Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Faster-than-light (superluminal or supercausal) travel and communication are the conjectural propagation of matter or information faster than the speed of light in vacuum (c). The special theory of relativity implies that only particles with zero rest mass (i.e., photons ) may travel at the speed of light, and that nothing may travel faster.
The Alcubierre drive ([alkuˈβjere]) is a speculative warp drive idea according to which a spacecraft could achieve apparent faster-than-light travel by contracting space in front of it and expanding space behind it, under the assumption that a configurable energy-density field lower than that of vacuum (that is, negative mass) could be created.
Physicists generally believe faster-than-light travel is impossible. Relativistic time dilation allows a traveler to experience time more slowly, the closer their speed is to the speed of light. [34] This apparent slowing becomes noticeable when velocities above 80% of the speed of light are attained.
In this, he describes the Alcubierre drive, a theoretical means of traveling faster than light that does not violate the physical principle that nothing can locally travel faster than light. In this paper, he constructed a model that might transport a volume of flat space inside a "bubble" of curved space.
A warp drive or a drive enabling space warp is a fictional superluminal (faster than the speed of light) spacecraft propulsion system in many science fiction works, most notably Star Trek, [1] and a subject of ongoing real-life physics research.
If the near-light-speed space craft is interacting with matter that is moving slowly in the planetary reference frame, this will cause drag which will bleed off a portion of the engine's acceleration. A second big issue facing ships using constant acceleration for interstellar travel is colliding with matter and radiation while en route.
It is not known how these stones operate, but the technology explained in the show usually revolves around wormholes for instant teleportation, faster-than-light, space-warping travel, and sometimes around quantum multiverses. In Robert A. Heinlein's Time for the Stars, twin telepathy was used to maintain communication with a distant spaceship.
For others, however, it is just a convenient MacGuffin enabling faster-than-light travel necessary for their story without violating the prohibitions against FTL travel in ordinary space imposed by known laws of physics. [9]: 74–76 [4] [7]: 72–73 [1]: 404 [10]