Comments on: Star Trek Got Warp Speed All Wrong

By: netdragon

netdragon — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 22:51:52 +0000

Furthermore, light probably cannot even penetrate the warp bubble, aside from effects like hawking radiation.

By: netdragon

netdragon — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 22:50:52 +0000

Brian, Warp speed is actually locally slower than the speed of light, since the “bubble” is actually “boosting” the speed by contracting space in front of the bubble and expanding it behind. However, the space inside the bubble is still moving at whatever the ship was going before the bubble was activated. Therefore, what this article really failed to take into account was how that boundary of the bubble would bend light travelling through it, probably like a lense, which would have some noticeable effect beyond just red-shifting (blue-shifting).

By: Brian

Brian — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 01:37:24 +0000

This article also doesn’t take into account the difference between what the crew would see from the viewscreen and what the people left behind would see as the ship warps away. I’m not saying Star Trek got it right, I’m just saying it’s not clear which point of view you are talking about here. The text refers to the point of view of the crew on the ship, but the examples in the video are from that of those left behind.

By: Brian

Brian — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 01:22:23 +0000

This description of what a starship crew might see misses the point entirely. It describes how things would look as one APPROACHES the speed of light. Warp speed is faster than light, or effectively so. So the question is not what things look like as you approach the speed of light, but what they would look like from a ship traveling at sublight speeds while it warped space around it to cheat the law and effectively go faster than light. I don’t think the description above describes that.