Superluminal travel a la star wars and star trek achievable?
Well Eriz Lenz, Physicist thinks so.
It really depends on what one means by "warp drive".
In Star Trek, warp drives were engines that went at of faster than the speed of light (warp one is the speed of light, warp 2 is twice the speed of light, warp three is 3x the speed of light, and so forth). That’s nice in science fiction, but in reality, it’s not quite as easy as saying, “take us to warp one”, because here in the real world we’re bound by the laws of physics.
The faster an object goes, the more mass it obtains (inertial mass). The greater the mass, the greater the energy is required to move it. As an object approaches the speed of light, its mass gets so great that it approaches infinity. Therefore, it would require infinite energy to move it. Photons (light particles) have no mass; therefore, they don’t have that problem. Then there’s that pesky thing called time. At the speed of light, time stops (time dilation). For a photon, there is no time, everything happens instantaneously. So trying to make a photon go faster than the speed of light is like bringing your car to a stop and trying to go slower. It can’t be done.
Another type of warp engine is one that is able to fold the space (including time)around it, then use use Einstein Rosen bridges (i.e. wormholes) to cross from one folded plane to another (think a folded piece of paper – but in 4D). Theoretically, this may be possible.
In Star Wars, ships travel long distances by using something called “hyperspace” (theoretical dimensions beyond the three we experience day to day), that propel them at speeds faster than light. This “theory” assumes that light operates differently in these other dimensions AND that the other laws of physic remain the same.
Shuhak 