The Origins of Subspace

[Sorehl 0]

I had considered limiting this question to an e-mail topic among the technobabble-minded, but realized that:

1) I didn't know who that was, and

2) I didn't know if that was the group that would have the best answer.

 

And so, I pose the following: Just how does a civilization advance/stumble toward discovering subspace?

 

One might imagine this depends on answering the question "What is subspace?" but I don't think it's absolutely necessary to know the latter to consider the former. Still, it might, but I think that's a different topic. Trek offers us sufficient description in saying it's a medium by which things can go faster-than-light.

 

We've learned that Starfleet uses the development of warp drive as a marker of technical sophistication, a criteria for first contact. But warp drive would seem to depend on a civilization discovering subspace, or at least coming up with the theory that expands physics beyond Einstein's speed limit.

 

With science, you often discover something after theorizing it exists to explain an observation. With that in mind, is there an observable or unexplained phenomena that subspace would solve? (Dark matter, dark energy, the popularity of Jersey Shore?) And how would you try to find subspace, once you've theorized it exists? Or did Zephram Cochrane just skip theory and start slamming matter and antimatter together, serendipitously finding "things to make us go"?

 

I'm trying to envision a species just on the verge of warp drive, but wondering how they jump that gap from "too primative" 21st Century tech to being capable of getting the attention of passing Vulcan ships. I'd be interested in others' thoughts...

[will_marx 0]

I recall a discussion, oh about 20 years ago now, for the Academic Decathalon topic of space exploration. One of the leading cosmologists of the time (who's name eludes me) dared us to consider the universe like an expanding soap bubble, with subspace the air trapped below the surface layer.

 

As for what the criteria for discovering subspace? I think the development of superluminal communications is that criteria, allowing us to discover exactly the nature of subspace. Right now, RF (3 kHz to 300 GHz) is just the low end of the Electromagnetic spectrum, and already travels at the speed of light. Once we can take that energy and push it faster, then we'll have figured it out.

[Karo Veras 0]

I cannot speak to the scientific aspects as to what is subspace and how we can "discover" it. I'm not a scientist, and I don't even play one in any of my sims. :-P

 

However, the question posed: "How does a civilization "advance/stumble towards" the discovery of subspace" (or whatever makes FTL travel possible) is a just as much a philosophical question as it is a scientific one. If you go through history, you can see that its been one technology or set related technologies that have led to a technological boom and inherent sociological change. (I.E. the bronze age brought upon civilization as we define it. The caravel allowed Europeans to sail across the Atlantic and bring about the age of discovery. The Industrial Revolution, brought about the shift away from the agricultural lifestyle.)

 

In each case, you can make arguments that humanity wasn't necessarily sociologically ready to properly harness the tech they have created, and had to adapt to the changes in lifestyle that tech meant, and there are many instances in history where we haven't been able to do that so well. Which goes against the notion that a civilization discovering FTL is necessarily sociologically ready for first contact at that point. I'm not a big fan of Enterprise, but in some of the episodes I have watched, there was somewhat of a resentment on the part of Vulcans for making that assertion upon witnessing Cochrane's first warp flight.

 

The answer to your question is a qualified "I don't know." If its possible, we will find it. However if the answer has something to do with anti-matter, we're probably still a ways away, since it costs millions to create just a billionth of a gram of it. Who knows, maybe the next major technological discovery that will lead to the next boom (and inherent sociological adjustment period to that technology) is going to be a cost efficient way to produce anti-matter. And from that, maybe we'll develop FTL technology. We won't be ready for it, but we'll find it and exploit it. . .for better and for worse.

[Mreh K'hal 0]

Will is certainly on to one method. Imagine wireless communications if you could have transmit petabytes of data through the planet without even worrying about the mild delay of light speed transmissions? I'm sure Google is working on this in a back room somewhere right now. I wouldn't be surprised if military research could open the door to subspace as well, probably under the stealth category. Trying to find some way of hiding some offensive weapon until the kaboom point and voila! There's subspace.

 

Whether subspace needs to be theorized first or not, I don't think it matters. There have been discoveries in our science that have completely out of the blue during research into something else. Or possibly looking into something even something as relatively mundane as the neutrino could spur the discovery of subspace. Which can make Starfleet's "subspace tech required" commandment quite variable in the technological quality of the species they can contact.

[Chirakis 1]

I'm inclined to join Mreh K'hal in considering that the discovery of "subspace," whatever it may be, might occur accidentally, in conjunction with something totally unrelated to FTL travel. Or that FTL drive may be developed with little knowledge of subspace, only to have something be noticed (or discovered) after the inception of FTL travel and call it "subspace" for lack of a better term. I suppose it's similar to the "chicken or the egg" discussion as to which came (or will come) first.

 

Addendum (post-thought):

Consider that gravity, rather than being a force, may be a wrinkle or a dent in the fabric of space. If so, then "subspace" may be within the fabric.

[rosetto 0]

You should know better than to bring up this topic because I have (for years) been accused of as well as relied upon 'creating a REAL warp drive'. LOL The whole concept has intrigued me for many years and I still hold that the observation of Einstein's Speed Limit is merely 'that'; an observation. In every case where his equations and theories are used there are observers. The end game is simply that FTL travel cannot be observed. So, the question remains, if we cannot observe a thing, can it exist? And this sounds like a topic that I do not DARE bring up in open forum.

 

I do have some theories on FTL travel and why we observe its impossibility that I would be happy to post if there is interest. My theories, however, are my own and I have no method proposed to prove them. Also, many will refute them with published theories that are also as yet proven. So, double-dog-dare me and I'll post them... :P