Faster Than Light - Modes of FTL In Science Fiction

Faster than light. We all assume humanity will figure it out, but how close is Science Fiction to reality? And how is FTL used in the many Sci-fi universes?
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Footage
Star Trek Into Darkness, 2013
Star Trek: The Motion Picture, 1979
Encounter At Farpoint, TNG, 1987
Star Trek: Nemesis, 2002
Starship Troopers, 1997
Strange New World, ENT, 2001
Interstellar, 2014
Star Wars, Special Edition, 1997
Ascent - Commemorating Shuttle, NASA, 2010
Juno Spacecraft Jupiter Arrival Animation, NASA, 2011
Firefly, 2005
Contact, 1997
Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, 2005
Scorpion, Part 1, VOY, 1997
Through The Eye Of The Needle, Farscape, 1999
Rose, Doctor Who, 2005
Defiant, DS9, 1994
Laser pulse shooting through a bottle and visualized at a trillion frames per second, web.media.mit.edu/~raskar//tri..., accessed Feb 10, 2015
Broken Bow, ENT, 2001
Where No One Has Gone Before, TNG, 1987
Lay Down Your Burdens, Battlestar Galactica, 2006
Dune, 2000
Dune, 1984
Baraka, 1992
Wormholes and Space-time Bridges, TheProfessorSyed KZbin channel, uploaded 2012
Sliders Pilot, 1995
Stargate 1994
Progeny, Stargate: Atlantis, 2006
Michio Kaku’s Sci Fi Science: The Physics of the Impossible, 2009
Faster Than Light Warp Drive: SpaceVision 2013, Harold White Lecture
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, 2001
The Child, TNG, 1988
The Physics of Space Battles, Its OK To Be Smart KZbin Channel, 2014
Images
View of Alpha Centauri from the Digitized Sky Survey 2, taken & uploaded by ESO/DSS 2, 2012
NGC 1300, taken & uploaded NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team STScI/AURA), 2004
Great Sphinx of Giza and the Pyramid of Khafre, taken & uploaded buy Hamish2k, 2005
Food Aboard The Space Shuttle Served On A Tray, taken & uploaded by NASA, 2003
Cover of E.E. Smith’s Book “Children Of The Lens”
"Embedding diagram" of a Schwarzschild wormhole, produced & uploaded by AllenMcC, 2007
The Forever war Book Cover, cover art by Michael J. Sullivan, Ridan Publishing
A Wrinkle In Time Book Cover
IXS Enterprise Warp Drive ship, based on Harold White’s team’s thoughts, designed by artist Mark Rademaker, 2014
North American Nebula, Digitized Sky Survey and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, NASA JPL, 2011
Music
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Jason Shaw
Creative Common Attribution 3.0
Procedural
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KZbin music

[@lovipoekimo176]

Sorry to correct you there. The Dune universe does not use Spice to "fuel" their FTL/space folding drives. Spice is used by the Navigators in order to SAFELY conduct space folding and accurately determine their destination so they don't accidentally jump into the middle of a star or planet. The Spice gives the Navigators precognitive abilities and this is what they use to Navigate. They do not use Spice to power their Holtzman drives.

[@Halox86]

+Lovi Poekimo Right. And in addition, the necessity to have these more or lesshumanoid navigators instead of super-fast computers is that such capable computers were prohibited, because of a long war between human and machines with cognitive abilities.

[@AntOfThy]

The concepts was made much clearer in the prequels. The holzman drive worked without spice, but 25% of ships never survived the jump. The spice and the spice warped navagators, basically saw into the future and basically 'pushed the button' when they sensed they would safely arrive.

[@teapoweredyugi]

And there you point out that they fold space. Which is technically not FTL.

[@linguisticallyoversight8685]

The Spice must flow !!!! the spacing guild perceive a threat to spice production they see plans within plans.

[@emersonmacintosh7673]

Too many have only seen the movie and think they blink into existence at their destination as they blink out of existence from their departure point.

[@Smeginator]

It's about time someone recognized Commander Einstein's abilities and promoted him to Science Officer

[@kirbiliusclausius]

Battlestar Galactica is based on temporary wormholes. Instead of Star Trek's making space in front of the ship smaller and and space behind the ship 'bigger' (leaving it the close the same size but according to one Next Gen episode, not close enough); a 12 Colonies tech ship simultaneously calculates the wormhole needed to connect where they are with where they need to be while building up enough energy to collapse that location to the current one and when done correctly the 'jump drive' generates this wormhole in much the same way a warp drive warps the space in front of it. Since the generator no longer exists at the origin point, space snaps back and hence why Battlestar Galactica holds ships that jump to be 'untrackable' by the means of jumping. Meaning Battlestar Galactica is about as science based as Stargate's wormhole/ring deals. It's just using one at a time and taking it with you. Hence, no stable tunnels & no FTL manuevering. Star Trek may be the best chased tech, but that seems to be due to power constraints. Our most favorable calculations that match Einstein's equations of relativity call for the amount of Joules that make up an ~ton of mass for Warp 2 / 10c travel, which we may be able to squeeze out of a hydrogen fusion reactor. I know of know tech that's even on the drawing board for handling the _Wattage_. Even (very) sublight microwaved Xeon drives aren't being fielded because while the drive can be built, the magnetic shielding to guard the ship from the million degree exhaust can't. TL;DR - Battlestar Galactica matches current models of physics just as well as Star Trek. The engineering required, from material construction to computational ability, is more of an obstacle to both.

