Miguel Alcubierre Moya (born March 28, 1964) is a Mexican

theoretical physicist Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experime ...

. Alcubierre is known for the proposed

Alcubierre drive The Alcubierre drive () is a speculative warp drive idea according to which a spacecraft could achieve apparent faster-than-light travel by contracting space in front of it and expanding space behind it, under the assumption that a configurable ...

, a speculative

warp drive A warp drive or a drive enabling space warp is a fictional superluminal spacecraft propulsion system in many science fiction works, most notably ''Star Trek'', and a subject of ongoing physics research. The general concept of "warp drive" was ...

by which a spacecraft could achieve faster-than-light travel.

Personal life

Alcubierre was born in Mexico City. His father, Miguel Alcubierre Ortiz, a Spanish refugee, arrived in Mexico shortly after the

Spanish civil war The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlism, Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebeli ...

with his own father, Miguel Alcubierre Pérez. Alcubierre has three younger siblings, among them is historian Beatriz Alcubierre Moya. From elementary throughout high school, Alcubierre attended Colegio Ciudad de México. At the age of 13, his father bought him a small telescope, and, together with

sci-fi Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel universe ...

shows such as ''

Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vari ...

'', motivated him to pursue a scientific career. At the age of 15, after having read

Patrick Moore Sir Patrick Alfred Caldwell-Moore (; 4 March 1923 – 9 December 2012) was an English amateur astronomer who attained prominence in that field as a writer, researcher, radio commentator and television presenter. Moore was president of the Bri ...

and David Hardy's '' Challenge of the Stars'', Alcubierre decided that he wanted to become an astronomer. He knew that to achieve this he needed to study

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which ...

first.

Academic life

Alcubierre obtained a Licentiate degree in

in 1988 and a MSc degree in

theoretical physics Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experim ...

in 1990, both at the

National Autonomous University of Mexico The National Autonomous University of Mexico ( es, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, UNAM) is a public research university in Mexico. It is consistently ranked as one of the best universities in Latin America, where it's also the bigges ...

(UNAM). At the end of 1990, Alcubierre moved to Wales to attend graduate school at

Cardiff University , latin_name = , image_name = Shield of the University of Cardiff.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms of Cardiff University , motto = cy, Gwirionedd, Undod a Chytgord , mottoeng = Truth, Unity and Concord , established = 1 ...

, receiving his

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * '' Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. al ...

degree in 1994 through study of numerical general relativity.Biography Miguel Alcubierre Moya
- website of the Instituto de Ciencias Nucleares After 1996 he worked at the

Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics The Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute) is a Max Planck Institute whose research is aimed at investigating Einstein's theory of relativity and beyond: Mathematics, quantum gravity, astrophysical relativity, a ...

Potsdam Potsdam () is the capital and, with around 183,000 inhabitants, largest city of the German state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of ...

, Germany, developing new numerical techniques used in the description of

black hole A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravity is so strong that nothing, including light or other electromagnetic waves, has enough energy to escape it. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass can def ...

s. Since 2002, he has worked at the Nuclear Sciences Institute of UNAM, where he conducts research in numerical relativity, employing computers to formulate and solve the physical equations first proposed by Albert Einstein. The solitary wave solutions proposed by Alcubierre for the Einsteinian field equations may possibly prove general relativity consistent with the experimentally verified non-locality of

quantum mechanics Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, ...

. This work militates against the idea that quantum non-locality would ultimately require abandoning the mathematical structure of

general relativity General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity and Einstein's theory of gravity, is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of gravitation in modern physics ...

. On June 11, 2012, Alcubierre was appointed Director of the Nuclear Sciences Institute at UNAM. On June 14, 2016, the Governing Board of UNAM re-elected Alcubierre as Director of the Nuclear Sciences Institute for another four-year period.

May 1994 paper

Alcubierre is best known for the proposal of "The Warp Drive: Hyper-fast travel within general relativity" that was published in the science journal ''Classical and Quantum Gravity''. In this, he describes the

, a theoretical means of traveling faster than light that does not violate the physical principle that nothing can locally travel faster than light. In this paper, he constructed a

model A model is an informative representation of an object, person or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin ''modulus'', a measure. Models c ...

that might transport a volume of flat space inside a "bubble" of curved space. This bubble, named as ''Hyper-relativistic local-dynamic space,'' is driven forward by a local expansion of space-time behind it, and an opposite contraction in front of it, so that theoretically a spaceship would be placed in motion by forces generated in the change made by

space-time In physics, spacetime is a mathematical model that combines the three dimensions of space and one dimension of time into a single four-dimensional manifold. Spacetime diagrams can be used to visualize relativistic effects, such as why differen ...

Media appearances

Miguel Alcubierre made a special appearance on the TV productions ''

How William Shatner Changed the World ''How William Shatner Changed the World'' (or ''How Techies Changed the World with William Shatner'' in Europe, Asia, and Australia) is a 2005 two-hour television documentary, commissioned by Discovery Channel Canada and co-produced for History ...

'' and

Michio Kaku Michio Kaku (, ; born January 24, 1947) is an American theoretical physicist, futurist, and popularizer of science ( science communicator). He is a professor of theoretical physics in the City College of New York and CUNY Graduate Center. Kak ...

's '' Sci Fi Science: Physics of the Impossible'', in which his warp bubble theory was discussed. Alcubierre has been invited twice to interviews on radio station Radio Educación XEEP (1060 AM), first on February 18, 2011, and later on March 4th 2011, on the technology-related talk show ''Interfase'', where he explained his views on the current state of scientific and technology research in Mexico, and gave a brief introduction to his warp drive model and how it came to be.

Textbook

''Introduction to 3+1 Numerical Relativity'' (International Series of Monographs on Physics, Paperback, 2012, )

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alcubierre, Miguel 1964 births Living people 21st-century Mexican physicists Mexican nuclear physicists Scientists from Mexico City National Autonomous University of Mexico alumni National Autonomous University of Mexico faculty Alumni of Cardiff University Theoretical physicists