Warp Drive

The Warp drive is much closer to the truth than you guys may think.

Please check the patent GB2294594 at gb.espacenet.com to find out the true material properties of the Dilithium crystals in which the anti-matter/matter interaction exists.

The photon ( half a wave length of Electromagnetic wave) of radiation actually consists of +ve and -ve Electric fields. An electron ( -ve charge and +ve mass) and a positron ( +ve charge same magnitude in value in coloumbs as the electron and of the same mass is created) during the disintegration of a photon of high enough energy. The vector velocity ( c == speed of light ) of the photon during deformation is converted to axial/spin ( Latitudal ) C velocity on each of the surface of the positron & electron of infinitesimal surface thickness, and your magnetic field is related to the elctric field as explained by Maxwells by the interaction of the Electric field E with c ( speed of light ) to give rise to the magnetic field.

Happy reading you guys!!

The Faster Than Light Drive (FTL) that Captain Kirk (Captain Horn Dog) et. al. use to zip around the universe in Star Trek.

Those big cylinders (or any other similar shape) are the Warp nacelles. The Warp engine is attached to the Warp core (or main engine) and produces a subspace bubble (two for most Star Fleet ships, one in the case of the old Klingon Bird of Prey) which pushes the ship out of the space-time and into the subspace layer that supports reality. Then, energy produced by matter/antimatter reactions at the core is launched through the nacelles, in a pulsating way. These pulses create an asymmetry on the subspace bubbles which result in a net momentum forward.

Ok here is the scope: Everyone knows the Warp Bubble theory. Ok well a ship that is 400 Meters across could not be used inside of a 350 meter warp bubble. Can it be used? Yes it can. A ship versus Space field gravimetrics would allow it. A ship would be traveling approx. 4.69x10^23 inside the warp bubble but to equalize it would be traveling 1.17x10^29 outside. Someone wanna explain this?

Article by:
Dr. Alonzo Richter

Warp Drive Theory Professional

Berkely Labs Inc.

Warp drive exploits warp fields. The warp engines generate a warp field utilizing Sub Space Physics.

The Warp drive also depends on Dilithium crystals, which are one of the only things in the universe that you can safely combine matter and anti-matter in. The crystals are contained in the center of the Warp core (also known as the Matter / anti-matter reaction chamber). See the Next-Generation technical manual. It also explains why the old Enterprise could do Warp Factor 16 and the new one tops out in the high 9.999 area. Need for Dilithium crystals drove some plots.

Warp drive also burns Sub Space; in parts of the galaxy where it's been used too much, Sub Space supposedly loses its cohesion which both inhibits FTL and generates nasty physical effects for the residents. Extensive Sub Space damage hasn't occurred around the vicinity of Earth, Vulcan, Kronos, and other populated areas which possess Warp Drive technology, because the respective governments have outlawed use of warp drive in the solar systems of those planets. There they only use impulse-like propulsion.

We see an example of this in the Star Trek The Next Generation episode, "The Best of Both Worlds," when the Enterprise drops out of warp around Jupiter, instead of warping straight up to Earth. As they approach the Borg ship from the outer solar system, La Forge counts off their ETA as the pass the various planets in our solar system. I think Earth government would have made an exception, or at least let them off with a slap on the wrist if they had broken the law by warping straight to Earth.

You could also try thumbing through Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle's "The Mote in God's Eye" and take a look at Alderson drive. I quite like it! -- Ivan Stojic

Things like Warp Drive are Plot Enabling Devices. They exist to make certain elements of the plot possible, and you can hurt yourself if you think too hard about how such things actually work. Someone once asked Isaac Asimov why his robots had positronic brains, why positronics were superior to electronics for the purpose, and how one kept the positrons from reacting explosively with electrons in the environment. Asimov replied that he didn't have a clue.

