Sometimes Warped Thinking Is A Good Thing

The Star Ship Enterprise could achieve faster

than light travel due to its warp drive. Only the

saucer was the ship, everything else was just for

creating the warp bubble.

Alpha Centauri is the closest solar system to Earth. It has at least one exoplanet orbiting the binary A and B stars, so it could be our first stop outside our solar system. Alpha Centauri is 4.37 light years away, so traveling at the average speed of a space shuttle, it would take 165,000 years to reach it. Even at the speed of light it would take 4.37 years. But the Starship Enterprise could do this in a matter of days. Is that really possible? Approaching the 50^th anniversary of Star Trek, science says--------could be.

The warp drive on Star Trek allowed them to travel faster than light, a phenomenon now believed to be at least possible. For decades physicists believed that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light, that light speed was the upper limit of out universe. It was an idea put forth by Einstein, so people tended to accept it.

While the limit may still be true for the parameters that Einstein placed on it (traveling in space-time), there may be ways around it. For instance, what if you expanded or contracted space-time itself? Or what if you attached yourself to the power of the expanding universe, it's speeding up to such a degree that it will at some point be traveling faster than the speed of light.

So - right off the bat we have a Star Trek concept (faster than light travel) that at one time seemed silly, but now - not so much. Maybe there is more to this warp drive than we imagine. Let’s see how Star Trek imagined it and then how it may actually come to be.

Mr. Scott’s babies – his warp core, dilithium crystal, matter/antimatter engine and warp drive really break down to two basic principles. The energy to create the warp was derived from harnessing the power of matter/antimatter collisions.

In Star Trek, dilithium crystals somehow gave them

control of the matter/antimatter annihilations in

the engine. In real life, dilithium is usually a gas

made of two lithium ions. But University of

Huntsville (AL) scientists have made a stable form

of lithium, that, along with deuterium, can be used

as fuels for an impulse engine. Not the same thing,

but still dang cool.

For particles of matter – protons and electrons – there are antimatter equivalents, antiprotons and positrons. They are equal particles, it’s just that their charges are reversed. Antiprotons are negatively charged and positrons are positively charged electrons. Sound like science fiction? Well, it’s not – and many people are still alive due to antimatter.

Some chemical elements naturally give off small amounts of positrons, and we can use the energy of their annihilating collisions with electrons to achieve positron emission tomography (PET) scans of the human body. PET is a powerful tool for visualizing the 3-D functional ability of human organs and tissues and is important for diagnosis of many diseases.

So don’t scoff at antimatter – Star Trek had it exactly right. In fact, CERN in Europe made anti-hydrogen atoms last year – although they didn’t last long. And the Santilli telescope has confirmed the presence of antimatter galaxies at the edges of the visible universe. That issue resolved, let’s move on to how antimatter was used in Star Trek.

When a particle of matter meets its opposite, they annihilate one another and release lots of energy. The warp antimatter engine on the Enterprise used heavy hydrogen, called deuterium, and its antimatter equivalent as their power source.

They had to keep the antimatter in a strong magnetic field so that it wouldn’t touch any matter (except the deuterium they wanted it to), otherwise it would annihilate the warp core and destroy the ship. This is the containment Scotty was always yelling about.

Because E=mc² can go both directions, the

annihilation of a up quark and an anti-up quark

produces energy, but that energy can fuse into

gluons and the release matter in the form of a top

and anti-top quarks. So the universe is till producing

antimatter. Look up how quarks help form protons,

neutrons and electrons.

Matter/antimatter engines are coming closer to being real. A Case Western/Kent State paper from 2012 described the concept for a beamed core antimatter propulsion engine using annihilation products to produce thrust. The computer simulations stated that the engine could be produced with today’s technology. This is another example of how Star Trek got it right - and had it first.

