# Star Trek Warp Drive formula wanted
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-warp-drive-formula-wanted/761419
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [July 31, 2016, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-warp-drive-formula-wanted/761419 "2016-07-31T23:20:15Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2016, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-warp-drive-formula-wanted/761419/1 "2016-07-31T23:20:15Z")
Bear with me, this is a factual question so I suppose it goes here rather than Cafe Society.
In the original 1960s series it was canon that warp factors cubed equaled the superlight velocity. So warp 1 = lightspeed, warp 2 =x8, warp 3= x27, etc. Beginning with _The Next Generation_ however, a new warp speed formula was introduced where warp 10 equals infinity. My personal fanwank is this: that the cubed formula gave accurate results up to about warp 8, but above that the deviations started becoming significant (episodes from TOS cite a breakdown of then-current warp theory above warp 8), enough so that the new formula where 10=infinity was introduced.
Now for my factual question: what mathematical function gives a curve that is very very close to y=x^3 for values of x up to about 8, but then has x=10 as an asymptote? In other words, if you graphed it logarithmically, it would be a straight line up to about x=8, then a sharp bend, and then a nearly vertical line.
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### Author:  [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)
#### Post date: [July 31, 2016, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-warp-drive-formula-wanted/761419/2 "2016-07-31T23:36:58Z")
Any continuous function can be approximated by polynomials, but the limit of those approximations need not be expressible in terms of elementary functions without specifying different rules for different parts of the domain. The function is just piece-wise defined. [Warp factor | Memory Beta, non-canon Star Trek Wiki | Fandom](http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Warp_factor) says that there actually is no formula, but the values above warp 9 were determined by physically drawing a curve.
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### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2016, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-warp-drive-formula-wanted/761419/3 "2016-08-01T00:59:00Z")
> [@glowacks](#):
>
> Any continuous function can be approximated by polynomials, but the limit of those approximations need not be expressible in terms of elementary functions without specifying different rules for different parts of the domain. The function is just piece-wise defined.
That’s no fun!
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### Author:  [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2016, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-warp-drive-formula-wanted/761419/4 "2016-08-01T01:52:55Z")
But not unprecedented. If you plot the heat of water when adding or removing heat, you get discontinuities at 0 and 100 C.
And there is the plot constant, in which the speed is much higher through regions of space where nothing happens.
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### Author:  [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2016, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-warp-drive-formula-wanted/761419/5 "2016-08-02T09:39:49Z")
I had an old article saved on my computer about this, but I couldn’t find it. Luckily, I found it on Google. It comes from the old TREK BBSes and USENET newsgroups. Unfortunately the answer is quite convoluted.
The simplified answer is that the drawn formula starts with v = W[sup]10/3[/sup], but the exponent gradually increases up to W = 9. After that, the exponent increases heavily. Hence, the true formula must have an additional factor that increases as W increases.
The most accurate answer (as of 2004) is best written in 5 different equations.
v = W[sup](10/3 + 10/3 \* a(W) \* b(W) \* c(W))[/sup]
a(W) = 0.20467e[sup](-0.0058 log[sub]10[/sub]100000 - 10000W)[sup]5[/sup])[/sup]
b(W) = 1 + 1/3 \* (2 cos(10πk) - 1) \* e[sup](-49.369k[sup]4[/sup][/sup]
k = log[sub]10[/sub](8/(100 - 10W))
c(W) 1 + 1.88269 \* (π/2 - tan[sup]-1[/sup](10[sup]W[/sup] \* log[sub]10[/sub](20000 - 2000W)))/π
Each function increases the accuracy. You can just use a(W) to get a pretty good estimate, for example. Both a(W) and b(W) get you closer, and doing a(W), b(W), and c(W) gives you the exact answer.
Of course, this is unwieldy as heck, and maybe Dopers can do better. [Here’s the page defining it all](http://www.calormen.com/star_trek/FAQs/warp_formulae.htm), which includes a chart showing the results from the curve in the book.
And here’s a set of [Star Trek FAQs](http://starchive.cs.umanitoba.ca/) that led me back to that page. It includes the physics of Warp along with stuff about a Stardate system.
