Warp drive is one of the fundamental features of the Star Trek franchise and one of the best known examples of space warp (warp drive) in fiction. Star Trek Ī representation of a Star Trek 'warp bubble'

Alcubierre stated in an email to William Shatner that his theory was directly inspired by the term used in the show and cites the ''warp drive' of science fiction' in his 1994 article. Īlthough the concept of warp drive has originated in fiction, it has received some scientific consideration, most notably related o the 1990s concept of the Alcubierre drive. However, the concept of space warp has been criticized as 'illogical', and has been connected to several other rubber science ideas that do not fit into our current understanding of physics, such as antigravity or negative mass. Warp drives are one of the science-fiction tropes that serve to circumvent this limitation in fiction to facilitate stories set at galactic scales.

The problem of a material object exceeding light speed is that an infinite amount of kinetic energy would be required to travel at exactly the speed of light. : 212, 268 Space warp and real-world physics Įinstein's theory of special relativity states that speed of light travel is impossible for material objects that, unlike photons, have a non-zero rest mass. : 743 Brave New Words gave the earliest example of the term 'space-warp drive' as Fredric Brown's Gateway to Darkness (1949), and also cited an unnamed story from Cosmic Stories (May 1941) as using the word 'warp' in the context of space travel, although the usage of this term as a 'bend or curvature' in space which facilitates travel can be traced to several works at as far back as the mid-1930s, for example Jack Williamson's The Cometeers (1936). Heinlein's Starman Jones already considered the concepts of 'folds' in space in 1953. Campbell in his 1957 novel Islands of Space. The general concept of warp drive was introduced by John W. In contrast to hyperspace, spacecraft at warp velocity would continue to interact with objects in 'normal space'. In contrast to some other fictitious faster-than-light technologies such as a jump drive, the warp drive does not permit instantaneous travel and transfers between two points, but rather involves a measurable passage of time which is pertinent to the concept. : 142 A spacecraft equipped with a warp drive may travel at speeds greater than that of light by many orders of magnitude. : 238–239 A warp drive is a device that distorts the shape of the space-time continuum. It has been often discussed as being conceptually similar to hyperspace. Warp drive, or a drive enabling space warp, is one of several ways of travelling through space found in science fiction.

Star trek transwarp drive