Official ICE Forums
Systems & Settings => Spacemaster => Topic started by: arakish on April 21, 2012, 01:25:23 AM
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Instead of going off topic in the "Intelligence (http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?topic=11733.0)" 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
(http://www.conceptvisions.net84.net/websiteimgs/MassEffect.png)
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 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warp_drive_(Star_Trek)) from Star Trek or the Alcubierre Drive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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
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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.)
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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
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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.
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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.
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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 (http://www.conceptvisions.net84.net/SSG/appends/movingenergy.html)
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The fithp.
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Thank you arakish :book2: 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.
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The fithp.
Thanks GOF. Knew their name was with a lithp. ;D
Thank you arakish :book2: 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
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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 ???
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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
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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
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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.
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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..
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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
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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!
:bang:
Unless ur into that...I'm not judging..err, look at the time :working:
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You must admit, it puts a whole new spin on
"What if they gave a war and nobody came?"
:o
I've never heard of battles requiring a heavy petting warm-up before.
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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
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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..
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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
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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
Know of the principles you speak of. Never thought of it from that viewpoint. Definitely makes one go hmmm...
rmfr
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I think a psionic type drive would work on the "pressure" principle. But maybe that is just me thinking.
MDC
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A psionic drive could take advantage of a teep's ability to manipulate matter and energy in ways that are beyond the capability of technology, not to mention the psionic ability to provide energy to things that apparently comes from nowhere (e.g. psions that heat things up, or move them around). I could imagine a whole new field of psionic endeavor based on microkinesis and its energy equivalent, which only works at the subatomic level, which is used to contain and excite particles and energy into exotic states that are used in some other esoteric way to provide propulsion.
Many years ago I played a semi-telepath/pilot in Space Master and designed a psion list around ship systems, one of which allowed the teep to essentially increase the mark number of the drives and make the ship go faster.
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Maybe there is an idea in a Dark Matter Dive, if someone did not bring it up before. Some way to manipulate the mass we are missing to propel you from A to B.
MDC
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A psionic drive could take advantage of a teep's ability to manipulate matter and energy in ways that are beyond the capability of technology, not to mention the psionic ability to provide energy to things that apparently comes from nowhere (e.g. psions that heat things up, or move them around). I could imagine a whole new field of psionic endeavor based on microkinesis and its energy equivalent, which only works at the subatomic level, which is used to contain and excite particles and energy into exotic states that are used in some other esoteric way to provide propulsion.
Many years ago I played a semi-telepath/pilot in Space Master and designed a psion list around ship systems, one of which allowed the teep to essentially increase the mark number of the drives and make the ship go faster.
I need to go and dig up some really old files. The Snekra use a form of psionic drive and TP gates to get their ships around since they are organic based.
I remember advans were that they could instantly travel from point A to point B. Disads were that the organic based technology was way more vulnerable than traditional tech ships. Another advan was since the Snekra Warriors were nigh invulnerable to the vacuum of space, they could be launched against ships where they could then rip their way into the hulls, especially Airlock portals.
And I don't want to hear about Species 8472. That was the biggest pile of horse hoowhee I have ever seen about organic based technology. Even the orgtech of the Vorlans and Shadows in Bab5 was more retarded than smart. It was these reasons I lost all respect for the creators/writers of the shows Star Trek: Voyager and Babylon 5. However, I do have the shows on DVD because I did enjoy them. I just ignore the fact that the creators/writers were that retarded.
No one will ever convince me that organic based tech will ever be that invulnerable. NEVER! Additionally, orgtech would be exceptionally vulnerable to kinetic-based weapons (i.e. - slug throwers).
rmfr
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Does organic = living? Or does organic mean made primarily of Carbon?
MDC
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Does organic = living? Or does organic mean made primarily of Carbon?
MDC
Of, relating to, or derived from living organisms. Thus, diamonds are not organic, despite having high carbon content.
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Life science was a long time ago. I believe there are five defining characteristics defining living things: undergo metabolism/maintain homeostasis, possess a capacity to grow, respond to stimuli, reproduce and, through natural selection, adapt to their environment in successive generations.
