Fans of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” may recall a storyline from the last couple of seasons of the show where a group found out that traveling above a certain warp speed was having disastrous effects on the universe.
It appears the effects wouldn’t just be bad for space itself but also for the human body.
In an article in “New Science,” Valerie Jameson cites evidence that the human body couldn’t tolerate warp speed.
According to the report, if we could get an object up to warp speed, a living being on it would be dead within one second of going to warp.
The problem lies with Einstein’s special theory of relativity. It transforms the thin wisp of hydrogen gas that permeates interstellar space into an intense radiation beam that would kill humans within seconds and destroy the spacecraft’s electronic instruments.
Which is why it’s called science FICTION.
It’s sci-fi so anything is possible. But isn’t that why the ships have (deflector) shields etc, to protect against the bad things from space?
I mean, the “inertia dampeners” make sure you’re not crushed against the back of the ship. And those are also sci-fi, the effect is explained, but HOW it works isn’t.
Following that train of thought there would be “hydrogen radiation shields”, which protect against it, even though a real explanation about how it works doesn’t have to be given.
Obviously everyone is forgetting the plotonium shields . . .
. . . they were in heavy use in the Trek reboot, and even affected the characters. As best as I can gather, it protects the characters traveling at warp speed by making them two-dimensional, and thus immune from interaction with three-dimensional space.
Make them annoying, and you have the added protection of having regular particles wanting to interact with them at all.
Not to mention that traveling at speeds of Warp 10 and faster will cause humans to mutate into lizard like creatures, that is after losing all their hair and their ears.
There’s an even simpler explanation for how they get around the realities of the physical universe. Two words: Warp Field. In order to travel FTL at warp speeds the ship, and everything inside it, must be surrounded by a warp field. This warp bubble is what bends space so that everything out there goes around the ship. The inertial dampers, as Whacko mentioned, keep the contents of the ship from going splat on the walls. The deflectors would be there to keep tachyons and other FTL particles from hitting the ship.
Yes, Valerie Jameson is soooo not a geek. 🙂 Sheesh.
Actually, I’m reminded of those scientists in the 1800s saying that “modern” train speeds of over 30 MPH would be detrimental on men, since we were not designed to endure such speeds.
Actually the craft and the people in it will be safe as long as it makes that rising BWOOOO sound before it goes PYEW!
I love when sci-fi people talk science though. I don’t mind sci-fi stories breaking the laws of physics but my favorite books/shows know when they are doing it and have some kind of gizmo worked into the script to account for why they are able to, i.e. intertial dampeners or Heisenberg compensators.