Subspace??

Question

Yes yes I know that subspace is from science fiction. I was actually wondering more along the lines of if there is any scientific backing to the concept of subspace actually existing.

Answer 1

There is no such thing it is strictly a science fiction concept.

Answer 2

No.  It is all hypothetical, nothing proven by observation or measurement.

Answer 3

It depends on the definition of "subspace".  String theory tells us that other dimensions are occupying the same space as we are; that could be what you mean.

Is there a region of space which can be entered through a matter/anti-matter reaction which allows you to travel greater than the speed of light inside a bubble of normal space?  No.  But there are other "spaces", as far as I'm aware anyway.

Answer 4

What sci-fi popularized is the mathematical idea of spaces and subspaces.  Simply, think of a mathematical space as a set of points that share common properties and relationships.  A subset of the set can be a subspace if teh points also share certain properties and relationships.  This concept is not restricted to string theory - it is a general mathematical concept.  For example, three dimensional space -a volume - has surfaces as a subspace (2 -D space).

Now what sci-fi has tried to use is the idea that there may be a higher dimensional space that our 4-D space-time is embedded in and if you could access that other dimension, you could appear to travel at speeds greater than light.  WHile various cosmologist have used 5-D spaces fro embedding space-time, it is really a mathematical tool to make the physics easier to express.  String theory uses the other dimensions as compact dimensions, meaing they close on themselves, so you can't expect subspace travel from that approach either.