a physical space subject to different physical laws from our own, typically allowing motion or communication at speeds greater than the speed of light
Yet, swift as was the Silver Bird, plunging through millions of miles in a second, drawn into a tiny subspace of her own by the field warp of the kappa coils, seven years had passed before she approached her destination.
The repulsor elements tapped subspace, and hence were unimpeded by any waves in normal space time.
Most Martian histories refer to it as the beast that fell from the sky when Mars was young—some terrible warning connected with it—the beast was unconscious when found—said to be the result of its falling out of sub-space.
Plastoid ports showed only the dead, tangible blackness of subspace; Sun, stars and planets were snuffed into nothingness.
We have the following observations regarding subspace: One is that the matter is unlike Terrene matter. The other is that there is a differential in time passage.
Technically, the bubble of subspace in which the Enterprise was enclosed, which would have been moving at 64C had the bubble impossibility been in normal space at all.
We're receiving a subspace transmission.
She was having trouble with the subspace channels.
Inform the Ambassador that he may have a channel to the Council when we are not under subspace silence.
Meanwhile, you do a chatter blitz on the subspace channels, the gossip wavelength.
They just sent a tight-beam subspace transmission…a call for assistance.
A subspace concussion wave from the Bennett’s imploding warp drive slammed against the Enterprise ’s shields along with the escort’s debris.
The Federation had restricted their exploration of the Sphere entirely to surface mapping and long-range subspace scans.
You just can’t get that last little bit to [the speed of light], without totally violating the relativistic equations of spacetime. Therefore, the writers of Star Trek found a way around that, with an FTL (faster than light) propulsion system. In Star Trek, it’s called ‘Warp Drive’. Simply put, the warp ‘engines’ or ‘nacelles’ produce a subspace field around the vehicle, distorting spacetime. This distortion (or warp) allows the vehicle to travel hundreds or even thousands of times the speed of light, without all the aggravating relativistic effects of length contraction, time dilation and mass increase. So, instead of taking 4 years to get from Earth to Alpha Centauri, at Warp 3 it would take a little over a month. At warp 5 it would take a week, and at Warp 9, it would take a day.
antedating 1937
Nat Schachner/Jack Williamson
(Earliest in OED: 1955 in SF sense, 1931 in math sense.)
Last modified 2021-10-27 15:07:46
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