[@seanyoung247]

I think it's interesting that, despite being portrayed as a joke, the infinite improbability drive is one of the concepts with arguably the best scientific basis. It is based around the concept of manipulating the probability of the ships location, getting the probability just right for the ship to appear somewhere else, avoiding the probability of it becoming a Sperm whale or a bowl of petunias along the way. This is actually just a way of thinking about quantum tunnelling, and there is work going in to showing quantum tunnelling effects in larger than sub-atomic objects. That's not to say it's any more probable or realistic than any other FTL, I'm not Deepak Chopra, just that it conforms to real physics better than most. Which has always amused me given that it was always just a joke.

[@renepfluger1113]

"The Slipstream is not the best way to travel faster than light, it's just the only way" Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda

[@gbode2443]

And in 40k they tear a hole into super hell

[@kabob0077]

Grant Bode They also may or may not get there on time, before they're needed, over 999 years later, or end up like the Space Hulks and just be unrecognizable blobs of ship, asteroids, Deamons, and *GEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAANNNNN STEALERS!*

[@rommdan2716]

Warhammer 40k is NOT a Sci Fi universe, it's a FANTASY UNIVERSE

[@azcomicgeek]

FTL is impossible in the Einsteinian understanding of the universe which is why the Star Trek concept of Warp speed was genius. Starships do not travel faster than light, they warp space to travel the equivalent distance in a reasonable time. If you compress space in front and expand space behind your vessel you can appear to move at FTL speeds while not violating the speed limit. The`warp bubbles created by the nacelles would allow for interstellar travel in a`reasonable manner, even if the plasma conversion is not adequately explained.

[@thehandlesticks66]

Now all we need is some antimatter

[@Intrepid17011]

And the most astonishing about all that is that the Concept would work in real World. I'm sure you heard about Alcubierres Drive, which was classified as "possible" by NASA and DARPA, it works exactly like the Warp Drive in Star Trek, which is somehow mind boggling.

[@Sierraone1]

I am not sure, but doesn't the "warping of space" progress with the speed of light? Gravity waves for example also travel with the speed of light, which as been proven several months ago.

[@kevinmcguire5001]

As fascinating as I find the Alcubierre Drive thought experiment, "would work in the real world" is quite a leap. Even accepting the "realistic" energy requirements for a moment, you still have to deal with the need for "negative energy density" - something which we have no reason to believe is a real description of any phenomenon in nature.

[@10Tabris01]

THough it still is our best bet at getting anywhere in our Galaxy in a single humans lifespan

[@void2258]

The Spice in Dune is not the fuel for FTL. FTL uses conventional fusion power. However, in order to make the jump, complex astrophysical calculation have to be made. Because of the Butlerian Jihad, any kind of complex computers, aka "Thinking Machines", are religiously prohibited, and thus the calculations needed for a jump must be done by a human (During the Jihad itself, before the widespread use of the Spice and the discovery that it could be used for navigation, humans were forced to utilize navigation computers, which they carefully monitored and which were rigged with multiple redundant cutoff and self destruct systems). Even Mentats, who can serve in most other roles that computers once did, cannot perform these calculations. By ingesting the Spice, Navigators are able to operate the system via prescience, essentially twiddling the settings until they foresee that they have the setup right.

[@smileyeagle1021]

Thank you. I'm always happy when I'm not the only person who is familiar enough with Dune to know that the spice isn't a fuel. It may indeed be an analog for oil for storytelling purposes, but still not a fuel.

[@teapoweredyugi]

Also, Dune's FTL isn't really FTL. It's technically fold-space travel which bypasses the Light Speed problem by molding space instead of moving the vehicle. Hence the need for super super precient navigators.

[@McBoomPow]

You beat me to it! LOL

[@RiccardoCagnasso]

You beat me to you beat me to that

[@arbhall7572]

Fold Space travel is by definition faster than travelling at the speed of light, so the term would apply to the Holtzman field/engines. The means used to accomplish the feat are largely unimportant as the result is faster than light speeds.

[@JmsNmnn]

This is my favorite episode yet. I know this channel intends to be focused on the Star Trek universe, but I really enjoyed a broad comparison of how different properties tackle the same topic. Great job

[@Trekspertise]

Thanks! Very glad you liked it. We really want to spend 50% of our time in the Trek multiverse and the other 50% examining science fiction as a whole. Look forward to some other broader topics in the future.

[@hfontanez98]

I have watched a few of these episodes and am now a subscriber. You have done an EXCELLENT job... Kudos to you!

[@Frostwyrmer]

Awesome. I was looking for an answer of these questions for a long time :) Subbed

[@Trekspertise]

Thank you, Frost! We are only just beginning =)

[@Crlarl]

Fracking, frelling, feldergarbin' yotz! Farscape, Stargate, Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica and Firefly are all series that I love.

[@Trekspertise]

Very happy you grok it, human =)

[@TheStarTrekApologist]

FTL is used in Star Wars as a plot point, it is a method of escape, as such they create a delay in the ability for ships to jump to hyperspace. This allows for the building of tension, "Don't worry we will be safe once me make the jump to light speed."

[@peccatumDei]

Great video! I enjoyed seeing references to shows that usually get ignored.

[@Trekspertise]

peccatumDei Thank you very much! Very glad you liked it =)

[@cal7961]

Just found your channel today, I absolutely love it.

[@Trekspertise]

Welcome aboard :)

[@pattimcb31]

your editing is fantastic

[@mjsoukup]

love your videos keep it up!

