Warp 10+

[Tenebrae]

Mr. Dad - did you read my post at all? It doesn't seem like it.

 

Infinity is not a barrier you can breach for the simple fact that it's infinity. That's simply an issue of definition and as far as I'm aware the English language functions similarly in real life and in fiction. If you don't believe that - I'm sorry to have breached your semantic ignorance.

 

Of course, as I previously invited you to - if you can explain to me how one can exceed infinity I'd be more than happy to concede the point.

[theaveng]

Well' date=' that is not scientifically correct, but if you like to simplify things, then it could be considered acceptable...[/quote'] The explanation I just gave is the same one my physics professor gave me about General Relativity.

 

Why don't YOU explain it? Hawking has often said, "If you can't explain it w/o equations, you do not truly understand." Surely you can put into your own words, how you think it works?

[TetsuoShima]

Well, I'll just take out that one little bit and put in in more exact words, if you really want to, but it is useless for everybody else, since I allready stated that your response was approximate enough for understanding the idea, though not scientifically correct, since it forgets the underlying principle...

 

 

This little bit (your statement) is actually a direct result of the postulats of special relativity theory, namely this one:

 

Light always 'travels' in empty space with a defined velocity c that is independent of the motion of the 'emitter' of this light. The velocity of light is specified as a 'two-way' velocity, determined with a single clock.

 

Simply put: It is so (c is allways c) because it is defined to be like that.

It is out of this definition, that all other strange phenomena occur (and not the other way around)...

 

 

Further, I can tell you that is not usefull to try to reason about relativity without using the eaquations, since this theory is so much out of touch with our sense of reality, that you can only arrive at wrong conclusions because our sense of reality is based on what we experience, which in turn is best approximised by Newtonian physics, which in turn is not at all like relativity in 90% of the cases. (+10% c ;) )

 

It would be like trying to reason about quantum physics without the equations, which is also totally pointless for about the same reasons!

 

 

Hawking was right, talking about explaining without equations, if you want to talk 'popular' science, things people will get interested in. Once you get into the deeper meaning of things however, words only do injustice to the equations. A: because they cannot fully descibe them, B: because the things I'm talking about you need equations for, are so 'unreal/unnatural' to us, that explaining them in words is usually part speculation and part popularisation. So if you want to do it right, you allways need equations! Good for him (Hawking) that he was good at both. And a lot better at both than me, with 99.9% likelyhood. :D

[queenhank]

Well, aside from how they came up with the side effects of "warp 10", how would the human brain handle infinite speed/ultimate speed?

 

Well, first let's figure out WHY you simultaneously occupy all points of space at infinite speed (NOTE: This is now a discussion of entirely fictional theory, based on observation of fictional phenomena, and is in no way meant to have any bearing on actual physics).

 

I've got two possible explanations, the first dealing with conventional logic, and the second dealing with pseudo-scientfic technobabble.

 

1-

In a curved (not circular, but curved) universe, if you begin traveling and never stop or change course, you will eventually travel through all points in said universe, the speed at which you are traveling would of course dictate how long it takes to do that. At infinite speed, you would do all of that traveling simultaneously. That is, you arrive at the next point so fast, that you have not yet left the last one. At that speed, I would think that your brain would not even register the sensations involved, as it is instantaneous, and over in an infinitely small amount of time. You press the button (or whatever) to go infinite speed, and instantly you have stopped, and are at some random point in the universe, having traveled until your craft ceased to function (unless, of course, you had some method of stopping at a predetermined point).

 

2-

I once read an article which was talking about relative physics (remember: technobabble based on a layman's knowledge of physics), and it said that as your speed increases, time and space decrease. That is, time slows down (although it would seem to stay the same to you) and distances shrink. So, at infinite speed, time and space would decrease infinitely. Time effectively stops, and all points in space become one infinitely small point. You are not "traveling", per se, through every point in space, but rather you exist at all points in space because they all exist at the same coordinates. The moment you stop (which would, of course, be the same moment you started, since time, for you, has stopped), time goes back to normal, as does space, and you are now at some point in space (as determined by the method of your propulsion, I would think) and at the same point in time as the one you left. The practical effect is instantaneous travel between any two points in the universe. Again, your brain would likely not register anything, because it all occurred in an infinitely small amount of time.

[MrDad]

Mr. Dad - did you read my post at all? It doesn't seem like it.

 

Infinity is not a barrier you can breach for the simple fact that it's infinity. That's simply an issue of definition and as far as I'm aware the English language functions similarly in real life and in fiction. If you don't believe that - I'm sorry to have breached your semantic ignorance.

 

Of course, as I previously invited you to - if you can explain to me how one can exceed infinity I'd be more than happy to concede the point.