The whole purpose of the matter/antimatter energy was to use the released energy to run the ship’s systems and to produce plasma.  Plasma isn’t science fiction either – it’s matter that has been stripped of its electrons. A positive hydrogen ion is just a single proton that has lost its electron – this is plasma, although you could do it with larger atoms as well. Neon lights glow because the electricity strips the electrons from neon gas – that’s plasma as well. On a very large scale, plasma repels matter with electrons, so it can create sort of a vacuum around whatever is creating it.

The Star Trek plasma was sent through the warp nacelles (those cigar shaped pieces to each side of the hull) to generate a plasma bubble around the ship. This bubble would warp space-time around the ship and allow it to travel faster than the limits within space-time. Again, not so far from possibility.

NASA and others are developing wings and

fuselages that generate plasma bubbles on their

own. This creates lift, reduces drag, eliminates a

radar signal, and….. glows!

There is speculation that some Russian jets (SU-37) of a couple decades ago used a plasma bubble to create a stealth capability and reduce drag on the fuselage. This possibility was confirmed in 2000 in a paper in the Journal of Thermophysics and Heat Transfer. So, on a small scale, plasma could reduce drag and speed up jet planes. On a large scale, could it warp space-time and allow a ship to travel faster than light in a bubble?

In 1994, a Mexican physicist named Miguel Alcubierre did the math to determine if this possible. Called the Alcubierre hypothesis, or Alcubierre warp drive, his math says it is possible to warp space-time around a ship, while leaving unwarped space-time inside the ship, so that the crew would experience normal time flow. About 10 years ago NASA rated this at the conjecture level, but it has moved to reasoned speculation. For scientists, this is a big change.

The reasons for the move was that the original calculations suggested that a huge amount of energy would be needed – equal to that released if all of Jupiter’s mass was converted to pure energy. But more recent changes to the shape of the warp disc need (more round than football shaped) reduced the amount of energy needed to a few thousand pounds (converted to energy – that’s still a whole bunch).

This is conceptual design of the IXS Enterprise, and

warp drive ship. The circular parts will generate the

warp bubble instead of the nacelles behind and on

each side of the original Enterprise. Despite that

difference in shape, Roddenberry’s Enterprise

was pretty doggone close.

NASA believes in this concept enough to have started designs on a warp drive ship (of course it's called the IXS Enterprise) and on experiments to generate and detect warp bubbles. Headed by NASA scientist Harold White, the program still has some conceptual problems to overcome. The largest one, and stick with me here, is this. If you want to generate a negative energy warp/plasma bubble around the ship, then that would include putting some plasma in front of the ship.

Even if the warp allows you to travel faster than light within the bubble, the front edge of the bubble would have to be maintained, meaning that you would have to keeping building the bubble in front of the ship at a rate faster than light speed. Since that would be outside the warp bubble, it would then break the laws of physics in space-time. We’re back to the limit that nothing can move faster than light. Darn you, Einstein!

Next week, yet another Star Trek idea that is coming closer to reality – is a transporter just a pipe dream, or a pipe from one place to another?

Contributed by Mark E. Lasbury, MS, MSEd, PhD

As Many Exceptions As Rules

S. Beghella-Bartoli, P.M. Bhujbal, A. Nas (2015). Confirmation of Santilli's detection of antimatter galaxies via a telescope with concave lens. America Journal of Modern Physics, 4 (1)
 
Alcubierre, M. (1994). The warp drive: hyper-fast travel within general relativity Classical and Quantum Gravity, 11 (5) DOI: 10.1088/0264-9381/11/5/001

Ganiev, Y., Gordeev, V., Krasilnikov, A., Lagutin, V., Otmennikov, V., & Panasenko, A. (2000). Aerodynamic Drag Reduction by Plasma and Hot-Gas Injection Journal of Thermophysics and Heat Transfer, 14 (1), 10-17 DOI: 10.2514/2.6504

H. White (2013). Warp Field Mechanics 101 Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, 66, 242-247

Ronan Keane, & Wei-Ming Zhang (2012). Beamed Core Antimatter Propulsion: Engine Design and Optimization J.Br.Interplanet.Soc., 65 arXiv: 1205.2281v2

Tryin’ To Make A Tricorder

Sometimes present technology stirs the imagination of a writer to think about what might come from it; progress for humanity, horrible nightmares, or further advances. And then there are the opposite cases, where something from a writer’s mind spurs a revolution in real world technology – the old, “We ought to be able to make one of those."

