Is superluminal travel really coming? The first curvature bubble has been discovered, and there is hope for warp drive research

The speed bottleneck limits the pace of human exploration of space. Scientists have been struggling to find a way to break through this bottleneck, and the warp engine is one of the solutions. Since this aerospace technology was proposed in the last century, research progress has been very slow and it has remained in the science fiction stage. Some people even think that this is just a dream that will never be realized.

But just a few days ago, a piece of news suddenly shocked the world: Dr. Harold G. White, a pioneer of warp drive and former chief expert of NASA's warp drive, reported the discovery of the world's first "warp bubble", which will have a significant impact on future research on warp engines.

So what is a warp engine and what is the current research progress? Let us learn about it together.

Einstein set a speed bottleneck

Einstein's theory of relativity has made a major breakthrough in human understanding of nature, thus promoting the great strides forward of human science and technology civilization. But on the other hand, he proposed the theory of the speed limit of light, that is, the speed of any material in the universe cannot reach the speed of light, let alone exceed the speed of light. This has set a speed bottleneck for human spaceflight, seriously restricting the dream of human deep space travel.

The universe is so vast that it is beyond people's imagination. The solar system is just a tiny part of the vast universe, but its gravitational radius is 1 light-year. 1 light-year is the length of time it takes light to travel in one year, which is about 9.46 trillion kilometers. Even if human spacecrafts in the future approach the speed of light, it will take more than one year to fly out of the solar system.

At present, the speed of human space flight has only reached a dozen kilometers per second. The farthest unmanned probe, Voyager 1, has a speed of about 17 kilometers per second. It has flown for more than 40 years and has only flown for more than 23 billion kilometers, less than 1/400 of a light year. It will take more than 17,000 years to fly out of the solar system.

The diameter of the Milky Way is about 200,000 light years, there are trillions of galaxies in the universe, and the observable radius of the universe is about 46.5 billion light years. Even if a spacecraft reaches the speed of light, it will take more than 100,000 years to fly out of the Milky Way, and millions or even billions of years to reach other galaxies. From this point of view, it is unthinkable for humans to travel in the universe.

Fortunately, Einstein closed a door and opened two windows.

The core theory of Einstein's general theory of relativity is the theory of gravitational field, which has opened two other windows for humans to break through the speed bottleneck: one is wormhole travel, and the other is space-time folding. If humans can really understand the mysteries of these two fields and master their tricks, it will be no problem for humans to go out of the solar system and into deep space in the future.

Because whether it is wormhole crossing or space-time folding, in theory, it is possible to cross space and time and reach the destination many times faster than the speed of light, and these two methods do not violate the speed limit of light, so they are not subject to the speed limit of light, and will not cause serious time dilation effects caused by speed.

Because these two methods do not actually increase the speed, but are shortcuts and shrinking the earth. Wormhole travel is like a train passing through a tunnel, passing through a very short tunnel to reach a very distant destination; space-time folding is to fold space-time like a piece of paper, so there is no need to walk across the entire paper, but to cross from one edge of the paper to the other side in one step.

Today we will only talk about warp speed

The so-called warp speed travel is to use the principle of space-time folding to allow the spacecraft to travel in compressed space-time. Simply put, it is to use the warp engine to quickly bend and shrink the space in front of the spacecraft, and quickly bend and expand the space behind it, just like blowing up a balloon from behind to push the spacecraft forward, and the spacecraft moves forward at sub-light speed in this created space-time balloon (space-time bubble).

Although the spacecraft does not exceed the speed of light, because time and space are compressed, it becomes a leap-forward movement, reaching the destination many times faster than the actual flight speed.

This may seem a bit confusing, so let's use a simple analogy: Beijing to New York is 15,000 kilometers away, and if an airplane flies at a speed of 1,000 kilometers per hour, it will take 15 hours to arrive. But if a warp engine is used to compress the time and space between Beijing and New York to only 1 kilometer, the airplane will arrive in warp space in just 3.7 seconds, even though the speed has not increased.

Warp spacecraft in science fiction

The most common scientific core of the American film and television "Star Trek" is the warp spacecraft. There are many warp spacecraft in the film, and the warp speed is divided into 0~10 levels. The higher the level, the faster the speed. The warp speed level speed in the film and television is not a simple order of magnitude increase, but a complex calculation formula (see the figure above). Curvature level 1 reaches 1c (the speed of light), and level 9 reaches 1516.4c. The fastest starship reaches a curvature of 9.99 and a speed of 7912c.

Theoretically, level 10 is the ceiling of curvature, which cannot be reached. Because level 10 represents infinite speed, the spacecraft can appear anywhere in the universe at any time, and even in science fiction, such a spacecraft cannot be built. According to the formula, when the curvature reaches level 9.9999, the speed will reach a terrifying 199516c.