More complex living organisms can communicate through various means.
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Does organic = living? Or does organic mean made primarily of Carbon?
MDC
Of, relating to, or derived from living organisms. Thus, diamonds are not organic, despite having high carbon content.
Thanks, I was just making sure we were talking the same language. ;D
MDC
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So now you can get crazy. Lets say an organic ship has skin that when dead becomes very resistant to kinetic and thermal damage, or at least significantly more so then its inner body.
Dose that work or just cause some problems since it is based on nothing but conjecture? Or am I just shooting in the dark?
MDC
BTW, did anyone read the article about spiders detachable genitalia? Very good IMHO and won my crazy article of the week award.
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No one will ever convince me that organic based tech will ever be that invulnerable. NEVER! Additionally, orgtech would be exceptionally vulnerable to kinetic-based weapons (i.e. - slug throwers).
I would say that the only advantage orgtech might have over hard-tech is versatility. But, then again, with multi-programmable nano-tech, that may not be true either.
Detachable genitalia, huh? Boy, that could take the fun out of things, couldn't it?
Funny thing about travel between stars being impractical: there could (some would say, should) still be an interstellar society that spans the entire galaxy by now, even if they never broke the LS barrier.
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.
A series of sci-fi books I recently (re)read had something like this in it, but they called it Quatum Particle Entanglement - or some such. Basically, by splitting a QP (don't ask me how, it was science fiction) you would get a single particle that existed in two locations at the same time. By going "in one" and "out the other" you could effectively cross the galaxy without actually crossing the galaxy. A neat way of side-stepping the LS barrier problem. (Oh, and they had an enemy alien species take a ship that was going point 99.something c and convert its speed directly into energy, destroying the ship instantly, of course. Nasty.)
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Yes the male spider has two sets and so does the female spider. If/when one or two break off and generally plug/stick in the appropriate female area so other male spiders cannot inseminate her. Then the male spider (if it lives, ie the female does not kill him) protects the female from harm.
A very good interesting article, I wish I could find it again so I could provide a link as there might be some good RP ideas in it. PC attacked and then followed by and protected from harm by strange alien creature. IIRC I think this happened in one of the Star Trek series.
MDC
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Most of the games (and a lot of the fiction) I've seen that discuss superluminal velocities at all tend to put it in terms of _____ distance per _____ time interval. Unless you throw that out entirely, that suggests to me that someone, somewhere, sees that travel as taking place over a given amount of time. However, that doesn't mean everyone does. Taking as an example a drive that allows travel at 1ly/day, either:
A. "Hyperspace" acts just like normal space except for your speed. The problem with this is that it requires you to have a means to still interact with normal space.
B. "Hyperspace" and normal space do not and cannot interact on any level, as your velocity puts an event horizon between you and all normal space.
If "A", then presumably everyone, on the ship or not, considers a 30ly trip to take 30 days, you arrive 30 days older, no weirdness other than the fact that you're able to travel faster than light in the first place.
If "B", then either:
1. You nip out of normal space on a 30ly trip at 1ly/day. You don't exist in normal space for the next 30 days, and come out at your exit point 30 days older. For that 30 days, your ship was effectively a Klein bottle, it had no outside. This can be good, as it gives you down time for training, recovery, etc. before you re-enter normal space. This can be bad, you can't shove the alien queen out the airlock because the ship has no outside for another 30 days.
2. You nip out of normal space on a 30ly trip at 1ly/day. You reappear instantly at your exit point, 30 days older. See advantages and disadvantages of the ship as Klein bottle, above.
3. You nip out of normal space on a 30ly trip at 1ly/day. You've never been in hyperspace before, and you're nervous. As the jump comes up, you gasp and say, "Jesus, Ma--"
and vanish.
30 days later you appear at the exit point and say, "--ry and Joseph." A camera in the interior of the ship would record a single frame during that 30 days.
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Or for some strange reason you age differently in hyper-space than in N-Space.