[@joemunch58]

I'm enjoying and do appreciate your series.

[@Trekspertise]

+Jane Doe Thanks! Welcome aboard :)

[@ricogoldstar]

Not to mention fluidic space, trans-warp drive, and the the trans warp conduit hubs of borg space.

[@Kyrichenko]

+RICO GOLDSTAR Did you know that trans-warp is not faster then warp?

[@ricogoldstar]

Robert Vojvodić But it provides a shortcut throughout space time, kind of like taking the far left HOV carpool lane bypassing congested traffic

[@ShasLaMontyr]

+Robert Vojvodić It's always been depicted as such, as space that's warped to a higher degree than usual and even kept that way with the transwarp hubs.

[@ricogoldstar]

Rob Chilton Exactly, as we can recall that in the First Encounter with the Borg on ST TNG, The borg cube caught up to and even overtook the Enterprise which was travelling at maximum Warp capacity

[@0011peace]

+RICO GOLDSTAR Not because of trans-warp but because they could sustain maximum warp longer. If you had a car that gets 10 mpg at 100 mph and I had one 20 mpg at 100 mph I would catch up with you when you had to slow down.

[@rylecut]

I'm so glad i found this channel on 4/20

[@50PercentBS]

You fracking rock! Thank you for this video.

[@MrSpudz2]

Not to long ago, we said that airplane were impossible, and we flew. Then they said that the sound barrier would never be broken, Chuck Yeager broke it. Some day in the distant future, FTL travel will be achieved as well.

[@Paul-A01]

Unlike with FTL, we can see birds flying, so we knew that it was at least physically possible.

[@stuartkseels]

I have been to Alpha Centauri... It's crap! it's a 9 day week of 31 hour days & the weekend is only 1 day! But the beer was cheap!

[@messianicrogue]

Stuart K. Seels You must have went a while back, its all changed now after the military coup - too many tourists have ruined it and the hotel guests are targeted by the svorgelects constantly.

[@yoianrhodes]

I rate star systems on the number of boobs per person/ if there is a pit with a large mouth.

[@Knight121198]

Stuart K. Seels pictures or didnt happen!! lol

[@stuartkseels]

RockHound32 If only I could, but all I took were 3D holographic pictures. Earth tech just can't display them.

[@Knight121198]

take a picture of your holographic pictures and then post em XD

[@rebel5813]

Hypothetically I think Battlestar Galactica 2005 probably represents the best way to travel large distances through space - by bending space and time, creating a singularity or wormhole around a craft, where the craft doesn't actually move in a linear capacity but is moving through hyperspace or through another dimension by folding Space and time through a manner of jumps.

[@DaraGaming42]

if i was writing a Sci FI story id use Wormholes for FTL Travel becsue FTL Travel is not sceintificy possible , Impulse drives, Sub light will be possible.

[@ronnieraccoon1977]

Just to clear up something about the universe of Dune. Yes in the movie the spice is used to fold space. However in the novels, and mini-series the spice is what gives the space guild the ability to navigate through fold space. Since thinking machines are outlawed in the dune universe.

[@defensivekobra3873]

Oh robots are illegal? Cool

[@GrandSupremeDaddyo]

The BSG FTL was one of my favourites. IIRC the distance of travel was only limited by by how safe and accurate you could calculate your destination, not by energy requirements or time restraints.

[@kobayashimaru8114]

GrandSupremeDaddyo Yup. I'm actually re-watching this series right now. Such a good show. I really like their FTL drive as a story telling device too.

[@bozhijak]

GrandSupremeDaddyo They stated that BSG FTL had no basis in science. Bull. Quantum entanglement could be a possible avenue to achieve this. Also there was a point in time where FTL did occur. It was called The Big Bang/expansion.

[@kobayashimaru8114]

Liegh DeBose To utilize entanglement you'd first have to somehow entangle every particle making up the fleet and it's inhabitants. Then you'd have to send one of the entangled pairs to the desired destination at relativistic speeds. Regarding the big bang, the expansion of space is not restricted to the speed of light. This is exactly how Warp drive is theoretically supposed to achieve FTL--by contracting and expanding space.

[@bozhijak]

True that. But it is still a possibility

[@bozhijak]

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." ~ Arthur C. Clarke

[@franknomustard]

Great discussion of this subject.

[@adamflux2]

I love Farscape's answers to these questions. Moya can go faster than light because it's a reflex to being attacked. She doesn't have a crew fretting over her gravity plates or recalibrating her sensor arrays because she's not a piece of technology, she was just born with the ability to starburst.

[@astrophonix]

We don't really need faster than light capability to reach other stars. We could, using fusion drives or minimagnetospheric plasma propulsion reach up to 20% lightspeed and make it to Alpha Centauri in a 20 year trip. Not much fun for creating exciting fast-paced sci-fi stories, but it is doable. A large hollowed-out asteroid spun for gravity with colonists awake for the journey or an AI-controlled hibernation ship with humans or embryos travelling in stasis is possible.

[@Trekspertise]

astrophonix I'm ready when you are.

[@Spacefrisian]

OriginalTharios 1 time 20 year trip, figure out how we can make stargates in that timespan and throw in some jump stuf from Mass effect, sounds like a plan right (2 trips of 20 years, but the 2nd trip might be shorter than 20.

[@KnowTrentTimoy]

astrophonix The Star Trek universe has spoiled us. A one-way 20 year trip to the nearest solar system from Earth? NO FUCKING THANKS!!!