This is the first flight of the USS Enterprise. Actually, it

never went to space. Notice that the bottom of the shuttle

doesn’t have the thermal shield tiles, so it couldn’t

possibly go to space – well, at least it couldn’t come back.

Enterprise was scrapped for parts for subsequent shuttles.

Star Trek gave us both. The telephone could likely give rise to the communicator, and lasers probably influenced the idea of phasers. On the other hand, NASA honored Star Trek by naming the first of the space shuttles Enterprise, meaning that the fictional version predated the real version by some 10 years. But where did the tricorder idea come from?

The tricorder was a hand held monitoring device that could record and analyze data on a number of subjects. Spock used it to scan for life forms and geologic conditions, etc. Michael Jones, with Google, states that the tricorder’s mapping function was one of the inspirations behind Google Earth.

Scotty used it to analyze materials and warp cores. What was going on in the 1960’s that gave the idea to Gene Roddenberry that they could have a hand held device that would analyze just about anything?

McCoy’s medical tricorder was used for diagnosing the medical problems of the crew – except for the guy in the red shirt from the landing party – all he got was, “He’s dead Jim.” Bones also had a diagnostic bed that could be used in the sick bay. Sometimes on Next Generation they would use the tricorder while the patient was in the diagnostic bed. Apparently the patient wanted a second opinion.

Now we have an impetus to construct a real tricorder, at least the medical version. QualComm has put up the money for the Tricorder X Prize, worth a cool $10 million to the winning team in early 2016. This is just in time for the Star Trek 50^th anniversary – on purpose or happy accident?

Here’s Bones with a tricorder from the original Star

Trek. I have found episodes with everyone using the

device, McCoy, Spock, Scotty, Sulu, Chekov, Kirk, even

Uhura. The gal in the back is Yeoman Rand, she used

the tricorder a lot in the eight episodes in which she

made an appearance.

A paper from 2006 provides a glimpse into the future. This study described a hand held gamma ray energy device for detecting cancer cells in a surgical setting. Remove the tumor and then probe to see if all the cancerous cells are gone from the site. I wonder if they re-purposed a salt-shaker for the probe.  This is a version of a tricorder function for diagnosis and to monitor treatment.

The current medical term for what a medical tricorder does is rapid medical assessment (RMA). RMA can be done by people as a method of triage in emergency departments, or by device as a diagnostic/treatment mechanism. A 2015 paper discusses the use of Mouthlab from Multisensor Diagnostics Company. This tool uses as disposable mouthpiece and a handheld device to monitor several vital signs (heart rate, temperature, respiratory rate, blood oxygenation) at once. This would then be a tricorder use for monitoring vitals and possibly biomarkers.

But the $10 million won’t come so easily; the hand held PET scanner did just one thing and the Mouthlab only does vital signs. To win the prize, the final tricorder must be able to diagnose at least 13 core health conditions (anemia, atrial fibrillation, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), diabetes, Hepatitis A, leukocytosis, pneumonia, otitis media, sleep apnea, stroke, tuberculosis, urinary tract infection, as well as the absence of those conditions), as well as three elective conditions (allergens, cholesterol screen, food-borne illness, HIV screen, hypertension, hypothyroidism/hyperthyroidism, melanoma, mononucleosis, osteoporosis, Whooping Cough, shingles, or strep throat).

Think about it, those conditions include metabolic disorders, cancers, bacterial infections, viral infections, blood problems, cardiac electrical problems and bone density issues.

The name tricorder comes from the fact that it

recorded data and that it originally had three modes,

geologic, meterologic, and biologic. So it could be used

for many things. Here, Data uses it as a hand puppet

after he receives his emotion chip.

