Huge energy demands and insurmountable engineering problems haven’t stopped people theorizing that real “Warp Drives†might be possible. However, ‘New Scientist’ has reported that a Portuguese mathematician has proved it could never work.
Although Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity says nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, Mexican mathematician found a way around the problem in 1994. He showed that a bubble with walls made of negative energy would distort space around it. If such a bubble was made to contract the space in front of it, and expand the space behind it, it could be propelled forward at any speed, even FTL.
Unfortunately, Joe Natario of Lisbon’s Higher Institute of Technology has thrown a spanner in the Dilithium crystal matrix. Space travellers inside since such a bubble, moving FTL, would see light from ahead Doppler shifted to bright blue, while behind they would see nothing as light could not keep up with them.
In order to control the direction and speed of the bubble they would need to send signals to it, but signals sent forward would be overtaken, producing a “horizon†or barrier, beyond with they could never communicate. This horizon would actually cut the wall of the bubble in two. Not only could they not steer or stop, but also they would be unable to generate it in the first place.
However, Michael Pfenning of the University of York thinks that light may not behave in the same way as Natario and is still working on the problem. He also thinks that people outside the bubble could control the bubble walls instead. This would be something like the ‘Soliton Wave’ seen in “New Ground†TNG. But just as the Soliton wave produced a shock wave that damaged the Enterprise, light emitted by the travellers might build up on the horizon, squashed to an infinitely thin density.
Even if these bubbles could not travel FTL, they might be used to travel just below the speed of light, too slow to compete with a Starfleet vessel, but fast enough for us to reach neighbouring star systems in decades rather than lifetimes.
Although Albert Einstein’s special theory of relativity says nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, Mexican mathematician found a way around the problem in 1994. He showed that a bubble with walls made of negative energy would distort space around it. If such a bubble was made to contract the space in front of it, and expand the space behind it, it could be propelled forward at any speed, even FTL.
Unfortunately, Joe Natario of Lisbon’s Higher Institute of Technology has thrown a spanner in the Dilithium crystal matrix. Space travellers inside since such a bubble, moving FTL, would see light from ahead Doppler shifted to bright blue, while behind they would see nothing as light could not keep up with them.
In order to control the direction and speed of the bubble they would need to send signals to it, but signals sent forward would be overtaken, producing a “horizon†or barrier, beyond with they could never communicate. This horizon would actually cut the wall of the bubble in two. Not only could they not steer or stop, but also they would be unable to generate it in the first place.
However, Michael Pfenning of the University of York thinks that light may not behave in the same way as Natario and is still working on the problem. He also thinks that people outside the bubble could control the bubble walls instead. This would be something like the ‘Soliton Wave’ seen in “New Ground†TNG. But just as the Soliton wave produced a shock wave that damaged the Enterprise, light emitted by the travellers might build up on the horizon, squashed to an infinitely thin density.
Even if these bubbles could not travel FTL, they might be used to travel just below the speed of light, too slow to compete with a Starfleet vessel, but fast enough for us to reach neighbouring star systems in decades rather than lifetimes.