MDC
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I was reading an article about the creation of the universe and quantum fluctuation's and thought hat that might be a great dive as, it has lots of possible energy. You then tie that lots of energy to your reaction that needs lots of energy and your only problem now is how to contain that reaction without going boom in the process.
MDC
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There is a theory out there saying our universe is inside a black hole. Presumably the outside of the black hole is another universe, and then insides of black holes in our universe are other universes. If that's the case, once anyone learns to safely and cost-effectively shunt mass-energy from one "universe" to another, conservation of energy and lightspeed would seem not to present much of a barrier in any given place, since total system mass-energy remains unchanged.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/04/100409-black-holes-alternate-universe-multiverse-einstein-wormholes/
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Is there a total mass energy system if you can keep creating it? Some unifying system? Or system zero? Reminds me a bit of Amber with space thrown in.
MDC
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... once anyone learns to safely and cost-effectively shunt mass-energy from one "universe" to another, conservation of energy and lightspeed would seem not to present much of a barrier in any given place, since total system mass-energy remains unchanged.
But it doesn't change the fact that to break lightspeed you require an infinite amount of energy. And however much energy you can transfer across, you're not going to get an infinite amount. Unless you can transfer that entire other universe's mass into energy... oh, and another infinite amount of universes' worth of matter & energy as well. That's the thing about infinity, it never bloody stops!
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That's the thing about infinity, it never bloody stops!
And the other problem is that half of infinity is still infinity. Which reminds me of a saying we always had back in SENCland: "It would take half of forever."
rmfr
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That's the thing about infinity, it never bloody stops!
And the other problem is that half of infinity is still infinity. Which reminds me of a saying we always had back in SENCland: "It would take half of forever."
rmfr
Yes but unfortunately some people focus on the 1/2 part and not the forever part.
MDC
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Yes but unfortunately some people focus on the 1/2 part and not the forever part.
MDC
LOL! How true!
rmfr
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All this talk of the Higgs boson has me thinking of a Higgs Drive that sort of works like the Star Trek Warp Dive or maybe a jump drive. Or maybe it works like a teleport gate with time to focus on the distant gate for it to be effective.
MDC
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Maybe a Dark Matter Filament Drive? http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/07/04/giant-dark-matter-bridge-between-galaxy-clusters-discovered/?intcmp=features (http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/07/04/giant-dark-matter-bridge-between-galaxy-clusters-discovered/?intcmp=features)
MDC
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I just started reading these books where the n-space drive is done be creating a mini-singularity in front of the ship and you just constantly fall towards it, maneuvering it around to change direction, while still being able to "twist and turn" in place. They did have older/different methods as well that they used in other situations like when operating in atmosphere and when inside other ships (Don't want a mini-singularity getting loose inside, now do ya?), so they weren't limited to this method.
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my fav drive was simular to what randal described in the previous post. A gravity well is generated in front of the craft and pulls the ship along, hypothetically at the speed of gravity, which I understand is unknown so potentially faster than light.
It was a neat idea but seems to seriously violate the law of conservation of energy.
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Which raises some interesting observations on the force of gravity.
The way we are taught in school is wrong. We are taught about gravitational potential energy, or simply potential energy which is possessed by an object at rest when being held above another surface, and when it falls, that energy is translated into kinetic ednergy. This is bogus.
It seems clear to me that the object at rest has no energy. However, as can be measured from the calculations to do with conservation of energy, when the object hits something it does possess energy. Therefore, the force of gravity must therefore be a means to add energy into an object while it is moving (+), with caveats that this can only be done in one direction, and only if the object is freely able to move in that direction.
Newton was the pioneer in the physics of gravity, but his theory has turned out to have holes in it. Then came Einstein, who plugged some of those holes but it has been proven that his formulae also don't describe the full picture. I wonder if the next pioneer in this field can harness a way to capture that energy, because that could mean an unlimited supply of essentially free energy.
Which then paves the way for an FTL drive - if the amount of energy you could in theory gain from gravity increases with the strength of the gravitational field, and at a singularity the force of gravity is infinite... by definition you have a source of the infinite energy required to push a solid object through the light barrier.