However, even if the curvature reaches 9.9999, it will still take 12.73 years to fly to the Andromeda Galaxy, which is 2.54 million light-years away from us. It will take 50 years to cross the 10 million light-year diameter of the Local Group of galaxies, and it will take 501 years to cross the 100 million light-year diameter of the Superlocal Cluster of galaxies.

The radius of the observable universe is 46.5 billion light years, and it would take more than 200,000 years for such a spacecraft to cross it. Therefore, the speed of future space travel will be even faster, and the current life span of human beings needs to be greatly extended, or the living form needs to be changed, in order to be able to go into deep space.

How difficult is it to achieve warp speed?

Scientists have calculated that to bend spacetime and form a "curvature bubble" that wraps around a spacecraft, the energy required must be at least 1 billion times the total energy of the sun. At present, the total energy consumption of mankind is only 1/38 trillion of the energy of the sun, so it is simply a fantasy to create a spacecraft with this kind of energy.

You should know that the total energy of the entire Milky Way is only 200 to 400 billion times that of the sun. If a warp engine requires 1 billion times the energy of the sun, the energy of the entire Milky Way can only supply 200 to 400 warp engines.

According to Kardashev's three-level civilization theory, humans need to reach the level of cosmic civilization level 2 to be able to control and utilize all the energy of the sun. Some scientists predict that it will take 5,000 years of uninterrupted efforts for humans to reach the level of civilization level 2.

To achieve the ability to control all the energy of the Milky Way, we need to reach the level of cosmic civilization level 3. No one knows how many years it will take for humans to reach this level. It may take hundreds of millions or even billions of years. No one knows whether human technological civilization is lucky enough to continue for such a long time.

Some scientists have calculated that the energy required to maintain the curved spacetime around the spacecraft even exceeds the total energy of the universe. In addition, scientists have found that there are many difficult problems to solve, such as the huge energy of creating spacetime bubbles will produce strong radiation that threatens the lives of the crew, and the spacecraft cannot send signals in front of the curved spacetime bubble, which means that astronauts cannot control the spacecraft, etc.

Many scientists are still working hard despite knowing that it is impossible.

Since the birth of mankind, curiosity and constant exploration have evolved, and it is this gene that makes humans stand out and become the masters of the earth. This gene is even stronger in the blood of scientists, so there is a group of people who know it is difficult or even impossible, but still work tirelessly on the warp engine problem.

In 1957, German physicist Heim first proposed the concept of "warp travel" and began to explore "super-space-time propulsion", believing that superluminal flight could be achieved by using space-time distortion and space-time jumps; in 1994, physicist Miguel Alcubierre first proposed a warp engine similar to the one in "Star Trek".

In 2005, German physicist Hauser and his colleague Drescher co-authored an experimental paper based on Heim's theory to explore the feasibility of the "trans-space engine", which aroused great interest from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and awarded them the 2005 "Nuclear Energy and Future Aviation" project award.

As a result, the warp engine was included in NASA's (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) research plan.

In 2014, Harold G White, chief scientist of NASA's warp drive project, revealed that they were researching and developing the "IXS Enterprise" (the same name as the spaceship in the science fiction film and television "Star Trek") that could be used for interstellar travel. He claimed that once the spaceship was available, it would only take two weeks to reach Proxima Centauri (4 light years away).

In May 2015, Dr. White announced that he had tested a science fiction-level power system. This power device, called EM drive, generated thrust, but this device was not a "warp engine" in the general sense that relies on distorting space-time to travel.

Dr. White finally found a real "warp bubble"

Although warp drive development is difficult, many scientists are looking for alternative approaches.

Current science has discovered that visible matter in the universe only accounts for about 5%, and 95% is invisible dark matter and dark energy. In addition, people have also discovered the existence of antimatter and negative energy in the universe, so some scientists are trying to find solutions from the aspects of antimatter, negative energy, dark matter and dark energy.

On November 8, Dr. White brought us great news: he and his team made great progress in the study of warp theory, and they successfully discovered a "curvature bubble." White said: It is clear that what we found is not a similar warp bubble, but a real warp bubble. Although this bubble is very small, it is of great significance.

Figure: Actual image of a real-world WARP bubble. Image credit: Dr. Harold G. White, Infinite Space Institute

It is reported that this is just a nanoscale warp bubble. Many people scoff at this and think it is making a fuss and being mysterious. I don't think so. Aren't many major scientific discoveries and achievements in the world started from tiny things? I believe this will be a milestone. With the deepening of research, the warp engine will be closer to us step by step.

What do you think? Welcome to discuss, thanks for reading.

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Reference: https://thedebrief.org/darpa-funded-researchers-accidentally-create-the-worlds-first-warp-bubble