![]() The problem is that the solution to this curvature required negative mass or negative energy in the Stress-energy portion of the equation. So Alcubierre found a solution that could carry real passengers in this stationary bubble, if the spacetime around it was shaped like this. This curvature has stationary bubble in the center, but spacetime contracts in front of the bubble and expands in back of the bubble. Keep in mind this is just a 2D representation of 3D curvature. Then he solved the right side of the equation to determine what the corresponding matter and energy he would need to generate the desired curvature that he envisioned. ![]() He determined that the ship needed to stay inside a flat spacetime bubble, but this bubble of spacetime had to be such that it could move at any arbitrary speed. What Alcubierre did in his paper is figure out a shape that he believed spacetime needed to have in order for a ship to travel faster than light. This describes all the matter and energy that causes the curvature on the left side. On the right-hand side we have a bunch of constants including Newton’s gravitational constant, G and the speed of light, C, which don’t change, multiplied by T. On the left-hand side, the R and g components describe the curvature of spacetime. But, here’s a quick recap of what the math of this theory says. I’ve made a couple of videos about this, so check them out if you want a more detailed understanding of it. It was published in 1915 by Albert Einstein, and it explains gravity not as a force, but as a curvature in the fabric of space and time, or spacetime. To understand how these drives work, let’s do a quick review of the theory of general relativity – because anything we do at high speeds in spacetime will be defined by this theory. I spoke to Alexey and Gianni, and in this video, I’m going to show you how such a physically realistic spaceship would work, and what it could look like? If you are an obsessive Trekkie like me, you don’t want to miss what’s coming up right now… Is there any hope for a physically feasible warp drive, or is the final frontier of Star Trek just the stuff of childhood fantasy? There may be hope because in a recent paper published by the advanced Propulsion Laboratory at Applied Physics, authors Alexey Bobrick and Gianni Martire, outline how a physically feasible warp drive could in principle, work, without the need for negative energy, allowing us to go to neighboring stars. So although it is a good mathematical exercise, it is physically meaningless. But in order for it to work, this theoretical drive would require huge amounts of negative mass or energy. In a paper published in 1994, Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre showed, at least theoretically, that such a warp drive could actually work within the known laws of physics. This is only a few months longer than a trip to mars would take using today’s conventional technology, and so may be doable. If we could create even a modest warp drive, that could allow us to travel say 5 times the speed of light, we could get to Proxima Centauri in about 1 year. In Star Trek, captains Kirk and Picard easily travelled to distant star systems in hours using warp drives that allowed them to travel hundreds to thousands of times faster than the speed of light. To visit the planets around even the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, would take over 4 years.Īnd to go to some of the potentially life supporting exoplanets we have found recently, even at the speed of light, it would take hundreds or thousands of years.ĭo we have to just accept that we humans are forever confined to our own solar system? ![]() ![]() ![]() In just one second, a beam of light would go around the earth…almost 8 times.īut the distances in space are so vast, that even this maximum speed would be is excruciatingly slow for interstellar travel. It’s pretty fast relative to our human scales. It is the fastest speed at which any two points in space can communicate with each other. The speed of light is the cosmic speed limit of the universe. ![]()
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