I and the physicists I know will go to the mat on the principal that the Alcubierre Drive is the first real life physics closed form proof of a warp drive.
For the purposes of this discussion though, the more fundamental point is that Alcubierre’s theoretical proof of concept for warp drives was created in the mid 1990s nearly 30 years after TOS first broadcast and TNG had completed its run.
As I have said here before, following the norm in mathematics-based theory development, Alcubierre started with a tractable corner case. This means he set a number of obviously necessary parameters to zero to make it possible to get to a closed-form solution that didn’t rely on crunching numbers.
His objective in his PhD thesis was prove there was an exception General Relativity that makes warp drives possible theoretically.
He did that, and as is usual with corner solutions, came up with something fairly absurd that would involve massive amounts of exotic matter and couldn’t steer a course due — simply because he intentionally set those parameters to zero for the purposes of the proof.
It’s a misunderstanding of the way theoretical reasoning and research gets done to say that Alcubierre’s warp drive isn’t the one in Star Trek, simply because he chose the simplest case for his proof. The Star Trek warp drive would involve setting these parameters to positive values - but that doesn’t mean it’s a different theory at the fundamental level.
As usual, more realistic applications of the theory, with nonzero values for those parameters that would:
actually allow a ship to enter warp from a sublight velocity
permit the ship to control its direction while at warp, and
would not require massive amounts of exotic matter,
are very likely to involve massive amounts of numerical approximations calculated by a computer and advances in materials science.
Unless someone finds a mathematical trick to get around the numerical approximations with a better closed form solution — and comes up with a materially different basic warp drive equation — whatever we get eventually from this line of research will still be viewed as Alcubierre’s drive. Or, also likely an Alcubierre-OtherPerson drive.
Alcubierre’s theoretical proof of concept for warp drives was created in the mid 1990s nearly 30 years after TOS first broadcast and TNG had completed its run.
Probably the most salient point - one cannot credibly claim that the warp drive was “based on science” that hadn’t yet been published, and wouldn’t be for three decades.
And that Alcubierre’s effort, as a theoretical physics PhD student, to prove mathematically that there was a an exception to General Relativity that would make warp possible, was inspired by Star Trek’s fictional drive and not vice versa.
Although it might go both ways these days, since it wouldn’t be at all surprising if newer writers heard of Alcubierre’s warp drive, and incorporated that into Star Trek as a mechanism for how it works.
It’s more that Star Trek’s science advisor Dr. Erin MacDonald is a physicist who did her PhD thesis with the team in Scotland that got the Nobel prize shortly after she graduated.
As she puts it, her friends got her into watching Voyager when she was working on her PhD and she thought “oh cool, just what I am studying.”
There’s definitely a feedback loop going on, since Dr. MacDonald is whom they bounce their ideas off of.
She appears as herself - although as a Starfleet officer in the 24th century — in animated form in Prodigy, and explains ‘Temporal Mechanics 101’ in a learning module.
I was not saying that the warp drive was based on the Alcubierre drive. My pont was that the warp drive was more grounded in physics than the spore drive, so much so that it inspired the Alcubierre drive.
The fact that Alcubierre was inspired by Star Trek to come up with something (theoretically) workable does not mean that the warp drive as originally conceived was somehow “grounded in physics.” At the end of the day, the similarities are pretty superficial.
I’ll go ahead and concede my point. I haven’t watched enough original Star Trek and definitely dont have enough knowledge in physics to argue this further. My understanding was that the warp drive was kept just vague enough to be argued to be theoretically possible. But honestly, I’m not a physicist, so I am probably missing something obvious.
In the original Star Trek, that Alcubierre was inspired by, it wasn’t explained at all. You just had warp engines and impulse engines. Warp engines made it so the ship could go at warp speed, but go too fast, and they could come off the ship, or the ship would explode.
It was later series that tried to have an explanation for how they worked.
Although I don’t think the writers cared particularly much for whether they were theoretically possible or not, anyway. They work through subspace, and that doesn’t exist in reality, so a lot of oddities could just be brushed under that.
My apologies, I didn’t look at the usernames and made a bad assumption.
You are correct, my point was that the warp drive did fit within our understanding of theoretical physics at the time. So much so that it eventually inspired the Alcubierre drive. I couldnt find a way that the spore drive fits within our understanding of physics.