[@Chizzy941]

astrophonix perhaps, but then how do we slow down again? Ion propulsion accellerates over time.

[@Wulfcry]

astrophonix I'm sorry but what you wrote is nonsensical. To clarify first you mention we don't need faster than light. We don't know what FTL is. Then you say we could use fusion drives , plasma propulsion and reach up to light speed. There is nothing that prove something with mass exceed even a percentage of light speed let alone the physic to operate. No its not doable as for we don't know that. You know what "probably" is doable device alternate propulsion that exceed our currents one wasting energy while getting more momentum out of one's that preserve energy and have bigger impact in the vacuum for space travel which might make space travel a bit eloquent then we do now. I will give a thumb up for the effort imagining "if" it could be done the way you envisioned keep being inspired.

[@horusrage]

The FTLs are a little weird in science fiction because some do not really travel in a traditional sense. That is through space itself. Andromeda uses the strings to follow that inter-connected series of locations and are accessed through slip points which are static in their location. Babylon 5 is the same to a certain degree where you are accessing hyperspace which has a corresponding location and intersection with real space. Its less traveling in FTL because the speed itself never gets to FTL proportions. It is more traveling through an alternate location that has an intersection point. Like using a shortcut. Dune had two different types of travel through space. One is the use of the Holtzman Drive through Guild Navigators. Which folds-space in order to travel between two points. The other was the precursor space travel where they are outraceing photons. . In star trek terms by comparison between the two used in Dune we can point them to being two different things. Fold-space being a travel like through an artificial wormhole with the precursor drive be more analogous to warp drive. The spice in the books also to show the folly of having a dependence on any single resource for travel and economics.

[@abeschreier]

great video!

[@Trekspertise]

+TheShah Thank you =)

[@spacepirateivynova]

Using near light speed travel, and time dilation, would make a trip considerably shorter for the person going that speed, an example might be at 99% light speed, time is only running at around 1% (not quite, because it asymptotes towards infitiny at light speed, but it works for our example here). So, a 100 year journey at 99% light speed would only take one apparent year, and fuel usage, etc would only be apparent for one year of travel, however, to the rest of the universe, it would take that 100 years relative.

[@andscifi]

+ReddmanDGZ true enough, though there are a few small problems. You mentioned fuel usage and while it's true you're probably not going to be using the fuel at 99% the speed of light but to get to that speed and slow down. Also, while you don't need fuel for as long the mass of the ship would increase which would require more fuel. And then there is the issue of acceleration. You can't go from 0 to 99% the speed of light quickly or the people in the ships would be killed. At 1 G (which is ideal for comfort) acceleration it would take about a year to reach 99% the speed of light, and another year to slow down. Of course for much of that you're going to be going at speeds that still significant distort time, but it would likely take a couple of years and a quite a bit of fuel.

[@markus-hermannkoch1740]

+ReddmanDGZ Leaving the old problem of your home passing away while you travel. Stansilaw Lem wrote a whole novel on the subject ("Transfer") where astronauts return after centuries just to first be hit by the mother of culture shocks and then to discover that space travel has been abolished because pay offs are just far too remote.

[@0011peace]

+ReddmanDGZ Actually at 99% the speed of light you only get time dilation of 7c 99.9% 22.4c 99.99% 70.7c to get 100c you would have to travel 99.995%

[@JeffDeWitt]

The fuel problem would be minimized if the ship had a Bussard ramjet, it would then be fueled by interstellar hydrogen.

[@giantpotato3]

How far would you travel in that time?

[@rochusboerner5767]

An interesting discussion, but it's not quite what I expected. After watching your History of the Borg, I expected a discussion of facts and figures of Star Trek FTL from an in-universe perspective. This would be a nice subject for another episode. Here are some topics to discuss: The history of warp drive. How fast is warp drive in the 24th century, based on the preponderance of canon (especially Voyager) evidence? Where does canon appear to contradict itself? Which alien (or future time line) transwarp technologies did 24th century Starfleet crews encounter, and how do they compare?

[@Trekspertise]

Well, this channel is an exploration of science fiction's meanings and intents. Occasionally, I'll do an aside like that of the Borg episode. But mostly, I focus on content.

[@ussbased-a7074]

Rochus Boerner Look at memory alpha

[@epickithri]

faster than light travel was especially important to voyager as their normal warp drive woulda still left them with a 70 year trip home and they had to find ways to shave off more time faster than warp drive can produce. i especially liked their applications of transwarp technology when Janeway decided to do some assimilating of her own when they took the transwarp coil from a borg sphere in dark frontier. just one example of how their faster than light awnsers played a pivital role in getting the voyager crew home in a fraction of the time that it shoulda with the starfleet technology of that era.

[@nbartlett6538]

What are you talking about? Warp drive is already much faster than light. The various other devices used by Voyager just made it incrementally faster.

[@forestlittke4649]

I enjoyed this explanation.

[@craigmanning742]

1:29 is that a big freeze dried pack of weed? Also a Wrinkle in Time and The Forever War. Two of my favorite books. This is a good video.

[@StephenRansom47]

Thank you SO MUCH for mentioning the good doctor- Mr EE SMITH. More people need to take a look at the Bill Finger of ALL late 20TH CENTURY SCI-FI. From Stargate to Star Wars and Star Trek- the inventor of HYPERSPACE IN 1919.

