Topic: Superluminal Velocities

[arakish]

Instead of going off topic in the "Intelligence" thread, I started this new one.  Quoted below are the last two posts in that thread.

Even if there is intelligent, evolved life elsewhere in the universe, the problem remains that an object with mass cannot travel at the speed of light (Relativity Theory).  Thus, under our current Physics paradigm, physical travel between planets that lie at great distances (e.g., hundreds or thousands of light years, for example) is impracticable (IMO).

Not necessarily. My understanding of current thinking in this field is that there are still possibilities - wormholes (that old favourite of folding space and slipping through a place where two folds touch) or some kind of drive that compressed the fabric of space time in front of the craft and expanded it to the back. All we have to do with that is figure out how to generate gravity and stuff

... an object with mass cannot travel at the speed of light ...

How true.  According to the equations, mass at the speed of light becomes infinite, and it is believed that it directly converts into energy (radiation) in an instantaneous burst.  However, using the same equations, mass can travel at velocities greater than the speed of light and NOT be infinite.  In fact, mass begins to work opposite of the way it does as it approaches the speed of light.  Once beyond the speed of light, mass is incredibly high, but begins to return to x1 original as one goes much faster than the speed of light.  Also see below graph.

Graph of Velocity Effect on Mass


The biggest problem is getting through or past the speed of light.  It is this fundamental problem that makes superluminal velocities currently impossible.  How does one get to superluminal velocities without first going through the light barrier (speed of light)?

A hypothesis I began developing in 1982 was for some form of hypershunt that takes a ship from subluminal to superluminal velocities without any real time passing (true instantaneity).  Without any time passing, you cannot have gone at the speed of light.  Thus, problem solved.  This is NOT the same thing as Warp Drive or the Alcubierre Drive.  This Shunt Drive, which I later named Hypershunt Jump Drive in 1985, instantly takes the ship from subluminal to superluminal velocities.  Biggest problem is the power needed.  Power to Hypershunt or Deshunt, would be tremendous.  Once shunted, it would take very little to maintain.  It just takes huge amounts to actually shunt, then later deshunt.  When deshunting, the vessel has the same subluminal velocity as when it hypershunted.  Thus, the reason most ships are at "station-keeping" when they hypershunt.  Wouldn't be too pretty if you were going 0.5c when hypershunting, then deshunted at your destination only a 1000km from a space station...

Do the math:
    1000km = 1,000,000m
    0.5c = 299,792,458 x .5 = 149,896,229m/sec
    1,000,000 / 149,896,299 = 0.00667 seconds

I don't think anyone could react that fast to dodge the station.

The problem with drives that work like the Warp/Alcubierre Drives, or on a similar principle, is that they may tend to tear apart the space-time continuum.  I had developed this idea back in 1983 while working on the idea of the Hypershunt Jump Drive.  I discussed this with my wife (who ran the sci-fi part of our Udavan campaign), and she had the Terran Star Empire (TSE) discover the fact of the Warp Drives weakening and tearing the fabric of the space-time continuum.  She also had the TSE give the data of this discovery to the Urgons, Inur, Snekra, and Nebulons.  During the run of Star Trek: The Next Generation, they discussed this same idea about the Warp Drive weakening the fabric of the space-time continuum.  I remember my wife saying, "They stole your idea!"  And I told her, no, equally intelligent minds will develop the same ideas.  Just not at the same time.  Sometimes they do and it becomes a race as to who gets to the patent/copyright office first.

... or some kind of drive that compressed the fabric of space time in front of the craft and expanded it to the back.

You mean like the Warp Drive from Star Trek or the Alcubierre Drive?  As said above, I have a problem with the possible effects such drives could have on the space-time continuum.  They may not have any effect.  But then again, they may have drastic effects.  I, and my wife, arbitrarily chose to have Warp/Alcubierre type drives cause weakening and tearing of the space-time continuum.  You may chose the opposite.


Quantum Nonlocality and Quantum Dislocality offer some interesting possibilities and effects.  With quantum nonlocality, as discussed by Robert Defendi in SMP, this kind of drive could be used to make it seem as if the ship were travelling faster than light.  In actuality, it is performing a form of "space-folding" technique.  Just not true space-folding.  More like space contraction.

