这篇文章（日期为 2026 年 2 月 7 日）对比了科幻中的超光速旅行与相对论的限制：没有任何东西能比光更快，而光速约为 3 x 10^8 公尺每秒。由于这个有限速度，天文观测具有时间延迟：在太阳系内，阳光来回反射月球再到达地球只需略多于 1 second，而从太阳到地球则约需 8 minutes。在恒星际尺度上，距离以光年表示；比邻星（Proxima Centauri）约在 4.25 光年之外，因此我们看到的是它约 4.25 年前的样子；而在宇宙学距离上，我们回望跨越数十亿光年，等同于在观测宇宙更早期的时代。
文章强调，超光速旅行会破坏因果关系，并在相对论的数学中允许时间旅行与悖论；同时也指出标准的相对论结论是：要把太空船加速到超光速需要无限能量。接著它回顾广义相对论中的曲速（warp-drive）构想：1994 年 Miguel Alcubierre 提出一种时空「扭曲」解，但似乎需要奇异的负能量。2024 年 5 月 Jared Fuchs 及其同事的重新分析报告称，原则上可以用普通物质与能量产生类似扭曲的时空配置，但只能在低于光速时成立；他们认为即使是温和的时空扭曲在能量上也极端苛刻，估算要移动一个约小房间大小的载客舱，需要一个约小房子大小的「warp bubble」，并且得把数倍木星质量压缩到约小行星大小的体积内；而跨越光速边界仍然需要无限能量。
文章讨论的第二条研究路线，是 Andrzej Dragan 与合作者对假想超光速粒子「快子」（tachyons）的研究；他们声称给出了自洽的快子行为方程，但仍然得出结论：光速在任一方向都无法被跨越，因为将普通物质加速到超过光速需要无限能量，而把快子减速到低于光速同样需要无限能量。文章认为主要收获可能是概念上的而非技术上的：与快子相关的因果失效，类似于量子理论中熟悉的机率性、不确定结果（例如，你能预测一个激发态原子会重新放出一个光子，但无法预测何时或朝哪个方向）。但需要保留的一点是，这些结果都没有提供通往《Star Trek》式快速星际旅行的实用途径；反复出现的量化障碍是在光速门槛处的「无限」能量，以及即便是亚光速的类曲速效应也需要庞大的有限能量。
The article (dated February 7, 2026) contrasts science-fiction faster-than-light travel with relativity’s limit that nothing moves faster than light, whose speed is about 3 x 10^8 metres per second. Because of this finite speed, astronomical observation is time-delayed: within the Solar System sunlight takes just over 1 second (there and back) to bounce off the Moon and reach Earth, and about 8 minutes to travel from the Sun to Earth. At interstellar scales, distance is expressed in light-years; Proxima Centauri is roughly 4.25 light-years away, so we see it as it was about 4.25 years ago, and at cosmological distances we look back across billions of light-years, effectively observing much earlier epochs of the Universe.
The piece emphasizes that superluminal travel would disrupt causality and, in relativity’s mathematics, permit time travel and paradoxes; it also notes the standard relativistic result that accelerating a spacecraft to faster-than-light speeds would require infinite energy. It then reviews warp-drive ideas in General Relativity: in 1994, Miguel Alcubierre presented a spacetime “warp” solution but it appeared to require exotic negative energy. A May 2024 reanalysis by Jared Fuchs and colleagues reported that a warp-like spacetime configuration could, in principle, be generated using ordinary matter and energy, but only at sub-light speeds; they argue that even modest spacetime distortions are energetically extreme, estimating that moving a passenger compartment roughly the size of a small room would need a “warp bubble” about the size of a small house, and would require compressing a few times Jupiter’s mass into a volume about the size of a small asteroid, while crossing the light-speed boundary would still demand infinite energy.
A second line of research discussed is the study of hypothetical faster-than-light particles, tachyons, by Andrzej Dragan and collaborators, who claim consistent equations for tachyon behavior while still concluding that the speed of light cannot be crossed in either direction: it would take infinite energy to accelerate ordinary matter past light speed and infinite energy to slow a tachyon down below it. The article argues that the main payoff may be conceptual rather than technological: tachyon-related causality failures resemble the probabilistic, indeterminate outcomes familiar from quantum theory (for example, you can predict an excited atom will re-emit a photon but not when or in which direction). The caveat is that none of these results delivers a practical route to Star Trek-like rapid interstellar travel; the recurring quantitative barrier is “infinite” energy at the light-speed threshold, alongside enormous finite-energy requirements even for subluminal warp-like effects.