Hopping from one star system to another with the thrust of a spacecraft’s warp drive throttle is a Star-Trek-inspired sci-fi fantasy that is just a figment of imagination that lives in the minds of some.
Interestingly, such a technology is pondered by some (mad?) physicists, hoping to one day invent a spacecraft capable of taking humans on interstellar voyages faster than the speed of light.
Achieving movement at superluminal speed is theoretically possible – with heaps of extremely exotic or theoretical materials and unimaginable amounts of energy. Many have attempted to design a feasible warp-drive unit, but none have ever made it past paper. However, a research team from the Limitless Space Institute, funded by the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (responsible for the invention of the internet, GPS and mRNA technology) and led by NASA Engineer Dr Harold White, may be a game-changer – they recently reported a concrete proof of concept of a warp bubble (more on that later).
But first, what is a warp drive?
Einstein, revisited.
Before taking a drive down warp lane, let’s go back to the basics. Einstein’s laws of general and special relativity state that:
- The speed limit within the confines of the Universe is 299,792,458 metres per second.
- If you’re able to reach the speed of light, the passage of time will change relative to an observer. Or in more digestible terms, the faster you move, the slower you age compared to others moving at a much slower speed. Mind-boggling stuff. If you’ve seen “Interstellar” you might recall that Matthew McConaughey’s Cooper barely aged as he reached Miller’s planet.
- Space and time are weaved together in a cosmic fabric called space-time, which bends and flows around mass. Gravity then provides a description of the dynamic interaction between matter and space-time.
In 1994, Mexican theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre, while working on his doctoral thesis based on the theory of relativity, discovered an apparent loophole in the theory which could bring about “space warps”.
Briefly, the loophole allows one to travel arbitrarily extreme distances in relatively short times without ever locally breaking the limit of the speed of light. This is akin to deforming the fabric of space-time – compressing the space in front of the traveller while expanding the space behind it.
“Imagine walking on a passenger conveyor belt at the airport. Then imagine that the floor behind you is created out of nothing and in front of you it is being destroyed, so you move along,” Alcubierre said, during a lecture.
This way, a spacecraft on the warp drive, created by crunching and smoothing out the fabric of space-time, could travel immense distances faster than the speed of light. But of course, there’s a catch. To warp a distance of merely 100 metres, you’ll require the energy derived from the ENTIRE visible universe. Mission impossible?
A bubble in space and time.
Another blow to the theory also lies in the fact that the warp bubble – the entity that encapsulates the spacecraft moving on the warp drive – must be enrobed in some form of negative energy, which radiates a kind of antigravity.
But Dr White’s latest published findings show that they might be able to do away with this limitation altogether when creating a warp bubble. His research team investigated the application of the Casimir effect – an attractive force between two parallel, uncharged and conductive plates, due to quantum fluctuations in a vacuum.
The researchers based their work on the idea that electromagnetic waves can flow continuously through a vacuum, but only very small waves can fit between the two plates. Because of this, the total vacuum energy between the plates becomes lower than the external environment, causing them to be attracted to each other. And it is during these interactions that negative energy can be generated, albeit extremely minuscule.
Serendipitous scientific discovery.
This discovery came in serendipitously while Dr White and his colleagues were carrying out research on “Casimir cavities” for a DARPA-related project. (Casimir cavities are unique, micro-scale structures with all types of promising applications. You can read more about it here.)
During their detailed numerical analysis of custom Casimir cavities, the team coincidentally stumbled upon a real and reproducible nano/micro-structure that is predicted to generate a negative vacuum energy density. In other words, the negative vacuum could potentially manifest an actual nanoscale warp bubble – though still too minuscule that any technological application seems absurd.
Moving forward, Dr White said that “a toy model consisting of a 1-micron diameter sphere centrally located in a 4-micron diameter cylinder” could be used to explore the nano-scale warp craft design.
While the research team has yet to plan the experiment as they are laser-focussed on other research efforts, it’s interesting to see that physicists are starting to move towards the ultimate goal of building a warp-capable spacecraft. Sci-fi may one day become science reality.
Next on… The infinite improbability drive…