Quantum Dislocality is actually folding space by putting the ship/object through a dislocation on a quantum level.  It offers virtually instantaneous travel between two points of space.  However, it is believed that the power just to dislocate a person from one side of the Earth to the other would be equivalent to the output of a star.  The Galactic Empire's hypermatter may be an answer for the power problem.  In SMP, the Jump Drives and Spatial Folds would be using this technique.

What are some of y'all's ideas?

rmfr

[JimiSue]

I have always been slightly uncomfortable with the idea that superluminal velocities involve actually travelling very fast through the universe we know and love. I have seen it posited that FTL travel is theoretically possible provided there was a mechanism to either create a particle travelling faster than light at the moment of its creation (which is fairly useless for an FTL drive but in theory could be harnessed for a communication system such as SM2's Tachyon Beam comm network), or by providing a massive energy jolt to essentially bounce the object over the light barrier so elegantly demonstrated in infinite energy graph in Arakish's post.

However, the preferred method I use in game is where hyperspace is outside the realm of normal space. When travelling through it, ships cannot view the real universe, which is why an astrogation roll is so vital - there may be some kind of mass warning when entering normal space again, but if you've got your sums wrong, things could go badly. This is actually quite similar to the way in which FTL travel is dealt with in the Priscilla Hutchins books by Jack McDevitt, in which he has two kinds of drives - firstly the Hazeltine drives that move the ships fairly slowly through this H-space, and in later books a Locarno drive which effectively allow exploration of the nearer parts of the galaxy.

How this kind of drive is explained in physics terms is not as straightforward. I would probably classify it as a kind of dimensional travel, such that the ship is surrounded by a hyperspace field that causes the ship to dislocate from the three spatial dimensions and replace them with Something Else (tm) which allows movement through the physical universe but in a way which the human brain cannot readily process (well, mine can't anyway May be too early in the morning.)

[markc]

 I think you have covered most of the types of drives except for the magical, psionic or strange biological that I can dredge up. If you are looking for something else IMHO you would have to delve into theories that have been sidelined, ignored or too strange to hold water at this moment. Or maybe some fringe science ideas of travel that are out there.


MDC

[JimiSue]

In the DragonStar game (d20 in space), there is in the Galactic Races expansion, a race called the Sathoni. These are essentially evolved plants. They have a plant-based technology, which includes interstellar travel. Now, this is only touched on fairly briefly (that book as a whole isn't very deeply thought through) but I have always imagined these craft (described rather vaguely as giant plants that burst forth from their world to reach planets in other systems)as plants which have been genetically engineered to survive in space. They use their photosynthesis abilities to collect energy from the sun (over a much broader spectrum than anything on the surface to make it more efficient). The Sathoni effectively make the transport in the plant's modified seed pods - for when the starstalk is ready, the massive energies it has built up through photosynthesis are released in a burst - an energy pulse that serves as a hyper-shunt. The 'craft' themselves have only rudimentary guidance systems and require the ability to speak with plants to 'fly'.

Alternatively, you could have a critter that exudes a substance that allows it to "swim" inside the space/time continuum. That organism could be biologically engineered to be large enough to carry passengers - but again there is the issue of a control mechanism. Such a creature need not be intelligent (although that might be fun as well) or even be aware of what it's doing.

[yammahoper]

I have often imagined a super weapon in space that fires large asteroids/rocks at about 1/10th light speed.  Such a weapon would be unstoppable and vaporize nations, maybe even planets.  Anyone care to do the math to inform me how much energy such an impact would release, and how much energy required to fire the projectile.  I leave the specifics of warhead mass and the like up to you, but Iimagine a BIG slug, like 20,000 tons or more.

[arakish]

The energy for any moving object is the same:

E = mv²/2

where E = energy in Joules, m = mass of object in kilograms, and v = velocity of object in meters per second.

Thus, your 20,000 ton meteoroid at 30 kps would release 9e14 Joules of energy.  This is equivalent to about 0.2 megatons of TNT (about 14 Hiroshima bombs).  200,000 / 15,000 = 14.3.

Your 20,000 ton meteoroid at .1c would release almost 9e20 Joules, or about 215,000 megatons of TNT.  The Hiroshima bomb was only about 15 kilotons.  215,000,000,000 / 15,000 = 14,333,333 Hiroshima bombs.