[@wrybreadspread]

Kudos to those who mentioned folding space. I am bewildered by something, though. I think I recall reading about it in my misspent Baby Boomer youth, while I was browsing sci fi novels at the shopping mall in my teen’s & 20’s. And I think I recall seeing this reference to folding space in relation to the Dune novel. So when I finally saw David Lynch’s Dune movie, with the Toto soundtrack, I was enthralled. But when I finally got around to reading the novel, I was surprised to discover that, as near as I could ascertain, the spice was used merely to navigate, through prescience, and not to propel the vessels (‘propulsion’ isn’t quite the word I want). I have sought, now and then, alas unsuccessfully, to search the Web to try and discover exactly it was I read so many years ago that referred to ‘folding space’.

[@RavynSkye617]

Did you just say that the jump drive has 'no basis in science'??? Wrong. Einstein himself explained that this was possible, according to the laws of physics. It's basically the most extreme form of warp drive. You collapse the space between two points and you can be instantly there, your ship having barely 'moved' at all. Take a piece of white fabric and lay it flat, take a black marker and make two points on the fabric, far away from each other... Now, go ahead and draw a straight line between the points... This is how we usually travel through space; but if we could wrinkle the fabric to bring the two points together, we could be there INSTANTLY. The theory of relativity says that spacetime works in much the same way and while we can't ever 'rip' spacetime (unless you count a blackhole as a tear in space but we aren't really sure about that) we CAN warp it, by either stretching it out, OR by wrinkling it up. We also have quantum entanglement which allows information to travel faster than light, and, in fact, allows for that information to jump literally anywhere in the universe instantly, not traveling the physical distance between the two particles which have been entangled. Because information about states of matter and spin can be carried this way, and matter and energy are actually the same thing, it could someday be possible to use this method to jump instantly between any two points in the universe without traveling the distance between them.

[@restigouche257]

Very interesting!

[@timmytheguitarguy]

Thumbs up for using Dune 2003 series footage!

[@marcparella]

Excellent channel

[@Trekspertise]

Marc Parella Thank you, and thank you for taking the time to leave thoughtful comments. Feel free to suggest episode topics for future stuff.

[@marcparella]

Trekspertise I really appreciate your channel. This is the best of KZbin.

[@MrKirby2367]

By the way as others have pointed out 'spice' isn't a fuel, it allows the Guild navigators to 'see and guide' the ships across the distances of interstellar space with their minds instead of using the proscribed technology of AI .Holtzman drive[edit] Spacing Guild heighliner in the 2000 miniseries Frank Herbert's Dune The effect is used in this case to fold space at the quantum level, allowing the Spacing Guild's heighliner ships to instantaneously travel far distances across space. However, the chaotic and seemingly non-deterministic quantum nature of "foldspace" requires at least limited prescience on the part of the human navigator; otherwise the absurdly complex mathematics involved in producing reliable physical projections of such events would only be possible with advanced computers, which are strictly prohibited because of mankind's crusade against thinking machines, the Butlerian Jihad. To this effect, the Guild produces melange-saturated Navigators who intuitively "see paths through foldspace" in this way.[2] This stumbling block is overcome several thousand years after the events of Dune when Ixian scientists develop mechanical replacements for Guild Navigators.[5]

[@1interesting2]

Do you have any information on Ian M Bank's methods of travel from his culture novels?

[@xo-1320]

The irony is that in Warhammer 40k you can do all the magic while still having FTL. Although, both use another plane of reality were your emotions, and other mental essence clash with each other creating horrors that are more like your worse nightmares given form. It's also semi-unrelable due to you pass through a plane were waves of mental thoughts crash about and things like time being subjective.

[@rommdan2716]

WARHAMMER 40K IS NOT SCIENCE FICTION!!!!

[@reclusiarchgrimaldus1269]

@@rommdan2716 It's sci-fi fantasy

[@eljuano28]

Not so much a correction as a difference of understanding, Battlestar's jump method is, plausibly, a variation of a "somewhat more correct than Star Trek" warp drive. They talk about connecting points of space without travelling the distance between; that fits loosely with currently debated concepts of plausibility in warped fields in time/space as offered by Alcubierre, where the field negates the local effects of time dilation by allowing the "traveling mass" to appear static or near static within the field solution during transit, or else some sort of an induced wormhole a la Misner/Wheeler, using individual solutions of the Calabi-Yau Manifold as sort of an address book of locations in real space/time to connect, (as long as you don't ask them what this button actually does.)

[@ALitleBitSpecial]

@ 5:41 where is that photo of a realistic looking Enterprise from?

[@Trekspertise]

+ALitleBitSpecial That is IXS Enterprise Warp Drive ship, based on Harold White’s team’s thoughts, designed by artist Mark Rademaker, 2014

[@SonofTiamat]

This was great, but I'd like to see another episode go in depth on how Star Trek does it. How does going warp factors of 5 or higher equate to going several hundred times the speed of light?

[@thefirstprimariscatosicari6870]

Son of Tiamat It depends, pre-TNG warp work differently than after-TNG warp. In TOS the maximun warp registered was warp 13, meanwhile in TNG if you go over warp 10 you breach the space-continuum. Because of that the future Federation vessel to not only use warp to move, but also subspace tunnels, Wormholes, Transwarp, quantum slipspace (How the Golden Eye move, but in a controlled way) and Time engine. With the last one they can arrive at their destination before even starting to move.

[@existentialselkath1264]

The game 'elite dangerous' as flawed as it is has a really cool and faily intricate ftl system

Great intro

[@deven6518]

Actually for bsg, the ftl drive was showed once. I looked at it and I've seen similar concepts before but all have required some form of exotic matter with gravitaional effects.

