In "Star wars" is an episode. "Millennium Falcon" with the heroes - Luke Skywalker and Han Solo on Board, takes off from a desert planet Tatooine and meets in orbit around the world squadron of the Imperial warships. The Imperials started shooting at the vehicle of our heroes of the combat lasers, volleys which always breaks his protective field. The forces are not equal, "Sokol" frankly loses to an opponent in agaevoy power. Han Solo throws ship from side to side, dodging the fire, and shouts that their only hope - jump in the "hyperspace". At the last moment hyperspace engines work. All the stars around suddenly burst klepaski converging rays and rush to the center of the review screen. Opens the "hole"through which "Millennium Falcon" is going to hyperspace and freedom.

Fiction? Of course. But could it be that it is based on scientific facts? Perhaps. Travel faster than light always been one of the key themes of science fiction, but lately and physics began to think seriously about the possibility of such a trip.

According to Einstein, the speed of light is the ultimate speed limit, faster, which can not move nothing in the Universe. Even our most powerful accelerators, can give the particles incredible energy particles with such energies can be found only in the centre of exploding stars, or, say, at the moment of the Big Bang, is not dispel elementary particles up to speed than the speed of light. Obviously, the speed of light is an absolute policeman of the Universe. But if it is, all our hopes to reach ever to far galaxies are worth nothing.

Or maybe everything is not so sad...
Einstein is a loser

In 1902, few would have predicted that the young physicist albert Einstein is considered the greatest physicist since Newton. On the contrary, this year was one of the most unfortunate in his life. Freshly baked candidate for the degree of doctor of philosophy could not enter the teaching post in any of the universities you applied. (He later learned that his Professor Heinrich Weber wrote for him a terrible letters of recommendation, perhaps in retaliation for numerous activities, broken by the fault of the shrew student.) Moreover, the mother Einstein was set strongly against his girlfriend Mileva Maric, which at that moment was pregnant with his child. As a result, their first daughter Lieserl born out of wedlock. Lucky young albert and temporary work - suddenly he was fired even with the pitiful position replacement teachers. In dreary letters of that time are wondering, do not do it by the trade to earn a living. He even writes mother that it would be better never to be born, for he is a heavy burden to family and has no chance to succeed in life. When his father died, Einstein felt shame; father died, considering the son of a total failure.

But later that same 1902 luck turned to Einstein face. A friend helped him to do examiner at the Swiss patent office. It is at this modest post it and began the greatest revolution of the modern physics. Analysis of inventions did not take long, and Einstein spent hours thinking about the problems of physics, which took him from childhood.

What is the secret of his genius? Perhaps one of the key features of talent Einstein was his ability to think in terms of the physical picture (imagine a moving train, accelerating hours, stretched canvas, etc.,) instead of pure mathematics. Einstein once said that if a theory cannot explain to a child, she probably useless; this means that the essence of the theory must be the same physical picture. Many physicists were lost in the wilds of mathematics, which in itself does not lead anywhere! But Einstein, as before Newton, couldn without physical picture, mathematics appeared then. For Newton's physical picture represented the falling Apple and the Moon. The same forces are forcing Apple to fall and the moon to go around its orbit or different? When Newton decided that these forces are identical, he built a mathematical building of the Universe and unexpectedly revealed the greatest secret of heaven, the laws of motion themselves heavenly phone
Einstein and relativity

Albert Einstein proposed his famous theory of relativity in 1905, In the center of his theory is the picture clear even to a child. This theory has become the brightest expression of dreams, owning Einstein 16 years; he then asked a crucial question: what happens if overtake a beam of light? Already the young men he knew that the motion of objects on Earth and in heaven subject mechanics of Newton, and the light is described by the Maxwell theory. At that time all of physics stood on these two pillars.

Einstein was the first to understand that the "pillars" contradict each other; maybe this is the essence of his genius. One of the pillars had to fall.

According to Newton, outrun light can easily because neither the light nor its speed are nothing special. This meant that if you will burn near the beam of light at a rate equal to its speed, the beam in your coordinate system will stop. But Einstein in his youth realized that no one has ever seen a fixed light wave and did not understand how it can be stopped. So, he thought, the Newtonian mechanics does not work here.

