The idea of a warp trail that takes us to large areas of space faster than the speed of light has long fascinated scientists and SF fans. Although we are still a long way from jumping over any universal speed limits, this does not mean that we will never ride on distorted space-time waves.
Now, a group of physicists have made the first proposal for a physical warp unit, based on a concept conceived in the 1990s. And I say it shouldn’t break any of the laws of physics.
Theoretically speaking, warp units bend and change the shape of space-time to exaggerate the differences in time and distance which, in certain circumstances, could see travelers moving distances faster than the speed of light.
One of these circumstances was outlined more than a quarter of a century ago by the Mexican theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre. His idea, proposed in 1994, was that a spaCecraft powered by something called the “Alcubierre unit” could make this journey faster than light. The problem is that it requires a lot of negative energy in one place, something that is simply not possible according to existing physics.
But the new study has an alternative solution. According to researchers from the independent research group Applied Physics based in New York, it is possible to give up the fiction of negative energy and continue to make a warp unit, although one that is a little slower than we would like.
“We went in a different direction from NASA and others, and our research has shown that there are actually a few other classes of warp impulses in general relativity,” says astrophysicist Alexey Bobrick of Lund University in Sweden.
“In particular, we have formulated new classes of warp training solutions that do not require negative energy and thus become physical.”
Why is negative energy so high? The need for negative energy surrounds some of the problems of general relativity of travel faster than light, allowing space to expand and contract faster than light, while keeping everything in its distortion within universal speed limits.
Unfortunately, it introduces several problems of its own – first of all that the negative energy we would need exists only in fluctuations on a quantum scale. Until we can find a way to get a mass the size of the Sun, this type of unity is not possible.
The new research is based on this – according to the newspaper, no negative energy would be required, but it would be an extremely strong gravitational field. Gravity would make it difficult to lift the space-time bend, so that the passage of time inside and outside the warp drive machine would be significantly different.
However, you will not be able to book tickets yet – the amount of mass needed to produce a visible gravitational effect on space-time would be at least the size of the planet and there are still many questions to be answered.
“If we take the mass of the entire planet Earth and compress it into a shell 10 meters in size, then the correction of time inside is still very small, only about an extra hour a year,” Bobrick said. The new scientist.
Another interesting finding in the research concerns the shape of the warp unit: a wider and taller ship will need less energy than a long, thin one. Think of a board held in an upright position thrown on the face of a wall and you have an idea of the optimal form of warp entrainment.
Although the reality of the journey to distant stars and planets is still far away, the new study is the latest addition to a growing body of research, which suggests that the principles of warp units are scientifically sound.
Researchers admit that they are still not sure exactly how to put together the technology they described in their work, but at least more numbers are now being collected. I am confident that far into the future, the warp impulse will become a reality.
“Although we still can’t break the speed of light, it doesn’t need to become an interstellar species,” says Gianni Martire, one of the scientists in the Applied Physics group behind the new study. “Our research on the impulse of warp has the potential to unite us all.”
The research was published in Classical and quantum gravity.