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 experi ...

. 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 configurabl ...

, a speculative warp drive 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 () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...

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 Colegio Ciudad de México is a private school network in Mexico City, Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the n ...

. At the age of 13, his father bought him a small telescope, and, together with

sci-fi Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

shows such as ''

Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the Star Trek: The Original Series, series of the same name and became a worldwide Popular culture, pop-culture Cultural influence of ...

'', 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's early interest in astro ...

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 scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, 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 whi ...

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 List of natural phenomena, natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental p ...

in 1990, both at the

National Autonomous University of Mexico The National Autonomous University of Mexico (, UNAM) is a public university, public research university in Mexico. It has several campuses in Mexico City, and many others in various locations across Mexico, as well as a presence in nine countri ...

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

Cardiff University Cardiff University () is a public research university in Cardiff, Wales. It was established in 1883 as the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire and became a founding college of the University of Wales in 1893. It was renamed Unive ...

, receiving his

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

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 in

Potsdam Potsdam () is the capital and largest city of the Germany, German States of Germany, state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the Havel, River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...

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

black hole A black hole is a massive, compact astronomical object so dense that its gravity prevents anything from escaping, even light. Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will form a black hole. Th ...

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 the fundamental physical Scientific theory, theory that describes the behavior of matter and of light; its unusual characteristics typically occur at and below the scale of atoms. Reprinted, Addison-Wesley, 1989, It is ...

. 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 as Einstein's theory of gravity, is the differential geometry, geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of grav ...

. 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 Faster-than-light (superluminal or supercausal) travel and communication are the conjectural propagation of matter or information faster than the speed of light in vacuum (). The special theory of relativity implies that only particles with zero ...

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 , . Models can be divided in ...

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, also called the space-time continuum, is a mathematical model that fuses the three-dimensional space, three dimensions of space and the one dimension of time into a single four-dimensional continuum (measurement), continu ...

Media appearances

Miguel Alcubierre made a special appearance on the TV productions '' How William Shatner Changed the World'' and

Michio Kaku Michio Kaku (; ; born January 24, 1947) is an American theoretical physicist, Science communication, science communicator, futurologist, and writer of popular-science. He is a professor of theoretical physics at the City College of New York and ...

'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 4, 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 Academic staff of the National Autonomous University of Mexico Alumni of Cardiff University Theoretical physicists