jerry@oliveb.UUCP (Jerry Aguirre) (08/15/84)
Measuring nautical ship speed in knots goes back very far. The idea is
that you throw a float attached to a rope overboard and let the rope
pay out for a fixed time (measured on an hour-glass). By counting knots
make at regular intervals in the rope you got a distance per time value.
This technique predates the observation that certain ocean routes were
faster than others because of the prevailing currents which this
technique could not measure.
As to warp drive, the term has been in common usage in SF long before
ST. The idea is that if you can't exceed the speed of light then you
go around the distance by bending (warping) space. The analogy usually
given is that of the distance between two points on a sheet of paper.
Measured across the paper you get some distance. But that distance can
be reduced to zero by folding the paper so the points are on top of one
another. In space travel some 4th (5th?) dimensional folding is
required. The effective distance is determined by how well your drive
is able to warp (bend) space. This concept became popular right after
the speed of light limitation was generally accepted making previous SF
stories involving interstellar travel impossible.
Jerry Aguirre
{hplabs|fortune|ios|tolerant|allegra|tymix|ihnp4}!oliveb!jerry