Warp Drive Concept

Warp Drive is Possible - Start With A Bang Blog Posts

In September 2016, a couple of blog posts popped up in my Facebook page and introduced me to the idea that faster than speed of light travel might be possible.  

The two posts are by Ethan Siegel in the Forbes Science Website (Starts With A Bang contributor).

1) "Star Trek's Warp Drive Might Become A Reality", September 8, 2016. 
http://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2016/09/08/star-treks-warp-drive-might-become-a-reality/#7b1de67d44c5

2)  "Ask Ethan: What 'Impossible Physics' Would Be Possible With Warp Drive?", September 24, 2016.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2016/09/24/ask-ethan-what-impossible-physics-would-be-possible-with-warp-drive/#1ee758c925ad

Pro:

Ethan appears to know his stuff, and simplifies complex ideas to fun to read and easy to understand narratives.

Con:

The explanation about time travel was a bit confusing, if not contradictory.

In the first post, Ethan says "Messages could be delivered of upcoming catastrophes before a light signal could ever arrive, and violating our traditional notions of causality would become a routine game.".  So, this sounded like time travel was possible. 

However, in the second post, Ethan says, "See ourselves as we were in the past. You can’t use warp drive to travel back in time, but if you can outrace the light that the Earth, Sun or Milky Way emitted so long ago, you can then “catch” it with the proper tools.".  So, this statement appears to be contradictory to the first statement.

Rating:  B  (It would've been A, if not for the confusing statements about time travel)