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Subspace and Warp Drive - how exactly does it work?
stardestroyer001
Member Posts: 2,615 Arc User
Some might say I'm a little obsessed with Star Trek to ask this very complicated question. It's technical, so I invite people with physics and Trek backgrounds to join in.
I've read the TNGTM cover to cover multiple times. I understand what the warp coil's function is. I've also read articles on Ex Astris concerning subspace and warp propulsion. I've written a technical essay on the M/ARA and warp propulsion as well. Not to say I know everything, but I'm at least keeping up, so to speak.
One part that has me puzzled is the shape of the subspace field. In TNG, displays in Engineering show a symmetric subspace field surrounding the ship in both top and side views. The field is usually depicted as being larger behind the ship and smaller in front. Both views show the different layers of the warp field converging near the nacelle "vents", which seems to suggest that both fore and aft field lobes create two roughly ellipsoid areas of subspace, with a 2-D plane of no subspace field (if the xyz coordinate system is used, and x points to the bow of the ship, it would be the yz plane) existing at both nacelle vents.
How exactly does this conduce the ship to move forward in the x (forward) direction?
From what we know in real life of magnetic and electric fields, motion occurs around the field from one pole to another. In this case, subspace moves perpendicular to the line between the subspace field poles. If subspace fields behave like electric and magnetic fields, subspace fields would move port and starboard, causing the ship to warp sideways.
I was under the impression that a "proper" warp field would be one where the poles are located at the fore and aft of each warp nacelle. That way, subspace particles would move around the outside of each engine, and in the case of most starships with lateral pairs of nacelles, the field would not exist at the centerline of the ship. The engines would increase to 1 millicochrane or more, and the application of Newton's 3rd law would cause the ship to move forward relative to the opposite direction of subspace particles trapped in the subspace field, while simultaneously reducing the ship's mass to zero. This warp field configuration would also justify a line of dialogue in (I think) an episode of Enterprise, where the chief engineer states that an imbalance would rip the ship apart.
I've read the TNGTM cover to cover multiple times. I understand what the warp coil's function is. I've also read articles on Ex Astris concerning subspace and warp propulsion. I've written a technical essay on the M/ARA and warp propulsion as well. Not to say I know everything, but I'm at least keeping up, so to speak.
One part that has me puzzled is the shape of the subspace field. In TNG, displays in Engineering show a symmetric subspace field surrounding the ship in both top and side views. The field is usually depicted as being larger behind the ship and smaller in front. Both views show the different layers of the warp field converging near the nacelle "vents", which seems to suggest that both fore and aft field lobes create two roughly ellipsoid areas of subspace, with a 2-D plane of no subspace field (if the xyz coordinate system is used, and x points to the bow of the ship, it would be the yz plane) existing at both nacelle vents.
How exactly does this conduce the ship to move forward in the x (forward) direction?
From what we know in real life of magnetic and electric fields, motion occurs around the field from one pole to another. In this case, subspace moves perpendicular to the line between the subspace field poles. If subspace fields behave like electric and magnetic fields, subspace fields would move port and starboard, causing the ship to warp sideways.
I was under the impression that a "proper" warp field would be one where the poles are located at the fore and aft of each warp nacelle. That way, subspace particles would move around the outside of each engine, and in the case of most starships with lateral pairs of nacelles, the field would not exist at the centerline of the ship. The engines would increase to 1 millicochrane or more, and the application of Newton's 3rd law would cause the ship to move forward relative to the opposite direction of subspace particles trapped in the subspace field, while simultaneously reducing the ship's mass to zero. This warp field configuration would also justify a line of dialogue in (I think) an episode of Enterprise, where the chief engineer states that an imbalance would rip the ship apart.
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I'm curious, as we know warp drive is theoretically possible, what would the shape of the subspace field be and the necessary design of a ship as well.
what? you may as well start over and dumb it down a little for those who have no clue what you wrote there. i certainly have no idea and i would like to try get into this thread if possible.
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Or as Scotty put it, "It never occurred to me to think of space as the thing that was moving."
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I understood it, but had to go do a refresher on existing warp theory, lol...
I'll dumb it down a little bit... warp drive works by creating a bubble in space-time... objects existing in this bubble will remain at whatever time frame it was in when the bubble was created. This bubble is then pushed BEYOND the speed of light toward its intended target.
This avoids relatively issues, but... there are problems.
Theory states that the mass of that bubble, and its energy, will require a significant amount of energy to remain in its proper space-time frame and require even MORE energy to exceed the speed of light. The shape of the bubble, however suggests that finding the perfect shape will drastically reduce the amount of energy required to exceed the speed of light while avoiding all those nasty time issues when approaching light speeds.
The other issue is... and Star Trek points it out. You're essentially creating a wave with your drive... and damaging space. That's why you can't warp inside a solar system, you're creating a wave of energy that slams into everything in its path. It's not good.
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Basically, warp theory rests on physics we are familiar with (ie, the speed of light and the relationship between mass, velocity, and energy) and physics that Star Trek invented. I'll touch on both below.
Subspace is basically another dimension, a dimension that can be accessed by subspace fields. Compare it to a sheet of paper and a mathematical sphere. A 2D observer who lives on the 2D plane would be able to understand motion in 2 dimensions, but a 3D motion (such as a mathematical sphere passing through the sheet of paper) would utterly confound them. They would see a point grow into a circle, the circle get larger and larger, then recede back into a point and vanish again.
