the physics of Star treK travel

The Physics of Star Trek Travel

Page 2 3ith m 6 47,80( tons9-: and v = 0 c, the energy re2uired turns out to "e roughly e2ual to -.-2 / -0 24 ;. <e/t we can calculate the mass of fuel re2uired to output such an amount of energy. &ssuming the fusion reactors a"oard the ship use a deuterium!tritium reaction, the energy released per reaction is -,.= >e?92:, or 2.82 / -0!-2 ;. Further assuming a perfect efficiency of this process, the num"er of reactions re2uired are 4.7, / -0 4(. The mass of "oth deuterium and tritium in this reaction are (.04,7 u94:, or 8.4( / -0 !2, kg. +ence the mass of fuel re2uired to simply accelerate once to 0 c is 4.42 / -07 kg, or over 8 times the mass of the ship@ This is o"viously not practical A however, this could "e conceiva"ly "e avoided "y simply using a higher energy density fuel. The second pro"lem is <ewton#s third law, commonly referred to as #every action has an e2ual and opposite reaction#. n order to accelerate to 0 c in, say, ( minutes, a reasona"le length of time given the show, would re2uire from the simple formula v = at an acceleration of roughly 2(0,000 m s !2. This is e2uivalent to nearly 2(,000 g, where -g is the force felt "y -kg in the $arth#s gravitational field. &s the ship accelerates, thanks to <ewton#s third law so does anything in it, meaning a passenger would also feel an acceleration of 2(,000 g. +umans, with the aid of specialised training and suits, can survive up to 7 g vertically 94:. f we assume that the passengers do not have this training and e2uipment, let us e/amine how long it would take to accelerate to the same speed "ut with only a *relatively. comforta"le 4 g of acceleration. From the same formula, we can see that it would re2uire roughly a month@ 'learly, this presents serious o"stacles to achieving acceleration of this magnitude. & handy workaround in the series came in the form of #inertial dampening#, a system that nullifies the inertia, or resistance to changes in motion, of o")ects inside the ship. t turns out that, with the current physics we know,

Introduction
For over 40 years, Star Trek has captured the imagination of millions around the world with its adventure, intrigue, and epic space setting. t has influenced popular culture in wide and far!reaching ways, from the many parodies and tri"utes of other entertainment, to the naming of the first space shuttle as #$nterprise#. %ut what people may not guess from the fantastic setting is the deep relationship that Star Trek has with real physics. This essay will illustrate some of those relationships. t is well known that the distances involved in space are immense. The closest star to us, &lpha 'entauri, is roughly 4.( light years away, and even with the fastest space!faring o")ect mankind has ever produced *the +elios pro"es achieved a speed of roughly ,0 km s!-., travelling there one way only would take appro/imately 20,000 years. n order to condense these and the other similarly vast distances involved in space travel into a time!frame suita"le for entertainment, plot devices were necessary to shorten the time necessary for travel.

Impulse Drives
"One-quarter impulse power." - Captain Kirk mpulse drives are used in Star Trek for short distance travel, are powered "y fusion and have a recommended speed of 0 the speed of light. +ow would such a drive work in real life1 There are several pro"lems that must "e overcome. The first is that of, energy e/penditure. The energy re2uired to accelerate to a certain speed must come from somewhere, i.e. the fuel. 3e can calculate the energy re2uired to accelerate the ship to 0 the speed of light, neglecting relativistic effects *the gamma factor is only -.044 at this speed.5 From the kinetic energy e2uation5 1 2 E = mv , 2

The Physics of Star Trek Travel

Page 4 "ecause space itself has no mass. &ll a warp drive has to do, then, to achieve faster than light travel in accordance with relativity, is #warp# space!time itself in a "u""le, contracting it ahead of and e/panding it "ehind of the ship. n this way, space!time itself could move at an ar"itrarily large speed depending on the degree of contractionDe/pansion, while any o")ects within the volume enclosed "y the "u""le would not "e moving faster than the speed of light, "ecause light itself would "e carried along "y this movement of space!time. There is a solution to the e2uations put forward "y $instein#s theory of general relativity which satisfies these re2uirements perfectly5 the &lcu"ierre drive, or #metric#.9=: t was in fact directly inspired "y Star Trek. 9,: t is also possi"le to design this metric such that the enormous gravitational fields re2uired to "end space!time in such a manner would "e minimised close to the ship itself. t would seem that there is thus no theoretical "lock to the warp drive of science fiction, then. +owever, the 2uestion is not 2uite that simple. n &lcu"ierre#s investigation of how this metric might actually "e created, he discovered that the energy density of the metric was negative. 'lassical physics would then also seem to rule this out, "ut 2uantum field theory does allow for negative energy, as shown in the 'asimir effect.98: The possi"ility of the utilisation of negative energy plays a key role in other Star Trek ideas, such as inertia negation *a"ove., or wormholes.

such a system would "e impossi"le as inertia is a "asic property of all types of positive matter. +owever, a further option e/ists, that of e/erting an e2ual and opposite gravitational field to the field produced "y any acceleration. This could conceiva"ly "e carried out with large 2uantities of negative energy, e/panded upon further in this essay.

