hyperspace

"sub-region" or alternate superluminal travel depicted in science fiction

Hyperspace is a concept from science fiction and cutting-edge science relating to higher dimensions and a superluminal method of interstellar travel. It is typically described as an alternative "sub-region" of space co-existing with our own universe. In much of science fiction, hyperspace is described as a physical place that can be entered and exited using a rubber science energy field or similar phenomena generated by a shipboard device often known as a "hyperdrive". The superluminal function of the concept is therefore facilitated by the fact that, once in hyperspace, the laws of general and special relativity do not necessarily behave in the same way when compared to normal spacetime, allowing travelers through hyperspace to go astronomical distances in periods of time far shorter than what an analogous object traveling at the speed of light would take traveling said distance in normal spacetime. This allows for apparent faster-than-light travel, which is necessary to have practical, human-timescale travel across outer space. "Through hyper-space, that unimaginable region that was neither space nor time, matter nor energy, something nor nothing, one could traverse the length of the Galaxy in the interval between two neighboring instants of time."

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