Researchers are taking a closer look at this science-fiction staple—and bringing the idea a little...
Lentz, still in elementary school, wondered whether warp drive might also work in real life.
Based on his discovery, Alcubierre surmised that it would only be a small step to a warp drive.
The warp drive concept retains its fascination, especially for Trekkies-and for a few gravitational physicists, who occasionally publish variations on the idea.
In his enforced isolation, Lentz found a way to construct a warp bubble using only positive energy.
"If correct, this has the potential of opening up new interest and novel avenues of research in warp drive physics," he says.
Lentz's idea has even aroused interest among researchers outside the small community of warp drive enthusiasts, including Lavinia Heisenberg, a professor of cosmology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich.
According to Bobrick, all that is needed for a warp bubble is an appropriately shaped shell made of dense material that bends spacetime in its immediate vicinity while the universe through which the bubble moves and the space within the shell remain comparatively undisturbed.
Abandoning the cartoonish image of a soap bubble makes it possible to build warp drives based on ordinary matter, they claim.
Bobrick points out that it is also possible to travel to distant stars at a third or half the speed of light, especially if time passes more slowly for the people in the warp bubble.
Most veteran warp drive researchers would undoubtedly agree.