Travelling FASTER than Light 101

It baffles my mind how distant these beautiful Pearls of the Night are. Far, yet the twinkle of their pure light resembles a greeting from an old friend watching over us. A light of hope to some, a source of knowledge & research for others. Regardless of how one perceives the sky, all of us are fascinated when look up, wondering how the celestial giants would look if they were close? Is there anyone out there? What if one of those heavenly bodies, is our potential home? It is the insurmountable distance that stands up as a colossal barrier for us to dig out these answers. But what if we could overcome this barrier once & for all?

The nearest star, Proxima Centauri is 4.2 light-years away, meaning that it would take us 4 years to reach Proxima even at the speed of light (299,792 km/sec.). Well most of us knew what a light year is, so thanks Captain Obvious. But what if we could reach Proxima at a blistering speed even faster than light? Well, ladies & gentlemen, strap yourself in & let's Punch It!

Faster than a Speeding Bullet LIGHT!

Illustration of Warp Speed in fictitious works.

Are you a Sci-Fi fan? A shot of Star Trek? Star Wars? Or HALO maybe? What these galactic sci-fi works have in common is travelling at ridiculously breakneck speeds. Enter the idea of Warp Speed. First introduced in the novel, Islands of Space by John Campbell, this concept has compelled the fans & physicists to ponder whether it is actually possible. One such physicist is, Miguel Alcubierre, proposing his idea of The Alcubierre Drive in 1994. 

Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity, states that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. However, Alcubierre's Drive is up a notch. It proposes that for a Vessel (the name of our ship, talk about simplicity) to travel Faster-than-Light (FTL), it isn't necessary to achieve that kind of speed. Instead we bend the space around the Vessel. "WHAT!?" Yeah, bear with us. 

How it's going to work?

Illustration of Alcubierre's Drive.

Notice the bend in front & expansion at the back of our Vessel.

The theory suggests that bending the space around the Vessel to the point that it contracts at front & expands at the back will propel our ship at a FTL speed to a much greater distance. Much like a surfer riding a big tide, this isn't an accurate analogy but it serves the purpose well enough. The bend around the around the Vessel is called The Warp Bubble. Inside this bubble, time is flat, meaning that there won't be any grey hair on our heads when we reach our destination. The speed & time of the ship will remain unchanged, since our Vessel is not moving through space-time but moving space-time itself. In works of fiction, a minor explosion of positive & negative matter (concisely put, matter that weighs in negative value) in the ship's reactor would create that bend. More bend equals more speed. 

In layman's terms, instead of our ship, speeding to it's destination, we bring the destination to us. Without burdening ourselves of anti-aging products. Now the question is whether bending space-time is even possible? Well, YES, but also NO.

Limitations

A Black Hole is great example of a body bending space & time.
Notice the curved ridges.

You see, on a cosmic level, anything that has a mass & gravity bends space & time. Heavier the mass, stronger the gravity & curvier the bend. And if the mass gets so heavy that the gravity of such a body doesn't allow even light to escape it, such a body tears through that fabric & well, you know...but let's talk about that in the next one. Although possible, feasibility is where we bite the dust. The amount of energy required to cause such an artificial bend depends on the distance to destination & the duration to cover that distance. Be that as it may, we just don't have it. However, scientists at CERN have produced the type of energy required, but the amount goes down to a sub-atomic level. 

The restrictions don't just end up there: 

• A technology such as a Warp Drive poses the threat of hazardous radiation, risking the survival of our crew & the hull integrity of our Vessel.
• There is another difficulty that only few may notice, Communication. In order for our Vessel to communicate back to our base & the other way around, the speed of the broadcast of our message must be more than the speed of our Vessel. The inability to communicate & convey instructions will prove as a major hindrance in the execution of our mission. MAYDAY!
• This one's juicy! Theorists believe that travelling at Warp by bending the fabric of space & time, could actually make time travel possible, in theory obviously! At this point, any action or inaction incongruent to the Prime timeline, i.e. the line of events you are familiar with, will alter that timeline & the events altogether. You might even cease to exist! Intriguing is it not?
• All these are limitations to an on-the-paper technology. At present, we don't have the resources to put this idea at work. The type of energy, its amount & the material able to withstand the intensity of such amount of energy, is just not at our disposal, yet...

Recent Developments

Ripples caused by two colliding Black Holes.

Distortion in space-time by gravity was a speculative theory, until 2016. LIGO observatory detected gravitational waves ripple through space caused by the collision & merging of two Black Holes, each about 30 times the size of our Sun over a Billion light-years-away! Now that we know distorting space & time is possible, can we do it by ourselves? 

Dr. Harold "Sonny" White

The contentious idea of a Warp Drive might seem like an impossibility-backed by some-it hasn't stopped physicists like Dr. Harold "Sonny" White & his team. They conducted an experiment in 2013 to put it to the test. The experiment included recording distortions in space-time & creating a warp bubble at a microscopic level. Although the results of this 19.6 second experiment were deemed "Inconclusive", it has lit a spark of optimism to the vision of boldly going "where no man has gone before".

Conclusion

Science relies on elements of Hypothesis & Certainty. The speculative concept of Warp Speed is backed by experts on both end of the 'Possibility' spectrum. Some viewing it as practically impossible and unfeasible, while others, much confident putting constant efforts to make it a certainty. Like any other sphere, this hypothesis has its own limitations, but when has that ever stopped us? 

As Carly Fiorina righty said,
"Human Potential is the only limitless resource in the world."