A flat region is like a part of the mat with nothing on it.

Such a drive would also avoid the uncomfortable consequences of time dilation. One could potentially make a round trip into deep space and still be greeted by one’s nearest and dearest at home.

A spacetime oddity

How does Alcubierre’s device work? Here discussion often relies on analogies, because the maths is so complex.

Imagine a rug with a cup on it. You’re on the rug and you want to get to the cup. You could move across the rug, or tug the rug toward you. The warp drive is like tugging on spacetime to bring your destination closer.

But analogies have their limits: a warp drive doesn’t really drag your destination toward you. It contracts spacetime to make your path shorter. There’s just less rug between you and the cup when you switch the drive on.

Alcubierre’s suggestion, while mathematically rigorous, is difficult to understand at an intuitive level. Bobrick and Martire’s work is set to change all that.

Starship bloopers

Bobrick and Martire show that any warp drive must be a shell of material in a constant state of motion, enclosing a flat region of spacetime. The energy of the shell modifies the properties of the spacetime region inside it.

This might not sound like much of a discovery, but until now it was unclear what warp drives might be, physically speaking. Their work tells us that a warp drive is, somewhat surprisingly, like a car. A car is also a shell of energy (in the form of matter) that encloses a flat region of spacetime. The difference is that getting inside a car does not make you age faster. That, however, is the kind of thing a warp drive might do.

Using their simple description, Bobrick and Martire demonstrate a method for using Einstein’s general relativity equations to find spacetimes that allow for arrangements of matter and energy that would act as warp bubbles. This gives us a mathematical key for finding and classifying warp technologies.

Their work manages to address one of the core problems for warp drives. To make the equations balance, Alcubierre’s device runs on “negative energy” – but we are yet to discover any viable sources of negative energy in the real world.

Worse, the negative energy requirements of Alcubierre’s device are immense. By some estimates, the entire energy in the known universe would be needed (though later work brings the number down a bit).

Bobrick and Martire show a warp drive could be made from positive energy (i.e. “normal” energy) or from a mixture of negative and positive energy. That said, the energy requirements would still be immense.

If Bobrick and Martire are right, then a warp drive is just like any other object in motion. It would be subject to the universal speed limit enforced by general relativity after all, and it would need some kind of conventional propulsion system to make it accelerate.

The news gets worse. Many kinds of warp drive can only modify the spacetime inside in a certain way: by slowing down the clock of the passenger in exactly the way that makes a trip into deep space a problem.

Bobrick and Martire do show that some warp drives could travel faster than light, but only if they are created already travelling at that speed – which is no help for any ordinary human hoping for a bit of interstellar tourism.

The end game

Remember that a warp drive can modify the region of flat spacetime it encloses. It can, in particular, speed up or slow down a clock inside the drive.

Consider what it would mean to have such an object available. Want to put someone with a terminal illness on ice? Stick them in a warp drive and slow their clock down. From their perspective, a few years will pass, while a hundred years will pass on Earth — time enough to find a cure.

Read more: The art and beauty of general relativity

Want to grow your crops overnight? Stick them in a warp drive and speed the clock up. A few days will pass for you, and a few weeks will pass for your seedlings.

There are even more exotic possibilities: by rotating the spacetime inside a drive one may be able to produce a battery capable of holding huge amounts of energy.

Faster-than-light travel remains a distant dream. But warp technology would be revolutionary in its own right.

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Faster-than-light travel: Is warp drive really possible?

A NASA scientist recently released a report analysing the feasibility of warp drive as a means of faster-than-light travel. Could this Star Trek technology really be possible?

In the Universe of Star Trek , humanity ventures out into the Galaxy on 5 April 2063 with the first ever journey on a ship capable of faster-than-light travel. The newly-invented ‘warp drive’ not only lets humans explore the cosmos, but attracts the attention of Vulcans and brings about our first contact with an alien species.

It’s been 54 years since we were first introduced to the Enterprise , and many of Star Trek ’s futuristic technologies have since been invented, from handheld communicators to universal translators. Warp drive is the next obvious choice: Voyager 1, which has travelled furthest from Earth of any spacecraft, took nearly 35 years to leave the Solar System. Not exactly handy for interstellar travel.

Luckily for humanity, theoretical physicists have been working on it. In May 2020, NASA scientist Harold “Sonny” White released an internal feasibility report discussing the technology from the point of view of ‘early mission planning’.

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The first scientific theory of warp drive came about in 1994, when theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre used Einstein’s theory of General Relativity to develop a framework that would allow faster-than-light travel within the confines of the laws of physics. The key that makes it possible is that, technically, the ship itself doesn’t travel faster than light.

“What warp drive is doing is basically saying that there is no law of physics that says space-time itself can't go faster than the speed of light,” says Dr Erin Macdonald , astrophysicist and science consultant for Star Trek .

“And so the concept of warp drive is to say, all right, let's take our ship, let's build a bubble of space-time around it, and then we'll have that propel us faster than the speed of light,” she says. It’s similar to the idea of a racecar driving onboard a train: someone standing by the tracks would see the car travelling much faster than its top speed.