[@dgkcpa1]

Glad to see Doc Smith's Bergenholm drive mentioned. However, the Bergenholm drive is more properly called Inertialess drive, and is a key (but unstated and often ignored) element of all nearly all science fiction space drives. Just as a practical matter, it would about a year to accelerate to warp 1 (light speed) at 1 g of acceleration, and another year just to slow down again at the same rate. If you want to jump to light speed and beyond quickly, and stop just as quickly, you need to do away with inertia! With the Bergenholm, spaceships in Doc Smith's stories "cruised" at 60 parsecs per hour. This is roughly warp 120 on the old star trek warp scale. (With Doc Smith's inertialess drive, Voyager could have gotten home in just 15 days!) Traveling between galaxies the speed was much higher. Doc Smith also made use of what we call "worm holes" in his stories, with what he called "hyper-spatial tubes" which could be generated at will, with the right technology. These could be used to transport ships, fleets, and even whole planets from one star system to another, or even from one galaxy to another.

[@rollingchunder6222]

In the prelude to dune books it covers that the spice allows the navigators to direct the ships FTL drives (which work on folding space?) as the use and construction of thinking machines is completely outlawed.

[@beep5514]

Well, the Star Wars movies would have maybe worked in one system, but the EU....eh, not quite. In the end of the day, the only thing that sepetares us from a reality like Star Trek or Stargate is acutally the ability to travel FTL and to somehow fuel that kind of drive/wurmhole-creator etc. So, if someone came finally up with an idea of how that could work....man. And good video btw, keep up the good work. :D

[@Trekspertise]

Thank you for watching! Glad you liked it. Keep tabs on us =)

[@beep5514]

Trekspertise Oh, I will. And it's nice to see that you reply so actively to comments. :D

[@Trekspertise]

Robert Lee Lorengel Absolutely. Trek fandom is nothing without a community.

[@SFCFilms]

Is there a link to the video you showed at 5:36, Harold white presentation?

[@Trekspertise]

+Space Faring Civilisation Google for this video: Faster Than Light Warp Drive: SpaceVision 2013, Harold White Lecture

[@rsrt6910]

The unique implication of the jump drives in BSG is that it almost demands that these mammoth Battlestars be constructed. Because instead of the costly endeavor of lifting each and every pound into orbit, a mobile battlestation (ie: battlestar) can be built, fitted out, tested and supplied out in the dessert, then jumped far enough out above the planet to allow the beast to reach an orbital speed before it crashes back down. So it would be more to your advantage to build big, over build it still, and make use of whatever room was on the thing to overstock it.

[@davidwuhrer6704]

That 1920s style music made those movie scenes much better. I wonder why ragtime isn't used as theme music for shows set in space. It seems to fit really well.

[@shmee123ful]

just be thankful that none of the universe you mentioned have to deal with the warp from the war hammer universe

[@madmedic92]

A note about Dune's FTL. The Holtzman drive is a tunnel drive that moves a vehicle from one point to another instantly. The need for the Spice is to allow the Navigator to foresee a clear path through the vagaries of Space/Time. The Spice has mind altering and prescient properties. So it's technically not "fuel" at all.

[@BiggDogg21]

This is good conversation. I'm no scientist or physicist but here's my 2 cents... of the light that we see, how fast does light travel? In answering that, what is the fastest light wave? For the fastest light wave, what is the frequency? Could we make ship that resonated at that frequency thus putting the ship on the same track as that light? Can we use harmonics of that frequency to multiply the factors of which the ship could travel? (Harmonic 7 = 7RF or 7x the resonant frequency, or simply warp 7). Just a hypothesis, but think about it.

[@marksmith6259]

a reference to the B5 hyperspace would have been nice in this video.

[@nsbd90now]

If I recall correctly, in "A Wrinkle in Time" it is a tesseract... a folding of space.. similar to the Battlestar G. and Dune FTL, rather than a wormhole, it would seem. There was even an illustration in the book of an ant walking along a thread, and then bringing the two ends of the thread together.

[@davidknisely3003]

An instantaneous "jump" drive from point to point in space is the only one which does not violate the Special Theory of Relativity, hence it does have at least a small basis in science as a possible method of interstellar travel. Also, clips in the above video contain some from the series "Firefly", which did not use FTL but was set in a distant star system rich in planets and moons which mankind migrated to at sub-light speeds long ago.

[@Nowhereman10]

Where did you get the Juno spacecraft speed record from? I can't find any mention of it and this 25 miles per second speed. In fact, NASA's own press release following the successful 2013 Earth flyby gives a 8,800 mph speed or 2.4 mps. New Horizons has this beat with a post Jupiter flyby speed of 2.5 mps, and it has an Earth-relative velocity of 36,373 mph or 10.10 mps.

[@Trekspertise]

+Nowhereman10 From Bill Kurth, lead research on one of the Juno instruments. He is quoted in several places listing this figure, which, at the time I made this, the highest speed I could find, which happened only during a gravity assist: bit.ly/1ilxreb There is a little bit of murkiness here as far as the fastest man-made object. But, other contenders are also unmanned spacecraft and the speeds listed are in the same ballpark, so I felt confident with the the Juno figure.

[@Trekspertise]

+Nowhereman10 I tweeted at @ridingwithrobots to figure this out. Answers forthcoming, I trust.

[@TomatoFettuccini]

4:55 What movie is this? I don't recognize it.

