Wolfram|Alpha Blog : “Helm, Warp One, Engage!” Calculating Warp Speed Factors

Wolfram|Alpha Blog : “Helm, Warp One, Engage!” Calculating Warp Speed Factors: "Wolfram|Alpha’s goal is to cover all things computational, from mathematics and the sciences to movies and sports. But the set of all things computable encompasses areas outside of the real world as well. With the 25th anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation coming up, we can now compute the relationship between warp factors and the speed of light. Warp factors describe the speed for a spaceship, such as the Starship Enterprise, traveling faster than the speed of light within the Star Trek universe. In the real world, even approaching the speed of light is outside of our current capabilities. To get the sense of energies involved, we can start with the mass of the space shuttle. This comparatively small spaceship turns out to weigh about 81,000 kilograms. The kinetic energy of 81,000 kilograms at 0.99999c is 1.621*10^24 joules. This in turn is about 42 times the world’s estimated fossil fuel reserves as of 2003. So, for now, even fast subluminal velocities are outside of our reach. But in Star Trek, faster than light travel is a well developed technology. However, exact conversion of warp factor into multiples of the speed of light is somewhat complicated by the fact that the writers often neglected the established formulas in their scripts and that there are two versions of the formula used over the course of the various Star Trek series. The first formula was introduced in the original series’ writer’s guide by Gene Roddenberry, and was used for the original series. This the default formula used by Wolfram|Alpha when asked about warp factors such as warp factor 3."