I said nothing of the sort.
Star Trek’s warp drive isn’t really an Alcubierre drive at all.
I and the physicists I know will go to the mat on the principal that the Alcubierre Drive is the first real life physics closed form proof of a warp drive.
For the purposes of this discussion though, the more fundamental point is that Alcubierre’s theoretical proof of concept for warp drives was created in the mid 1990s nearly 30 years after TOS first broadcast and TNG had completed its run.
As I have said here before, following the norm in mathematics-based theory development, Alcubierre started with a tractable corner case. This means he set a number of obviously necessary parameters to zero to make it possible to get to a closed-form solution that didn’t rely on crunching numbers.
His objective in his PhD thesis was prove there was an exception General Relativity that makes warp drives possible theoretically.
He did that, and as is usual with corner solutions, came up with something fairly absurd that would involve massive amounts of exotic matter and couldn’t steer a course due — simply because he intentionally set those parameters to zero for the purposes of the proof.
It’s a misunderstanding of the way theoretical reasoning and research gets done to say that Alcubierre’s warp drive isn’t the one in Star Trek, simply because he chose the simplest case for his proof. The Star Trek warp drive would involve setting these parameters to positive values - but that doesn’t mean it’s a different theory at the fundamental level.
As usual, more realistic applications of the theory, with nonzero values for those parameters that would:
are very likely to involve massive amounts of numerical approximations calculated by a computer and advances in materials science.
Unless someone finds a mathematical trick to get around the numerical approximations with a better closed form solution — and comes up with a materially different basic warp drive equation — whatever we get eventually from this line of research will still be viewed as Alcubierre’s drive. Or, also likely an Alcubierre-OtherPerson drive.
Probably the most salient point - one cannot credibly claim that the warp drive was “based on science” that hadn’t yet been published, and wouldn’t be for three decades.
Yup.
And that Alcubierre’s effort, as a theoretical physics PhD student, to prove mathematically that there was a an exception to General Relativity that would make warp possible, was inspired by Star Trek’s fictional drive and not vice versa.
Although it might go both ways these days, since it wouldn’t be at all surprising if newer writers heard of Alcubierre’s warp drive, and incorporated that into Star Trek as a mechanism for how it works.
It’s more that Star Trek’s science advisor Dr. Erin MacDonald is a physicist who did her PhD thesis with the team in Scotland that got the Nobel prize shortly after she graduated.
As she puts it, her friends got her into watching Voyager when she was working on her PhD and she thought “oh cool, just what I am studying.”
There’s definitely a feedback loop going on, since Dr. MacDonald is whom they bounce their ideas off of.
She appears as herself - although as a Starfleet officer in the 24th century — in animated form in Prodigy, and explains ‘Temporal Mechanics 101’ in a learning module.
I was not saying that the warp drive was based on the Alcubierre drive. My pont was that the warp drive was more grounded in physics than the spore drive, so much so that it inspired the Alcubierre drive.
That’s circular reasoning, though.
The fact that Alcubierre was inspired by Star Trek to come up with something (theoretically) workable does not mean that the warp drive as originally conceived was somehow “grounded in physics.” At the end of the day, the similarities are pretty superficial.
I’ll go ahead and concede my point. I haven’t watched enough original Star Trek and definitely dont have enough knowledge in physics to argue this further. My understanding was that the warp drive was kept just vague enough to be argued to be theoretically possible. But honestly, I’m not a physicist, so I am probably missing something obvious.
In the original Star Trek, that Alcubierre was inspired by, it wasn’t explained at all. You just had warp engines and impulse engines. Warp engines made it so the ship could go at warp speed, but go too fast, and they could come off the ship, or the ship would explode.
It was later series that tried to have an explanation for how they worked.
Although I don’t think the writers cared particularly much for whether they were theoretically possible or not, anyway. They work through subspace, and that doesn’t exist in reality, so a lot of oddities could just be brushed under that.
My apologies, I didn’t look at the usernames and made a bad assumption.
You are correct, my point was that the warp drive did fit within our understanding of theoretical physics at the time. So much so that it eventually inspired the Alcubierre drive. I couldnt find a way that the spore drive fits within our understanding of physics.