According to General Relativity, the Universe is a flat sheet of space-time which is warped by any object with mass. “We think of the bowling ball on the trampoline and that bowling ball dips the trampoline down,” says Macdonald, “and that's what mass does to space-time.” This distortion of space-time is what we experience as gravity.

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The Alcubierre drive uses the same concept. The ‘bubble’ surrounding the ship is an area of space-time that is compressed in front of the ship and expanded behind it. As with gravity, you could create this distortion using a large amount of mass. Alternatively, thanks to Einstein’s E = mc 2 (energy is equal to mass, times the speed of light squared), you could equally use a huge amount of energy.

Inside the bubble, space-time is completely flat, meaning the space travellers wouldn’t notice any strange, relativistic effects. The result is that the bubble of space-time is hurled across the Universe, with the travellers sitting comfortably inside their ship, speedometer still reading the same number.

Unfortunately, actually creating a warp drive is even harder than it sounds. “You have to have a very, very large amount of energy,” says José Natário , Associate Professor in mathematics at the Instituto Superior Técnico in the University of Lisbon.

“To have the deformation that you need for this kind of thing to work, you'd need much, much more energy than the Sun or the Galaxy,” he says. “But also, it’s negative energy.”

Read more from Erin Macdonald:

• Star Trek Picard premiere: solving plot holes, supernovae and our Sun’s fate
• The science of Picard with Dr Erin Macdonald

Negative energy is not something that we can currently create – certainly not in the quantities needed to power a warp drive. How could energy be negative at all?

One way to think about it is to consider a particle with negative mass. These particles would react to gravity in the exact opposite way to particles of positive mass. Instead of being pulled towards a planet or star, they would be thrown away.

“If we had some sort of component like that where we had a negative mass, whatever is keeping that mass together would be that negative energy,” says Macdonald.

This isn’t a problem that will go away with refining the idea, either: Natário proved mathematically that any form of warp drive will require negative energy.

Joseph Agnew is a graduate student at the University of Alabama in Huntsville whose undergraduate work on warp drive was published in the AIAA journal . He thinks that more research into the fundamentals of physics is the way forward for warp drive.

"Further experimental study of naturally occurring gravitational waves and perhaps a study on trying to generate artificial gravitational waves would really advance the understanding of gravity, and therefore spacetime and all the connected science," Agnew says.

Natário believes there’s an even greater problem with the concept of the Alcubierre drive. Imagine a supersonic aircraft travelling faster than the speed of sound. You don’t hear the aircraft until it has already gone past, because the sound waves can’t keep up. The warp drive experiences the same effect with light waves, meaning there is no way to send a message ahead of you.

“I call it the 'you need one to make one' problem,” says Natário. How do you create the warped space-time geometry around your ship? First, you would need to send a signal ahead of you to ‘tell’ space-time to warp, Natário says. “To make it go faster than light, you need something that would be going faster than light to begin with so that you'd be able to communicate outside the horizon.”

These two problems – combined with the slight issue that the travelers would be bombarded with incredibly high-energy radiation – are the downfall of warp drive, Nátario believes. “The bottom line is, in my opinion, it's completely impossible,” he says.

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Agnew is more optimistic. "Many of these theoretical space transportation concepts rely extensively on a thorough understanding of gravity and spacetime, which just isn't the case currently," he says.

"I don't yet see any way we can say, with absolute certainty, that it will 'never happen in a million years'. When in doubt, history dictates it's better to err on the side of cautious, scientific optimism."

Macdonald, too, is hopeful. “I'm an eternal optimist with this because I want to join Starfleet,” she says. “The way I think about it is it's like we never know what's going to come down the pipe with sort of these weird, exotic, fun thought experiments.

“I agree at this stage, right now, it's a fun thought experiment. But that's not to preclude some massive discovery that may happen that we can't predict.”

Visit the BBC's Reality Check website at bit.ly/reality_check_ or follow them on Twitter @BBCRealityCheck

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Online staff writer, BBC Science Focus

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Breaking the Warp Barrier for Faster-Than-Light Travel: New Theoretical Hyper-Fast Solitons Discovered

By University of Göttingen March 11, 2021

Artistic impression of different spacecraft designs considering theoretical shapes of different kinds of “warp bubbles.” Credit: E Lentz

Astrophysicist at Göttingen University discovers new theoretical hyper-fast soliton solutions.

If travel to distant stars within an individual’s lifetime is going to be possible, a means of faster-than-light propulsion will have to be found. To date, even recent research about superluminal (faster-than-light) transport based on Einstein’s theory of general relativity would require vast amounts of hypothetical particles and states of matter that have “exotic” physical properties such as negative energy density. This type of matter either cannot currently be found or cannot be manufactured in viable quantities. In contrast, new research carried out at the University of Göttingen gets around this problem by constructing a new class of hyper-fast ‘solitons’ using sources with only positive energies that can enable travel at any speed. This reignites debate about the possibility of faster-than-light travel based on conventional physics. The research is published in the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity.

