Continuum Distortion Propulsion: Warp Drive from Star Trek

POSTED BY: ZeframCochrane
UPDATED: Friday, March 11, 2005 02:09
VIEWED: 5863
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ZEFRAMCOCHRANE

Sunday, March 6, 2005 8:40 PM

For those of you who have never understood Warp Drive, here is the explanation...

Continuum Distortion Propulsion or as it is more commonly known, warp drive, is a technology that allows space travel at faster-than-light speeds. In the simplest terms, it does this by contracting spacetime in front of the ship and expanding spacetime behind it. A starship itself rests in a bubble between the two spacetime distortions. This warped space, together with the region between it, accelerates off at "warp speed" and the vessel then essentially surfs the wave in spacetime created by this distortion. Travel at velocities exceeding the speed of light is possible in this fashion because the starship is, strictly speaking, stationary (relative to the space of its warp bubble) while spacetime itself is moving. Since spacetime itself is moving and the starship is not actually accelerating, it experiences no time dilation, allowing the passage of time inside the vessel to be the same as that outside it.

The warp engine is works by burning deuterium to create gases, which are then forced together with antimatter in the form of antihydrogen. The is mediated through an assembly of dilithium crystals, which resist antimatter bombardment when subjected to high-frequency electromagnetic fields. This reaction produces a highly energetic plasma, called electro-plasma, which is channelled by magnetic conduits through a power transfer grid. The electro-plasma is funneled to plasma injectors into a series of field coils, which are made of a substance called verterium cortenide. When this substance is energized, it causes the energy frequencies in the plasma to shift into subspace (a domain outside normal three dimensional space), generating multilayered "warp fields" that form a "subspace bubble" that envelops the starship, distorting the geometry of space and moving the starship at velocities that exceed the speed of light. These velocities are referred to as warp factors.

Warp fields are measured according to the amount of subspace stress they generate; field stresses are measured in cochranes. Fields that are below warp factor 1 are measured in units a thousands times smaller called millicochranes. A field of one cochrane or greater is often referred to as a warp field. The warp scale has been drawn up so that warp 10 is infinite velocity; in theory any vessel traveling at this speed would occupy every point in the universe at once. As a warp field approaches the stress needed to achieve this speed, the power requirements rise dramatically and the warp drive efficiency drops.

Speeds below warp 10 are plotted on an exponential curve. Thus, whereas a ship traveling at warp factor 1 is traveling at the speed of light, a ship moving at warp 2 is traveling at 10 times the speed of light, a ship flying at warp 3 is traveling at 39 times the speed of light, a ship at warp 4 is at 102 times the speed of light, warp 5 is 214 times the speed of light, warp 6 is 392 times the speed of light, warp 7 is 656 times the speed of light, warp 8 is 1,024 times the speed of light, and warp 9 is 1,516 times the speed of light. Warp 9.9 is 3,053 times the speed of light. The curve becomes extremely steep at that range, and enormous increases in speed are needed to progress from warp 9.91 to warp 9.92.

Crossing the warp barrier requires a disproportionate amount of energy. Once the warp threshold has been passed, the power needed to maintain the field lessens.

RAT

Sunday, March 6, 2005 8:59 PM

I'm confused! No wait, I think maybe you'r confused! I,m sorry what was your point?

-Ratboy

ZEFRAMCOCHRANE

Sunday, March 6, 2005 9:08 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Rat:
I'm confused! No wait, I think maybe you'r confused! I,m sorry what was your point?

-Ratboy

To explain something a lot of trekkies don't understand.

SIGMANUNKI

Sunday, March 6, 2005 10:51 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by ZeframCochrane:

...expanding spacetime behind it.

And how exactly would this help? The concern is not for what is behind the ship, it is "lessening" the distance in front of the ship.

If you want any "proof," just look at any Star Trek episode. When a ship goes to warp it stretches "forward." If it expanded space-time behind it as you conjecture, it would also stretch backward as well.

Also, this would be counterproductive as it would be a waste of energy.

Quote:
Originally posted by ZeframCochrane:

Travel at velocities exceeding the speed of light is possible in this fashion because the starship is, strictly speaking, stationary (relative to the space of its warp bubble) while spacetime itself is moving. Since spacetime itself is moving and the starship is not actually accelerating,

So then, all a warp feild does is contract space-time. How again does this make space-time move? Or the ship move? Oh wait, it doesn't, on both accounts. The only effects this would produce, is that an outside observer would see the ship stretch.

The ship does have to be moving. It's just that the warp feild makes it move a lot "faster." Or more correctly, it "shortens" the distance in front of the ship.

Quote:
Originally posted by ZeframCochrane:

it experiences no time dilation, allowing the passage of time inside the vessel to be the same as that outside it.

So then, the ship by using a warp feild now doesn't have to obey the laws of SR? Sorry, but an outside observer is still in a different frame whether you like it or not.

----
"Canada being mad at you is like Mr. Rogers throwing a brick through your window." -Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Sunday, March 6, 2005 10:54 PM

Trekkies have the best technobabble.

SAMWIBATT

Sunday, March 6, 2005 11:44 PM

Quote:
Finn mac Cumhal wrote:
Trekkies have the best technobabble.

Heh, ain't that the truth. I'm a Trek fan, though it does annoy me sometimes that the theme of the whole show seems to be "What if we built all this marvelous technology, then flew out to the middle of nowhere where none of it works?"

A lot of Trek plots are forced to acknowledge that the technology is just too powerful to allow some stories to work. So, if you need somebody stranded beyond reach of help - atmospheric interference making the transporter useless. Sigh.

JUKO

Monday, March 7, 2005 3:21 AM

Hey, give us time, we're working on all that marvelous technology.

Voilà: the cloaking device:

[url] http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/02/0228_050228_invisibili
ty.html

Does Blue Sun sponser the Blue Man Group?

REAVERMADNESS

Monday, March 7, 2005 2:59 PM

And, though not only in the Star Trek genre, force fields and thus "shields".

http://www.amasci.com/weird/unusual/e-wall.html

When I die I want to go peacefully in my sleep like my grandpa. Not screaming and yelling like everyone else in the car he was driving.

UNCHARTEDOUTLAW

Monday, March 7, 2005 3:41 PM

Honestly, I love all this talk about spacetime and screwing with it...but to travel at over 3000X the speed of light?! Come on...no good writer worth his weight can accurately deal with a federation of ships travelling at varying warps and their relative effects. That's why I like Firefly so damn much! No crazy warps, no aliens, just us and the elements.

-Taylor

The Uncharted Outlaw!
Captain of Prosperity (99-K64)

Read My Words:
http://norcalriviera.blogspot.com
See my Firefly Store (new items! 1/05): http://www.cafepress.com/NorCalRiviera

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Monday, March 7, 2005 4:25 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SamWibatt:
Quote:
Finn mac Cumhal wrote:
Trekkies have the best technobabble.

Heh, ain't that the truth. I'm a Trek fan, though it does annoy me sometimes that the theme of the whole show seems to be "What if we built all this marvelous technology, then flew out to the middle of nowhere where none of it works?"

A lot of Trek plots are forced to acknowledge that the technology is just too powerful to allow some stories to work. So, if you need somebody stranded beyond reach of help - atmospheric interference making the transporter useless. Sigh.

Like the particle of the week. A new particle emerged every time there was a new challenge to the technology, or some alien technology had to be explained. It was an easy to appear consistent with Physics while at the same time offer a concise and simple explanation.

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