In the end, Einstein found the answer to this question; he was a student in Zurich and studied the theory of Maxwell. He found the fact that not even the Maxwell: that the speed of light is constant and does not depend on the speed of your movement. No matter whether you will be carried away from the light beam or catch up with him, he will move with the same speed, but that, generally speaking, contrary to common sense. Einstein found the answer to your kid's question: unable to fly next to the light beam, because it is always moving away from you at the same rate, no matter how fast you move yourself.

But Newtonian mechanics is a complex system with strong and hard links: if you pull the free end of it, i.e. a little change in the initial data, the whole system falls apart. In the theory of Newton's time, in any point of the Universe runs in the same way. One second on Earth exactly equal to one second on Mars or Venus. Similarly meter on the Earth has exactly the same length, the meter on Pluto. But if we assume that the velocity of light is constant and does not depend on the velocity of motion of the observer, we need to change the concepts of space and time. To the speed of light remains constant, and the space and time it was necessary to seriously distort.

According to Einstein, if you are in a fast-flying spacecraft, the passage of time it slows down towards the earth's time. The time in the ship and on the Earth going at different speeds, depending on how fast moving ship. Moreover, the space inside the ship is compressed, and depending on the speed of its movement meter can change its length and weight of the vehicle increases. If we looked into this space ship, say, using a telescope, we would see that the clock is slow, and people - tapered on a course of movement of the ship is moving too slowly.

Generally speaking, if the rocket was flying at the speed of light, the time it seems, would have stopped, she shrapnels would be to zero length, and its mass would become infinite. Since it seems impossible and contrary to common sense, Einstein announced that a light barrier to overcome is impossible. (The fact that the object becomes the harder it is, the faster it moves, means that the energy of motion is transformed into a mass. The exact amount of energy, which in this case turns into a mass that can be verified easily in just a few lines of transformations can get the famous equation E = mc2.)

Since Einstein brought his glorified equation, his revolutionary ideas have found evidence of literally millions of experiments. For example, the GPS system that can determine your location on the Earth to within a few meters, will not work unless you enter the relativistic corrections. (Because the military now dependent on GPS systems, physicists had to introduce in the course of the theory of relativity even generals in the Pentagon.) Watch GPS really slow when moving satellites on orbit, as predicted by Einstein.

The most vivid confirmation of the fairness of this concept can be found in accelerators, where scientists dispersed particles up to relativistic velocities, the giant accelerator, CERN, built in Switzerland near Geneva, - the Large hadron Collider - the protons are accelerated to a few trillion electron volts close to the speed of light.

For a scientist-rocketeer, the light barrier still is not a pressing problem, because the speed of modern missiles are only 10-15 km/S. But in a hundred years or two, when scientists have seriously thought about sending probes to the nearest star (which is separated from the Earth than four light years), light barrier, most likely, will gradually turn into a problem.
Loopholes in Einstein's theory

A few decades, physicists have been trying to find in the famous Einstein postulate some loopholes. Something was found, but the majority of these loopholes is not too climbedwere practically. For example, if you hold across the beam of the flashlight, in principle, light Bunny from the beam can move faster than light. For a few seconds, the image of the light beam passes the distance between the opposite points of the horizon, which generally speaking, hundreds of light years. But that doesn't matter, because in this way it is impossible to convey any information. It turns out that the image of the light beam exceeded the speed of light, but the image itself is not nor energy, nor information.

Similarly, if you look at the scissors, you will notice that the point of contact of the blade moves faster, the further we move away from the "carnation". If we imagine the shear length of, say, one light year, when closing the meeting point of the blades will move faster than light. (Again, this does not matter, as the point of contact of the blade does not bear no energy, no information, so, therefore, it is impossible to pass.)

Another example. As I mentioned in Chapter 4, the experiment of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) basically allows you to send information faster than the speed of light. (Remember: in this experiment, two electrons, which fluctuate in unison, then taken in opposite directions. Because these electrons coherent information between them can be transmitted faster than the speed of light, but this information is random and therefore useless. Therefore, the EPR machine cannot be used for sending probes to distant stars.)