The author of the paper, Dr. Erik Lentz, analyzed existing research and discovered gaps in previous ‘warp drive’ studies. Lentz noticed that there existed yet-to-be explored configurations of space-time curvature organized into ‘solitons’ that have the potential to solve the puzzle while being physically viable. A soliton – in this context also informally referred to as a ‘warp bubble’ – is a compact wave that maintains its shape and moves at constant velocity. Lentz derived the Einstein equations for unexplored soliton configurations (where the space-time metric’s shift vector components obey a hyperbolic relation), finding that the altered space-time geometries could be formed in a way that worked even with conventional energy sources. In essence, the new method uses the very structure of space and time arranged in a soliton to provide a solution to faster-than-light travel, which – unlike other research – would only need sources with positive energy densities. No “exotic” negative energy densities needed.

Image to show how long it would take different types of spacecraft to travel from our solar system to Proxima Centauri (the nearest known star). Currently, the only option would be to use a chemical rocket meaning a journey time of over 50,000 years. Credit: E Lentz

If sufficient energy could be generated, the equations used in this research would allow space travel to Proxima Centauri, our nearest star, and back to Earth in years instead of decades or millennia. That means an individual could travel there and back within their lifetime. In comparison, the current rocket technology would take more than 50,000 years for a one-way journey. In addition, the solitons (warp bubbles) were configured to contain a region with minimal tidal forces such that the passing of time inside the soliton matches the time outside: an ideal environment for a spacecraft. This means there would not be the complications of the so-called “twin paradox” whereby one twin traveling near the speed of light would age much more slowly than the other twin who stayed on Earth: in fact, according to the recent equations both twins would be the same age when reunited.

“This work has moved the problem of faster-than-light travel one step away from theoretical research in fundamental physics and closer to engineering. The next step is to figure out how to bring down the astronomical amount of energy needed to within the range of today’s technologies, such as a large modern nuclear fission power plant. Then we can talk about building the first prototypes,” says Lentz.

Currently, the amount of energy required for this new type of space propulsion drive is still immense. Lentz explains, “The energy required for this drive traveling at light speed encompassing a spacecraft of 100 meters in radius is on the order of hundreds of times of the mass of the planet Jupiter . The energy savings would need to be drastic, of approximately 30 orders of magnitude to be in range of modern nuclear fission reactors.” He goes on to say: “Fortunately, several energy-saving mechanisms have been proposed in earlier research that can potentially lower the energy required by nearly 60 orders of magnitude.” Lentz is currently in the early-stages of determining if these methods can be modified, or if new mechanisms are needed to bring the energy required down to what is currently possible.

Reference: “Breaking the warp barrier: hyper-fast solitons in Einstein–Maxwell- plasma theory” by Erik W Lentz, 9 March 2021, Classical and Quantum Gravity . DOI: 10.1088/1361-6382/abe692

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22 comments on "breaking the warp barrier for faster-than-light travel: new theoretical hyper-fast solitons discovered".

“Sufficient Energy” This already exist in the form of Element 115. If the Unauthorized Black Projects are ever revealed, word on the grapevine says its actually instantaneous. Lets go to Alpha Centaur i.

If we had that kind of energy on earth, everyone would know.

If only because that much energy in one place would have as much gravity as Jupiter.

Proposed mechanism is a propagation of a distortion of spacetime of a particular form. Thus it is ultimately very much like propagation of gravitational waves. However gravitational waves propagate with speed of light. Therefore I don’t see how it may be possible.

“Take us Out… Chekov”

The biggest form of untapped energy is at rest and stable energy. We only think of energy in it’s transitions. If we would convert the energy of stable space it is limitless.

Useful work of any kind has always, not only by man but by nature as well, only been accomplishable by exploiting an energy gradient (i.e. harnessing the movement of energy from where it is plentiful to where it is scarce). That’s what entropy is.

Find a way around that and we won’t *need* warp drives, we can simply create anything and everything we could ever want from nothing, forever.

You mean element 151…

IDK. I think it is about TIME… to find a horse of a different color. The protocols heron defined have “designed” a wonderful “horseshoe” (RELATIVELY speaking) and are busy trying to fit it to an elephant just because it’s in the ROOM: where time and space are limited… TIME to leave the womb… er… ROOM. Which is to say: Star Trekking is a fantasy, a phantasm and a FICTION devised inside a “boxy” Universe, whose PHYSICS seem to conform to the BIAS of Mortality (TIME is the limiting factor). It engenders HASTE in seeking a solution: We are “on the run”, desperately looking for a way to boldly go where no HUMAN has gone before. Good LUCK with that. Back to the Horseshoe, in want of a “NAIL”. As DANTE writ above the GATES of Hell: “Abandon ye all HOPE who enter here:” Where strayeth the MIND the FEET will follow. But it’s not about Feet, or Miles or Light Years. SINGULARITIES ALL: Infinite acceleration = Infinite ENTROPY. One is effectively DEAD in the water, while the proverbial WORM in the HOLE has a feast. It’s about standing still in the STREAM of Time, while SPACE flows on around ONE: A STREAM where the banks are in motion as well. It’s about being IN the FIELD and NOT UNDER IT. No need for flesh-liquifying SPEED. Think about it… In the meantime, ring up ACME Fireworks Inc. Ask for the “Wile E Coyote” Package. Next stop: Alpha CENTAURI… now passing URANUS on the way out of here. WARP NINE MISTER WARF. MAKE IT SO. Walk the World Round and wind up where you started from. FEET again. It is the ultimate Circular Argument of Intent in a two-dimensional UNIVERSE, OUTSIDE of TIME. The FABRIC of a DREAM…

A very small craft might be fitted with a very high power drive. A craft of 100m radius is mentioned. Eventually we will miniaturize the craft.

