How to warp space

Ever wondered how the whole warp drive thing worked on Star Trek?

It's actually quite simple. It's not about travelling faster than light (which remains impossible); it's about manipulating space, which can expand faster than light. All you need is some negative energy, a bit of dark energy, and a bunch of other interstellar ingredients.

Popular Science helps us understand:

Instead of trying to move through space, the warp drive moves space itself. The ship sits inside a bubble of spacetime bound by a negative energy field that races across the cosmos.

You can read all the specifics at Popular Science's warp drive page. Don't get your hopes up though - the timeframe is rather conservative ("some point between the distant future and never").

(Via Speculist.)

JJtags:

• warpdrive
• startrek
• sciencefiction