Physicists believe that the most important loophole in his theory was chosen by Einstein. In 1915 he created the General theory of relativity, even more powerful than the special theory of relativity. The first stirrings of a new theory emerged in Einstein when he was watching the movement of the children's carousel. As we have said, when approaching the speed of light objects are compressed. The faster we move, the more compressed. But in a rotating disk outer layers are moving faster than the internal. (And the center practically remains in place.) This means that the ruler is placed on the edge of the disk will have to shrink, and the same line closer to the center will remain almost unchanged, and that the surface of the carousel is not flat and concave. Let us make a conclusion; acceleration carousel curves on her space and time.

In General relativity the space-time can be compared with linen, which can be compressed and stretched. Under certain circumstances this canvas can expand faster than the speed of light. For example, imagine the Big Bang is 13.7 billion years ago in a giant cosmic explosion our universe was born. You can see that initially the universe expanded faster than the speed of light. (This does not contradict the special theory of relativity, since expanded empty - interstellar space, but not the stars themselves. The expansion of empty space carries no information.)

The most important thing in this situation is the fact that special relativity applies only locally, i.e. in the immediate vicinity of the observer. In our immediate surroundings (for example, in the Solar system) it works, we can easily verify according to our space probes. But globally (i.e. in the cosmological scale, the scale of the Universe), we should not enjoy the special and General theory of relativity. In it the space-time into the tissue, and this fabric is able to stretch faster than light. In addition, it allows for the existence of "spatial holes that allow you to instantly overcome space and time.

So, one way to travel faster than the speed of light is to use the General theory of relativity. This can be done in two ways.

1. Stretch space. If we have learned to stretch the space behind and to compress the space ahead, the impression would have arisen such as if we moved from one place to another faster than light. Actually we didn't move at all. But the deformation space in front of and behind the vehicle would allow us in an instant access to the distant stars.

2. Breaking space. In 1935, Einstein introduced the concept of "safe passage". Imagine a mirror Alice is a magical device, that connects the neighborhood of Oxford and Wonderland. Safe passage is a "device"that can serve as a link between the two universes. In school we learned that the shortest distance between two points is a straight. But this is not necessarily so; if you turn the sheet of paper so that the dots are connected, then the shortest distance between them will be safe passage.

Says physicist Matt Visser of the University of Washington, "community relativist thinking about what needs to be done to put the engine deformation space or wormholes from the category of science fiction".

And sir Martin Rees, the astronomer Royal of great Britain, even says so: "wormholes, additional measurements and quantum computers open the way for numerous hypothetical scenarios that someday, probably, will transform our entire Universe "living space"".
The engine Alcubierre and negative energy

The best example of stretching of space - engine Alcubierre proposed in 1994 physicist Miguel Alcubierre using the theory of gravitation of Einstein. In fact, this is the engine which appeared in the TV series "Star trek". The pilot is similar to the spaceship is in the bladder (protecting him and the spaceship from the deformation space); inside a bubble, everything looks normal, even when the spaceship overcomes the light barrier. Moreover, the pilot seems that nothing is happening. In fact, out of the bubble of space-time is undergoing a strong distortion; space before the bubble is compressed. Inside the bubble time is not stretched and continues to walk normally.

Alcubierre recognizes that the development of the project of the engine of "Star trek" has played a role. "The characters of the series are always talking about deformation engine, on the concept of artificial distortion of space, " he says. - Theory of how and how not to distort space, we already had, it's the General theory of relativity. I thought that there must be some way to look at using these concepts as they should in fact work deformation engine". This is probably the first case when the TV show was inspired by the scientist, and helped to find a solution to one of Antanovich equations.

Alcubierre believes that travelling to offer them the spaceship will be like a flight on "Millennium Falcon" in "Star wars". "It seems to me that the crew should probably see something similar. Stars ahead of the ship will turn into a long line, the finishing touches. Behind will not see anything at all - only black, because the light of the stars will not be able to move fast enough to catch up with the spaceship," the scientist said.