Similar to the relationship between the 2D and 3D space, subspace has weird and different physics and properties compared to space we know of. In "reality"
When a starship generates a warp field, this distorts regular space and starts to transition a bubble of normal space into subspace. Similar to the mathematical sphere passing through a 2D piece of paper, the starship transitions into subspace, leaving regular space behind if the field is strong enough.
The subspace field can be likened to an electric or magnetic field, which exist today in magnets, solenoids, and so forth. An electric or magnetic field has two poles, a north and a south. In the case of a magnetic field, magnetic objects are forced along magnetic field lines to one pole. Similarly with electric fields, electrons move from one pole to another. These lines form layers, like layers of an onion. Layers closer to the poles are stronger, whereas layers farther away are weaker. One would imagine subspace fields work along the same principle, ie subspace particles move from one pole to another, and the areas between layers are stronger or weaker depending on the "closeness" of the layer to the poles.
Generating a field is cool, but how about pushing the ship forward? Newton's 3rd law comes into effect, where the act of pushing particles results in a reaction force. In addition, the field needs to be slightly out of alignment, so particles on one side of the field move faster compared to particles on the other side. This is why proper starships have pairs of nacelles. One nacelle runs stronger than the other, fulfilling this requirement. Since the starship resides entirely in subspace and has no mass in normal space, and the asymmetric field pushes the massless ship forward, the ship can travel faster than light.
However, it seems as if the diagrams shown in the TNG Tech Manual and on displays throughout TNG, VOY and ENT show a sideways warp field!
Such a field would propel the ship sideways, since the poles start on the left warp nacelle and end on the right (or vice versa), and subspace particles would move from the left side of the ship to the right. An asymmetric field would propel the ship to the side.
So my question is, how does the ship move forward, if the warp field is pointed sideways? Shouldn't the poles be pointed in the direction of travel?
(I tried to find pictures or videos, but it seems no one has made any that are accurate.
*Subspace has different physics compared to normal space, primarily that Einstein's special theory of relativity doesn't apply, and sufficient reaction force of zillions of subspace particles on a starship allows the starship to travel faster than the speed of light.
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The "basic" concept of warp drive is actually pretty dang simplistic. Surround ship in a field of "subspace" where the speed of light (c) is tremendously higher than ours, and cruise along at "sublight" speeds according to the speed of light for subspace, which winds up being a lot faster than "our" light speed without the issues of relativistic dilation, etc.
According to one book I read (so canonicity is in doubt), the reason the TOS Connies had two different looks on the nacelles was because of secondary propulsion units - the "grilled" back nacelles were when impulse drives emplaced in the rear of the nacelles propelled the ship through subspace, while the dome backed ones was when the "primary" impulse deck propelled the ship.
By TMP time, they elected to make the nacelles strictly warp field generators, and count on the primary impulse engine for all forward propulsion...
IIRC, the memories indicate that the transwarp drive pioneered by Excelsior was "rebuilt" into something "much more effective" than TMP-era and "renamed" into the "normal" warp drive for TNG era. Part of this "remodeled" (trans)warp drive could be what was causing all those subspace distortions - one theory of transwarp was combining transporter (the trans) technology with warp drive "punching" the ship further into subspace...
...or, it could just be a thing of "streamlined streaky fields look cooler and faster than ball or blob shaped fields", and that's why we have those funky designs...
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Quite well, most of the time.
Warp Drive propels the ship at the 'speed required by the plot' to arrive exactly where it needs to be at the exact time it needs to be there so the plot/story can continue and reach proper conclusion.:D
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Unless they have a wordy technobabble problem. Then it takes an hour to fix ,and that becomes the episode.
It still doesn't explain why the warp field is sideways, assuming warp fields behave like magnetic and electric fields do - flowing from one pole to another, not sideways.
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I have to admit this discussion is really fun.
Let's try something slightly different concerning "Warp Field Theory" and how a warp field is created. If I may.
What if we had a situation that if you created something like the "Cochrane Drive", the physics involved was remarkably more simple than originally disiminated to the general "Public" back in the days of Cochrane during the late 21st to early 22nd centuries. Another words the actual forces involved would have to have been something already attainable in a post nuclear exchange scenario world. In order to keep it out of the hands of those bent on terrorist tendencies, the group involved with this new Cochrane Drive would have changed some of the particulars pertaining to what constituted a Cochrane Field.
Now let's assume that Mr./Dr. Cochrane found the means-instead-of gravity, using a force that was a million, billion, billion, billion times more powerful than gravity. (Electro-Magnetism) Electro-Magnetism can be used to create fields. If powerful enough they can effectively be called Subspace Fields. Look up the Floating Frog Experiment done in Sweden a few years back. If subspace fields are erected they can isolate one's ship from the outside such that the laws of inertia relative to the outside of the field are nonexistant. Thus eliminating the apparent mass relative to the outside universe. This would result in an elimination of Einstein's restrictions because the ship wouldn't be part of the outside universe anymore.
Now let's go foreward. Electrons repell one another. This is called the Columb Effect. The same is true for Protons, in that they repell one another because of like charge. (Protons-of-course will attract electrons because of opposite charge.) If you have a field that can then be manipulated, you can alter it to make use of the Colomb Effect. Example, were you to have a field with Electrons stacked in the rear and protons stacked in the front with strong magnetic gauss lines to border them up, you would effectively have a Cochrane Field. The interaction of the electrons behind and the protons ahead would result in motion.
The isolation between inside of the field and the outside of the field would maintain the subspace effect. (You wouldn't even have to have an inertia dampener because your field itself would serve as such.) Simple.
Not sure we can trust this though. The traveler was a nutty pedophile trying to get Wes to go on vacation with him. It's probably just a form of base flattery with a hint of fact.