I totally agree with you because no way would time ever change no matter how much energy is used in traveling. The most important aspect of this research as I’m working on is understanding hot and cold. Gravity and acceleration of planet and stars to then making a mechanism that can trick the universe into believing the mechanism behavior is indeed faster heavier or lighter then what would be expected for such a device on Earth. Artificial takes new meaning with my studies and I wish you all the best likewise.

Warp drive or not we are not ready until we are one we will never understand we will never be welcomed to intelligent beyond earth I believe ther are watching.

At the present time nothing is faster than light, but there is! It’s always been here watch! The Sun’s light takes about 8 minutes to arrive to earth. If I (THINK) about the sun to earth I have beat the light travel. Human thought is faster than light. Just for thought. Now let’s get down to business. WARP DRIVE can be achieved. Anti-gravity is negative energy. Loaded in darkness of space. What u need in space is large amounts of gravity to pull or accelerate. Warp Drive is a push pull in a sense. A laser SCOPE can achieve this. Space/time bends light as u know, riding on a laser beam moving to a point of reference (sun) gives u the positive gravity neccessary inside the bubble to move. In theory the light is behind you. Still within einstein’s theory.more to say later see ya

The illustration atop this page is an excellent example of WHY artists impressions are NOT useful is the discussion of science.

Put most simply : there is no data, yet there IS an illustration… of SOMETHING, that means nothing. What is there to learn from this?

We Warp Drive manufacturing, our fission-annihilation antigravity propulsion accelerate to lightspeed, but by nuclear annihilation reaction generate high-density time-space, so from outside observation, we traveling on higher speed. The best is to travel outside of the galactic disk for maximum speed. To understand advanced physic is necessary to first understand the Theory of Relativity. Sped of light is constant only in the frame, outside dependant on the speed of time.

Chris m exactly..rest energy would be the best for getting us out of this area..it’s the ink pen vs pencil problem.spend tons of cash on writing with a pen or use a pencil for $.05.we already have the oxygen thing worked out..I say we just jump on in and figure it out as we go haha

Why not look into the idea like the Enterprise u already have this ISS up there why not try to buid a space hanger to build the ship like the Enterprise in it we have the technology to do it and while ship was getting built u cold work on the warp drive engines to power it this is the 21st century we should be thinking on lines like that im not saying theres vulcans or klingonns out there but with a ship like that we might get to see if we are alone in this galaxy or not

This would also allow for sub-light speed as well with I am assuming lesser energy requirements. Works be with losing for just to get around the solar system faster

How do we stop this spaceship?

by “breaking” the warp bubble in advance by a few nano seconds. lowering the space ship to sub light speeds temporarily.

Just traveling at light speed would be an accomplishment, yet no one talks about sailing on waves of gravity which would take much less energy. Even though warp speed is faster, we should probably walk before we run.

faster than light propulsion and anti-gravity

https://pronewsreport.com/2021/05/31/antigravity-flying-saucer-for-solar-system-exploration/

Antimatter for Antigravity and Faster than Light Propulsion

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Warp speed, Scotty? It may be possible to travel faster than light

In the "Star Trek" TV shows and films, the U.S.S. Enterprise's warp engine allows the ship to move faster than light, an ability that is, as Spock would say, "highly illogical."

However, there's a loophole in Einstein's general theory of relativity that could allow a ship to traverse vast distances in less time than it would take light. The trick? It's not the starship that's moving — it's the space around it.

In fact, scientists at NASA are right now working on the first practical field test toward proving the possibility of warp drives and faster-than-light travel. Maybe the warp drive on "Star Trek" is possible after all. [See also:  Warp Drive: Can It Be Done? (Video) ]

According to Einstein's theory, an object with mass cannot go as fast or faster than the speed of light. The original " Star Trek " series ignored this "universal speed limit" in favor of a ship that could zip around the galaxy in a matter of days instead of decades. They tried to explain the ship's faster-than-light capabilities by powering the warp engine with a "matter-antimatter" engine. Antimatter was a popular field of study in the 1960s, when creator Gene Roddenberry was first writing the series. When matter and antimatter collide, their mass is converted to kinetic energy in keeping with Einstein's mass-energy equivalence formula, E=mc 2 .

In other words, matter-antimatter collision is a potentially powerful source of energy and fuel, but even that wouldn't be enough to propel a starship to faster-than-light speeds.

