The father of the warp drive

Dr Miguel Alcubierre tells us about his 1994 paper that covered warp drives and bubbles in space-time

Does general relativity permit warp bubbles for warp-drive technology? Warp bubbles are theoretically possible in the sense that the required geometry of space-time is easy to write down. However, they are certainly not solutions in a strict sense. What are the biggest obstacles to creating one? 1: The warp drive would require ‘exotic matter’, with negative-energy densities (antigravity) that – as far as we know – do not exist. It would also require some very weird distributions of momentum and stresses. 2: Even if you get your hands on negative energy and manage to manipulate it, you would need star-sized amounts of it. 3: At super-luminal speeds, the front of the warp bubble is disconnected from the centre. This means that a spaceship sitting in the centre of the bubble…

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