Will Warp Drive Ever Become A Reality?
Throughout our human history, we have been on the path of exploration, because that’s who we are and that’s what we do. Our thirst for knowledge is what has kept us going and will keep us going forever, as long as we manage to survive.
This explorative side of ours is also what keeps things interesting and exciting and provides meaning to our very existence. Imagine what life would be like if we knew everything and there was nothing more to do. It would be a mundane life, one without purpose.
On that note, these are truly the most exciting times to be alive. Never have we ever been at the helm of so many avenues of exploration as we are today. As a result, it’s kind of common now, to hear about major discoveries and inventions almost daily. So, much is going on!
One avenue which excites me the most is space exploration. We all grew up watching movies where travelling through space and interacting with other alien species is as common as travelling within Earth and meeting other humans. When or if that will happen in real life will depend on how fast we can advance in this area.
Breaking The Light Barrier
The exploration of space or in better words, the ‘meaningful’ exploration of space would happen when we humans could physically venture out into alien words and experience it all for ourselves by actually being there.
There is a case that can be made for robotic proxy-type exploration that would do the exploring on our behalf but maybe I am just old fashioned and think that it would be better if we could do it ourselves. Robots will be absolutely necessary but it would be better, in my opinion, if we worked in conjunction with them.
Unfortunately though, space is so humongous and the distances between even any two planets is so inconceivably large that it takes forever to go form one place to another. No matter how much we advance our propulsion system, there is just no way we could take on some meaningful exploration of even the nearest star to the Sun.
Even light would take 4 years to reach Alpha Centauri, the nearest star to the sun. So, it seems that breaking the light barrier and travelling a multitude of times faster than light would be necessary to achieve our dreams of experiencing the wonders of the cosmos.
BUT, this isn’t possible. According to Albert Einstein’s theory, nothing can travel faster than light. Light’s speed is kind of a universal constant. So we are kind of stuck within the laws of physics, it seems. There are only two hopes from here: Either we prove Einstein was wrong, or we find some ways of cheating the laws of physics.
The Warp Drive
This is how a warp drive warps space around it.
If you have been watching science fiction movies, you might be familiar with the idea of a warp drive. The idea was made famous by the Star Trek movies where you could see the futuristic spaceships move vast, unimaginable distances in minutes, travelling much faster than light.
The idea of a warp drive is simple. Instead of having to travel from point A to point B the full distance, it enables a shortcut between the two points in space, by warping space itself. Much like how you would fold a paper to create the shortest distance between any two points on the paper.
This doesn’t break any laws of physics and lets you travel vast distances in space much, much faster than light. In theory, you could travel to the other side of our galaxy, in a matter of minutes which light itself would take 100,000 years to travel. Isn’t that just awesome?
Virtually any point in space would be within out reach if this ever becomes possible and finally we will be able to explore the cosmos at our heart’s content. I would immediately sign up for the space fleet, the day that happens.
Challenges
There are many challenges in creating such a warp drive though. For starters, it would take a huge amount of energy for the warp drive to function (as per our current knowledge). Estimates range from the energy that the whole world uses in a day to the entirety of the energy that exists in space!
That is just impossible, but history has shown time and again that what seems impossible for the current generation, becomes the norm of future generations.
Also, it is encouraging that many scientists are at work to solve this problem. Even NASA is exploring it. To be able to transform our civilisation into a true space faring one, we absolutely need faster than light travel in a way that doesn’t break any laws and the Warp Drive might just do that.
If we can achieve that, we can go back in time, right?
I don't think we will ever be able to go back in time but if we can fold space perhaps we could travel to some distant location and see what is happing there at the present moment.
No, this doesn't actually permit time travel. It's just travelling through space and not time. But what can be done is travelling a long, long distance from Earth where the light from Earth is just reaching. It will essentially allow us to "see" the past of the Earth without actually travelling to the past. Pretty cool, isn't it :)
Interesting question! If it were possible to create a warp drive the next question to me is why haven’t we been visited by any alien civilizations yet?
My personal take on this is that it could be possible to travel these distances easily and we might have been visited before. If so, perhaps we may have been quarantined for an unthinkable level of barbarism - with occasional visitation by adventurous teenagers. I think they are waiting to see if we will sink or swim on our own.
Perhaps if we stay standing of the bottom of the virtual swimming pool for too long they will come in and give us some pointers like, “You really need to learn how stop killing each other and destroying your planet, we will fix this with our ‘magic wand’ but you can’t keep depending on our help.”
Or perhaps if we reach some level of intellect and wisdom they will welcome us to the neighborhood and share all their toys with us with a warning, “Now kids, no fair playing imperialist and planting flags on all the earth type worlds, eating all the indigenous life forms and enslaving them.”
Or perhaps we are alone in this neck of the woods. Everything we look out on in the night sky seems so very far away.
Having warp drive right now might be like letting a toddler play with a handgun. Playing with that much energy could potentially be hazardous or used as a weapon. But I’m ready! Sign me up.
I think, regarding the alien civilisation, the whole matter can be looked at in two ways. (And this is totally off the top of my head).
First, if you believe the multitude of conspiracy theories out there, they are already here and have been for a long time, possibly even throughout our history, guiding us in their own ways.
Second, they might have 'checked us out' but at their level of intellect, they might have viewed us as how we view monkeys and decided to stay away until we evolve more.
Unless we have been, but were too insignificant to even bother with. :(
Or we could be much more significant than any of us really realize. But if we are at a level that is a barrier to effective communication they might not feel the interaction would be of benefit to either party. The ability of life to create new things could be a very valued universally.
I don't suspect that it will, unless we have some true breakthroughs in physics and find that the fundamental laws are not so fundamental.
That is true. To make this possible, some laws would have to be re-written or disproven altogether. Right now that seems highly improbable, but who knows, 1000 years down the road, what life will be like.