Star Trek's warp drive might become a reality. How our dream of exploring the stars might actually someday come true. “We are what we are, and we’re doing the best we can. It is not for you to set the standards by which we should be judged.” -Captain Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation Most of us alive today have never known a world where human spaceflight didn’t exist. Yet before we walked on the Moon, had an International Space Station, sent spacecraft to all the planets and even out of the Solar System, we had Star Trek, which brought even bigger dreams into the public consciousness. Instead of rocket fuel, our ships were powered by antimatter technology.
Powered by antimatter technology, a warp drive rocket would not only get arbitrarily close to the speed of light, but could exceed it many times over thanks to bending the fabric of space itself. Since even before the inception of Star Trek, the need to defeat the speed of light seems to be a necessity for human space exploration. This post first appeared at Forbes. Alcubierre drive. Hypothetical FTL transportation by warping space Objects cannot accelerate to the speed of light within normal spacetime; instead, the Alcubierre drive shifts space around an object so that the object would arrive at its destination more quickly than light would in normal space without breaking any physical laws.[3] Although the metric proposed by Alcubierre is consistent with the Einstein field equations, construction of such a drive is not necessarily possible.
The proposed mechanism of the Alcubierre drive implies a negative energy density and therefore requires exotic matter or manipulation of dark energy.[4] If exotic matter with the correct properties cannot exist, then the drive cannot be constructed. At the close of his original article,[5] however, Alcubierre argued (following an argument developed by physicists analyzing traversable wormholes[6][7]) that the Casimir vacuum between parallel plates could fulfill the negative-energy requirement for the Alcubierre drive. where.
Einstein field equations. Field-equations in general relativity In the general theory of relativity, the Einstein field equations (EFE; also known as Einstein's equations) relate the geometry of spacetime to the distribution of matter within it.[1] The equations were published by Albert Einstein in 1915 in the form of a tensor equation[2] which related the local spacetime curvature (expressed by the Einstein tensor) with the local energy, momentum and stress within that spacetime (expressed by the stress–energy tensor). As well as implying local energy–momentum conservation, the EFE reduce to Newton's law of gravitation in the limit of a weak gravitational field and velocities that are much less than the speed of light.[4] Exact solutions for the EFE can only be found under simplifying assumptions such as symmetry.
Mathematical form[edit] The Einstein field equations (EFE) may be written in the form:[5][1] where is the Einstein tensor, is the stress–energy tensor, is the cosmological constant and Sign convention[edit] So. Miguel Alcubierre. Miguel Alcubierre Moya (born March 28, 1964 in Mexico City) is a Mexican theoretical physicist.[1] Alcubierre is known for the proposed Alcubierre drive, a speculative warp drive by which a spacecraft could achieve faster-than-light travel. Personal life[edit] Alcubierre was born in Mexico City in 1964. He is married to María Emilia Beyer, who is the mother of the youngest of his 4 children.[2] Academic life[edit] Alcubierre obtained a Licentiate degree in physics in 1988 and a MSc degree in theoretical physics in 1990, both at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. On June 11th 2012, Alcubierre was appointed Director of the Nuclear Sciences Institute at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
On June 14th 2016, after a very successful four-year term as Director of the Nuclear Sciences Institute at UNAM, Miguel Alcubierre was re-elected by the Governing Board of UNAM as Director of the Nuclear Sciences Institute for another four-year period. May 1994 paper[edit] Faster-than-light. Propagation of information or matter faster than the speed of light Faster-than-light (also FTL, superluminal or supercausal) travel and communication are the conjectural propagation of matter or information faster than the speed of light (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.
As of the 21st century, according to current scientific theories, matter is required to travel at slower-than-light (also STL or subluminal) speed with respect to the locally distorted spacetime region. Apparent FTL is not excluded by general relativity; however, any apparent FTL physical plausibility is currently speculative. Superluminal travel of non-information[edit] Neither of these phenomena violates special relativity or creates problems with causality, and thus neither qualifies as FTL as described here. Daily sky motion[edit] Light spots and shadows[edit] Closing speeds[edit] Negative mass. Concept in physical models In theoretical physics, negative mass is a hypothetical type of exotic matter whose mass is of opposite sign to the mass of normal matter, e.g. −1 kg.[1][2] Such matter would violate one or more energy conditions and exhibit strange properties such as the oppositely oriented acceleration for an applied force orientation.
It is used in certain speculative hypothetical technologies, such as time travel to the past and future,[3] construction of traversable artificial wormholes, which may also allow for time travel, Krasnikov tubes, the Alcubierre drive, and potentially other types of faster-than-light warp drives. Currently, the closest known real representative of such exotic matter is a region of negative pressure density produced by the Casimir effect. In cosmology[edit] In general relativity[edit] Negative mass is any region of space in which for some observers the mass density is measured to be negative.
Inertial versus gravitational mass[edit] . . And where . Numerical relativity. Sub-area of scientific computing for solving General Relativity equations Numerical relativity is one of the branches of general relativity that uses numerical methods and algorithms to solve and analyze problems. To this end, supercomputers are often employed to study black holes, gravitational waves, neutron stars and many other phenomena governed by Einstein's theory of general relativity. A currently active field of research in numerical relativity is the simulation of relativistic binaries and their associated gravitational waves.
Overview[edit] A primary goal of numerical relativity is to study spacetimes whose exact form is not known. The spacetimes so found computationally can either be fully dynamical, stationary or static and may contain matter fields or vacuum. In the case of stationary and static solutions, numerical methods may also be used to study the stability of the equilibrium spacetimes. History[edit] Foundations in theory[edit] Early results[edit] Excision[edit]