The key point in the engine Alcubierre is the energy with which the ship accelerates to superluminal velocities. Usually physicists say about the ship, having to start some positive quantity of energy; this energy is spent for acceleration of the spaceship, which always moves slower than light. To go beyond these conditions and move faster than light, will have to change the fuel. Normal calculation shows that we need a "negative mass" or "negative energy" - the most exotic probably objects in the Universe, if they exist at all. Earlier physics rejected any talk of negative energy and negative mass as a truly fantastic. But now it has become clear that, firstly, traveling with superluminal velocities without them one cannot do anything, and secondly, they could exist in reality.

Scientists are looking for the negative stuff in nature, but in vain. (Antimatter and negative matter is completely different things. The first definitely exists and has a positive energy, but opposite charge. The existence of negative matter is still not proven.) Negative substance must be a very unusual properties; for example, it should be less than nothing. Moreover, it should fly. If negative matter existed at the beginning of time, when the birth of the Universe it had to go into the depths of space. Unlike meteorites, which in the case down on the planet under the action of gravity forces, negative substance shall escape from the planets. It has to push, not pull any major bodies such as stars or planets. Therefore, although negative substance may exist in reality, discover it, most likely, only in deep space - and certainly not on Earth.

In one of the projects of search of negative matter in outer space available phenomenon known as lens Einstein. When light passes by the star or galaxy, its trajectory is distorted by the gravitational force in accordance with the General theory of relativity. In 1912, Einstein (not even finished yet work on the General theory of relativity predicted that the galaxy can work as the lens of a telescope. The light of a distant object around the nearby galaxy, as if it was a lens, going over it in a bun and forms a characteristic interference pattern of concentric circles. In this form it comes to the Earth. At present, this phenomenon is called the Einstein rings.

The first lens Einstein was discovered by astronomers in space in 1979, Since then, such objects has already become for astronomers an indispensable tool. Here is just one example. It was once believed that cannot be detected in space, hidden mass. (Hidden mass, also known as dark matter is the mysterious invisible but quite massiveAya substance. It surrounds the galaxy and possibly in the Universe it ten times more than the usual visible matter.) But NASA scientists were able to map the spatial distribution of hidden mass, as it rejects the light passing through it just the same as glass light curves.

So, theoretically lenses Einstein should help scientists in search of negative substances and mole burrows. They should in some way to deform the path of light and space telescope named Hubble should be able to register such distortion. Still could not find any negative substances or mole burrows, but the search continues. And if one day detectors space telescope will lock in one of Antanovich lenses presence negative substances or of the wormhole, the whole world of physics will feel amazing implications of this discovery.

Negative energy is different from adverse substances that validly exists, albeit in small quantities. In 1933 Hendrik Casimir, based on the laws of quantum theory, made a very unusual prediction. He argued that the two uncharged parallel metal plates will be attracted to each other as if by magic. Usually parallel plates have no effect on each other, since it does not have a net charge. But the vacuum between two such plates actually not empty; it is full of "virtual particles", appearing and then disappearing again.

A moment of emptiness arise pair electron-positron - and then annihilate, again dissolving in a vacuum. Ironically, the void that was once considered devoid of anything, really full of quantum events. Common sense dictates that a tiny bursts with simultaneous formation of matter and antimatter violate the law of conservation of energy. But, according to the uncertainty principle, these bursts are incredibly short, and on average, the energy still remains.

Kazimir found that many virtual particles creates in a vacuum nonzero total pressure. The space between two parallel plates is limited, and therefore the pressure of virtual particles there is small. But outside of the plates places a lot and nothing prevents them "turn around" like it should, so the pressure is higher; in sum, there is the force that pushes plate to each other.

In normal circumstances - when plates are alone and separated by a considerable distance - has been in a state with zero energy. But if to bring together the plate, they will get attracted and one can get from some energy. After that, because the plates were taken away kinetic energy, their own energy is less than zero, i.e. negative.

