Problems?
The warp factor thingee has changed over the years. When I was a trekkie, in the 60's and 70's, warp factors were simple cubed exponents of X times 'c'. Say WHAT??This is from the ORIGINAL Star Fleet Command Technical Journal! I'll have to dig it out and post the "velocity" graph that accompanies this info. It's the weirdest dern graph you've ever seen outside of a hyberbolic paraboloid!! Notice there is no real upper limit to this scale. In many of the original episodes, the Enterprise exceeded Warp 12!
- Warp Factor 1 = 13 x c = 1 x c = 3x108 m/s.
- Warp Factor 2 = 23 x c = 8c = 2.4x109 m/s.
- Warp Factor 3 = 33 x c = 27c = 8.1x109 m/s.
- ...
- Warp factor 10 = 103 x c = 1000c = 3x1011 m/s.
Now, apparently, this chart is too confusing for the "Next Generation" crowd. Those kids! They have limited the chart to Warp Factor 10 and made it equal INFINITY! Why? No clue! There is a graph of the warp speeds in the manuals and online at various TrekHead sites, but NO FORMULA EXISTS! This, from a Physics viewpoint, makes it null and void! Unless you can quantize, don't talk to me! Here is the Next Generation Warp Chart:
And here is the graph. Take a gander at this!
- Warp 1 = c
- Warp 2 = 10c
- Warp 3 = 39c
- Warp 4 = 102c
- Warp 5 = 214c
- Warp 6 = 392c
- Warp 7 = 656c
- Warp 8 = 1024c
- Warp 9 = 1519c
- Warp 9.2 = 1649c
- Warp 9.6 = 1909c
- Warp 9.9 = 3053c
- Warp 9.99 = 7912c
- Warp 9.9999 = 199516c
- Warp 10 = INFINITY
Whew! That be FAST! I haven't found a good explanation of these numbers anywhere because, since I hate the Next Generation and all the other knock-offs, I refuse to spend money on the "new" tech manuals... If you know, fill me in!