Scientists Decide Star Trek Warp Drive Obliterates Everything
Who would've thought the words "Warp speed Mr. Sulu" would prove so fatal to our universe. Geekologie reports that scientists who specialize in the study of sci-fi transportation (which is on the short list of awesome jobs for smart geeks) published a theory stating that utilization of the "warp drive" would only result in massive death and destruction.
...Space is not just an empty void between point A and point B... rather, it's full of particles that have mass (as well as some that do not.) What the research team -- led by Brendan McMonigal, Geraint Lewis, and Philip O'Byrne -- has found is that these particles can get "swept up" into the warp bubble [when traveling faster than light] and focused into regions before and behind the ship, as well as within the warp bubble itself.
When the Alcubierre-driven ship decelerates from superluminal speed, the particles its bubble has gathered are released in energetic outbursts. In the case of forward-facing particles the outburst can be very energetic -- enough to destroy anyone at the destination directly in front of the ship."Any people at the destination," the team's paper concludes, "would be gamma ray and high energy particle blasted into oblivion due to the extreme blueshifts for [forward] region particles."
Imagine the Enterprise crew rolling up to kick some ass for the first time only to find out they've indiscriminately kicked all asses in the vicinity! Good for crew survival ratio, bad for whomever they were saving!
Kind of puts a damper on your sci-fi space battles, right?
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