Finally, here’s an [online converter](http://wayback.archive.org/web/19991018204709/http://www-peronal.usyd.edu.au/%7Emshields/TV/) made by Martin A. Shields, the guy who came up with the formula (found on [archive.org](http://archive.org)).
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### Author:  [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2016, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-warp-drive-formula-wanted/761419/6 "2016-08-02T10:23:59Z")
Although a sometime fan, I had never thought much about this. At first I assumed that Warp was just a multiple of E, but then, I think , in the course of a conversation, we decided that it was logarithmic - W1=E, W2=Ex10 and so on.
I can’t see why they would need such a complicated scale?
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2016, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-warp-drive-formula-wanted/761419/7 "2016-08-02T10:48:51Z")
**bob++** , was that meant to say c instead of E?
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### Author:  [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2016, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-warp-drive-formula-wanted/761419/8 "2016-08-02T12:59:51Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> **bob++** , was that meant to say c instead of E?
Yes
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### Author:  [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2016, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-warp-drive-formula-wanted/761419/9 "2016-08-02T13:14:46Z")
I can remember, even as a kid reading the Technical Manual, thinking that the X-cubed thing wasn’t logical because _it wasn’t fast enough_.
Think about it, Warp 9 - deadly though it is - is only 729 times _c_. Cruising speed, warp 5, is 125 times _c_.
Proxima Centauri - 4.3ly=12.556 days at Warp 5
E. Eridani (Vulcan) - 10.5ly=30 days
Vega - 25ly=73 days
And that’s just local. It’s equivalent to the time of tall ships. But that’s not indicated by how they shoot around the galaxy.
It bugged me.
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### Author:  [@Lubricious\_Integument](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lubricious_Integument)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2016, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-warp-drive-formula-wanted/761419/10 "2016-08-02T16:09:30Z")
> [@Lumpy](#):
>
> Bear with me, this is a factual question so I suppose it goes here rather than Cafe Society.
>
> In the original 1960s series it was canon that warp factors cubed equaled the superlight velocity. So warp 1 = lightspeed, warp 2 =x8, warp 3= x27, etc. Beginning with _The Next Generation_ however, a new warp speed formula was introduced where warp 10 equals infinity. My personal fanwank is this: that the cubed formula gave accurate results up to about warp 8, but above that the deviations started becoming significant (episodes from TOS cite a breakdown of then-current warp theory above warp 8), enough so that the new formula where 10=infinity was introduced.
>
> Now for my factual question: what mathematical function gives a curve that is very very close to y=x^3 for values of x up to about 8, but then has x=10 as an asymptote? In other words, if you graphed it logarithmically, it would be a straight line up to about x=8, then a sharp bend, and then a nearly vertical line.
You just need a function that is very close to 3 for x \< 10 but with a vertical asymptote at x=10. Such a function is 3 + 1/(10-x). The effect of the asymptote can be lessened away from x=10 by using 3 + 1/k(10-x) for a large positive number k. I suggest using the warp function w(x)=x^{3+1/100(x-10)} with domain 0 \<= x \< 10.
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### Author:  [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2016, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-warp-drive-formula-wanted/761419/11 "2016-08-02T16:30:10Z")
Note that the proposed function doesn’t have to yield a velocity of _exactly_ c\*(x^3) for values of x between 1 and 8- just close enough that for 8 or less no one bothered about the difference, which starts becoming notable above 8.0, marked at 9.0 and extreme beyond that.
ETA: **Lubricious Integument** got it.
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### Author:  [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2016, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-warp-drive-formula-wanted/761419/12 "2016-08-02T20:19:48Z")
What’s the difference between infinity and already going beyond c? At warp 10 they can travel to any point in the universe in an instant?
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### Author:  [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2016, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/star-trek-warp-drive-formula-wanted/761419/13 "2016-08-02T20:29:26Z")
I thought _Dune_ did this better, just fold timespace so that Vega and Sol are only 100,000 miles apart … takes a few hours to get there.