Most journeys then would be well over half a human life time for a return trip. I mean, the speed of light is all well and good but it would still take 4 years to reach the nearest star system. Whilst not directly related to the topic in hand, I think the first thing that we need to determine is exactly how fast a propulsion system would need to be to make interstellar exploration, exploitation and colonisation a feasible reality. And the particles that do have mass end up creating a standard (but weak) gravitational field. None of which can warp space in the required manner. There are 12 particles that make up protons, neutrons, and electrons. There is something called a "warp particle" that can supposedly do this job, but no such particle exists. On top of that, it is impossible to achieve a negative mass for the corresponding negative gravity that's supposed to be behind the ship.
And it would take the mass of a black hole at the front of the ship with the ship physically attached to the black hole in order to get such a gravitational field. Now, how do they propose to warp space? You can't do it with magnets because magnetic and gravitational forces work independently of each other. However, it logically follows that if time stops in your reference frame, then you cannot do anything. And depending on ones beliefs, time may or may not go backwards in your reference frame if you exceed the speed of light. When you reach the speed of light, time stops in your reference frame. So, you've got a bunch of gravity in front of the ship pulling on the ship, and a bunch of "negative" gravity behind the ship pushing on the ship.īut there's another problem. In front of the ship the bend is equivalent to that of a gravity well, while behind the ship, the bend is equivalent to an inverted gravity well. Now Star Trek has something called a warp drive which bends the fabric of space. To put it into scientific notation, that's 4.0 * 10^31 Jules to propel this 1 gram object to 1/10 the speed of light. But that's also how much mass the object would have at 1/10 the speed of light.
That's how much energy the object would have traveling at 1/10 the speed of light. Actually, it may be the case that both formulas are required. Where m = the mass of the object and v = the velocity of the object. There's another formula to calculate how much energy is required to propel something to such high speeds. Well, for starters, I'm sure you're aware of the formula E=mc^2. (I think these calculations are correct, please correct me if I'm wrong.) It is logically and mathematically absurd! But how realistic is it that one can even achieve 0.1 c? You cannot go from a state of finity to a state of infinity and you cannot go from a state of infinity to a state of finity. Warp 10 = 1,000 c (actually, supposedly infinite speeds)įirst off, infinity is impossible to achieve.