> What exactly is the breakthrough that has led to this recent spurt of warp drive papers? As far as I can tell the results are all purely theoretical and just

> What exactly is the breakthrough that has led to this recent spurt of warp drive papers? As far as I can tell the results are all purely theoretical and just re-arranging equations. None of them appear to rely on any recently lab discovered physics. Why couldn't this have been done in 1950, I wonder? By "recent", you have to go back almost 30 years to the Aclubierre Drive (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive) described in 1994. It forms part of the "we can come up with some interesting solutions to general relativity" literature. That literature is not just a recent phenomenon. Research into theoretical wormholes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormhole#Development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wormhole#Development) goes back decades further.