Nevertheless, it's thanks to "Star Trek" that the word "warp" is now practically synonymous with faster-than-light travel .

Is warp drive possible?

Decades after the original "Star Trek" show had gone off the air, pioneering physicist and avowed Trek fan Miguel Alcubierre argued that maybe a warp drive is possible after all. It just wouldn't work quite the way "Star Trek" thought it did.

Things with mass can't move faster than the speed of light. But what if, instead of the ship moving through space, the space was moving around the ship?

Space doesn't have mass. And we know that it's flexible: space has been expanding at a measurable rate ever since the Big Bang. We know this from observing the light of distant stars — over time, the wavelength of the stars' light as it reaches Earth is lengthened in a process called "redshifting." According to the Doppler effect, this means that the source of the wavelength is moving farther away from the observer — i.e. Earth.

So we know from observing redshifted light that the fabric of space is movable. [See also: What to Wear on a 100-Year Starship Voyage ]

Alcubierre used this knowledge to exploit a loophole in the "universal speed limit." In his theory, the ship never goes faster than the speed of light — instead, space in front of the ship is contracted while space behind it is expanded, allowing the ship to travel distances in less time than light would take. The ship itself remains in what Alcubierre termed a "warp bubble" and, within that bubble, never goes faster than the speed of light.

Since Alcubierre published his paper "The Warp Drive: Hyper-fast travel within general relativity" in 1994, many physicists and science fiction writers have played with his theory —including "Star Trek" itself. [See also: Top 10 Star Trek Technologies ]

Alcubierre's warp drive theory was retroactively incorporated into the "Star Trek" mythos by the 1990s TV series "Star Trek: The Next Generation."

In a way, then, "Star Trek" created its own little grandfather paradox: Though ultimately its theory of faster-than-light travel was heavily flawed, the series established a vocabulary of light-speed travel that Alcubierre eventually formalized in his own warp drive theories.

The Alcubierre warp drive is still theoretical for now. "The truth is that the best ideas sound crazy at first. And then there comes a time when we can't imagine a world without them." That's a statement from the 100 Year Starship organization, a think tank devoted to making Earth what "Star Trek" would call a "warp-capable civilization" within a century.

The first step toward a functional warp drive is to prove that a "warp bubble" is even possible, and that it can be artificially created.

That's exactly what physicist Harold "Sonny" White and a team of researchers at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Texas are doing right now.

NASA's warp drive project

According to Alcubierre's theory, one could create a warp bubble by applying negative energy, or energy created in a vacuum. This process relies on the Casimir effect, which states that a vacuum is not actually a void; instead, a vacuum is actually full of fluctuating electromagnetic waves. Distorting these waves creates negative energy, which possibly distorts space-time, creating a warp bubble.

To see if space-time distortion has occurred in a lab experiment, the researchers shine two highly targeted lasers: one through the site of the vacuum and one through regular space. The researchers will then compare the two beams, and if the wavelength of the one going through the vacuum is lengthened, i.e. redshifted, in any way, they'll know that it passed through a warp bubble. [See also: How Video Games Help Fuel Space Exploration ]

White and his team have been at work for a few months now, but they have yet to get a satisfactory reading. The problem is that the field of negative energy is so small, the laser so precise, that even the smallest seismic motion of the Earth can throw off the results.

When we talked to White, he was in the process of moving the test equipment to a building on the Johnson Space Center campus that was originally built for the Apollo space program. "The lab is seismically isolated, so the whole floor can be floated," White told TechNewsDaily. "But the system hadn't been (activated) for a while so part of the process was, we had the system inspected and tested."

White is now working on recalibrating the laser for the new location. He wouldn't speculate on when his team could expect conclusive data, nor how long until fully actuated warp travel might be possible, but he remains convinced that it's only a matter of time.

"The bottom line is, nature can do it," said White. "So the salient question is, 'can we?'"

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5 Faster-Than-Light Travel Methods and Their Plausibility

Science tells us that it is impossible for an object to travel at light speed, let alone faster than that. But so many of our favorite science-fiction movies, games, and TV shows rely on faster-than-light travel to craft their interplanetary adventures.

Let’s take a look at five means of FTL found in sci-fi that don’t break the rules of relativity and examine how plausible they are based on the science behind them.

1. Hyperdrive

Popularized by Star Wars and used extensively in fiction, a hyperdrive enables a spaceship to travel at FTL speeds by entering another dimension known as “hyperspace.” The spaceship isn’t actually traveling faster than the speed of light, but rather is making use of hyperspace as a shortcut, and the hyperdrive is the mechanism that shunts the spaceship into and out of this parallel dimension.

Specific coordinates within hyperspace have corresponding coordinates in normal space, but the distance between those two points will be shorter in hyperspace, allowing for a faster journey. Before making a “hyperspace jump,” calculations must be made to find the matching coordinates between hyperspace and normal space in order to know when and where to exit hyperspace at the desired normal space destination.

Is it plausible?

