The question is then, is it possible to move a small disturbance within the spring faster than the speed of light? Also, if our spaceship is located in We know that the spaceship cannot move faster than Imagine that our spaceship is located at the center of this section. Now consider a section of spring of length L as shown in the diagram. What I am really trying to say is that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light but that this is a local phenomenon.) (This analogy is not quite correct but will suffice for our Speed of light is like saying that nothing in our spring can move faster than the speed of light relative to the spring, or more specifically, relative to certain disturbances of Saying that nothing in the universe can travel faster than the Gravity is described by the theory of General Relativity. Since you live in the spring, you will feel the effects of this stretching andīending. Of like a spring! Now, imagine that you live in the spring (you live in the universe after all). That is, space can bend and stretch and shrink ( warp!) in different ways as time passes. Why a spring? Well, General Relativity treats space (and time) as a dynamical quantity. That's right, the space you see around you and that you see when you look up at the night sky. Things such as how the universe like a spring (it's not but the spring is a good analogy).Ĭonsider an un-stretched spring as show in figure 1. However, the argument is essentially correct barring some minor musings into The argument I'm going to present is grossly simplified. Ironically, the very theory which forbids us to explore atĪrbitrary velocity may also be the one which saves us. Ok, so just putting in lots of fuel in a rocket and setting it off on its way is not such a useful way to explore the universe. The speed of light may seem fast to us but when considering traversing distances on a galactic scale, it is really quite slow (it takes light 100,000 years to cross our galaxy one way!) This curious effect is related (although it may not be obvious) to the fact that nothing with mass (like a rocket or astronaut) can be accelerated to the speed of light or beyond. Heck, enough time may have passed for us to have evolved second heads if the astronauts travel at a high enough speeds and far enough distances. May well have experienced thousands of years (or more). When the astronauts get back, human society In other words, if the trip to a distant star and back takes a few years for the astronaut, many years have passed on Earth. Travel close to the speed of light on the ship and then come back to Earth, the time which passes on the ship is much less than that which hasĮlapsed on Earth. Here also lies the crux of another problem, namely, time dilation. Of all, it would require an awful lot of fuel to accelerate the rocket to high velocities so that the trip could take place in a reasonableĪmount of time for the astronaut. Just hop on a rocket and go, right? Well, no, not really. The idea of traveling to distant stars and galaxies is, to many, quite appealing. It requires some mathematical sophistication as well as some knowledge of General Relativity and Quantum Field Theory. The second part is slightly more rigorous and mathematical. Heavily on analogies with well known systems and asks the reader toīelieve some statements without proof. This article is divided into two parts.Ī non-mathematical part accessible to all (hopefully) which relies These metrics have been studied (mainly justįor fun although they reveal some interesting properties of theįield equations) since 1994 and many of the references may be foundĪt the end of the article. Of solutions to the Einstein field equations known as the
This article describes the physics and mathematics behind a class The Physics and Mathematics of Warp Drive
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