How is the FTL drive supposed to work in Star Trek?

I couldn't figure this one out. Has anyone? I know it's about anti-matter and some kind of reactor, but what is it supposed to be doing?

Answer

The matter-antimatter reaction is just the energy source for the work it has to do. The energy created by the reactor is used by the warp nacelles to build the warp field: this deforms the space-time-continuum.

So the spaceship itself isn't accelerating; the warp field makes the ship "falling" into the direction it should go. This has some side-effects, as moving in a direction other than straight forward is highly discouraged because of the damage done to the ship's hull.

You may picture it as if there would be a strong gravitational force in front of the spaceship which drags it through the room.

Image of the NX-01s warpfield

As you can see, the time-space-continuum in the front of the ship is compressed, where in the back it is stretched. In the light gray area the normal room isn't altered. As a side-effect a observer outside of the warp field sees the ship stretched (like at the end of the intros).

Comments

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In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.

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