Warp Drive
"Engage!" - Captain Picard Bne of the most famous ideas to come out of Star Trek is argua"ly the warp drive, where"y a"ove!light speeds can "e achieved, and interstellar distances covered in the relative "link of an eye. This would seem to "e stopped dead "y $instein#s theory of special relativity, in which the energy!momentum e2uation is E =( pc ) +( mo c )
2 2 2 2
2

From this it can "e derived that E = mo c . &s an o")ect approaches light speed, approaches infinity, and thus the mass of the o")ect also approaches infinity. Since the kinetic energy e2uation a"ove contains a term in m, it can "e seen that accelerating an o")ect to the speed of light would re2uire an infinite amount of energy and thus "e impossi"le. +owever, this argument only applies to o")ects with a rest mass a"ove Cero5 o")ects with a Cero rest mass *e.g. photons themselves. can A and do, o"viously A travel at and faster than light. t is well known that the universe is e/panding9(:, and the further away an o")ect in space is from us, the faster it e/pands. t turns out that some gala/ies are receding from us at faster than the speed of light@ +ow can this "e, if special relativity for"ids faster than light travel1 This can "e e/plained 2uite easily5 it is not the gala/y which is moving relative to us at the speed of light, it is the space itself "etween us and the gala/y which e/pands. This is not for"idden "y special relativity

Fig. 1: 2-D diagram of the lcu!ierre metric. "pace-time is e#panding on the left and contracting on the right.

The Physics of Star Trek Travel

Page 4 space!time. ?arious other arguments are taking place over warp drive of this sort, ranging from surviva"ility inside the "u""le 9-2:, to possi"le damaging effects at the destination of any warp9-4:, to whether the drive could violate causality.9-4: This is an active and e/citing research area, with concrete potential.

Wormholes
"$od for!id % should miss m& first loo' at the wormhole..." - Counsellor Troi 3ormholes in Star Trek allow for near!instantaneous travel over very large distances, "eyond that even possi"le with the fictional warp drive providing a convenient e/cuse over how to reach a distant part of the gala/y. Fig 2: (arp drive as seen in "tar )re'. *ote the e#pansion !ehind and contraction in front of the ship of space-time+ similar to lcu!ierre,s drive Pfennig and Ford investigated the &lcu"ierre metric in detail97:, and found that 2uantum field ine2ualities imposed that the #walls# of the warp "u""le had to "e appro/imately e2ual to the Planck length. n addition, e/tending the "u""le over a range of -00m so that it might "e macroscopically useful re2uired !=.2 / -0=( kg of energy, or -0 times more than the o"serva"le mass of the universe in negative energy. +owever, ?an der %roeck found 9-0:, "y changing the shape of the metric *so that it was su"atomically small in 4E "ut macroscopically siCed in 4E., that the energy re2uirement reduced to only *@. around 2 solar masses of energy. Bnly recently, it was found "y 3hite 9--: that "y further modifying the metric into a doughnut shape and oscillating the warp field, the energy re2uired to generate the field could "e the e2uivalent of ,00 kg or less, well within the range of physical possi"ility. 3hite also announced plans to construct e/perimental apparatus that could detect this #warping# of 3ormholes have actually "een e/amined in great detail as another solution to general relativity5 that of the SchwarCschild metric *which descri"es the gravitational field outside a spherical mass., in the case where it descri"es an eternal "lack hole with no rotation or no charge. This type of wormhole is called an $instein!Fosen "ridge after it was put forward as a solution "y them. 9-(: Theoretically, a particle falling into a "lack hole would then "e a"le to escape into another universe or a different part of the same universe.

Fig -:

representation of an Einstein-.osen !ridge

The Physics of Star Trek Travel

Page ( 'anonically, it scans an o")ect, dematerialises it, stores it in a pattern "uffer, and then sends a matter stream through an annular confinement "eam to the destination. t would thus seem that the transporter transmits "oth the matter of the o")ect as well as the information re2uired to put the matter "ack again. Geaving aside whether atoms put together in the same e/act place constitute the same o")ect, or could constitute a human *an entire philosophical de"ate., shall e/amine two aspects to this issue5 the transmission of matter and the transmission of energy. n order to #dematerialise# an o")ect, one could heat it to several hundreds of "illions of H, there"y overcoming the "inding energy inside nuclei. The resulting particles would "e travelling at close to the speed of light so they could conceiva"ly "e captured and transported somewhere else. +owever, to do this would re2uire energy e2ual to roughly -0I of the rest mass of an o")ect5 for a human, this would "e on the order of -0 -, ; of energy, an o"viously impractical task. This would still re2uire the transporting of an inordinate amount of information a"out how the o")ect was put together. Get us e/amine )ust how much that might "e5 an estimate of the num"er of atoms in the human "ody is -028.9-,: 3e assume that the amount of information re2uired to completely descri"e an atom#s state A e.g. location, internal energy levels, "onds to other atoms, vi"ration etc etc A can "e descri"ed on one page of -2!point font, or appro/imately 2 kilo"ytes. +ence the information re2uired to descri"e a human "ody in terms of its atoms is 2 / -0 28 kilo"ytes. This is an enormous 2uantity of information A -0 million times larger than the entire current data storage of the earth, although there is no physical o")ection to gaining the capacity to store and transmit such gargantuan 2uantities of information in the future. 3hat is an insurmounta"le o")ection to teleportation of this fashion is the +eisen"erg uncertainty principle9-8:. t states that position and momentum cannot "e known together to