Of course, there are many more factors that go into the energy release of a meteor impact than just mass and velocity, but this equation is still good enough to give a very good idea of how much energy is released.

But as yammahopper said, a mass thrower would be a devestating weapon.  One could also call it a super rail gun.  And as he said, almost unstoppable.

This would be similar to the kinetic weapon used by the aliens (forget their name) in Larry Niven's and Jerry Pournelle's novel Footfall.  Very good novel.  I recommend it to any who have not read it.

rmfr

P.S. - Here is a webpage I wrote a while ago that has a calculator for this: Moving Object Energy

[GrumpyOldFart]

The fithp.

[yammahoper]

Thank you arakish     I hope you are a teacher because that was an excellent and clear explination.

BTW, Footfall is one of my favorite all time Scifi novels.  I found Larry Niven young (a book of short stories, with Mr. Nivens story about Superman as a youth and why he was either crazy by human standards or truely alien).  This led to my first love in Scifi: larry Nivens KNOWN SPACE.  Oh to walk a ringworld

I bought the RINGWORLD game, a box set.  It was in BRP/Runequest rule format.  We made characters, which with the ages humans can be took forever.  My only advice to the players: to NOT engage a Kizinti in hand to hand combat because they will tear you limb from limb.  10 minutes into the game, the party attacks the Kizinti NPC and friend, TPK.

[arakish]

The fithp.

Thanks GOF.  Knew their name was with a lithp. 

Thank you arakish     I hope you are a teacher because that was an excellent and clear explination.

Not professionally.  Been thinking of actually becoming a teacher even though the pay sucks.  Believe it or not, I actually enjoy teaching and watching that light bulb light up when they "grok it."

Did another thought experiment.  Take a pebble and accelerate it to .8c.

5g = .005kg
.8c = 239833966.4kps

Using above equation yields enough energy (explosive force) to equal 6.5 Hiroshima bombs upon impact.

OUCH!!

Now you know why ships in space MUST have shields.

rmfr

[yammahoper]

Sheild technology.  I can imagine, but I cannot comprehend.  First, what is the power source to generate a high power shield that can absord/deflect high energy particles/impacts?  No, I have given up on the idea of inter stellar travel in linear space.  Some other idea will have to emerge.  Forget rocks, a super hot plasma feild would be enough to destroy almost any ship, and I have ready theorys that postulate large amounts of plasma left between stellar masses in the deeps of space, were it has no ability to cool down.

Space is indeed our destiny, but I think the solar system has all we need in resources to last many millions of years, time enough to develop the super tecj that will let us flee a dieing star...assuming of course we make it that far 

[markc]

  Try tutoring as it is generally one on one and IMHO you can get a lot more out of it. After a time you can do 2 or 3 on one for more $.
  But also there are things on the net that are making tutoring obsolete such as KhanAcadamy.com (I think that is the url). They are very very good and free.




Star Shield Drive:
 You dive strait into the star and the shield converts all of the energy into that needed for the jump or FTL travel. But this also makes energy weapons obsolete as the shield can absorb all energy, so all/most weapons will be kinetic based(IMHO).
MDC

[markc]

arakish,
 
No strange dives? How about:


1) The Eros Dive or better known by its nickname the "Barbarella Dive". You can guess what this dive is powered by.
2) "Rule Break-e-ium", this material when the right amount of energy is passed through it makes the ship appear to have zero density.


MDC

[Cory Magel]

I always wonder when certain scientists say that even if there is life out there they'll never run into each other due to the distances between them and the time it would take to travel that.

There's a lot of lack of acknowledgement that we just don't grasp everything (probably very little really) about the universe when talking about the possibility of alien contact (or, really, a lot of other stuff).  Even assuming another race has not developed a method of travel that effectively allows them to move across space faster than light speed, while it's unlikely, if a race had made their start eons ago (long before humans even existed) they could potentially run across us.

