What! You may be thinking, how could any object with mass travel at the speed of light? It is illegal according to the laws of physics and Einstein’s relativity theory. Well, the truth is, as per the current standards, we are nowhere near creating devices that could travel close to the speed of light, let alone exceed it. However, science fiction concepts have helped us to widen the horizons of our thinking and bend a few stubborn physics laws by bending the fabric of space and propel forward.
Warp drives are so fast that they could travel several thousand times the speed of light. With the galaxy’s diameter being 100,000 light-years, it would take you 100,000 years to travel through the entire galaxyif you traveled at the speed of light. At the speed of light, it would take you 17 hours to reach the edge of interstellar space. With warp drives, you can bring down that travel time to under 10 minutes.
Understanding Light Speed Travel
According to Einstein’s theory of relativity, the speed of light in a vacuum has a constant velocity of 186,282 m/s. If you travel at this speed, you can circle the Earth seven and a half times in just one second. However, if you travel fast enough, you can leap forwards in time to the point that time will tick slowly for you. Let’s assume that you leave the Earth at the speed of light and return back in ten years. You will find that you would have aged ten years whereas your loved ones would have passed away; this is because you would have landed 100 years later in Earth time.
Let’s say that you observe the closest galaxy, Andromeda from Earth; you would see it how it was 2.5 million years ago. This is because light from that galaxy would take nearly 2.5 million years to reach us.
What are Warp Drives?
Warp Drives are spaceships that travel through space by bending the fabric of space to create a bridge across and unbend it back as they move forward. With conventional space crafts, you need a lot of fuel to exit the atmosphere and reach space. Let’s assume that you build the fastest ever spacecraft; it would take a large amount of fuel to reach space and way more to reach the end of the solar system. Assuming that you find a way to recycle fuel and reuse it to propel the spacecraft, it would take you nearly 20,000 years to reach Proxima Centauri, the closest star to Earth, which is four light-years away.
If we are looking to travel to other stars within our lifetimes, traveling faster than the speed of light is the only choice. In 1994, Miguel Alcubierre proposed a mathematical theory that could break through the speed-of-light barrier. He used two points in space-time to demonstrate the expansion and contraction of space fabric, known as the space-time warp. It is the concept of shifting space around an object to arrive faster than light. With this theory, we could use the space-time warp to travel faster than the speed of light.
Bending Einstein’s Theory of Relativity through the Warp Bubble
According to Einstein’s theory of relativity, an object of mass cannot travel at the speed of light in a vacuum. It states that if an object reaches any speed close to the speed of light, then it would disintegrate. However, with the concept of warp speed and space-time warp, when the fabric of space is expanded and contracted, it creates a void known as the warp bubble.
Instead of going faster than light, the spaceship will remain stationary at a time where the space in front of it is moving faster than it. The ship would ride a supersonic wave without exceeding the speed of light. This is because the ship would remain in the warp bubble, which is a stationary point with the compression and expansion of space-time fabric, making the bubble move faster than light.
Limitations of Warp Drive
- Scientists have postulated that this warp drive would require negative energy or exotic matter. This makes it impossible to achieve under the current laws of thermodynamics and energy.
- The energy released by a warp drive would be strong enough to rip apart nearby planets or even trigger the formation of a black hole.
Dr Eric Lentz, a researcher at Germany’s university, found gaps in previous warp drive studies. He said that there were yet to be explored configurations of space-time curvature organized into solitons. These solitons can resolve the limitations of warp drives by remaining physically viable. Lentz believes that there is a way to permit super-fast travel through a series of solitons that could provide the basis for a powerful propulsion system. In theory, these solitons could maintain their shape and move at a constant velocity by harnessing positive energy that can enable travel at any speed.
Conclusion
There were several other hypotheses and theories proposed to explain the problem of faster than light travel in the past. However, none of them can be implemented in the near future due to our current technological limitations and understanding of different propulsions and thermodynamic laws. Who knows, maybe the discovery of wormholes or creating them could make faster than light travel a walk in the park.
Space Age 