All of this is opinion and speculation. There are no facts to argue. Even ST canon is less than clear on this. Build a working warp drive engine for me and then you can argue the facts. Gene Roddenberry created the fictional concept of warp drive to provide a plausibly realistic way for his creations to get past the infinite energy requirement of relativity to free his universe from the light speed limit without disregarding accepted science. Nothing prevents ST writers from developing a method of evading the fictional limits of the warp barrier.

[TetsuoShima]

Wel, I don't know if this comment wil help anybody, but there may be a warp limit, but there is NO speed limit in Star Trek.

 

Warp 10 is infinite velocity.

 

Any possible speed except infinite speed can thus be obtained between 0 m/s and warp 10, the only weird thing about it, is that the scale is not linear or logaritmic or anything like that at all, what's even weirder is that the scale changes depending on the warp factor...

 

Oh, that and the fact that even though they're using a trick to get faster effective speeds than c, they really never exceed c...

 

Weird stuff, luckily it's fiction... :D

[Tenebrae]

Mr. Dad - please read my posts and don't just fill in words you want to read. I'm not TALKING about the warp barrier. I'm talking about a matter of semantics. As everyone else on this thread has twigged - warp 10 in the new scale as seen in TNG onward is defined as INFINITE VELOCITY. As infinity is not a point which can ever be reached - it would be logical to conclude that it cannot be exceeded.

 

If you want to check out the facts - I would suggest you start under "I" in your local dictionary

 

Until you can explain how one might exceed infinity, don't bother saying anything because you're talking nonsense or simply trying to bait me and I simply won't suffer fools gladly.

[Mav]

Relativity is weird. A ship can be moving at 290,000 km/sec, and yet when they measure the speed of light, they still get the exact same result as us - 300,000 km/sec. Not 10,000 as you would expect. How can this be?

 

the speed of light being relative to the distance or in this case relative to the ship, size, and distance?

 

I think its at this point is where theory comes more into play and it pushes off from fiction cannon to a somewhat realistic basis, which in case would require some understanding of physics and such. aka way out of my minds grasp ;o

[MrDad]

Mr. Dad - please read my posts and don't just fill in words you want to read. I'm not TALKING about the warp barrier. I'm talking about a matter of semantics. As everyone else on this thread has twigged - warp 10 in the new scale as seen in TNG onward is defined as INFINITE VELOCITY. As infinity is not a point which can ever be reached - it would be logical to conclude that it cannot be exceeded.

 

If you want to check out the facts - I would suggest you start under "I" in your local dictionary

 

Until you can explain how one might exceed infinity, don't bother saying anything because you're talking nonsense or simply trying to bait me and I simply won't suffer fools gladly.

I'm talking about the warp 10 barrier, which is the subject of this thread. The warp barrier(Eugene's Limit) is that infinite velocity(warp 10) requires infinite energy. Reduce that energy requirement and warp 10 is achievable, just like warp drive made FTL travel possible by bypassing Einstein's infinite energy reqiurement. None of this requres infinity to be exceeded. Go play your word games with someone else.

[ipbah]

What if they had gone the futurama route - nothing can go faster than light so they simply increased the speed of light so that they could move faster than current light - in the future future i dunno mebe they made "infinite speed" faster than warp 10 or something illogically logical like that :P

[Mav]

it requires an infinite amount of energy to reach infinite speed (warp 10) ? wtf..I can see how infinite would equal infinite but to atain infinite energy the technology needed for that is so far off the scale it might as well be impossible

[TetsuoShima]

Well, about the infinite energy... There was a Voyager episode where Tom Paris actually achieved warp 10 in an experimental craft they built themselves. In the end he reported to have been about everywhere at the same time, but then he started reverting into some strange form of life...

 

So one problem solved, another arises, but I see the point, there is no reason why the 'fictional idea' (even thought it is an understandable idea) of not being able to actually reach warp 10, might be superceded at one time or the other by some other 'fictional technology'. I think we can all agree on that.

 

But I do want to point out that warp 10 would not even really be necessary to achieve, since the strange way the upper warp scale works, warp 9.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999, even though not warp 10, could still get you to another place really, really fast, not immediately, but still... Only problem is, it would, according to this current fictional idea, also take a value of energy equally close to infinity as 9.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999 is to 10, so tat's not a real help either. But one time or the other, the idea will fall (if startrek ever resumes that is), and a new scale would be introduced, since saying that you travel at warp 9.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999, would not be good for the dialogues/ratings.. :D

[Tenebrae]

I can see Data doing that in early TNG

 

"Captain, our current warp factor is 9.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999997."

 

"THANK YOU, Mr. Data."

 

The Voyager episode "Threshold" has been widely dismissed by everyone - fans and writers. I think Berman or Braga said "yeah - sorry about that episode."

 

Really - they should stop all this warp nonsense and stick some hyperdrives in instead.

 

"Punch it, Mr. Data!"

[Steveo]

You can't remove that cornerstone of Trek, the warp drive. It's the source of so many new and exciting ways to waste time, figuring out new ways to contradict previous episodes.

