Leaving the Galaxy....

[stonester1]

Exactly. Warp travel isn't Newtonian movement. It really isn't "movement" at all in the conventional sense.

There's some kind of acceleration involved. Everybody gets pushed back in their seats when the ship speeds up.

*grumbles about stupid use of artificial gravity in TOS*

Well, the ship has to achieve a certain velocity in real space before engaging warp engines, at least that is my understanding .

Ships can't, at least with the technology most warp using cultures use, go into warp from a dead stop.

 

[Timo]

Well, the ship has to achieve a certain velocity in real space before engaging warp engines, at least that is my understanding.

Umm, no. Visually, we do see ships jump to warp from a standstill, or at most accelerate to very modest speeds before the warp flash takes place. They also do this at the command of "Ensign, warp seven, engage!", not at the command of "Ensign, warp-enabling speed and then warp seven!", FWIW.

And in TOS "Obsession", Scotty had the impulse engines offline for repairs yet Kirk still went to warp on the heels of the dikironium cloud creature; apparently, the acceleration to warp happened by using the warp engines alone. "Engaging warp" would thus have to be possible from a standstill, even if the initial speed was just warp 0.01 rather than warp 1.

Okay, so perhaps we can argue that a ship going from zero to warp 1 does so by going through all the speeds in between, even if this takes just a picosecond. And perhaps it takes longer with primitive engines, which is why Cochrane in ST:FC accelerated his test rig using some alternate engine before engaging the warp engines. But there isn't a technological limitation that would force modern starships to do a separate acceleration maneuver before engaging their warp engines: it's all well integrated, and no "preacceleration" is evident in the drama even if it theoretically lingers in the tech details.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[stonester1]

Well, the ship has to achieve a certain velocity in real space before engaging warp engines, at least that is my understanding.

Umm, no. Visually, we do see ships jump to warp from a standstill, or at most accelerate to very modest speeds before the warp flash takes place. They also do this at the command of "Ensign, warp seven, engage!", not at the command of "Ensign, warp-enabling speed and then warp seven!", FWIW.
[/quote[

Not sufficient proof. First, considering what the ship is doing, I imagine any acceleration to warp would look like "standing still", no matter how fast the ship was going beforehand.

And in TOS "Obsession", Scotty had the impulse engines offline for repairs yet Kirk still went to warp on the heels of the dikironium cloud creature; apparently, the acceleration to warp happened by using the warp engines alone. "Engaging warp" would thus have to be possible from a standstill, even if the initial speed was just warp 0.01 rather than warp 1.

The ship does have maneuvering thrusters. And besides, having the impulse engines off doesn't mean the ship is at a dead stop. The impulse engines are sublight and provide Newtonian maneuvering. When one cuts off the impulse engines, it doesn't stand to reason the ship comes to a stop.

Okay, so perhaps we can argue that a ship going from zero to warp 1 does so by going through all the speeds in between, even if this takes just a picosecond. And perhaps it takes longer with primitive engines, which is why Cochrane in ST:FC accelerated his test rig using some alternate engine before engaging the warp engines. But there isn't a technological limitation that would force modern starships to do a separate acceleration maneuver before engaging their warp engines: it's all well integrated, and no "preacceleration" is evident in the drama even if it theoretically lingers in the tech details.

Timo Saloniemi

Considering "preacceleration" is utterly routine, to even note it would be pointless under normal circumstances. Cochrane would note it, because "routine" warp acceleration was nonexistent to him.

I stand by my suppositions.

 

[Christopher]

Really? I always thought the warp engines didn't really move the ship, but instead moved the universe around it.

...or is that the Planet Express ship? hmmm...

In fact, that's not a bad explanation for how Alcubierre-style warp theory actually works. The ship doesn't move in the sense of imparting an acceleration to its mass; it occupies a pocket of spacetime that is repositioned relative to surrounding spacetime by altering the topography of the universe immediately around it, compressing space in front of it and expanding space behind. So in a sense, the ship is standing still and moving the universe. Given the interests and education of the Futurama writers, I wouldn't be surprised if they'd been aware of that when they wrote that line.

^The thing that bugs me about the "non-movement movement" theory--which, indeed, I personally subscribe to--is why a deflector is needed if there's no real inertial movement, and hence no huge impact with the infinitesimal particles due to high speeds. Maybe the warp field, which may just be a controlled black hole-intensity gravitational field, pulls that interstellar dust in at a real clip.

The ship isn't moving relative to the spacetime pocket it occupies, so there are none of the usual concerns about acceleration or time dilation. But that spacetime pocket is moving relative to the rest of the universe. Hence the analogy of warp as "surfing" on a wave of spacetime; in surfing, your board doesn't move relative to the wave (ideally), but the wave itself moves relative to the surroundings.

According to a few theoretical papers I've read (which weren't peer-reviewed and whose reputability I wouldn't swear to), a ship at warp would perceive the universe ahead of it as intensely blueshifted to higher energy levels, and would be at risk of collision from oncoming particles (just as a surfer may be at risk of colliding with, say, a rock outcropping in the water). So you'd not only need to deflect those particles, you'd need something ahead of your ship that would shield you from the intense gamma radiation that ordinary starlight would've been blueshifted into.

Not sufficient proof. First, considering what the ship is doing, I imagine any acceleration to warp would look like "standing still", no matter how fast the ship was going beforehand.

There's also the question, standing still relative to what? To the camera? Since the stars are light-years away, you wouldn't see any proper motion in them no matter how fast the camera was moving (so long as it stayed pointed in a single direction). So just because the ship appears stationary relative to the camera doesn't mean it's standing still in some absolute reference frame. It just means that the camera is exactly pacing the ship.

The ship does have maneuvering thrusters. And besides, having the impulse engines off doesn't mean the ship is at a dead stop. The impulse engines are sublight and provide Newtonian maneuvering. When one cuts off the impulse engines, it doesn't stand to reason the ship comes to a stop.

There is no such thing as a dead stop. All motion is defined relative to some other body. I'm standing still relative to the walls of my apartment, but I'm moving at over a hundred thousand kilometers per hour relative to the Sun.

So nothing in space ever stops moving. If a ship isn't thrusting, then it's either orbiting something or falling toward something.