Light Speed/Warp Speed

[Vektram]

Some friends and I are having a discussion about the motion blur and light speed vs. warp speed in Star Trek. It was all sparked when I posted a picture of my current desktop, which had a wallpaper that I got from this site.

 

This wallpaper from phildo.org.

 

Sickle: wtf is with the jetstreaming on the enterprise :\

it is either reversing ito that planet or has some new crazy engine configuration

 

Leetcow:That happens just before it goes to warp, so I guess it sort of kills space-time or something.

 

 

Either that or space is very windy.

 

Newname: yeah, i was just about to comment on the motion blur when I remebered the visual effects used in trek.

 

Its suppoed to be an "after image" left by the enterprise becouse its acellerating faster than the speed of light. But it really shoudl be the other way round, with the ghostly bit looking solid and the solid bit looking ghostly. And the motion blur isn't that realistic anyway, considering the motion blur created by your own eyes is completely solid, not this weird ghostly crap.

 

Leetcow: maybe the motion blur would be different if we saw something going at the speed of light

 

Newname: im actually not sure on the subject of what a macroscopic object would look like a super luminar speeds. but during the acelleration process between the complete stop of the ship and it disapearing into the distant flash the ship is travelling at sub luminar speeds, and im guessing the flash is a reprisentation of some sort of cosmic supersonic bang (crossing the speed of sound produces a bang of sound, so in trek, crossing the the speed of light produces a flash of light?).

 

Of course why the ships produce the flash of light is another question entirley, considering the fact that the ships never actually travel fast than the speed of light.

 

Leetcow: I thought they did go faster than light

 

Spectre: in fact they travel at warp speed (faster than light) to get from place to place and only travel at sub-warp speed when serveying an area, near harbors or need to travel short distances.

newname's point on the light flash sound pretty logical

 

Newname: people! even heard of special relativity? You know, whole can't travel at the speed of light full stop thing (and when i say full stop I really do mean it).

 

My guess is that the warp engines modify the space around them (probably using a magnetic field) to increase the speed of light (assuming they subscribe to VSL) and therefore they able to travel at a speed that is faster than light in our reference frame, whereas they'd be no where near the superluminar boundary in their reference frame. My best guess is this would not create a superluminar flash, as the area the flash would take place in would be under effect of the warp engine.

 

What the ship would look like is another question entirely and I can't awnser that as I've never seen an updated version of special relativity to accomidate VSL (the word updated is used a little loosely here, a better term would be completely re-written).

 

EDIT: now that i think about it, i remeber that there was a recent ep of enterprise in which trip has to merge the new enterprise's (can't remeber its name) "warp field" with the old enterprise's one, and eventually envelop both of them in the same field. This field could well be the magnetic field used to energise the space around them. If a ship were to loose its field it wuold esentially be stuck on the other side of the light barrier, unable to decelerate (not to mention some nasty side effects). Though why enveloping two ships in one field would cause an extra power drain is anyone's guess.

 

Leetcow; warp speed is faster than light speed. that's that. fullstop.

 

see, the thing is that it's fiction. not a documentary.

 

Maxious: but shouldn't any kind of fantasy story "make the unbelievable believable"??

 

there's cool fiction and lame fiction - random flashes of light are lame and add nothing to the story even if they are pretty

 

Leetcow: ok, how about this. each starship has a giant light on the warp engines that flashed when they reach light speed

 

Sorry, for the long post but it's necessary because i'm not good at articulating.

 

Basically what I want to know is: is warp speed faster than light? Why do the ships flash just after they go to warp?

[darko79]

All you wanted to know about warp speed:

The Warp Scale

 

And also here is warp factor calculator:

Warp Factor Calculator

 

There is just one small discrepency:

According to this article (and also confirmed in ST: Voyager) Warp 10 could never be achieved, but in last episode of ST: TNG "All Good Things" Enterprise from the future could achieve warp 15 (or around 15, I don't remember exactly).

[Vektram]

Thanks, very interesting :D

[piepie]

According to this article (and also confirmed in ST: Voyager) Warp 10 could never be achieved, but in last episode of ST: TNG "All Good Things" Enterprise from the future could achieve warp 15 (or around 15, I don't remember exactly).

 

Ah you have to remember 2 rules of Star Trek

 

1) All scientific limitations set in one episode must remain canon until the limitation can be overcome by internal Trek logic

2) Plot comes first, and the above rule is void.

[luukie41]

good site darko :D

[melkor41]

According to this article (and also confirmed in ST: Voyager) Warp 10 could never be achieved, but in last episode of ST: TNG "All Good Things" Enterprise from the future could achieve warp 15 (or around 15, I don't remember exactly).

 

Ah you have to remember 2 rules of Star Trek

 

1) All scientific limitations set in one episode must remain canon until the limitation can be overcome by internal Trek logic

2) Plot comes first, and the above rule is void.

