A question for physicists or Star Trek fans!?

Question

In the Star Trek series, they often say a destination is something like 200 light years away. They seem to get there in just a few days or so. The top speed they have traveled on any of their starships is about WARP TEN. Since WARP ONE is equal to the speed of light, that means they it would take one year to travel one light year..., meaning a trip of 200 light years would take 200 years at WARP ONE and 20 years at WARP TEN.
So are they just way off on these shows or am I wrong in my caculations?

Answer 1

In Star Trek TNG, you take warp factor and raise it to the power of 10/3 to get the multiple of speed of light. So warp 1 is the speed of light. Warp 2 is about 10 times the speed of light, warp 3 is about 39 times the speed of light. Warp 9 is about 1516 times the speed of light. Beyond warp 9, the scale changed, up to the point where warp 10 was infinite speed.

The original series generally used a different scale, where the multiple of the speed of light was warp factor to the power of 3, and there was no infinite speed point.

Answer 2

In the fictional universe of Star Trek, the warp drive is a form of faster-than-light (FTL) propulsion. It is capable of propelling spacecraft or other objects to many multiples of the speed of light, while avoiding the problems associated with time dilation.

According to the Star Trek episode writer's guide for The Original Series, warp factors are supposedly converted to multiples of light speed as a cubic function. Warp 1 is equivalent to the speed of light, "warp 2" is eight times the speed of light, "warp 3" is 27 times the speed of light, and so on. But this wasn't fast enough.
For Star Trek: The Next Generation and the subsequent series, Star Trek artist Michael Okuda devised a formula based on the original one (that but with important differences. For warp 1–9, if w is the warp factor, s(w) is the speed in km per second, and c is the speed of light, then s(w) = w^10/3 x c.

But even Star Trek was not consistent and occasionally an episode would contradict something stated in a previous episode.
Remember, Star Trek is fiction - great fiction, but fiction nonetheless.

Answer 3

I think it is generally understood that warp numbers are exponential. Warp 2 is ten times warp 1. Warp 3 is 100 times warp 1. Like that, I think. Or it might be that each warp number is simply the exponent on a base speed of warp 1. Anyway, it's the only way you could go between stars in a matter of days.

Answer 4

They never exceed warp 9.6 or so in star trek which is about the maximum speed they can go, at least in TNG. And anything above warp 9 they cannot maintain it for a very long time.

Warp 9 in star trek is about 1500 times the speed of light, which even at that speed is still very slow, it will still take them 66 years to cross our own galaxy.

In TNG it has been said many times that the federation only managed to explore about 1/4 of our galaxy so far.

Answer 5

The warp speeds on Star Trek jump in multiples, so Warp 2 isn't twice as fast as Warp 1, it's something like 10 times as fast, etc. I'm sure you can find references to it someplace on the Internet.

Answer 6

I'm not a trekkie, but I do know that warp 10 is NOT 10 times the speed of lgiht. Warp 10 is actually an infinite speed.

Answer 7

It varied depending on who produced the show.

Some viewed WARP as Logarithmic

Others viewed it as a mutiplication factor

The there is TRANS WARP which occured in Voyager

THEN there are the "QUADARANTS"

It got very muddy with Voyager and Deep Space Nine

The ONLY thing we can grasp upon is 7 of 9 and she'd be totally delightful to grasp upon.

Unfortunately Brandon Baraga got her!

You ARE aware the STAR dates CHANGED as you got to a destination, because you were ahead of it all!

Answer 8

Its a TV show. It is not reality. Those Hollywood folks sometimes make up stuff because it sounds good and looks good.

Open a window and breath in in some fresh air.