Negative energy was the first to measure in the laboratory in 1948, and the results fully confirmed the prediction Casimir. Now negative energy and the Casimir effect was seen not as a science fiction, and as established fact. The problem, however, is that the Casimir effect is very weak; to detect this energy in the laboratory, it is necessary to use the most precise and the latest measuring equipment. (In General, the Casimir energy is inversely proportional to the fourth power of the distance between the plates. This means that the smaller the distance, the greater the energy.) Exactly the Casimir effect measured in 1996, Steven Lamoro from Los Alamos national laboratory; the force of gravity has got 30 000 times less weight ant.

Since the publication of the theory Alcubierre physics managed to detect the proposed spaceship many strange properties. For example, people inside the ship causal isolated from the outside world. This means that you cannot just push the button and fly faster than light. You will not be able to communicate with the outside world beyond the protective bubble. Must be a road laid in advance "route" through space and time, and then it ships can follow one after the other, as trains on schedule. In this sense, the spaceship Alcubierre will not be an ordinary ship cannot arbitrarily change the direction and speed. The spaceship will be similar to a car which moves on a previously created the wave of compressed space on a pre-established corridor distorted space-time. Alcubierre goes like this: "We need a series of generators exotic substances, placed along the route of movement, as along the highway; these generators are synchronous to manage space as necessary.

It cannot be excluded that in the future will be discovered even more strange and bizarre solutions of Einstein's equations. Themselves equations say that if given a certain amount of mass or energy, you can calculate the distortion of space-time, which will cause this mass or energy (similarly, throwing a stone into the water, you can calculate the circles, which will go from him). But these equations can be applied in the reverse direction. You can start with the specified state of space-time, strange as it may seem. As an example of the bizarre worlds of the series "the twilight zone". (In those universes, you can, for example, to open the door and be on the moon. You can run around the tree and be in the past, and then discover what is more, that the heart beats on the right side.) You then need to calculate the distribution of matter and energy that is associated with this particular condition. (Similarly, if you specify a strange distribution of waves on the surface of the water, you can re-calculation to determine how many, where and how the stones were thrown into the pond.)

About the way, by the way, Alcubierre withdrew its equations. He started with space-time in which a valid motion faster than light, and then held back-calculation and calculated the energy needed to obtain such a space-time.
Wormholes and black holes

Second after the stretching of space is a way to overcome the light barrier is to break or piercing, space, i.e. go through wormholes, tunnels that connect the two universes. In the literature the first mention of mole burrows is written by an Oxford mathematician Charles Dodgson, who wrote under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll tale "Alice in Wonderland". Mirror Alice is safe passage that connected the vicinity of Oxford with magical world of Wonderland. Extending a hand through a mirror, Alice can instantly be transported from one universe to another. Among mathematicians, they are called "multiply connected spaces".

In physics the concept mole burrows appeared in 1916 - just one year after Einstein published his great work - the General theory of relativity. Physicist Karl Schwarzschild, then serving in the Imperial army, found the exact solution of Einstein equations for the case of an isolated point of the star. Far away from the star, the gravitational field is very similar to normal star field; Einstein even took advantage of the Schwarzschild solution in the calculation of the trajectory deflection of light around a star. The result Schwarzschild produced immediate and strong action by all sections of astronomy, and today it still remains one of the most well-known solutions of the Einstein equations. Several generations of physicists used a gravitational field, this hypothetical point star as an approximate expression for the field around a real star with final diameter.

But if we consider this point a decision is taken seriously, in the center of his unexpectedly found a monstrous point object, which is almost a century amazed and shocked physicists, is a black hole. The Schwarzschild solution for the gravitational field of a point of the star resembles a Trojan horse. From the outside it looks like a gift from heaven, but the inside hides all kinds of demons and spirits. But if you take one, you have to accept the other. From the Schwarzschild solution seemed that when approaching the notorious point star, strange things happen. Itself star surrounded by an invisible field (known as the "event horizon"), which is a peculiar feature of no return. Things can get inside her, but nothing can go back. Once having passed the event horizon, you will not be able to go back. (If you are inside the event horizon, you again to be outside, you will need to move faster than light, and it is impossible.)