Physicist Bukrhard Heim proposed a theory in 1977 that FTL travel may be possible by using magnetic fields to enter higher-dimensional space. The theory uses a mathematical model that calls upon six or more dimensions in an attempt to resolve incompatibilities between quantum mechanics and general relativity, but Heim’s ideas have not been accepted in mainstream science. Still, the fact that a theoretical physicist devoted a large portion of his life in pursuit of a theory that could lead to a means of space travel lends the concept of hyperspace a little more credibility than if it were simply the fancy of a sci-fi writer.

2. Jump Drive

Seen in such works as Battlestar Galactica , a jump drive allows for instantaneous teleportation between two points. Similar to a hyperdrive, coordinates must be calculated to ensure a safe jump; the longer the desired travel distance, the more complex the calculation. In theory, there is no limit to how far a jump can take a ship, but an incorrect calculation may result in a catastrophic collision with a planet or space debris.

The Dune universe’s FTL, based on the fictional “Holtzman effect,” can also be considered a jump drive.

Master of hard sci-fi Isaac Asimov was the first to suggest the idea of a jump drive in the Foundation series, which lends some credibility to the idea. However, most fiction doesn’t clearly explain the principles of physics that allow for this teleportation, making it impossible to claim a jump drive as plausible. However, if it functions by opening a wormhole…

3. Wormholes

A wormhole, as seen in the Stargate franchise, allows for near-instantaneous travel across vast distances. Wormholes may be naturally-occurring or man-made, but are almost always temporary and serve as tunnels through spacetime.

Imagine our universe as a piece of paper, and an ant walking on that piece of paper as a spaceship. If the ant wants to walk from one end of that piece of paper to the other, the fastest way to do so would be to travel in a straight line. But paper, like space, bends. If you bend the paper into a U shape, the ant’s journey goes largely undisturbed – it still has to traverse the same distance along that line. However, in 3D space, the two ends of the paper are very close to each other now. Cut off a piece of a drinking straw and let the ant use it as a bridge or tunnel between the two ends of the paper, and the journey is suddenly much shorter.

While we have never directly observed any evidence for one, wormholes are theoretically possible. Albert Einstein and his colleague Nathan Rosen first discovered wormholes in 1935 as solutions to equations within Einstein’s general theory of relativity – the math says they can exist.

Since then, other scientists, including Stephen Hawking, have argued that it may be possible to traverse a wormhole, under the right circumstances. The debate surrounding wormholes isn’t about their plausibility, but rather how they may be created and sustained.

4. Slipstream

The concept of slipstream can be found in such works as Star Trek , Doctor Who , and the Halo video game franchise, but there is no widely-agreed upon definition of what slipstream is or how it works beyond it being a means of FTL. We’ll consider the slipstream seen in Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda , where it is “not the best way to travel faster than light, it’s just the only way,” as per the show’s protagonist.

Slipstream is a form of interdimensional highway in which ships ride a series of slipstream “strings” – the unseen connections between all objects in the universe. These strings are in constant flux and form a tangled mess of intersections and divergent paths. Any time a pilot reaches a fork in the road, he has to guess which is the correct path to take to continue along toward his desired destination. Before the pilot makes that decision, both paths are simultaneously the correct and incorrect route, and it is the act of choosing a path that forces one to be correct and the other to be incorrect – if this made you think of Shrödinger’s cat, that does seem to be the basis for this concept. A computer selects the “correct” path 50% of the time, but due to intuition, a human picks the correct path 99.9% of the time.

There are no mainstream scientific theories that support this idea of slipstream. Reading the “lore” of this means of FTL evokes fantastical interpretations of string theory, quantum entanglement, and other concepts in modern physics, but the ideas are supported only through their internal consistency rather than actual fact, much like a well-explained magic system that allows fictional wizards to cast spells.

5. Warp Drive

Popularized by Star Trek , a warp drive distorts space around a ship while leaving the ship itself inside a “bubble” of normal space. The space in front of the ship is contracted, while the space behind it is expanded, and the ship “rides” the distortion wave at FTL speeds. Technically, it is not the ship that is moving, but rather space itself, which is how we avoid breaking any laws of physics.

Imagine a surfer slowly paddling back to shore. When a wave comes, it will lower the water level in front of him and raise the water level behind him, and he can ride the downward slope all the way to shore. Relative to the wave, the surfer isn’t moving – he’s staying between the crest and the trough, and it is instead the wave that is moving.

Surfing doesn’t quite work like that, but it’s a simplification that we can all visualize. In a similar manner to how a wave will distort water to propel a surfer, a warp drive will distort space to propel a ship.

In 1994, the Alcubierre drive was proposed as a theoretical means of FTL travel and is based on a mathematical solution to equations within Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Just like a warp drive, the Alcubierre drive would contract space in front of a spaceship and expand space behind it.

NASA has been actively researching this technology since 2012 , and the lead researcher even worked with a 3D artist to develop a model of what a warp-capable ship might look like . As far as real-life FTL goes, warp is the current front-runner to becoming reality.