 

exactly, like time warp in the cage, time warp in ST:4, warp 10+ in TNG: Where no man has gone before, and many other times they could break warp 10, its just like the speed of light. right now we dont know of anyway to send solid matter faster than light (IBM has accelrated light and energy beyond the speed of light) but that limitation will be broken.. in the trek universe theres ways beyond warp 10, just not by tech standards. in each of those episodes (except the cage) there was a factor that let them break warp 10.

[Guest c4evap]

Naw. You all got it wrong. The flash of light when they go to warp is a back-fire cause they're using cheap unleaded anti-matter! Hope I cleared this up...

 

c4 :p

[starscream]

All you wanted to know about warp speed:

The Warp Scale

 

And also here is warp factor calculator:

Warp Factor Calculator

 

There is just one small discrepency:

According to this article (and also confirmed in ST: Voyager) Warp 10 could never be achieved, but in last episode of ST: TNG "All Good Things" Enterprise from the future could achieve warp 15 (or around 15, I don't remember exactly).

 

 

according to calculations, ENTERPRISE NX-01 has travelled some 2200Light Years during her 10 Year Run before decommission in 2161.

 

hehe B)

 

i am not assuming this in one direction, hence it came back to earth a few times ;)

 

could be something in the range of 2000-2200LY as well ;)

[trekfreak04]

I read somewhere that if you reached warp 10, that you would end up occupying all points in space/time at once. Not for sure if i got it from the net or not, but I did read about it.

 

If anyone can elaborate further, please do so...

[Weyoun]

I read somewhere that if you reached warp 10, that you would end up occupying all points in space/time at once. Not for sure if i got it from the net or not, but I did read about it.

 

If anyone can elaborate further, please do so...

I think that was in an episode of Voyager. The one where Paris and later Janeway go through that goofy evolution thing, and have little monster babies. ;) You may have read it somewhere else though too.

[Soulreaper]

Science really becomes philosophical on the higher levels!

 

If I remember correctly, isn't Warp 1 = lightspeed and Warp X = x times lightspeed ?

 

the links were good btw!

[S0V13T]

In one of the TNG DVD extras (I THINK atleast, it could have been the bartender for all I can remember the source of this info, but it seemed like a reliable source at the time) Warp 1 is light speed, warp 2 is 3-4 times faster then light speed, warp 3 is 300 - 400 times faster then light speed, etc. Its an exponential kind of scale.

(Uh, I think). Can anyone else remember hearing that somewhere?

[S0V13T]

I read somewhere that if you reached warp 10, that you would end up occupying all points in space/time at once. Not for sure if i got it from the net or not, but I did read about it.

 

If anyone can elaborate further, please do so...

I think that was in an episode of Voyager. The one where Paris and later Janeway go through that goofy evolution thing, and have little monster babies. ;) You may have read it somewhere else though too.

 

That was a Season 2 episode called Threshold. And Yeah, despite Riker's enterprise from TNG's "All Good Things..." going at warp 13, the Borg Cube still gaining on the Enterprise in "Q Who?" when the Enterprise is at warp 9.95 and a handfull of other instances where a ship still appears to be using standard warp technology (ie, not using Trans Warp Conduits, "The Traveller" or other means that necissitate different special effects), but is clearly going faster then warp 9.95.

 

Somehow paris and Torres determine that warp 10 is the ultimate speed limit, and if one were to go at warp 10, they'd occupy all points of the universe at the same time, kinda like the idea of the heart of golds infiniate improbability drive, or the starship bistromath (now that's one bitchin' form of pulpultion, robot waiters, and a simulated resturaunt.)

 

Threshhold was a great story, if you can overlook that a) It clearly defies pre-established canon from episodes SO memorable that even non trekkies can probabally discuss. b) the whole super-evolving into... Lizards? was just plain stupid, confusing, and unlikely. Tom Paris was allergic to the water in his coffee and had to be rushed to sickbay at one pont in the episode, but later on, His and janeway's kids go swimming in what is assumed to be water. I'm not an expert in evolution or anything, but it dosent seem reasonable for a species to be dependant on water (like us) then later down the road to be allergic to it, then later on, to be fine with it again, is a little TOO far of a strech of the imagination.

 

c) It's gotta be a breach of starfleet protocal for a captian to get her groove on with an officer under her command.

[werecow]

I read somewhere that if you reached warp 10, that you would end up occupying all points in space/time at once. Not for sure if i got it from the net or not, but I did read about it.

 

If anyone can elaborate further, please do so...

 

that was what they said on voyager when paris and janeway had all those slugs with feets for children

 

if you went warp 10 does this mean that you done went and blowed up?????

[werecow]

btw still doing repairs on my 429 powered warp 1 lawnmower..almost finished repairing the air induction system as it was torn off after reaching 45% of light speed will keep everybody updated as progress comes along.....gas is getting really expensive for this thing.....

[Guest c4evap]

(IBM has accelrated light and energy beyond the speed of light)

 

Sorry, gonna have to call BS on that one unless I see a reference, please?

 

Me too. I work for IBM and I've never heard that before or seen it mentioned on our internal website.

 

c4 B)