But it gets harder, the device must also be able to measure several vital signs and transmit the data for real time analysis and monitoring. Perhaps the toughest requirement? The entire instrument can’t weigh more than five pounds (2.26 kg)

The Star Trek medical tricorder didn’t touch your body, the salt shaker, er…..probe, was waved across your body and you looked at the old time tape recorder with the shoulder strap to see the results. We haven’t got there yet, at least not for all tests. Today, most tests still require some sample taken from the patient and then assessed in a laboratory for specific characteristics.

Changes from normal chemistry, or the presence or absence of some key molecule are then indications of certain disease states. Usually there is a list of possible diseases (a differential diagnosis) and then additional laboratory tests or diagnostic procedures (surgery, PET, MRI, etc) are used to eliminate some possibilities and strengthen others.

Some tests we currently have don’t require touching the patient or taking a sample, mostly imaging methods (X-ray, MRI, PET scan), but most laboratory tests require something given by a patient (saliva, urine) or taken from a patient (tissue, blood).

This is an old example of lab on a chip, although it is still

one of the prettiest. This chip was used for DNA

sequencing. Each channel had a final endpoint in which

the reaction took place and was then read.

The current methodology for performing many tests in a short time and a small space using a small sample is called “laboratory on a chip.” A small liquid sample is dispersed on a surface, into many wells or areas where specific tests can be performed. The whole thing may use less than a single drop of sample.

Microfluidics is a whole field of research that is used to inform the designers how to get small fluid samples to the areas and how small fluid volumes behave. It isn’t just the biochemical or molecular tests that are challenging, it’s getting the sample to the test areas. Once in the testing areas, then the chemistry can be run to produce products or measure components of the sample.

The tricorder devices will have to have a way to measure the results of the reactions or the properties of the fluid. How it gathers the data is important and takes a lot of technology. UV/Visible spectroscopy looks for the absorbance of light rays (colors or fluorescence); mass spectroscopy identifies molecules by mass to charge ratio.

On the other hand, Raman Spectroscopy measures the unique vibrational and rotational characteristics of specific molecules and ultra thin layer chromatography separates molecules based on solubility and mass. Each of these technologies usually requires desk-sized pieces of equipment; the winning device might use any or all of these measurement techniques.  This makes the weight requirement of five pound max a little tougher to achieve.

This is a schematic which shows UV or visible light

spectroscopy. With UV you can measure DNA, RNA, or

fluorescence With visible light, you can measure the

intensity of colors. Each can give information about

how much of a certain compound is there.

The sample components or reaction measurements will be made and their amounts will be assessed relative to the total sample. Those values, along with vital functions data will be assessed by the machine and a diagnosis will be rendered.

The goal is to have consumers use the product themselves, without need for medical professionals or extensive medical knowledge. Therefore, the workings of the machine must be self-contained and self-diagnosing, and the analysis must come down to specific, but easily understandable results. Not easy for a device that may use some very high tech mechanisms. Of course, there’s nothing saying that the finalists must use lab on a chip technology – it could be something completely new.

Good luck to all the ten finalists. You can learn about their projects here. Next week, we take a look at warp drive. Is it possible to use antimatter or plasma for travel? And what about that speed of light thing?

Contributed by Mark E. Lasbury, MS, MSEd, PhD

As Many Exceptions As Rules

Fridman GY, Tang H, Feller-Kopman D, & Hong Y (2015). MouthLab: A Tricorder Concept Optimized for Rapid Medical Assessment. Annals of biomedical engineering PMID: 25605586

Chandler, D. (2014). A Doctor in the Palm of Your Hand: How the Qualcomm Tricorder X-Prize could help to revolutionize medical diagnosis IEEE Pulse, 5 (2), 50-54 DOI: 10.1109/MPUL.2013.2296803

Gulec SA, Daghighian F, & Essner R (2006). PET-Probe: Evaluation of Technical Performance and Clinical Utility of a Handheld High-Energy Gamma Probe in Oncologic Surgery. Annals of surgical oncology PMID: 16865592