It's probably a marketing trademark, having nothing to do with real positrons. ;-> Devised by the people who came up with "Posi Traction", no doubt. You mean positronic brains are made by General Motors? Ack! ;-)

Actually Asimov was asked specifically about this and responded that at the time he wrote the book the positron had been discovered, and so used it to advance the sifi angle of the book. He had no clue why a positron would work better than an electron and anyone who undertands positrons knows that they would work no differently than an electron, except of course that mutual destruction nastiness that positrons have in a matter environment. Don't assume the writers of fiction, including science fiction, do too much research. Remember Dr. Mc Coy's cool looking probes he used to analyze a patient? Salt and pepper shakers from the cafeteria, the studio cafeteria that is. They later added a light to make it look even more cool. -Jim. The version of the story I read (in The Making of Star Trek, written in the late 60s) was that someone was asked to invent a suitable salt-shaker for an episode where a shape-shifting alien is betrayed by its salt-cravings - the guy brought in a range of futuristic devices, and was told "congratulations, you've just invented Mc Coy's operating tools" - meanwhile, they used a salt-shaker from the cafeteria for the episode. - rmsgrey

Can someone explain to me why all this moving around is going to be necessary at all? --Daniel Earwicker

So that the leading man can move close enough to aliens to blow them up, or have sex with them.

(Or both)

Seriously, how else would you get there if not by moving there? -- Brent Newhall

According to Thorne, Alcubierre etc (see seds.lpl.arizona.edu ) Exotic Matter (technical name describing matter with Negative Energy - exists as seen in the Casimir Effect but yet to be harnessed) is what physics dictates must be used to warp the Space Time Continuum. It comes out of the mathematics of stable Worm Holes and warped space bubbles and allows true Warp Drive to work. Anti Matter although this can give significant improvement to current chemical rockets does not have anything to do with Warp Drive unless a way is found to use it in a reaction to produce Exotic Matter.

I'm pretty sure that Exotic matter is what must be used to have a *stable* warping of the space; without it, even if you could hypothetical create the necessary gravity (which you can't) it would collapse without doing anything useful (except maybe turning your ship into a thin plasma after all the energy fries your ship). And you seem to have neglected to mention the energy requirements in the paper, which are such that even Anti Matter can't provide them in the foreseeable future. Yep, if we create Exotic matter (impossible), figure out how to control and amplify the resulting antigravity (impossible), and generate impossibly huge quantities of energy (impossible) with efficiencies that necessarily must approach 99.99999999% (because even a small, small fraction of the required energy dissipating as heat will vaporize the ship) (impossible), we might, if reality doesn't object too much (possible either way), go somewhere faster then light (impossible). Why not stop at Milli Ways while you're at it, you're only two impossibles away.

["Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific advances." -- Dr. Lee De Forest, inventor of the Audion tube and a father of radio, 25 February, 1967" from www.etni.org.il ]

Unidentified Flying Object s are often seen hovering over power lines and gathering water from lakes in tubes. Assuming they use Warp Drive and/or Anti Gravity to zip around does this imply there is a simple way to make Exotic Matter out of hydrogen and electricity? (presumably the water is used for this element or they could just get oxygen from air). For why it is not advisable to just use Morse code and ask this question, see www.haunted-places.com

I'd like to make a useless observation, but everyone here beat me too it.

Come on now guys, we all know Warp Drive is silly. If you really wanted to get from here to another system, everyone knows the fastest route is via Hyper Space!

It is the same technology remember theirs is a Galaxy "a long time ago, far, far away". In the Milky Way we call it Warp Drive.

Just checking for Star Wars fans, glad to see someone got it.

Technically Hyper Drive would be used to traverse Hyper Space, Warp Drive to traverse Warped Space :-)

The paper that started it all (to be taken seriously by the Scientific community): omnis.if.ufrj.br

also a site that aggregates several further scientific papers on the topic: omnis.if.ufrj.br

Including "A Warp Drive with more reasonable energy requirements" omnis.if.ufrj.br

Not really "Underwater Warp Drive" but very fast underwater travel by creating gas envelopes see www.diodon349.com

