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Warp Drive and ‘Star Trek’: Physics of Future Space Travel Excerpts from article:  For starters, the technical goals ceased to be just science fiction decades ago with a legacy of pertinent publications. To be clear, this does not mean that these breakthroughs are on the threshold of discovery. What it does mean is that these notions have advanced to where they are now problems that are able to be attacked. A graduate-level treatise, along with next-step research options, is available as the compilation “ Frontiers of Propulsion Science ” (AIAA, 2009). For the rest of us, here is a short version. Image Credit:   Namco Bandai Faster-than-light engines Compared to the distances between stars, lightspeed is slow. The neighboring star system nearest to us (Alpha Centauri) is more than four years away at light speed (as measured from the perspective of an external observer). The nearest habitable planet might be anywhere from 25 light-years to 200 light-years away. ...

The First Image Ever of a Hydrogen Atom's Orbital Structure What you’re looking at is the first direct observation of an  atom’s electron orbital  —  an atom's actual wave function ! To capture the image, researchers utilized a new  quantum microscope  — an incredible new device that literally allows scientists to gaze into the quantum realm. An orbital structure is the space in an atom that’s occupied by an electron. But when describing these super-microscopic properties of matter, scientists have had to rely on  wave functions  — a mathematical way of describing the fuzzy quantum states of particles, namely how they behave in both space and time. Typically, quantum physicists use formulas like the Schrödinger equation to describe these states, often coming up with complex numbers and fancy graphs. Up until this point, scientists have never been able to actually  observe  the wave function. Trying to catch a glimpse of an atom’s exac...