As you approach the event horizon on the atoms of your body will start to operate tidal forces, stretching them. Your legs will feel much more gravity than your head, so you will first stretch to the state of spaghetti, and then simply tear. Exactly the same happens with the atoms of your body - they are stretched gravity, and then disconnected.

For an external observer, your approach to the event horizon will look as if you slow down over time. Moreover, when you touch the event horizon, the observer would think that the time has stopped!

This is not enough. Down under the event horizon, you will see the light, locked inside this sphere and wandering inside the black hole billions of years. You seem to see the film, depicting the history of the black hole, from the very moment of its birth.

Finally, if you managed to fly the black hole through, there, on the other hand, you find another universe. This phenomenon first described by Einstein in 1935, is called the bridge of Einstein-Rosen; now called Krotova Nora.

Einstein and other physicists were convinced that not one star will not be able to naturally turn into such a monstrous object. In 1939 Einstein even published an article in which he showed that a rotating gas-dust mass will never skondensirovalas in such a black hole. Therefore, despite lurking in the center of the black hole krfinished the hole, he was sure that nothing like this in the world can not arise. Astrophysicist Arthur Eddington has said that "there must be a law of nature that prevents the stars behave in such a ridiculous way." In other words, the black hole, of course, a legitimate solution to the Einstein equations, but the mechanism through which such a thing could be formed in a natural way, is unknown.

The situation changed with the release of in the same year, article by Robert Oppenheimer and his pupil of Hartland of Snaidero; in this work, the researchers showed that black holes can form naturally. They suggested that the dying star, which is almost completely exhausted its nuclear fuel, collapses under gravity, i.e. collapses under its own weight. If gravity will be able to squeeze the star to sizes smaller than the radius of the event horizon, then nothing can stop her squeeze the star to a point and to transform into a black hole. (It is possible that considered here mechanism collapse prompted the Oppenheimer ideas in a few years used to create bombs to Nagasaki, the detonation of which is used explosive compression plutonium ball.)

Following the breakthrough occurred in 1963, when the new Zealand mathematician Roy Kerr investigated, probably the most realistic example of a black hole. Compressing objects accelerate its rotation is about the same as skaters begin to spin faster when put their hands to the body. We can conclude that black holes should rotate with fantastic speed.

Kerr found that rotating black hole is not cancelled in point star, as suggested by Schwarzschild, and will contract and forms a rotating ring. Anyone who is not lucky and someone will stumble on this ring, will perish; but he who hits the ring hole and die, and will pass through him. And be not on the other side of the same ring, and in another universe, because, once in the ring, he will pass over the bridge Einstein-Rosen. In other words, a rotating black hole is rim mirror, through which passed a fabulous Alice.

If this person then will go around the ring and go through it again, he will appear in the next universe. In General, each successive pass through the rotating ring will travel in another parallel universe - about as pressing the up button in the Elevator. In principle there may be an infinite number of universes, one above the other. "Pass through this magic ring and - OPA! "you're already in a completely different universe where the radius and the mass of negative!" wrote Kerr.

But there is a very important trap. A black hole is a good example of "irreversible wormhole"; and thus, through the event horizon it is possible to pass only in one direction. Should pass the event horizon and the ring Kerr - and you won't be able to go back the same way.

But in 1988, Kip Thorne and his colleagues at Caltech calculated reversible wormhole, i.e., such that makes it possible to move freely in both directions, there and back. For one of their solutions travel through wormholes is not more dangerous plane flight!

In normal conditions the force of gravity seeks to crush and crush the "hook" of the wormhole, killing at that astronauts who will try to reach the other end. This is enough to make instantaneous movement through wormholes impossible. But we can assume that the repulsive force inherent negative energy or negative matter, can keep a tube open at a sufficient period of time to astronauts managed to pass the dangerous zone. In other words, negative substance or negative energy is absolutely necessary and for the engine Alcubierre, and for schemes mole burrows.

Over the last few years has been found a surprising number of exact solutions of Einstein's equations, admitting the existence of a mole burrows. But do they really? Or maybe it's just a mathematical fantasy? In addition, kraevymi burrows is associated with a number of serious problems.