[@davidl9232]

Recently, there is a comparative of jumping mater from a place to a place without the space between being touched. Check out( 10/1/2015) science on it on a number of science sites. So there is some basis of the B. Galactic version of space travel.

[@Vontux]

I think there is an old web comic called "Starslip Crisis" where FTL method either is or later in the story becomes the primary focus of the story rather than a mere vehicle for making the plot progress.

[@barthoving2053]

There's one more FTL way of traveling. This is used in universes like Babylon 5 and Warhammer 40k. The craft moves to a different dimension where it travels and reemerges in real space in a completely other place..

[@Mystickneon]

The ST Warp Drive has been defined in the ST:Tactical Combat Simulator RPG/TT.... TOS drives was the speed of light to the cube of the warp factor 3x3x3=27c.... Transwarp Drive was the the fifth exponent 3x3x3x3x3=243c... the Constitution-class Enterprise had a nominal maximum speed of warp 8, or 512c. The Galaxy-class Enterprise had a transwarp maximum of warp 9.8, or about 90kc.

[@luciferangelica]

i heart a wrinkle in time, and a wind in the door, and a swiftly tilting planet

[@daniellee7335]

What's the ship/series at 1:54 the one with the lines of light on it?

[@dataportdoll7918]

Moya from Farscape, I believe is what you're referring to.

[@rainer1980]

I think the one aspect of the Star Wars FTL technology that was realistic was that Han Solo said that he needed to be very precise about entering coordinates into the FTL computer or else they might warp/crash into something like an asteroid, or other cosmic debris. But, even Star Trek cannon warns against initiating warps inside planetary systems, probably for the very same reason.

[@GundarkEars]

A very small nitpick - the spice melange did not serve as the fuel for FTL travel. Dune explicitly states that small jumps using the Holtzmann drives are possible, if dangerous. Spice was necessary for longer jumps because it imbued whoever ingested it with precognitive abilities, the only safe means of navigating FTL space.

[@Trekspertise]

***** In effect Spice is the limiting agent in the Dune FTL equation, so it is the most hotly contested resource for that universe. As such, it is basically acting like a fuel source (like Oil here, a comparison made 1000 times). That's why we regarded it as such. We know there is difference.

[@Janoha17]

To make comparison with Star Wars, Jedi can use a Hyperdrive without a navicomputer because of their precognition, as can several species with an instinctive understanding of math, such as the skeletal Givin.

[@Xegethra]

Stargate was good for using the gate for more than travel, resolving many issues it has and causing a variety of problems. Also using it and the travel for goals other than just going somewhere.

[@JeffDeWitt]

So I guess the Infinite Improbability Drive isn't actually based on science? Shucks, guess I need to get my towel and have a good strong hot cup of tea.

[@indigodragon0613]

For some reason, I love talking about theories surrounding space and space travel. My brain doesn't explode like others.

[@ChoolyBuzkill]

4:23 are those ODSTs on the cover of The Forever War?

[@AFGalwayz]

no. but they look like em. combat armour in sci fi has been around forever.

[@aaronmodlin1871]

Well, since 1959 anyway.

[@haydarbenmartinezizquierdo9223]

You should have spoken also of the Alcubierre ecuation, and how dr Alcubierres was inspired by Star trek to creae a theory that allowy faster than light travels without violate Relativity

[@John.S92]

The FTL in Battlestar Galactica is very much the trope of folding a paper in half and poking a whole through when explaining how a wormhole works, traversing from point A to point B without actually moving at all, is very much how the FTL functions in the series, so,, more "sci fi" than "magic", yeah. As well, the Stargate Franshiese utilizes a similar design, though with large rings at both point A and B, with the travellers basically being disintegrated after being "converted" into a matter-stream just like how the beaming technology in Star Trek works.

[@fluffycommander]

The TARDIS doesn't technically travel faster than light, the exterior shell simply moves from one point of space and time to another while the interior is stored in a separate bubble universe.

[@Janoha17]

The interior isn't stored in bubble universe: It IS a bubble universe.

[@MrDyl55]

While not based on it in any way, jump drives in Battlestar are actually fairly similar to the theoretical concept of quantum teleportation where supposedly a body could teleport instantaneously from one point in the universe to another.

[@dboymax1]

What series was the scene at 7:09 from?

[@Radeo]

Interesting. Needs more Mass Effect drives tho. :)

[@athalfridhu]

Alcubierre Metrics (1991) provide FTL basis without contradicting Einstein's Relativity. There's no limit to the deformation speed of space.

[@n7furyoperative975]

If only element zero existed. That's my favorite form of FTL, and it's explanation is actually pretty solid.

[@ousiavazia]

there is one thing that is also presumable from the function of ftl in fictions: the notion that mankind is one and the same, with the various derivations of it, feeling the same feelings and reacting to the unknown in the future or distant places the same way as we would. that's the function of the hero, may he be Luke discovering the force or Data discovering humor.

[@defensivekobra3873]

An demon-powered FTL drive would be a cool concept

[@reclusiarchgrimaldus1269]

It's not quite what you're thinking of, but in Warhammer 40k you fly through literal hell in a city-sized cathedral while being guided to your destination by the literal soul of your god. And you need a special force field made out of realspace to do it, because if that goes down the souls of your crew will be devoured and exposed to the deepest agonies in existence by eldritch abominations from beyond their worst nightmares. Probably because the group of cybernetic priests on board forgot to pray to the warp drive. And even if you survive the trip, you might exit hundreds of years after you left, before you left, or maybe not at all.

