New theories speculate how Star Trek’s warp drive might one day happen

Pink purple blue light trail running, flight through the space.

(NewsNation) – As we wonder what life from „outside” might look like here on Earth, scientists see a companion to that question: How do we Earthlings „travel outside?”

A team of scientists has written software to help others find ways to reconcile the science fiction of Star Trek’s warp drive propulsion system with the facts of physics as we know it.

International Federation of Science and Engineering Applied Physics A recently released software toolkit called “Warp Factory” enables users to analyze their warp drive theories.

„Physicists can now create and refine an array of warp drive designs in just a few clicks, allowing science to advance at warp speed,” said Gianni Martire, CEO of Applied Physics. In a news release. „The Warp Factory serves as a virtual wind tunnel to test and evaluate different war designs. Science fiction is now closer to science fact,” he added.

For decades, scientists have published theoretical and speculative papers based on the idea that Star Trek’s spacetime-folding warp bubbles might occur. It was originally formulated mathematically by a Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre In 1994.

His idea for a spacecraft traveling faster than the speed of light is this: shrink space-time in front of the craft and expand space-time behind the craft — creating what’s called a „warp bubble.”

„With a purely local expansion of space-time behind the spacecraft and an opposite contraction ahead of it, motion faster than the speed of light seen by observers outside the disturbed region is possible,” Alcubierre wrote.

The big roadblock in Alcubierre’s theory is that it requires negative energy. But there is currently no technology that can create a space with less than zero energy.

But that’s us. Earthlings, that is. The rest of the universe may be another matter. One theory is that if warp bubbles are present, they collapse. And those collapsing bubbles may emit gravitational waves that our technology can detect. If we find such a phenomenon, it could be evidence that some advanced civilization has mastered the technology.