Warp Drive— Future Of Space Travel
Travelling faster than the speed of light
When you learned for the first time that light can travel 3 lakh kilometers in just a single second, you’d have been dazzled. Just wink your eye, and light would have travelled 3 lakh kilometers. Amazing! Isn’t it?
But the next sentence would’ve made you sad, that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. What a bad luck, you’d have thought. I can completely relate. It happened to me as well. I felt being entrapped within the boundaries of space. We know there is an infinite universe out there but we can’t predict the size of the universe, even by travelling at the speed of light. Then how would we be able to traverse this infinite space without a vehicle that can run faster than the speed of light? We are doomed for eternity in this universe, just like a shape in a hologram, or a person in a picture. We can’t move out of this thing that we have termed as space. No, we can’t!
What would be outside? How would we think out of the box when we know we can’t even go beyond? How? How?…….
But the human mind never rests. Fortunately, it has developed a cast for its ponderings — Science. Science has its own way of dealing with these impossible events — it’s called relation — we relate and we arrive at a conclusion. And with the power of relating events, we have developed a theory and a vehicle that can outwit the speed of light and laws of physics. The name of the vehicle is Warp Drive.
Warp Drive
A Warp Drive is a vehicle that travels more than the speed of light by bending or distorting the shape of the space-time continuum.
Alcubierre Warp Drive
It is a version of Warp Drive that expands the space behind it and contracts the space in front of it. The spacecraft would be placed inside a warp bubble. The spacecraft at warp velocity would continue to interact with objects in our “normal space”
Warp bubble
A Warp bubble is the idea of Miguel Alcubierre’s mind, a Mexican Physicist. Within the bubble, it feels like travelling at a normal pace but when perceived from outside the bubble, the Warp drive travels faster than the speed of light. Our Warp Drive is to enclose spacetime with the help of a bubble. This bubble is the thing that would be moving at an enormous speed relative to the spacetime around it.
Solution for creating Warp Bubble — Recent Discovery
The first step in creating this complicated machine is the development of a Warp Bubble. While working for DARPA(Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), Dr. Harold Sonny White and his team had made a discovery of something called a Warp bubble. Though it was discovered accidentally, but the experiment proved to some degree the proof of Alcubierre’s proposed Warp bubble.
“To my knowledge, it’s the first paper that proposes a real nano structure which is predicted to manifest a real warp bubble” — Dr. Harold Sonny White
The so-called Warp Bubble produced by Dr. White and his team works on the principle of Casimir effect. — It involves two parallel conducting plates, energy outside the plates would be more than the energy inside the plates. Both the plates are tightly packed and are close to each other in a vacuum. Both the plates experience pressure which produces attraction. During these interactions, negative energy can be created, but on extremely small scales. The Casimir effect has been proven and tested.
Types of Warp Drive
- Mild subluminal warp drives — These are also called Class I Warp Drives.
- Mild superluminal warp drives — These are also called Class II Warp Drives
- Extreme superluminal warp drives — These are also called Class III Warp Drives
- Extreme subluminal warp drives — These are also called Class IV Warp Drives
Note: The above-mentioned classification of Warp Drives is based upon the speed inside the bubble and speed outside the bubble in relation to the speed of light. For example, in Alcuberrie Warp Drive, the individual inside the Warp Bubble is moving much less than the speed of light; on the contrary, the bubble itself is travelling at a speed much greater than the speed of light.
Why the idea of Warp drive?
The basis of the idea of Warp Drive is to cover large distances in an extremely short span of time. We know the closest star to our planet is Proxima Centauri. It is approximately 4.246 light-years away, or roughly 40 trillion km far away. The fastest ever spacecraft produced by humans is the Parker Solar Probe with a top speed of 101 miles (163 kilometers) per second or 364,621 mph. It would take the solar probe more than 7000 years to reach Earth’s nearest neighboring star and its solar system. First of all, none of us would think of travelling such far away. Even if we travelled it so far, it’ll be our 7000th generation or more, that would be witnessing Proxima Centauri, not us.
Now, let’s see, how much time would a Warp Drive take? While travelling in a Warp Drive can decrease the distance between Earth and Proxima Centauri to such an extent that it’ll land humans there in just a short span of 9 months. Can you imagine the speed at which this spacecraft would be moving?
You might be thinking the idea of a Warp drive can only be true in sci-fi movies like Star Trek, and not in reality. As there can’t be anything that can surpass the speed of light, right? But, it’s not true!
It’s true to some extent. How? — We know nothing can travel faster than the speed of light within the universe. But we are not talking about an object within a universe. Instead, we are talking about the entire universe travelling. In fact, after Big Bang, our universe expanded much faster, even faster than the speed of light.
How do we know the universe is expanding, that’s the thought going on in your mind, right? — Well, the Redshift of light from distant galaxies proved it. The Redshift of light from distant galaxies means that those galaxies are moving away in an accelerated fashion. As we know, no physical matter can travel faster than the speed of light. So, it proves it is the spacetime fabric that is moving those galaxies apart in an accelerated motion.
