Warp drive in real life

Warp drive technology, as described in Star Trek, is nonsense, but there might actually be something to the idea of "warp drive" as a concept, says theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss.

Maggie Koerth-Baker is the science editor at BoingBoing.net. She writes a monthly column for The New York Times Magazine and is the author of Before the Lights Go Out, a book about electricity, infrastructure, and the future of energy. You can find Maggie on Twitter and Facebook.

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The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

soongtype

Exactly. This is basically Treknology for non-Trekkies.
irksome

Sorry, this does NOT validate all those conventions you attended.
Jack

Decent explanation. But according to my Star Trek knowledge, the concept that the nacelles â€œwarpâ€ space around itâ€”rather than using propulsion to push the the ship through itâ€”has been there since day one.

Also, the video craps out for me 11 seconds before it ends despite being fully loaded.
- Jake0748
  
  Yep, the video died on me too, right at the end.
  
  “I want to believe”.
travtastic

I wish I could be around when we actually get FTL travel, and people are laughing at all of our stupid ideas about how to do it.
robcat2075

He gets right up to “the answer is…” and then the video freezes.

So we’ll never really know.
Jake0748

Make it so, Number one.
Anonymous

When I saw the blurb for the video, I immediately thought “Alcubierre drive”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive

(though he never uses that term in the video)
InsertFingerHere

Quadfecta

Star Trek
Hot Chick
Condom
Nerd
TuxRug

I think it’s absolutely hilarious that he demonstrates this using a condom.
- Jake0748
  
  Is it the Jolly Green Giant’s condom?
Anonymous

@InsertFingerHere wise man he is not going to be needing that condom because he was already using the best contraception known to mankind star trek. Now the scientists conducting the experiment need to reset the experiment and see what happens if they put star wars in it’s stead.
Dave H

I think I can see how it could be done.

A couple of questions:
Where do you get a condom big enough?
How do you convince the galaxy to wear it?
Jean-Luc Turbo

How’d they get her…?
Marja

I know I can let the first couple seconds run, then pause, and then let the video load over the next several minutes, then go back to the beginning and play. But really, people shouldn’t have to pause and rewind to get your frakking video to work.

Why not set up video to load with one click, and play with another click to the appropriate button? That way it’s easier for people to wait-while-loading. Setting up the video to play-while-loading always results in endless stops, stutters, and the like. And setting it up to play-whenever-someone-backs-up-to-the-start is just pointlessly annoying.
gths

Negative energy, huh? So you could use a surly teenager or something to generate the warp field thingy, I guess.
Anonymous

@gths:

yes, but they need a limitless field of negative energy; a teenager would burn out too quickly. Now, if only they could harness the power of the Internet, I think they’d have something.
joemolo

she has no idea what she’s talking about. star trek doesn’t travel ‘intergalactically’ – it’s interstellar travel. star trek is always in the milky way galaxy.
- Laroquod
  
  Except for when the Milky Way was invaded by Andromedans who turned people into crumbly styrofoam. Or that time when the Enterprise crossed the galactic energy barrier which turned certain crew members into silvery-eyed gods. (That one was one was the actual pilot episode.) Or what about that time when the Traveler went all shimmery and flung the Enterprise into the zombocom zone where anything can happen, even little old French ladies serving you teaâ€¦
Hawkman

Finally – a condom that’ll fit over Capt. Kirks libido
DieFem

A friend of me, seeing this video told me “hey, I would better use the condom on the chick”. Mmmm, not very polite but not very far from every Trekkie desires isnÂ´t it?.
chuck

End of the Vid:

“but the answer is, if you could make negative energy configurations, in principle, you could make a warp drive.”
Anonymous

Anyone ever heard of these water wormholes?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyjwZ39EDmw
http://www22.pair.com/csdc/pdf/falaco85o.pdf
GrymRpr

For those having issues with the video… Here’s the direct link:
http://wsftv-videos.s3.amazonaws.com/Short_ST_WarpDrive_screen.mov
- JonStewartMill
  
  It cuts out at the same point.
  - GrymRpr
    
    Right click the link and download it.