Goal: To learn about the science behind warp drive Objectives: To learn what is warp drive To learn what we need to be able to do to get warp drive To learn about the problems with warp drive Energy, how do we produce it?

Some quotes Spock: Ahh, Mr. Scott, I understand you’re having difficulty with the warp drive. How much time do you require for repair? Scotty: There’s nothing wrong with the bloody thing! Spock: Mr. Scott, if we return to space dock, the assassins will surely find a way to dispose of their incriminating footwear, and we will never see the captain, or Dr. McCoy, alive again. Scotty: Could take weeks, sir! -Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

What is warp drive It turns out there are actually two possible answers for this. For the first we need to quickly examine M-theory

11 dimensional universe What are they? Imaginary time? Imaginary spatial? Spatial dimensions extremely large or extremely small Others we cannot imagine

Bend “space” What happens if we bend one of the 7 dimensions we don’t know about. Then we travel in that dimension as a short cut. This would be sub-space

Advantages Eliminates that pesky energy requirement for traveling – you can go slow No time distortion because you are not warping a normal space dimension and therefore don’t warp normal time Maybe warp imaginary time, but who cares about that.

Disadvantages Might not be possible, we don’t know yet. You basically have to create a wormhole.

To be usable We would have to be able to move in other dimensions without creating a wormhole. Or, instead of subspace we travel through sub-time That would allow through space without traveling through time as well Need gamma to be less than 1 (imaginary velocities?)

Second method This one is more likely the one they are attempting on Star Trek. We have seen that we can warp space. This is fact, called Alcubierre warp drive Alcubierre, M., (Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, Univ. of Wales, College of Cardiff CF1 3YB, UK), "The warp drive: hyper-fast travel within general relativity", In Classical and Quantum Gravity, Vol 11, p. L73-L77, (1994).

So, we need To warp space without warping time. So, we need to have a net effect such that the net warping is zero. Therefore what we do is compact space in front of us and expand it behind us.

Furthermore The more you warp it the faster you get to your destination (thus the warp factor). No cleanup, no mess, no wormhole

To be usable Use of a ring of negative mass energy material. Inside ring has to be equal positive energy mass.

But what is the catch? Lots of energy Even more than relativity needed Could be dangerous close to any object

Energy The biggest issue we face in space exploration is energy. How do we generate the power required to do what we want? Two ways to do this.

Fusion Fusion is a very difficult process. Only possible in the sun due to quantum tunneling We humans have to overcome by overdoing the energy.

Method 2: antimatter The most efficient way to produce energy in the universe – pound for pound – is to collide antimatter with normal matter. E = mc2 A small amount of material can generate lots of power.

If we switched to antimatter: USA uses 1020 J of energy a year. 1500 kg a year of antimatter.

Why don’t we? Insanely expensive (money and energy wise) to produce. $62.5 trillion per gram currently

Conclusion Warp drive is possible. Might not be feasible, realistic, or even the best choice, but possible. However, once again the problem is energy.