When the warp drive was first introduced to humans - along with the debut of Star Trek fifty years ago - our understanding of the universe was fundamentally different from what we do today. On the one hand, the warp drive was simply a plot device that made it possible to reach distant stars very quickly; it seemed to violate Einstein's principle of relativity and was physically impossible. On the other hand, gravity seemed to pull distant galaxies together, and if you move close enough to the speed of light, you can achieve anything. We didn't know about dark energy then.
In 1998, the acceleration of the universe taught us that only 3% of the galaxies in the observable universe can be reached traveling at the speed of light. But in 1994, Miguel Alcubierre discovered a solution to general relativity that made the warp drive physically possible. Could a warp drive take us to galaxies other than that 3%?
The answer is yes. But this is only the beginning of all possibilities.
The reason that the possible in our universe is so strongly delimited from the impossible lies in the special theory of relativity. Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light relative to another particle or radiation - be it massive or massless. It is physically impossible to disperse a massive object to the speed of light; it takes an infinite amount of energy. Instead, we could hope for very fast, but not immeasurably fast travel. And since the fabric of the universe (space-time) itself is expanding at a certain speed, galaxies that are too far from us will move away faster than the speed of light. The expansion of the universe guarantees that there will be 15 billion light years between us and these galaxies, which by themselves (like space) will expand faster,than we could allow ourselves to move.
No matter how much energy we pump into our spacecraft, no matter how close we get to the speed of light, galaxies will remain forever distant. As time progresses, they will go further and further, even if we accelerated to 99.999% of the speed of light. But Alcubierre's solution not only bypasses these restrictions - it removes them altogether. The fact that no object can move faster than light will not go anywhere, but the very space that surrounds your object will be capable of new feats.
And while this would require a new type of matter or energy - something with negative energy or rest mass - Alcubierre's solution would allow space to contract in the direction of travel and expand it behind. This will allow you to cross it many times: with a factor of tens, hundreds, or thousands. And if you can suddenly close the distance to your destination, you can suddenly overcome any amount of spatial expansion in the expanding universe.
The opportunities that open up in this case are truly amazing. For example…
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… invisible galaxies can be seen. You can not only "catch" something moving away from you through space, even if the space itself expands faster than the speed of light, but also catch galaxies outside the observable universe. We are currently seeing exactly how far light has come in the 13.8 billion years since the Big Bang. But if you deform space and overcome the limit, overtake a photon, you can see stars, galaxies and those parts of the Universe that will never be seen by light from the Earth.
… To see a future that the Earth will never see. Everything in the Universe, right now, will see the same Universe that we are: a Universe that has existed 13.8 billion years after the Big Bang. But when we look at stars in galaxies thousands, millions, or billions of light years away, we see what they were thousands, millions, or billions of years ago. Only light from young galaxies reaches us, since the light of most galaxies emitted today will never reach us due to the expansion of the universe. But with a warp drive, we could visit them today. We would see the stages of cosmic evolution with our own eyes.
… See yourself in the past. We cannot use a warp drive to travel back in time, but if we could outrun the light that the Earth, the Sun, or the Milky Way released long ago, we could “catch” their past. Warp 65 million light years ago and set up your telescope to see the asteroid that destroyed the dinosaurs. Warp 53 light years ago and find out who shot Kennedy. Or warp 4.5 billion light years away and see the first minutes of the birth of the solar system. A warp drive, coupled with a sufficiently powerful telescope, can suddenly become the forensic scientist's ultimate tool.
… surpass any weapon; attack completely unexpectedly. Any battle is limited by the speed at which everything moves: the speed of light. But if you could move even faster, then all attacks made at the speed of light would never harm you. And if you - the attacker - move towards the target faster than the speed of light, it will never be able to detect you. Events will happen faster than the enemy can see their vague outline.
In reality, the warp drive does not violate any laws of physics. On the contrary, he observes them carefully. It does not transfer objects relative to other objects in space faster than the speed of light - it changes space itself. If the Alcubierre engine were real, not only could we reach any star in the universe, we could make the impossible possible. And, of course, answer any questions of the past and future.
ILYA KHEL
