If travel to distant stars within an individual’s lifetime is going to be possible, a means of faster-than-light propulsion will have to be found. To date, even recent research about superluminal (faster-than-light) transport based on Einstein’s theory of general relativity would require vast amounts of matter with “exotic” physical properties such as negative energy density. This type of matter cannot currently be found or manufactured in viable quantities. In contrast, new research carried out at the University of Göttingen gets around this problem by constructing a new class of hyper-fast ‘warp bubbles’ using sources with only positive energies. This reignites debate about the possibility of faster-than-light travel based on conventional physics.

Breaking the Warp Barrier for Faster-Than-Light Travel