Yes, they'd have to have been traveling for a very, very long time and the race may actually have evolved during that time... but scientists seem to discount the possibility of contact due to the idea that we evolved simultaneously.  It's vastly more likely that the 'creation' of our races happened at vastly different times.  We used to think we were the universe and that we were at the center of it.  Our discoveries keep showing us how ignorant we are.  Now we are discovering that planets are far more common than we thought.  Surprise again!  So, what are the odds that we just don't quite get it about the rest?  Like I said elsewhere, the human mind will insist on thinking that the universe is either infinite or has an end (which implies there's something on the 'other side') - which tells me we just don't get it yet.

The thing that would make me worry, and why I started to give Hawkings comments about how we wouldn't WANT an alien race to find us more seriously, is that a race which as been traveling that long in space has adapted to life in space and would likely no longer have any real interest in living on a planet even if they could find one that was livable for their race... making planets a mere resource for them.  Which would not bode well for us.

[providence13]

Plasma shields don't have to be hot.
http://www.odu.edu/ao/instadv/quest/ColdPlasma.html

You can stick your finger in them and just get a slight tingle.
They are hard to make in atmospheric pressure but have a ton of possible applications. Radar cloaking, sterilization..


Removing any of the punch will help defend the ship.
Of course to block mega/giga watts might require hotter plasma, I don't know.

Didn't Traveler/MegaTraveler have sandcasters? A cloud of silicon that reduces laser weapons. Always wondered about that.

How about Vaseline shields? Look at "Is it a good idea to microwave This?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXbahOO_4sE
If petroleum jelly is near immune to microwaves, then it could be a shield for the new pain rays. If you want to protest and fear reprisal, coat yourself in Vaseline.  It's just a theory..

[markc]

While I am thinking about the other, the mental image of coating people and things with Vaseline and then them moving around for a full day or days has overwhelmed me this am.


MDC

[yammahoper]

Space Master, the porno!

"lets get ready for combat...you grease me up and I'll grease you up..."

Oh no!!!  It's gay porn!

 

Unless ur into that...I'm not judging..err, look at the time 

[GrumpyOldFart]

You must admit, it puts a whole new spin on

"What if they gave a war and nobody came?"

 

I've never heard of battles requiring a heavy petting warm-up before.

[arakish]

Thought about watching the microwave vasoline video...

However, does it really need to be 4 minutes long?  Just show the microwaving part.  I don't want to sit through several minutes of useless dialogue...

Yes, I know of the Cold Plasma.  Most Plasma is cold and only gives a slight tingle, if even that.  However, when one pumps gigawatts into the plasma, it will become very hot and very destructive.  Also, to maintain the plasma would require constant power fed into it.  Otherwise, it will quickly dissipate.  Gravity is what keeps the sum in a plasma state.  If not for the gravity, the sun would blow itself apart.

rmfr

[providence13]

Yes, I know of the Cold Plasma.  Most Plasma is cold and only gives a slight tingle, if even that.  However, when one pumps gigawatts into the plasma, it will become very hot and very destructive.  Also, to maintain the plasma would require constant power fed into it.

I'm not claiming to know the physics of the matter, but no gravity/space seems to be the way to go with cold plasma. No air to whisk away the field. 

Russians might have some RADAR plasma shields. http://www.military-heat.com/43/russian-plasma-stealth-fighters 
But another article said it was a bust because of air drag. Showed up like a sore thumb on RADAR. Maybe in space it would work better..?

Cold plasma density does seem related to energy involved and how you tune it. Low power is being used for sterilization, high power might deflect or just lessen an energy beam.
Again, I don't have the science to understand much of the tech, but it's a cool idea.

I fast forwarded the microwave video to the good parts.

OK, if I lather my ship up with mercury and oatmeal..

[markc]

Crazy idea.

Pressure Drive:
  Now I do not believe this is a scientifically possible drive but it is based on scientific principles. The principals are things at higher energy (excited states) will move to lower energy states. For those of non-scientific backgrounds an atom that has energy added to it raises electrons to an excited state and then the electron falls back to a lower energy state giving off electromagnetic radiation (often light).
 This drive uses high pressure (high energy state) to shift the craft to low pressure (low energy state) or no pressure (or as close to no pressure as you can get, space). So the craft would dive to the ocean depths and shift to space or somewhere else with very little pressure.   


 But there are then other problems you have to solve to deal with the pressure on your craft.
MDC