Warp drives are the fountain of youth of interstellar travel.
Last time we wondered if maybe wormholes could get us across the stars faster than light. Unfortunately, we don't know how to make wormholes, where to find them, how to control them, or whether passing through one would kill us. We don't even know if wormholes physically exist in this universe.
If we aren't using wormholes to get anywhere anytime soon, maybe a more realistic answer lies in one of the most recurrent themes of popular science fiction - WARP SPEED!
We've all seen the depictions of warp speed in movies, and Star Trek and Star Wars are the two heavy hitters when it comes to moving faster than light.
In those fictional universes we see ships jump across the galaxy like nothing. But, even in those stories, there is always a fictional explanation for how the speed of light is being violated.
In Star Wars, the space ships use a special hyperdrive to enter, in effect, another dimension called hyperspace - someplace outside normal spacetime, where the speed of light restriction no longer applies. How this happens involves "sending hypermatter particles to hurl a ship into hyperspace while preserving the vessel's mass/energy profile." This explanation is not helpful.
The Star Trek warp drive uses antimatter/matter collisions to create a massive amount of energy, channeled through dilithium crystals, in order to create a spacetime bubble. The ship then rides this bubble all the way to the bank, never actually accelerating at all.
Fact is, Star Trek might have been onto something.
This is Miguel Alcubierre and he has some pretty strange ideas.
Miguel Alcubierre conceived of a theoretical warp drive, now known as the Alcubierre drive. Like wormholes, the Alcubierre drive is theoretically and mathematically consistent with known laws of physics.
The idea behind the drive is to avoid the relativistic problems of travelling near the speed of light while still moving "faster" than light across the universe.
Just like wormholes, the Alcubierre drive would not achieve this by actually speeding up faster than light - after all, nothing can move through spacetime faster than light speed ("c").
Instead, the Alcubierre drive cheats. The drive doesn't move the ship through spacetime.
Rather, the Alcubierre drive would move spacetime itself.
Here, you see spacetime represented as that flat sheet again.
Except you can see spacetime in the above picture is distorted, with part of it sunk down and part of it raised up.
As always with spacetime, this is a crude visualization, but it gets the point across.
The Alcubierre drive would use either negative energy or Tachyons to create a rippling, moving bubble of spacetime.
The spaceship would sit in the middle of this bubble and be carried along by the bubble. And, even though the spaceship might be carried forward on the bubble fast than the speed of light, the spaceship still shouldn't experience relativistic effects like time dilation.
Because the spaceship is not moving - spacetime is moving.
Think about it like surfing.
The surfer is the spaceship and spacetime is the ocean. The surfer could try to lay down on the board and paddle through the ocean. But, if he catches a wave, the ocean will move him along its surface faster than he could otherwise paddle.
In the context of spacetime, this means the spaceship would not be accelerating at all. **The space ship, like the surfer on top of the wave, stands still. Spacetime itself moves, and since the spaceship does not move at all, it does not experience time dilation, or the other relativistic effects.
Sounds great!
When do we leave?
Well, there are some serious, possibly insurmountable problems:
To maintain the spacetime bubble you need humongous amounts of energy. One possible source is Tachyons, but we're not even sure they exist. Another possible source is the elusive Negative Energy we mentioned last time, but we can't even make this stuff yet.
As always, there is a good chance being in the space bubble kills you dead. It's possible the incredible tidal forces at the edges of the bubble would destroy you, or the whole process might produce enough energy to fry you to smithereens.
You can't interact with anything in the bubble, because you're moving along with spacetime itself and therefore "causally disconnected."
Let me drive that home - you're moving so fast you can't interact with anything outside the bubble. The speed of light is the maximum speed for interacting in space time, and you're going faster than it.
So, there's no controlling the bubble, even if we made it. You can't steer. You can't communicate with anyone. You just turn it on, speed forward on a ripple of spacetime, and then turn it off and hope you're not vaporized and/or pointed in the wrong direction.
Which is why I return to the point I made in Piqued #1
You will never go to Alpha Centauri. But, as we'll discuss next time, perhaps your descendants might.
Next time - Super Fast Space Engines That Are Actually Plausible.
Picture Sources
[1]Trekky0623 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
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[3]By Vilnisr (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
[4]By Zid Moisey; Фото из брошюры Alcubierre M. Introduction to numeric relativity. Rev Mex Fis Supl 2007; 53 (2): 5-30 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
[5]By AllenMcC. (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or CC BY-SA 2.0 de (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/de/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons
6
[7]Skatebiker at English Wikipedia [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Informational Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive#Physics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warp_drive#Real-world_theories_and_science
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warp_drive#Real-world_theories_and_science
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White%E2%80%93Juday_warp-field_interferometer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Hyperdrive
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Warp_drive
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_energy
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There's my pop-sci blog, soon to be dealing with the conundrum of light's speed.
Piqued #2 - A Crash Course In Space Time
Piqued #3 - A Crash Course Towards The Speed Of Light
Piqued #4 - Enter The Wormhole - A Crash Course
Or some Pretty Little Ideas for your home and life
Pretty Little Ideas #1 - Framing Flower Petals
Pretty Little Ideas #2 - Art Postcard Collage
Pretty Little Ideas #3 - Making An Old Iron Planter Beautiful Again
Then there's my series about the exploration of wild mushrooms - most recently an interactive workshop to teach readers how to identify mushrooms themselves
The Amateur Mycologist #3 - How To Identify A Mushroom
The Amateur Mycologist #4 - Phallus ravenelii - Ravenelii's Stinkhorn
The Amateur Mycologist #5 - Lycoperdon perlatum - The Common Puffball
For something with more whimsy, there's my often ridiculous reviews of your favorite candies - cause why the hell not?!
The Great Peep Menace
Almond Joy Vs Mounds Blood Feud
Nerds - Teaching Children To Eat Other People's Happiness
Good N Plenty - Grossing Out Young People For Over A Century
Crunchie Bar - If You Haven't Eaten, Perhaps You Haven't Lived.
And finally a small bucket of miscellaneous material. Particularly relevant to whales is my commentary on the current state of taxation on Steem based on the most recent IRS notices.
A Taste of Travel #2 - Hassan II Mosque
25 Cent Cold Brew Coffee
NYC Bail Reform - Part 1 -Riker's Island And The Evils Of Bail