5 ms·
Even among people who hold out hope that a warp drive is physically possible (as opposed to merely mathematically possible), I don't think anyone ever suggested
by NoGravitas 3y ago
Even among people who hold out hope that a warp drive is physically possible (as opposed to merely mathematically possible), I don't think anyone ever suggested that antimatter was a candidate for the negative mass required by the equations. It's always been some kind of unobtainium.
- _3u10 3y agoYeah in Star Trek lore isn’t matter antimatter reactions how they get the power for it and then “dilithium” crystals are what makes the field?
- krapp 3y agoAs I understand it, dilithium crystals control the matter/antimatter reaction somehow. Zephram Cochrane's first flight used a ship powered by a nuclear reactor, I think. The warp field is made with an array of "warp coils" which apparently require the large amount of energy from the matter/antimatter reaction to create a subspace distortion field that allows warp travel. What is subspace? It's never adequately explained, but sometimes monsters come out of it and kidnap you to a pocket dimension where they rearrange your organs.
- matthewdgreen 3y agoAt sufficient speeds it can also cause you to become a giant slug and have slug babies with your ship's captain, which nobody will ever mention again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_(Star_Trek:_Voyager) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_(Star_Trek:_Voyager)
- redwall_hp 3y agoDilithium is a mediator for a deuterium/antimatter reaction that generates the fantastic amounts of power required. The warp field is generated by some sort of coils in the nacelles.
- shiroiuma 3y agoAntimatter is only used because, when combined with matter, it has a higher energy density than anything else known, including fusion. That part is completely within known physics. The "dilithium" is used somehow to control the matter-antimatter reaction; they have nothing to do with the warp field. Why the writers came up with this I don't know, but it does make for a convenient plot device sometimes when they have some problem with dilithium mines on some distant planet. Like various hard-to-acquire materials today, there are political problems caused by the scarcity of dilithium, and this comes up in many episodes. And, conveniently, dilithium somehow can't be replicated by the regular matter replicators. The warp field is created by the warp nacelles. How? Who knows.
- willis936 3y ago>unobtainium The technical term is exotic matter. I think a better name would be Goshwoodentbeeneetium. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exotic_matter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exotic_matter
- varispeed 3y agoCan negative mass be actually positive, by using different point of reference? Like with voltages. One can be positive or negative if you swap "ground".
- wholinator2 3y agoWell, i think some trouble lies in that things with 0 mass are already defined here. Light has 0 mass, and anything with 0 mass must move at the speed of light since it has no inertia to stop it. What other point of reference can we use when 0 has been so solidly defined?
- ivanb 3y agoI can give an example. If something moves back in time, it interacts as if it has negative mass relative to us, who move forward in time. Of course nothing moves back in time but tachyons which exist only on paper. The worlds of things moving forward in time and backward in time never meet because they are just two different solutions to the same equation and we have absolutely no evidence that the second world exists. Inverted matter from Tenet should have received negative mass but we most likely will never see it because time may be an illusion likewise to rotation.
- pyuser583 3y agoThank you for your answer
- nyssos 3y agoNo, the gravitational analogue of voltage is the gravitational potential energy. We can freely shift them by constants because absolute potentials are unobservable: only potential differences have physical consequences. Mass, like charge, is directly observable.