First, to create a strong distortion of space-time is required for travel through wormholes, will require an unprecedented number of positive and negative matter about huge star or black hole. Assessment Matthew Visser physics from the University of Washington, to create a wormhole with a diameter of 1 m must so much negative energy that its amount can be compared with the mass of Jupiter - and it should be negative! Visser says: "this work will require approximately minus one mass of Jupiter. And to manage even with positive energy, comparable to the mass of Jupiter, to put it mildly, difficult and goes far beyond our capabilities in the pre put the future."

Kip Thorne of the California Institute of technology says: "it Seems that the laws of physics really permit the exotic substances in a quantity sufficient to keep stable wormhole man-sized. But then it turns out that construction technology mole burrows and keeping them open for us unrepresentable and is far beyond the capabilities of human civilization".

Secondly, we don't know how stable will be these wormholes. In addition, radiation, which will be generated, can be deadly for anyone who will penetrate inside. And can be, wormholes in General will be unstable and will shrink, let somebody or something to get inside.

Third, the light rays penetrate into the black hole will experience the blue shift; this means that, coming to the event horizon, they will become more and more energy. Moreover, in the event horizon light theoretically should have endless blue shift and have infinite energy, so the incoming radiation in the black hole can be fatal for the crew of the ship.

Let's discuss these issues in more detail. The first problem is to accumulate and collect at one point enough energy to tear the fabric of space-time. The simplest way to achieve this is to compress the object so that it shrank its own event horizon. For example, for a Sun that would mean compress it to a diameter of approximately 3 km, after which the Sun itself collapses and becomes a black hole. (Own gravity of the Sun is too weak, so naturally shrink it to a diameter, so the moon will never become a black hole. In principle this means that any body, even yours, capable to turn into a black hole, if it shrink. For the human body that would mean compress all its atoms to a size smaller than sub-atomic distances - this operation is far beyond the capabilities of modern science.)

A little more practical approach is to take the battery lasers, collect rays and to direct the received powerful beam at a certain point. Or to build a giant accelerator, to disperse it two beams, which are then faced with the release of the fantastic amounts of energy, enough to create a tiny gap of space-time.
The Planck energy and particle accelerators

It is possible to calculate in advance the energy needed to create instability space-time: in the order of magnitude it corresponds to the Planck energy, component 1019 MeV. This is truly unimaginable a great value; it is in a quadrillion times the size of the energies attainable on the most powerful modern accelerator - the Large hadron Collider (LHC, CERN), built in Switzerland near Geneva. The Collider is able to disperse in the large "donut hole" protons to energies of trillions of electron volts, which had not happened since the Big Bang. But even this monstrous machine far before the creation of particles with energies that even remotely approaching the Planck energy.

Following after the Large hadron Collider accelerator will be the international linear Collider (MLK ILC). Instead of chasing an elementary particle on a circle, linear Collider will shoot and break them on the straight line until they reach unimaginable high energies. After that, the flow of electrons is expected to push with positrons, thus creating enormous release of energy. Length MLK will amount to 30-40 km and ten times exceed the length of the Stanford linear accelerator, which is currently the largest in the world. If all goes well, MAC will be built somewhere in the next decade.

It is assumed that MLK will produce energy from 0.5 to 1.0 TeV. This is less than 14 TeV, which can be obtained on the TANK, but this impression is deceptive. TANK collide protons, and so in that sense, in the collision involved quarks that make up the proton. In every individual clash of quarks involved much less of 14 TeV. Therefore, MLK, you will be getting a lot of collision energy, rather than the TANK. In addition, because the electron is no known component parts, the dynamics of the collision between an electron and a positron is much simpler and cleaner.

To be honest, and MLK would be very far to energies that level, which is necessary to make a hole in space-time. This would in a quadrillion times more powerful accelerator. For our civilization is the civilization of the null type, using as fuel remains of plants (i.e., oil and coal) - this technology is completely unattainable. But civilization III type may be able to possess it.

