Sunday, December 23, 2018

How does warp drive work on Star Trek?

Robert Frost, Hardcore Star Trek fan since I was 2


In the world of Star Trek, they have discovered an aspect of the space-time continuum called subspace. Chief Engineer Geordi La Forge once described subspace as the honeycomb-like structure of space-time. Subspace is not a concept that has been observed in the real world.

The warp drive of a starship does two things:

1) First, it creates a subspace bubble around the starship. Inside that bubble is normal space-time. So, even though the star ship is zooming around at great speed, there is no time dilation.

2) Second, it warps the space in near proximity to the starship so that the subspace bubble can travel between space. The space in front of the ship is contracted and the space behind the ship is expanded.

expanded space

sub space field

Subspace field intensity is measured in units called Cochranes (after Zephram Cochrane). The intensity needed for each factor of warp increases geometrically, such that:

Warp 1: 1 Cochrane
Warp 2: 10 Cochranes
Warp 3: 39 Cochranes
Warp 4: 102 Cochranes
Warp 5: 214 Cochranes
Warp 6: 392 Cochranes
Warp 7: 656 Cochranes
Warp 8: 1024 Cochranes
Warp 9: 1516 Cochranes

speed vs power

As we can see, a massive amount of energy is needed to do this. A starship uses the energy released when matter and anti-matter are combined, annihilating both and releasing pure energy. To control the flow of that massive amount of energy, the starship uses dilithium crystals. Dilithium crystals are porous to light-element anti-matter. Using electro-magnetic fields to apply pressure to the crystal alters the porosity, and thus regulates the flow of the anti-matter through the crystal into the field chamber where the matter and anti-matter are combined.

--Quora.com

No comments:

Post a Comment

Contact The Wizard!
(he/him)