Skip to main content

Realistic Warp Drive (well, sort of...)

 (image by author)

NASA's Dr. Harold White in a paper last year argued that warp drive is realistically possible in terms of the energy requirements to bend space. How a warp drive would work  would be to expand space behind the craft while contracting it in front of the craft (just as imagined in Star Trek). Expansion behind and contraction before would in effect "push" the craft forward.

Well, it would create a bubble of space (and time) that would surround the craft and push that forward...the craft within the bubble would never exceed the speed of light and according to the best theoretical knowledge of physics, there is no limit to the speed at which space can be bent--er, "warped"--so this changing of the shape of space could create an effect that would make a vessel travel as if it were going faster than the speed of light. Note that this "warp speed" acceleration would not produce actual inertia, so Jean-Luc Piccard saying "engage" would not cause the crew to splatter against the far wall without some kind of inertial compensation (unlike how I previously discussed this topic in my post on Gravity and Starships)...

The equations based on the best understanding of the nature of space are well understood and a number of them are referenced in Dr. White's paper. The energy requirements are huge, but far less than what were thought necessary when this concept was first discussed by physicist Miguel Alcubierre in 1994 (this thesis ideas are covered in this link). The energy is in fact comparable to the energy requirements for a realistic trip in normal space (see my discussion of Project Valkerie in my Nanite Space Weapons post).

One major drawback would be that this bubble of normal space would tend to pick up particles of normal matter as it travelled along. Then once you shut down the warp drive, those regular pieces of matter--most of them would be small particles--suddenly continue on moving with the inertia they had when you picked them up...and space is full of very fast moving particles.  It would create in effect an enormous blast of high moving particles, most likely going every direction. Very dangerous for your ship...and whatever planet you happened to be visiting.

Though that's not necessarily so bad...if there were a way to direct these particles, the system could serve as a weapon. Drop out of warp drive and BOOM--no photon torpedos required. But if there were no way to direct them, that would mean you'd simply have to shut down the warp field on a regular basis to let them dissipate (hey, it would still be a lot faster than hitchhiking :).

So the Warp Drive I used to make fun of as silly mumbo jumbo turns out to be not so unrealistic after all...except for one minor detail...well, not so minor. It turns out to create the warp field in the first place you have to generate something called "Negative Energy Density." Which, while some physicists believe perhaps could exist, negative energy density has never really been observed to exist in a way that anyone even in the greatest leap of imagination could reliably generate...sort of a problem, right?

Anyway, this should by no means impair a science fiction writer's work. Just craft the tale with this itty bitty little problem (well, immensely huge problem really) already solved and you're good to go...

Oh, by the way, "negative energy density" is related to something you could call "antigravity," which, if it existed, would be some really weird and certainly story-worthy stuff. But I'll cover that next time...

ttp

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

7 Ways to Deal with the Problem Magic Poses Christian Fantasy Writers

First off, what is the problem with magic for Christians? Or sorcery? Or witchcraft? (Are all of those things even the same?) An entire book could be written on this topic (perhaps I'll do that someday) but to keep this as brief as possible, the short reason this is a problem is the Bible has nothing good to say about the practice of magic (neither does extra-Biblical Christian tradition). No translation of Scripture will record the 12 Disciples watching Jesus walk on the water and say, "Wow, that was magical!" Nor is the mana falling from heaven in Israel's wilderness wanderings described as some kind of powerful spell that Moses used, nor even is his rod described as "magic," even though Moses had the power granted to him by God to turn it into a serpent at whatever time he chose. No, the Bible describes events like these as "miracles," or "signs," or "wonders." On the other hand, when the Bible talks about "mag
17 comments
Read more

Speculative Fiction Writer’s Guide to War, part 19: War Costs: Soldiers’ Pay

The Travis’ are back with another installment of our series on Warfare. We’ve been analyzing a writer’s perspective on calculating the cost of war, developing some tools and thumbrules you might start with when calculating the cost of war in your story, and seeing how this mundane task can yield helpful ideas for your writing. At the very least, your effort to make your warfare come across as thoughtful and realistic (by your story world’s gauge of consistency) will be appreciated by the discerning uber-fans your serving.  Travis C here. Last time we left off with a detailed approach to calculating how much food both human and non-human fighters might consume and began a illustration using those calculations to gauge the financial impact of war in a fictional world. Our purpose wasn’t to delve into all possible fine details, but to give you an example where doing a bit of math can provide some values for you to work from. This week we’re going to dive into another significant expenditu
Post a Comment
Read more

Nanite Infested Aliens

Inspired by the history of Europeans coming to the New World carrying bacteria to which the native inhabitants had little to no immunity, I thought: "What if aliens visiting Earth carried their own sort of infection or infestation, to which we humans had no immunity?" Sort of a War of the Worlds scenario in reverse... But I'm sure that sort of thing has already been done by someone, aliens carrying virulent disease(s) humans don't carry. So what if the infestation were of nanites--what  if nanites become a standard part of healthcare for any advanced technological species? (Just as hand washing and sterilization of medical instruments become standard at a certain point of development--once bacteria are discovered and found to be potentially harmful.) So that nanites are literally crawling all over (and inside) the bodies of high-tech aliens (or perhaps time travelers from Earth's distant future). What if these nanites potentially posed a risk to the human race?
Post a Comment
Read more