It isn't. Star Trek has sometimes contradicted itself, and "warp factor" is just a pseudoscientific term that has varied over the years

Kirk's original Enterprise had done something like Warp 14, but that The Enterprise D from TNG could only do Warp 9.6 Voyager could do 9.975 and so on. Aparently Gene Roddenbury rearranged the scale from the original 60's series for Next Gen, and so where the eponymous series' Enterprise fits, I have no idea.

But...

I found this online...

According to page 54 of the Star Trek Technical Manual:

Warp 1 = Speed of light
Warp 2 = 10 times the speed of light
Warp 4 = 100 times the speed of light
Warp 8 = 1000 times the speed of light

If you like maths, try here

Or just realise that The Enterprise will either a) arrive just in the nick of time or b) arrive just a moment to late to avert a tragedy, regardless of how warped it's factors are

Cheers, kinda makes sense now.

So, ignoring the original scale, warp 10 is instantaneous!

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by FiveByFive
Cheers, kinda makes sense now.

So, ignoring the original scale, warp 10 is instantaneous!

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You can't do warp 10 as it would rip the structure of the ship apart and kill everyone. The Warp 14 in the original series was explained away as Starfleet regrading the warp speeds as the engines improved...Warp 14 in Kirks time is equivalent to Warp 5 in Picard's time. Not sure how Trans-warp drives come into it though as they're far far faster than warp drives but have to travel through conduits in space...ah I can't remember *shrug*

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by Milky
(quotes)

You can't do warp 10 as it would rip the structure of the ship apart and kill everyone.

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The above link leads to a very useful FAQ that tells us that:

Warp 10 is essentially trans-warp

So I would say that your speculation on warp 10 killing everyone is incorrect.

I think it's seriously silly to try any pull anyone's arguments apart on this subject seeing as the whole thing is based on fiction and the minds of the star trek creative team. (Who change their minds all the time on what things are anyway)

If you read through that article they are constantly at odds with each other anyway, but that's is because they are trying to apply star-trek to a rigid theorum, only they can't because star trek only exists in the minds of the story writers..

Can you see where this is heading?

Previous explanations of Warp speed I have seen made the simple equation that it was an exponential, rather than linear, scale.

If I remember rightly, the idea was something like Factor 1 was c (speed of light) but that Factor 2 was 10 x c, 3 was 100 x c, and so on.

This would give you the formula:

v=10^(w-1)c

Where v is the velicity and w is the warp factor.

Having said all that, having read the site that Monster provides a link for, this seems a far more thorough and plausible explanation. So ignore what I just said.

As for Warp 10, this is not achievable with normal warp engines. It requires the use of transwarp conduits. This can be seen in Voyager when the Delta Flyer became the only Star Fleet vehicle to achieve this velocity, and the consequencies that came of it.

In fact, the description on the above link fits nicely with what happened:

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by Star Trek Boffin type
I assume that at warp 10 the surface would be vertical and the ship would effectively occupy all points in space along the direction of travel.

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Finally, in answer to the issue you raised, regarding the episode which started with them having been damaged in a Romulan mine field. Using the warp calculator (I couldn't be .. bothered to work it out myself) warp 2 is approxiamtely 10c, and warp 5 is 213c. This is roughly 21 times faster. So, if Enterprise has been travelling for 1 year, has taken stops and detours and not travelled in a consistent direction from the Sol system, then taking a decade to get back seems a reasonable proposal.

Now, wasn't that fun?

According to Voyager Warp 10 is passing through every point in space Simultaneously. Although the effect accelerates evolution.

However in TNG (final episode) the Enterprise with it's triple warpcells gets to warp 13.

if you see the film star trek first contact it says thet warp speed is faster tgan the speed of light but i think thats inpossible it goes against the laws of phisics

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by Scott Watson
if you see the film star trek first contact it says thet warp speed is faster tgan the speed of light but i think thats inpossible it goes against the laws of phisics

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Couple of things:

1) it's science fiction, try not to worry about it too much

2) the show requires the Enterprise to travel lightyears in days (or less), so some FTL mechanic is required

3) physics dosn't say very much about what can and can't happen above the speed of light, but there's certainly nothing that says that "nothing can travel faster than c", indeed there are a number of tricks that are already being employed to get laser light in non-vacuum to have an effective velocity greater than the speed of light in the medium, and for information to be transmitted at greater than the speed of light

4) what can't happen, as far as we understand it at present is for normal matter to be accelerated up to or above the speed of light; this is what people are generally thinking of when the impossibility of travelling above v=c is discussed.


edit:
5) and lastly the theory that ST uses -- moving the space that the Enterprise occupies at FTL rather than the ship itself, the ship is just pulled along as the space around it moves -- is theoretically plausible from a physics point of view.




(Edited by Callum 21/06/2004 15:13)

if you really want to know how fast Warp speed is you should get the Star Trek Fact Files, they contain all the information you could ever want.

And the prize for reviving up the oldest thread ever goes to.....

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by Teresa
And the prize for reviving up the oldest thread ever goes to.....

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I didn't even know this thread existed...

Did anyone actually know the answer? CBA to read up, lol.

Started on Jan 24 2003

And the prize is ...

... something we're not providing.

After reading this i have 2 questions....

1) So we now know how fast Warp Speed is, but how fast is Impulse Speed?

2) And if you are travelling faster than the speed of light, what happens when you turn the headlights on ?

Uhmm as far as I understand it when a warp field is created the space and time is bent for them to be able to travel faster than light. So if you switch your headlights on within a wrap field you would eluminate the barrier of the field and if the light would be able to escape the field it would appear in "normal space" which would mean that someone somewhere would see the light of two headlights which would appear to come out of nothing

Have we just solved the whole mysterious lights question surrounding UFO's

(Edited by Chambler 04/06/2006 11:08)

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by Dangermouse
1) So we now know how fast Warp Speed is, but how fast is Impulse Speed?

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If I remember right, full-impulse is one-quarter of the speed of light, or .25c. Making the scenes where the ship is taking a leisurely interstellar trip "At full impulse" nonsensical: they'd take decades to reach their destination. I've heard of clocking up the air miles, but that's ridiculous. (Of course this is actually due to the need for the captain to scream, "Take us to warp!" in suitably hammy style when an emergency breaks.) There was a neat exception in one DS9 epp where a warp-drive failed and human-calculator Dr Bashir said it'd take over 17 years to reach the nearest starbase.

Just to confuse everyone a bit more, they're fond of the phrase "one quarter impulse" as well.

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by Chambler
Have we just solved the whole mysterious lights question surrounding UFO's

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Mr Sulu joyriding the Enterprise is certainly one of the more convincing explanations.

Hmm add some under-body neons.... chrome the nacelles...

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