[@NATESOR]

"in none of these stories do people cast spells or summon demons to travel through space"... Lemme let you in on a little IP called Warhammer 40k...

[@Janoha17]

Warhammer 40K is the Science Fantasy Space Opera with the "Fantasy" part turned up past eleven. and the "Science" is only there for the sake of creating super soldiers and razing planets.

[@kabob0077]

NATESOR I smell Heresy...

[@henkpelk2177]

Our best bet as a compact but powerful engine would be the blackhole drive. Blackholes the weight of a mountain would be adequate. They would last long enough for interstellar travel and the energy they radiate would be enable a very fast acceleration to near the speed of light.

[@draxiss1577]

The Alcubierre drive was DIRECTLY inspired by Star Trek's Warp Drive, and Star Trek later incorporated Dr. Alcubierre's theory into their drive.

[@AxelLeJeff]

Dune's FTL and the exact relationship between it and navigators is more fully explored in Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson's Dune prequel series, The Machine Crusades.

[@Fancypants117]

I kind of like the concept they presented in Halo, which is similar to star wars and Babylon 5 and even Warhammer 40k Where this alternate "hyperspace" reality is breached by a ship and navigated through. Using that Universe and reality to as a sorta "sort cut" where navigating it is treacherous and hard to find new routes due to the apparent randomness of it Star wars does it more like they're tunnels that lead to specific points in space. While the rest can openly explore throughout "Hyperspace" like it's our own space

[@MelvinCruz]

Exelent how you explain the concept of FTL science reality/ science fiction...you forgot to tell the base of ALL the technology that we have thanks this series of movies,tv and books and Albert Einstein talked about : “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” At this moment all that science fiction is moving million of humans for the future we want and we will do it and will be a mix of the everything we imagine

[@MrKirby2367]

Hey at 3.28 there was a grab from a version of Dune I haven't seen. Does anybody out there recognise this edition ? If so any details so I can follow it up.

[@brianwagner4104]

Sci-Fi Channel did a 3 episode mini series of Dune back in 1998 (I think). I'm not sure, but I think the clip is of Paul and Jessica before they meet the Fremen. They did a similar treatment of 2nd and 3rd books folding them into one 3 part mini series called Children of Dune a few years later. As a long-time fan of the books, I liked these a lot more than David Lynch's Dune, which was entertaining, but ridiculous

[@Rokie88]

I wonder if you could clarify something. I have read that Helios 2 probe has reached 43.63 miles per second, which is almost doubled by what Juno did?

[@Trekspertise]

+Rokie88 Hmmm...I don't doubt it. Maybe you can provide a link?

[@Rokie88]

+Trekspertise There are a few but I am unsure of their credibility. Tried looking at NASA but couldn't find a thing. www.factshunt.com/2013/05/fastest-man-made-object-ever-built-ie.html?m=1 www.spaceanswers.com/space-exploration/what-is-the-fastest-spacecraft-of-all-time/ themysteriousworld.com/top-10-fastest-man-made-objects-ever/

[@andrewsmith5605]

This channel is awesome, is there an equivalent for dr who as well?

[@Trekspertise]

Thanks! Not as far as I know =(

[@ncc1701dfreddyvulcan]

TARDISArchives is sort of like a doctor who equivalent of this, but its not nearly as philosophical or analytical.

[@crwydryny]

just a few minor points. the amout of fuel needed to get to... well any star system is only twice that needed to reach orbit all you have to do is escape the gratitational infulance of sol and then it doesn't matter if you've got engines or not you'll continue to coast along until you hit something as there is very little friction in space. that said if you were to accelerate continously to alpha centauri (well technically accelerate half way then decelerate) you would actually make it there much quicker than 30,000 years because you will be continously accelerating. for example if you were to accelerate at just 10m/s (just a little faster than the speed at which an object on earth accelerates when dropped) which would be the most comfortable for the crew after a minuet you'll be traveling at 600m/s after an hour 36km/s. in a day you'll be doing 864km/s after a week of accelerating you'll reach 6,048km/s and so on. to the crew on the ship it would feel like they were standing on earth ( though their feet will be pointing towards the exhaust and their heads in the direction of travel so the ship would be built like a skyscraper rather than a plane as seen in most sci fi) now that all said any ship capable of accelerating constantly would require a lot of fuel and massive engines to compensate, and would actually gradually accelerate at a higher rate unless the throttle was turned down as the mass of the propellent and fuel was lost. theoretically this would be possible with a large fusion torch engine. the mass of the engine however can be negated by using solar sails and powerful lasers but these have their own problems. that all said such a ship would have to be a generation ship with the decendants of the original crew being the ones who get to alpha centauri. also just to be nit picky. the ships in dune used what was essentially very fast rockets basically they worked just like todays rockets physically pushing the ship up to near light or FTL speeds (been a while since I read the book so can't remeber exactly how fast they went) but the spice was used because of the precognitive abilities it gave the user allowing them to see danger before it happened (because by the time the light from an object reached them they had already hit it) so they had to be able to see it before they could physically see it.

[@jimgreen9059]

I was never much of a fan of Stargate, but I always understood the premise for travel to be that the "travelers" actually never traveled, per se, but rather, stepped through the starting point's gate, and instantly arrived at the destination gate, because someone had in the past traveled there and built the gate.

[@jeremyleyland1047]

Are you familiar with Isaac Arthur's channel?

[@jozimoto]

If it can be imagined then it may be possible!