As far as real-life FTL travel goes, the fictional favorites can be found in Star Trek and Stargate : the warp drive, and wormholes. Both are theoretically possible; however, both require further scientific breakthroughs before practical testing can begin. In either case, we need to discover “exotic matter” – hypothetical particles with negative mass – to get these mechanisms to work. “Element zero” from the Mass Effect series, the rare material that is essential to FTL travel in that universe, doesn’t quite fit the description, but the lore is at least scientifically sound in suggesting that some new, rare form of matter is required to make this technological leap.

The good news is that scientists don’t believe this is a matter of if, but rather when. There will be a time in the future when a stately, bald man in uniform will sit back in a command chair and relay the order, “Engage.”

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March 9, 2021

Breaking the warp barrier for faster-than-light travel

by University of Göttingen

If travel to distant stars within an individual's lifetime is going to be possible, a means of faster-than-light propulsion will have to be found. To date, even recent research about superluminal (faster-than-light) transport based on Einstein's theory of general relativity would require vast amounts of hypothetical particles and states of matter that have 'exotic' physical properties such as negative energy density. This type of matter either cannot currently be found or cannot be manufactured in viable quantities. In contrast, new research carried out at the University of Göttingen gets around this problem by constructing a new class of hyper-fast 'solitons' using sources with only positive energies that can enable travel at any speed. This reignites debate about the possibility of faster-than-light travel based on conventional physics. The research is published in the journal Classical and Quantum Gravity .

The author of the paper, Dr. Erik Lentz, analyzed existing research and discovered gaps in previous 'warp drive' studies. Lentz noticed that there existed yet-to-be explored configurations of space-time curvature organized into 'solitons' that have the potential to solve the puzzle while being physically viable. A soliton—in this context also informally referred to as a 'warp bubble'—is a compact wave that maintains its shape and moves at constant velocity. Lentz derived the Einstein equations for unexplored soliton configurations (where the space-time metric's shift vector components obey a hyperbolic relation), finding that the altered space-time geometries could be formed in a way that worked even with conventional energy sources. In essence, the new method uses the very structure of space and time arranged in a soliton to provide a solution to faster-than-light travel , which—unlike other research—would only need sources with positive energy densities. No exotic negative energy densities needed.

If sufficient energy could be generated, the equations used in this research would allow space travel to Proxima Centauri, our nearest star, and back to Earth in years instead of decades or millennia. That means an individual could travel there and back within their lifetime. In comparison, the current rocket technology would take more than 50,000 years for a one-way journey. In addition, the solitons (warp bubbles) were configured to contain a region with minimal tidal forces such that the passing of time inside the soliton matches the time outside: an ideal environment for a spacecraft. This means there would not be the complications of the so-called 'twin paradox' whereby one twin traveling near the speed of light would age much more slowly than the other twin who stayed on Earth: in fact, according to the recent equations both twins would be the same age when reunited.

"This work has moved the problem of faster-than-light travel one step away from theoretical research in fundamental physics and closer to engineering. The next step is to figure out how to bring down the astronomical amount of energy needed to within the range of today's technologies, such as a large modern nuclear fission power plant. Then we can talk about building the first prototypes," says Lentz.

Currently, the amount of energy required for this new type of space propulsion drive is still immense. Lentz explains, "The energy required for this drive traveling at light speed encompassing a spacecraft of 100 meters in radius is on the order of hundreds of times of the mass of the planet Jupiter. The energy savings would need to be drastic, of approximately 30 orders of magnitude to be in range of modern nuclear fission reactors." He goes on to say: "Fortunately, several energy-saving mechanisms have been proposed in earlier research that can potentially lower the energy required by nearly 60 orders of magnitude." Lentz is currently in the early-stages of determining if these methods can be modified, or if new mechanisms are needed to bring the energy required down to what is currently possible.

Provided by University of Göttingen

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Dune: The Spacing Guild, Explained

Dune is a story about intergalactic politics, among several thousand other things. The main characters are born into noble families with millennia of legacy and endless power. Millions of humans die in the ages-old feud between House Atreides and House Harkonnen. Most wars are fought for resources, like the spice melange. If there's one group with a secure political position in the Dune universe, it's the Spacing Guild. No one can get anywhere without them.

Every space-faring sci-fi story invents or borrows a way to travel faster than light . Some explanations hang on suspension of disbelief, while others take elements of scientific truth. Dune uses a fictional theory called the Holtzman Effect to bend spacetime, folding reality to place the vehicle at the desired location instantaneously. As the Spacing Guild will illuminate, that endeavor comes with challenges.

Will Dune Part 2 Introduce One Of The Story's Weirdest Parts?

How did the spacing guild form.

Like almost every element of Dune , the story of the Spacing Guild starts with the Butlerian Jihad . The Jihad was a galaxy-spanning war against thinking machines that ended with the religious extermination of any technology more complex than a calculator. During the Jihad, humanity raced to develop non-thinking machines to defeat the robot gods. An inventor named Tio Holtzman discovered the Holtzman Effect. He hires Norma Cenva, a brilliant young mathematician. When she devises several new applications for the Holtzman Effect , Holtzman takes credit for her accomplishments.