+owever, Fuller and 3heeler proved that in order to preserve causality, the #throat# of the wormhole would close "efore any sort of signal could get through.9-=: Thorne and others then imagined that a traversa"le wormhole might "e possi"le if its throat were held open "y negative energy 98:. +e further imagined "eing a"le to create a wormhole from the #2uantum foam#, a phenomenon where"y topologies of space!time can vary at length scales of appro/imately -0!4( m. t might "e possi"le to pick out and enlarge a wormhole to classical siCe and hold its throat open with negative energy, where"y it would "e traversa"le. t could even "e used as a time machine@ f one end of the wormhole were held stationary while the other end accelerated to high speed A close to the speed of light A and then returned to its initial position, the end that had moved would have #aged# less than the stationary end. +ence, not only would there "e a space difference "etween the two ends of a wormhole, there would also "e a time difference, leading to the possi"le violation of causality. <eedless to say, there is a great deal of controversy around these results, and whether they are physically possi"le at all, "ut nevertheless, the fact that they are not immediately ruled out "y ma)or e/isting theories of physics is truly e/citing.

Teleportation
"/eam me up+ "cott&" - Catchprase spoken by Kirk though never actually ever said in the show. Teleportation in Star Trek is a convenient plot device to avoid screen!time!consuming *and costly@. landings on a planet every time a ship were to interact with one. +owever, it is possi"ly the most outlandish technology imagined "y the series, presenting a verita"le myriad of pro"lems and 2uestions. Firstly, there is de"ate over how the transporter actually works in the series.

The Physics of Star Trek Travel

Page = & simplified e/ample follows5 if have two entangled photons, and measure the spin of one photon, know that the other photon has an opposite spin. This knowledge a"out the state of the second entangled photon has travelled faster than light, a fact that has "een e/perimentally proven.920: 'urrent research is focusing on using these #2u"its#, 2uantum "its *in analogy with classical "its, they have the usual - and 0 values, plus a superposition of these two states. in teleportation and computing. Fesearchers have successfully managed to teleport whole atoms *or rather, the 2u"its that completely specify the 2uantum state of an atom.92-:. 3hile this is not 2uite the same as a Star Trek teleporter, it is the closest kind of teleportation that physics will allow us to achieve.

an ar"itrarily high precision, i.e. that it is physically impossi"le to measure "oth position and momentum e/actly, regardless of the accuracy of the measuring e2uipment utilised. This can "e e/plained with a simple analogy5 in order to measure the position of a particle accurately, you would need to use an instrument with a very high resolving power. The "est kind we know is light of a high fre2uency, with a resolving power of its wavelength. Jet we also know that light has energy, which increases with decreasing wavelength *E = hf and f = c are the relevant formulae.. t thus imparts this energy when interacting with the particle, giving it a kick and changing its momentum in an unpredicta"le way. +ence the more accurately the position is measured, the less accurately the momentum is known, and vice versa. This means that, not knowing the e/act state of the atoms making up an o")ect, it would "e impossi"le to recreate it e/actly at a destination. Star Trek writers got around this pro"lem neatly "y employing artistic licence and utilising a device called a #+eisen"erg 'ompensator#, named for o"vious reasons. +owever, current physics rules this method of teleportation out a"solutely. Bne method of teleportation that is physically attaina"le is that of 2uantum information. This relies on a phenomenon known as entanglement, where"y pairs or groups have 2uantum states that must "e descri"ed relative to each other. $ntanglement was put forth as an aid to criticise 2uantum theory 9-7: "ut eventually was e/perimentally verified and proved to "e a key part of 2uantum mechanics.

Conclusion
n this essay have presented various means of travel found in the Star Trek canon, e/plored some of their modes of operation and related them to real!world physics. The influence of Star Trek on real physics must not "e underestimated5 "esides its influences descri"ed a"ove, it is dou"tless responsi"le for inspiring many young physicists to take up the field, )ust as it has inspired other people from all walks of life. Perhaps this is the most important contri"ution Star Trek has or will make to physics5 a new generation of scientists ready to take up the mantle of discovery.

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The Physics of Star Trek Travel

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Image Credits
Title Page5 http5DDonceuponageek.comDimagesDenterprise!n/.)pg Fig. -5 Fef. = Fig. 25 adapted from http5DDwww.informatik.tu!cott"us.deDQtweimannDlcarsDengineeringDwarpNfield.)pg Fig. 45 http5DDen.wikipedia.orgDwikiDFile5GorentCian3ormhole.)pg