Remember that civilization III is a galactic energy and consumes its 10 billion times greater than civilization II type energy source which serves as a single star. And civilization type II, in turn consumes 10 billion times more energy than the civilization of the first type, using only energy of our own planet. But after 100-200 years our weak civilization must achieve the status of a type I civilization.

In view of our prospects, we must conclude that at the moment we are at the beginning of a long, long way to getting the Planck energy. Many physicists believe that at extremely small distances of the order of the Planck length, which is 10-33 cm, space is not empty and not homogeneous, but "foam"; it is filled with tiny bubbles that constantly arise and collide with other similar bubbles, and then disappear again in a vacuum. The bubbles that appear and disappear in a vacuum - it is a "virtual universes"; they are very reminiscent of pairs of virtual particles - electrons and positrons, which arise and immediately annihilate.

In normal circumstances, this quantum space-time "foam" completely invisible to us. Bubbles are formed on such a tiny distances that we are not able to see them. But quantum physics believes that if concentrated in one point enough energy up to the Planck energy, these bubbles can be increased. Then we will see how the space-time foam tiny bubbles, and each bubble - safe passage connecting our world with ready to be born a child of the universe.

Last child universes to be considered smart fun, bizarre consequence of pure mathematics. But now physics seriously believe that our universe is quite possible, too, began as one of them.

This conclusion is based on the net and still quite arbitrary reasoning, but the laws of physics allow you to open a hole in space by a concentration in one point sufficient energy; energy allows us to reach the space-time foam from which arise wormholes that connects our universe with another child of the universe.

Creating holes in space will require, of course, technology is completely different level than ours, but at the same time, civilization III type this level may be available. For example, there's this thing called "desktop inkjet plasma accelerator"; recently in this direction obtained promising results. Despite the tiny size - and this accelerator really can fit on the table - a device capable of generating energy in billions of electron volts. The principle of operation of jet accelerator is that the laser beam is directed to charged particles, which are then dispersed by the energy of the laser. Experiments conducted at the research center Stanford linear accelerator Laboratory Rutherford Appleton in England and in the Paris Polytechnic school show that the use of the laser beam and plasma as a source of energy allows to disperse particles at rather a small distance to extremely high energies.

Another extremely important discovery was made in 2007, Physicists and engineers scientific center of the Stanford linear accelerator, the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of southern California demonstrated that the energy giant particle accelerator can be doubled during 1 M. They started with an electron beam, which accelerates in dvumernoi pipe Stanford accelerator with energy up to 42 MeV. Then these electrons, and without that high energy flow through the plasma "afterburning chamber" with a length of only 88 cm; in it the electrons trying to enter another 42 GeV, thus double their energy. (This plasma chamber filled with gaseous lithium. Electrons passing through a gas, generate plasma wave and as a consequence, a passing jet. This thread, in turn, how would picks up following the electron beam and pushes them forward, giving additional acceleration.) This is a remarkable achievement because physicists managed 3000 times surpassing the previous record by quantity of energy, which you can send an electron beam at 1 PM If you add such a plasma "burner" to the existing accelerators, can in principle almost nothing to double the energy of the particle.

Today the world record for desktop inkjet accelerator is 200 GeV/m increase in the length of such an accelerator, while problematic too many problems (such as maintaining the stability of the beam in the dispersal of its laser beam). But if we assume that we will learn still arbitrarily increase the length of such an accelerator with maintaining the level of energy of 200 GeV/m, in this case, the length of the accelerator, capable of accelerating particles to the Planck energy, will have to be ten light-years. This is quite capable of civilization III type.

Apparently, wormholes and stretched space - the most realistic ways to overcome the light barrier. It is not yet clear, stable, whether these technologies; but even if they are stable, we would need a fabulous amount of energy - positive or negative - to make them really work.

Maybe now some type III civilization has similar technologies. But will, perhaps, thousands of years before mankind will be able at least to think seriously about how to harness this power. In addition, resolved not all the contradictions in the laws, which are managed by the space-time in quantum level. Considering all the above, I would overcome the light barrier to the II class of impossibility.