Dr. Katy Clough

almost instantly because the space actually has no limit in how fast it can contract.

Whereas if I walk across the room, the fastest I can get across the room is at the speed of light according to our current understanding of physics.

It is theoretically possible.

So actually, you know, objects around us curve space all the time.

So they squash it and they stretch it.

So things like the Earth and the sun are actually squashing and stretching space in different directions all the time.

So this is a phenomenon that really does happen.

Having said that, to do a warp drive, stretching and squashing of space-time is exotic.

So it's something that requires a special type of energy.

In particular, it actually requires negative energy.

energy, which is the kind of practical problem with actually trying to construct a warp drive in reality, in a lab.

Yeah, this is a very good question.

So in fact, you know, negative energy is something that we don't know that it exists anywhere in our universe.

So everything, even antimatter, is actually a positive energy thing.

So most of the matter that we know.

Yeah, so people often think of antimatter, it's everything is negative, but antimatter actually still has a positive energy associated with it.

So even that isn't enough.

So the only way in which we know how to make small quantities of negative energy is through some kind of quantum physics.

So quantum experiments can make very small amounts of this negative energy.

Exactly.