![]() ![]() But what was the explanation? How could they explain an object traveling faster than the speed of light, something Einstein proved impossible in his Special Theory of Relativity? The invention of warp speed solved the opera part of the problem, since it allowed the Enterprise to go much faster than the speed of light. This, of course, wouldn't make very exciting television. A journey from the Earth to the center of our galaxy, for example, would take about 25,000 years if you were to travel just under the speed of light. The biggest problem was that even if a starship could travel at the speed of light, the time to go from one galaxy to another could still take hundreds, maybe thousands of years. At the same time, they wanted to do their best to stick to the laws of physics. So the creator of the series, Gene Roddenberry, and the other writers had to find a way to move the show's characters around the universe in a timely, dramatic fashion. As the "opera" part of the name suggests, a show like "Star Trek" isn't meant to be slow or ordinary - when people think of the series, they probably think of melodramatic plots involving aliens, space travel and action-packed laser fights. The "Star Wars" films are another example of the space opera subgenre. They were essentially creating a space opera, a subgenre of science fiction that takes place in space and covers the span of several galaxies and millions of light years. When the writers of "Star Trek" sat down to plan the series, they found themselves confronted with a few problems. Kirk, but whatever were they going to do about intergalactic space travel? "Star Trek" had William Shatner as Captain James T. ![]() But how does something like warp speed fit into reality and our universe? Is warp speed just a wacky science fiction device, or is it theoretically possible? How does it work in the "Star Trek" universe? For everything on warp speed, infinity and beyond, read the following pages. Wells' "The Time Machine" to "Star Trek" to Joss Whedon's "Firefly" series has touched on the possibilities of time travel, teleportation and, of course, warp speed. While we haven't quite answered these questions yet, we at least have science fiction like "Star Trek" to test the human imagination. What are we doing here, anyway? How did the universe begin, and are there other, parallel universes that mirror ours? Is there life out there in other galaxies, and what would it be like to travel there? For as long as humans have looked up to the skies, space has fascinated us, and astronomers and philosophers alike have asked the most fundamental questions while staring at the stars. Curiosity Project: 10 Outdated Astronomical Theories.While scientists weren’t deterred by this restraint – Nasa has reportedly been exploring the concept for decades – it did create a large stumbling block for any realistic possibility of a real-world warp drive. To get around this problem – to make something travel faster than light when nothing supposedly can – Alcubierre suggested the equivalent of a scientific sleight of hand.īy ‘inflating’ spacetime behind a ship and ‘contracting’ it in front, the ship would be in a spacetime ‘bubble’, able to move distances (and speeds) not available to regular bodies in space.īut this trick relied on a huge amount of ‘negative energy’ to twist and bend spacetime – something that hasn’t previously been observed by scientists. ![]() Alcubierre had to make his warp drive idea consistent with Einstein’s theory of relativity – one of the most solid and widely proven scientific theories around.Ī central tenet of general relativity is that the speed of light is the maximum speed anything can travel in the universe. ![]()
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