[Hilander72]

"Captain, our current warp factor is 9.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999997."

 

or

 

"Captain, our current speed is warp 9 point 9 and 47 repeated 9s and 7." ;)

 

or

 

Science often use incredibly small or large numbers and they use simple math to make these numbers less of a pain to use, but are aware of what these number represent.

 

ST could simply use a log scale for how close to warp ten (similar to the pH scale).

9.999999 = 10 - -(log 6)

9.999999999 = 10 - -(log 9)

 

and they could call it pWARP or sumthing. :rolleyes:

[werecow]

my theory is that a warp field allows FTL travel right? well a warp field was created to get around the light speed thingy..warp 10 is the utmost limit of speed for travel just like FTL is not possible without a warp drive...in order to travel distances that are too far to allow for warp travel why not go with the space folding thingy a/la a manmade worm hole or as was previously mentioned the gateway system constructed by the borg.

in DS9 the worm hole was used many times for travel to the gamma quadrant

why not (since it is sci-FI) just let them use some new technology to fold space over (a miracle occurs here) and travel to place 100's of light years away in mere (min's? sec's?)

(Mr. Data is the worm hole ready for us yet?)

just my 2 cents worth

from your friendly neighborhood werecow

 

p.s. or option 2 just put a 11 on the warp knob just like in Spinal Tap

[Mav]

You can't remove that cornerstone of Trek' date=' the warp drive. It's the source of so many new and exciting ways to waste time, figuring out new ways to contradict previous episodes.[/quote']

 

Thats great. rofl..

 

As some say "warp 9.999 repeating is still very fast", I say not really. If Voyager could keep up warp 9.9 all the time, they'd still be looking at what, a 50+ year journey home? That aint exactly, fast. Fast would be a few weeks, maybe a couple months (for that much distance).

[queenhank]

Yeah, but Warp 9.9 is nowhere NEAR even HALF as fast as, say, Warp 9.99999999999999999, which is nothing even close to Warp 9.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999. The slope becomes so steep after Warp 9 that a single decimal point higher can more than quadruple the speed of travel.

 

my theory is that a warp field allows FTL travel right? well a warp field was created to get around the light speed thingy..warp 10 is the utmost limit of speed for travel just like FTL is not possible without a warp drive...in order to travel distances that are too far to allow for warp travel why not go with the space folding thingy a/la a manmade worm hole or as was previously mentioned the gateway system constructed by the borg.

in DS9 the worm hole was used many times for travel to the gamma quadrant

why not (since it is sci-FI) just let them use some new technology to fold space over (a miracle occurs here) and travel to place 100's of light years away in mere (min's? sec's?)

 

Well, the thing about the Warp Scale is that 10 is not the limit of speed, but rather the limit of mathematics. There is no higher speed than infinity, because infinity is never-ending. To count to infinity, you must start counting, and never, ever stop. Now, space-folding, transwarp, and quantum slipstream (among others) are just technologies which allow one to travel at very high warp without the technological limitations of Warp Drive, or the energy requirements of it.

 

Let's see if I can explain this plainly (a considerable task for me): you could, with a Warp Drive, go from one end of the galaxy to the other in less than a nanosecond, and not be anywhere near Warp 10. In fact, you are infinitely far from Warp 10, no matter what speed you are going.

 

Does that help?

[Mav]

Yea but if you keep adding .9 to Warp 9.9999 repeating it just becomes an infinite amount of .9 that doubles or quadruples the speed, at some point you're going to reach infinite speed (warp 10) or a point of where the engines just can't pump out any more speed without actually breaching the warp 10 barrier

[queenhank]

See, the thing is that that is not actually true (I really don't want to be condescending here, but I couldn't think of another way to put that). If you travel halfway between two points, and then travel halfway there again, and then again, and so forth and so on, you will never get there. Now we're getting into fractal mathematics and chaos theory and the like, but I suppose we can without venturing into high-concept mathematics. So, there is never a point at which there is no next decimal place, and there would never be a point at which a Warp Drive cannot put out more power without going Warp 10. In fact, it would be the opposite. You would eventually get to the point where even the smallest increase in power is impossible, simply due to the limitations of the machine.

 

What I think I'm really trying to say here is that there is no "Warp 10 barrier". Warp 10 is not some theoretical ceiling for speed, but rather a term for infinitely increasing speed. Now, since we've seen someone reach Warp 10, we know that it is not impossible, but I would say that it wasn't because the ship just kept going faster until it "broke the barrier", rather I would say that the ship warped space-time to the point where they folded in, becoming a single fixed point, thus practically achieving infinite speed, or the simultaneous occupation of all points in space. It's kinda like assuming the cause because you see the result. Tom Paris simultaneously occupied all points in space, and so they assume he was traveling at infinite speed.

 

A "barrier" can be breached - that is, surpassed. Can anybody think of a way in which you could surpass the simultaneous occupation of all points in space?