— Secondly, the event of the Big Bang took place approximately 14 billion years ago. And using the Big Bang event as the reference, we can calculate the universe to expand 14 billion light-years in any possible direction. But the results are different! In fact, our universe expanded much faster than the speed of light as the diameter of our universe is expected to be roughly 93 billion light-years — which is more than the calculated diameter — which itself proves to be more than the speed of light — it is practical evidence that an object can travel faster than the speed of light.
What is needed to develop a Warp drive?
A large amount of mass is needed to warp space or an equally large amount of energy can do what a large amount of mass can do — as per Einstein’s equation
E=mc²
So more mass would produce more amounts of energy. It’s estimated that the mass needed to warp space must be equivalent to a planet, a bigger planet, like Saturn or probably Jupiter. Some physicists even proposed the mass equivalent to 9% of the mass of the Sun.
Concept of negative mass
For Warp Drive, though we need mass but quite a different one — we would require “negative mass”. Negative mass is the main component in Alcubierre’s concept of Warp Drive. If you understand the concept of negative mass, you’d be able to grasp the basics of Warp Drive. Don’t worry, we’ll try to make it as simple as possible.
As we know, mass is the quantity of matter contained within a body. Then what would be negative mass? — Negative mass is simply mass with a negative sign, eg, -3 Kg. You don’t understand, right? Let’s expend a few moments to get a grip on Warp Drive.
Negative mass doesn’t exist in reality as it violates Newton’s 2nd and 3rd laws
F=ma (Newton’s second law)
When the mass is negative in the above equation, the force will also be negative. So, it’ll behave in a manner opposite to its original nature. In fact, negative mass reacts oppositely to all the forces. That is to say: When we push on negative mass it moves towards us. Similarly, once we try to pull it towards us, it drifts away from us.
Some scientists even believe that negative mass existed during the early moments of our Universe in equal amounts as there was positive mass. They further predict, if presently the positive and negative matter particles exist in Universe, they must be forming a plasma.
Discovery in the field of negative mass
A couple of years back, some researchers made a breakthrough with their calculations predicting that the existence of negative mass is possible. They further stated that negative mass can exist, but not in the solid-state as we usually think.
In the year 2017, some researchers predicted the nature of negative mass using Bose-Einstein condensate. They regarded it as the only superfluid that can be roughly equated with negative mass. This superfluid flows without losing energy. (Because the particles move extremely slow, behaving like waves. These particles follow Quantum Physics’ principles. The particles are synchronised in a unique fashion and move in union.)
Alternative to Alcubierre’s negative mass — Another Discovery
Recently, a research paper was published under the heading of “Breaking the Warp barrier”, by Dr. Eric W Lentz, a Physicist. In this paper, he talks about using positive energy instead of negative energy(or mass) for producing a Warp Bubble. He even proposes and mathematically proves travelling faster than the speed of light while using positive energy(or mass), which is totally different from Alcubierre’s negative energy(or mass). Lentz further says that the plasmas near the magnetic neutron stars may be the perfect place to look for the clue of positive-energy.
In fact, Advanced Propulsion Lab (APL) at Applied Physics are the first in the field of developing a Warp Drive. They’ve published the first model (it’s the first model in the entire world) for a physical warp drive in Classical and Quantum Gravity.
Advantages of Warp Drive
- Technological advancement: The technology of Warp Drive would lead to further exploration of space at a much faster pace ever possible
- Age problem would be solved(as was impossible to solve while travelling at the speed of light). That is to say, crew members inside the Warp Drive travelling to Proxima Centauri would age at the same rate as their family members on Earth, so they wouldn’t have the problem of returning back home to find their families dead. Time would pass the same for both the travellers in a Warp Drive and humans on earth.
- We would be able to manipulate space-time and also it gives us a chance of better understanding the universe.
Problems with the concept of Warp drive
- Spacecraft with mass(or energy) equivalent to a planet seems unrealistic
- The Cosmic effect is not similar to Warp drive effect
- Hawking radiation poses a threat to the travellers inside the Warp drive. To a traveller within the warp drive bubble, the backward resembles a black hole, while the forward walls (along with the direction of motion) now seem to look like a horizon of a white hole.
- Warp drive violates the Law of Causality.
- Warp Drive could give effect to quantum instabilities such as the production of particles near the horizon behind and in the front of the warp.
- How to return to a flat space after reaching our destination? As it could explode the material out of the Warp Bubble
- Warp drive’s idea is based upon Einstein’s principles and the idea for negative energy is based upon Quantum Physics. We need a theory that can connect both different theories. Maybe a quantum gravity theory could connect both but formulating such a theory will take time.
Imagining the movement of a Warp Drive — In visualization, the concept is compared to a surfer riding a wave. A wave carries the surfer without the surfer doing extra labor— it’s a metaphor that is frequently used to explain how a Warp Drive could travel the stars. Another example is a man reaching the destination by stepping on an escalator.
If there are unlimited opportunities in the universe, then there are limitations too. Of all the limitations, travelling faster than the speed of light is the biggest one. The human mind’s beauty is that it breaks every limitation that comes in its way. Warp Drive is the biggest solution to one of the biggest limitations. If humans can’t step out of the box, then their minds will. Who says magic doesn’t exist without taking into consideration the human mind? That day isn’t far away when humans would be present in the entire universe with the snap of their fingers. Do you hear the vroom of Warp Drive in your mind?…..
