A team of physicists have reported the accidental discovery of a real-world “warp bubble” while observing the structure of Casimir cavities – a small step towards building a potential warp motor.
The debriefing reports that Dr. Harold G. “Sonny” White and his team came across the existence of a warp bubble while conducting DARPA-funded research on Casimir cavities and the energy density present in them. structures. White recognized the importance of Random Finds, but said it was just a small step forward in building warp drive.
“Our detailed digital analysis of our custom Casimir cavities helped us identify a real, manufacturable nano / microstructure that should generate a negative vacuum energy density such as to manifest a true nanoscale deformation bubble, not an analogue, but the real thing, “White explained in a statement to the publication.
He pointed out that the findings recorded by his team at the Limitless Space Institute (LSI) centered on “a real, albeit humble and tiny, warp bubble” as opposed to a warp bubble analogue, and confirmed that the structure “predicts a distribution of negative energy density which corresponds to the requirements of the Alcubierre metric”, hence the importance of observation.
IGN previously referred to Alcubierre’s metric and the possibility of warp drives becoming a reality, as Space.com noted that “a concept of an actual warp drive was suggested in 1994 by Mexican physicist Miguel Alcubierre; however, subsequent calculations revealed that such a device would require prohibitive amounts of energy. “
As mentioned, this isn’t the first time scientists have considered building a warp drive or warp-capable spacecraft. A previous report suggested that Star Trek’s Warp Drive may really be happening, while NASA has also toyed with the idea of inventing a Warp Drive – something that would be particularly useful in its continued search for alien life.
Adele Ankers is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.