The assumption that there is some kind of reaction going on between particles in (Subspace) still doesn't account for automatic inverse spin of an equal particle, or quantum mechanics. While string theory depicts that classic and quantum theory are tied together, it doesn't explain wormholes or the einsteinpinskirosebridge (Multiverse theory). I think that Einstein made a mistake in leaving out the "luminiferous ether" from his equation. Furthermore, it is ludicrous to think that lightspeed is a limit. You wouldn't know if there was something faster than light because to physically see it, would require that you were traveling just as fast. I have thought about this, and come to one conclusion. It is not that time is merely the distance between cause and effect. It in essence is the very thing that stabilizes the universe, giving everything a specific time to manifest. However, Philadelphia Experiment showed that one cannot escape E=mc2 on the basis that you are bending light. Now there are constant bombardments of cosmic rays, and neutrinos that rain on us all the time. One such atom is known as carbon 14. This is the atom that decays carbon into everything, and giving us the measure of (radiocarbondating), giving approximate age. If that is true then if one were to alter the flow of those atoms, then theoretically one could alter space/time. Not that you are bending light, no you are merely changing the flow of those atoms so that you could actually lessen the time from A to B.

Any thoughts on this? It's not that I'm right, but it's good to think about everything. REMEMBER!! Occams Razor - all things being equal, the simplest answer is usually the right one.

"I think that Einstein made a mistake in leaving the "luminiferous ether" out of his equation. Furthermore, it is ludicrous to think that lightspeed is a limit. [...] all things being equal, the simplest answer is usually the right one."

He didn't have much choice. The Michelson-Morely experiments in the 1880s showed that the ether could not be detected from the differential in the speed of light based on the direction of motion - in fact, those experiments and those confiming them showed no change in the speed of light dependent on the motion of the earth through space. Most contemporary physicists such as Lorentz and Fitzgerald tried - and failed - to explain this discrepancy by positing contraction in the direction of acceleration, because they 'knew' light had to have a medium to propagate through. Einstein, on the other hand, followed Occam's Razor and worked out what the implications would be if it wasn't there - which turned out to give the right answers. From all accounts, he was as surprised by this as anyone. -- Jay Osako

It's funny how popular it is for people to criticize mathematical physics without studying it, as if it were just a random branch of philosophy, where you could do some introspection, some handwaving, and have as good of a theory as any other philosopher. Go figure. -- Doug Merritt

Indeed Doug. I don't understand why people don't go and learn why the speed of light is what it is. After all, it comes from Maxwell's equations as a property of space. If it wasn't constant, then the properties (i.e. electrical field strength) of space would change depending on your frame of reference! -- Jimmy Cerra

I'm sorta new at this, but Warp Drive and Hyperspace seem the same to me. It is a logarithmic calculation in which the laws of physics are surpassed and time itself will stand still or actually go backwards, as in the 'Black Hole' effect. S.Hawkings. I won't go into religion but there is a higher power. "Q" ain't him. -- Martin, Richmond VA

"Q" seems as good a term as any other. What have you got against it, and why refer to a power as "him"?

"Q" was the name of a "him": a Star Trek (Next Generation) character with god-like powers and the maturity of a 5 year old. Most would say that "Q" was not truly a god, but I'm sure that rec.arts.tv.star-trek.flame.flame.flame has arguments otherwise.

Trelane (From the original series) was the one with the maturity of a 5-year-old, not Q. (Referring to the being who was first called "Q" in broadcast chronology and not just to any random member of the Q Continuum.) However, while Q was indeed much more mature than Trelane, the negative aspects of his personality somewhat counteracted that additional maturity.

Well, in many sci-fi books, Hyper Space is sort of like another reality, another dimension that lets you shortcut vast distances in this dimension. Babylon5 for example. Hyper Space doesn't always imply faster than light travel, but more the appearance of faster than light travel, whereas warp always implies faster than light.

It is worth noting that, in the real universe (and sometimes in Star Trek, too), traveling faster than light directly implies time travel, by Special Relativity. See the relativity FAQ maintained by physicist John Baez.

(The converse is easier to see...travel 1 billion light years at just under light speed. Now go back in time 1 billion years. Ta da.)

Category Physics

See original on c2.com