From the article - The spacecraft is called the IXS Enterprise and if it is ever realized, it will be able to travel to and from distant areas of space in the matter of weeks as opposed to centuries. The
spaceship would do so by exploiting a "loophole" in Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, allowing the ship to expand space-time behind itself and contract the space-time in front of it, propelling it through space faster than the speed of light.
When trying to understand warp drive mechanics we should remember Occam's Razor -
Definition of
Occam's razor. : a scientific and philosophic rule that entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily which is interpreted as requiring that the simplest of competing theories be preferred to the more complex or that explanations of unknown phenomena be sought first in terms of known quantities.
....simplest of competing theories be preferred to the more complex or that explanations of unknown phenomena be sought first in terms of known quantities.
Dark Matter as a Heavy Particle
Dark matter could be made of particles that each weigh almost as much as a human cell and are nearly dense enough to become miniature black holes, new - See more at:
http://www.space.com/32295-super-heavy-dark-matter-particle-proposed.html#sthash.fqdDKijq.dpuf
With Dark Matter being a heavy particle and possibly dense enough to become miniature black holes then by all definition we might have found the reason why Einstein said that it would take an infinite amount of energy to break the speed of light barrier.
As an object travels through space-time encountering Dark Matter each particle would act like a tractor beam that would tractor the object for a certain amount of time that would keep the object from traveling any faster than the speed of light but would allow the object to travel a velocity slower than the speed of light because the tractor affect of the dark matter particle would turn off after the object had passed by the dark matter particle.
Suggestively speaking the network of dark matter would be similar to a spider web where. Smaller spiders build smaller webs where the area of a smaller web would be able to fit inside the area of a larger spiders web. Each web though comparable to the length of the spiders legs that are used to crossed the void in between each strand of the web to the next strand. We know that spider web strands are sticky and like the dark matter particle cause an insect to become more entangled the faster and more furiously that the insect tries to escape until the insect is not able to move at all and becomes tired from expending all of its energy trying to escape. Just like an object traveling faster and faster until it becomes trapped in space-time.
When an object travels slower through space-time and dark matter the object is able to actually stretch the fabric of space-time, being dark matter in this case much like a larger and heavier insect is able to pass through a spider web without getting caught. Eventually the fabric of space - time like the spider web will break allowing the object to continue traveling at a constant velocity. But with dark matter being present and the voids never aligning the faster that an object travels to the speed of light means that the object is encountering more and more spider webs at a greater rate that regardless of how big it is or how much energy it uses it will become entangled in the web of dark matter much like the smaller insect in a large spider web where that same smaller insect might have been able to break free from the smaller spider web because of its size and weight.
But just like the spider web there would be voids in between the dark matter web as well. The only problem with finding the Voids in the web of dark matter is that the web is so compact and never aligns that voids become completely irrelevant. There fore in order to break the web of dark matter the dark matter's particles must first be discovered and the interaction between dark matter and normal particles must be understood so that a method of using gravitational waves would allow the voids of the dark matter to be aligned using an artificial source so that the object could pass through space time to enter into space time that was present before the Big Bang took place where gravity such as we know it in the form of suns and black holes was not present that might allow the object to travel at the speed of light and slightly faster.
With dark matter being thought of as being similar to miniature black holes that not even light can escape from then the reason why an object is not able to travel faster than the speed of light would be because of the dark matter particles effectively being miniature black holes that would effect a pull on an object much like a black hole does but on a much smaller and farther reaching Quantum level of interaction.