Though Norma doesn't want the fame her inventions would bring her, Holtzman fears her genius and fires her. Holtzman dies in a slave revolt shortly after, leaving Norma to work alone. A man in a robot body captures and tortures Norma, accidentally awakening her psychic abilities . She foresees the development of foldspace technology, allowing her to escalate its timeline. Norma developed the first foldspace engine and a ship to wield it. Her lover, Aurelius Venport, took credit, another man going down in history for her work. Their son, Adrien, used her accomplishment to found the Foldspace Shipping Company.

Norma's prescience makes her an impossibly savvy figure. She's never mentioned in the original Dune , but the extended universe makes her one of the most critical characters in the narrative. She watches the Foldspace Shipping Company gradually consume the concept of faster-than-light travel. Its monopoly is enforced through violence. Norma's great-grandson, Josef Venport, starts trouble with House Corrino, the family of the Emperor . He assassinates Emperor Salvador Corrino, evoking the wrath of his brother and successor. Norma uses her descendent as bait, striking a deal with new Emperor Roderick Corrino. She promises to give him Josef if he promises her safety for her navigators, consistent flows of the spice melange, and an independent Spacing Guild. She made Josef a navigator, exploiting their agreement to get everything she wanted without sacrifice.

How does the Spacing Guild work?

The Spacing Guild is secretive. Its hierarchy is unknown, and its higher-ups are shrouded in mystery. There is a Chief Administrator, managers, and other bureaucrats, but they typically go unnamed. The most critical and sought-after role in the Spacing Guild is as a Navigator. Guild Navigators are mutated humans capable of anticipating the unpredictable nature of faster-than-light travel. Foldspace engines were previously wildly unsafe, with at least one in every eight crashing. Guild Navigators are in endless demand, making them invaluable to the noble houses and every notable space-faring company.

Guild Navigators are regularly immersed in gaseous orange spice, a unique resource that only appears naturally on Arrakis. They spend most of their time in spice tanks, causing bizarre mutations. They're often described as fish-like humanoids with elongated limbs, massive heads, and unnaturally blue eyes. Guild Navigators train their minds to use the spice's psychic potential . They predict the future, allowing them to make split-second calculations while traveling faster than light. The Spacing Guild has monopolized their techniques, as they do on the foldspace engines that enable them. This, in turn, creates a necessary dependence on the spice melange. If the spice doesn't flow, humanity loses its ability to travel through space. Princess Irulan, in the opening of David Lynch's film adaptation of Dune, offers this brief summary:

The Spacing Guild and its navigators, who the spice has mutated over four-thousand years, use the orange spice gas, which gives them the ability to fold space. That is, travel to any part of the Universe without moving.

The Spacing Guild is one of the three powers that control the universe. The Noble Houses squabble for territory under the might of the Padishah Emperor, but the Spacing Guild got where it is by offering a vital service. It took one precognitive genius to establish an all-consuming monopoly on the concept of faster-than-light travel. The stories burn her accomplishments, but through the efforts of Norma Cenva, the Spacing Guild maintains one of the most important positions in the galaxy.

Dune: The Sardaukar, Explained

The Impossible Physics of Faster-Than-Light Travel

Traveling faster than light is impossible. But if it weren't, what would it look like?

Traveling faster than the speed of light is a staple of science fiction. Whether it's jumping to hyperspace, engaging the warp drive, or opening the stargate, most stories about interstellar travel have some hack to get from point A to point B faster than light.

But here in the real world, we have to obey the laws of physics. And physics is very strict about nothing moving faster than the speed of light. Or is it? While the laws of relativity forbid you and I from moving faster than light, the mathematics of relativity still work even at faster-than-light speeds. This means we can find out what it would look like if we could break the universe's speed limit.

Picture two spaceships headed from Earth to a distant star 100 light-years away. The first ship leaves at 50 percent of the speed of light, so it would take 200 years to arrive. The second ship has some kind of warp drive and leaves at twice the speed of light, 100 years after the first. What does that look like?

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In relativity, the answer depends greatly on perspective. From the Earth, it looks like one ship leaves and travels a good distance before another ship moving four times as fast overtakes it. From the perspective of the slower ship, things look a little different.

The faster-than-light ship is moving so fast that it can outrun any light that it emits. This creates a kind of 'sonic boom' made of light, which produces some interesting effects. As the warp-capable ship overtakes the slower one, and after the two ships pass each other, the light the faster ship emits is still traveling to the slower one.

The result is that the first time the slower ship can see the faster one is when they're right on top of each other. From the perspective of the slower ship, the warp ship will simply appear out of nowhere. Then, the light from two directions will reach the slower ship all at once, and it will perceive two versions of the ship moving away in both directions.

From the perspective of the slower ship, the warp ship will simply appear out of nowhere.

There are all sorts of other strange results that happen when traveling faster than light, which might be why the universe forbids it. Unfortunately, it seems likely that warp drives and hyperspace shall forever exist only in the realm of science fiction.

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