(+) However... conservation of energy tells us that this energy must come from somewhere. Which is where that all kind of falls down. Maybe it is connected to Dark Energy as an opposite force pushing the universe apart? With mass providing a sort of lensing effect (so the greater the mass, the greater the gravity. Maybe the gravity "wasted" in not doing things like holding everything in orbit around everything else goes through some complex reaction to end up as dark energy? Maybe if I can solve those I should write to the Nobel institute and tell them where to post my prize ;)
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It seems clear to me that the object at rest has no energy.
I'm not sure there is such a thing as "an object at rest." However, gravity appears not to obey lightspeed limits. As a simple and obvious example, Earth's orbit is shaped by where the Sun is, not by where the Sun was 8 minutes and 19 seconds ago.
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Odd that of the fundamental forces gravity is the one most familiar to common experience, and yet is the strangest and probably least understood of them all.
But what you mentioned there Grumpy would naturally mean that even beyond the light barrier you could still continue to use drives like the 'falling into a singularity' one on the other side of the light barrier as well.
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Which raises some interesting observations on the force of gravity.
The way we are taught in school is wrong. We are taught about gravitational potential energy, or simply potential energy which is possessed by an object at rest when being held above another surface, and when it falls, that energy is translated into kinetic ednergy. This is bogus.
It seems clear to me that the object at rest has no energy. However, as can be measured from the calculations to do with conservation of energy, when the object hits something it does possess energy. Therefore, the force of gravity must therefore be a means to add energy into an object while it is moving (+), with caveats that this can only be done in one direction, and only if the object is freely able to move in that direction.
Newton was the pioneer in the physics of gravity, but his theory has turned out to have holes in it. Then came Einstein, who plugged some of those holes but it has been proven that his formulae also don't describe the full picture. I wonder if the next pioneer in this field can harness a way to capture that energy, because that could mean an unlimited supply of essentially free energy.
(+) However... conservation of energy tells us that this energy must come from somewhere. Which is where that all kind of falls down. Maybe it is connected to Dark Energy as an opposite force pushing the universe apart? With mass providing a sort of lensing effect (so the greater the mass, the greater the gravity. Maybe the gravity "wasted" in not doing things like holding everything in orbit around everything else goes through some complex reaction to end up as dark energy? Maybe if I can solve those I should write to the Nobel institute and tell them where to post my prize ;)
I think you are getting your frames of reference confused. Newton used the Earth as his frame of reference and now we use the universe as the frame of reference when describing your item at rest.
But I could be wrong as it has been some time since I did some real Q Physics and Frames of Reference problems.
MDC
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I wasn't even talking about frames of ref really - By Newton I was referring to his laws of motion, which work very well on the large scale, and then Einstein whose laws worked very well at large scale and also the small scale, not to mention the whole concept of space-time and how mass distorts it (hence, gravitational lensing). But his laws also break down at the very small.
But yes, by the object at rest I was not considering the motion of the planet it's on or the universe around it.
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Well that's the point. When you say
It seems clear to me that the object at rest has no energy.
what I see is 'An object at rest relative to its local environment has no energy relative to its local environment.' In other words, the energy is in the relationship, not in the object.
In a somewhat similar way, a magnet can generate an electric current in a wire as long as the magnet and the wire are in motion relative to one another. Stop the motion and change nothing else, you stop the current. The energy is in the relationship, not in the magnet or the wire.
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It seems clear to me that the object at rest has no energy.
I think it is more like everything is energy, just in different forms. A rock: energy, air: energy, sunlight: energy. Do we have the knowledge and/or capability to understand how this is so, and to tap all these types? No. Not yet, anyway.
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It seems clear to me that the object at rest has no energy.
I'm not sure there is such a thing as "an object at rest."
An object at rest, absolute rest, would also have 0 Kelvins of energy. I do not mean 0 degrees Kelvins (although both refer to almost the same thing), I mean Kelvins, as in molecular energy. At 0 Kelvins, matter would have absolutely no molecular energy. Or any other kind of energy.
However, as GOF said, in a round about way, there is no such thing as an object at rest. Everything contains energy, whether it is molecular, nuclear, potential, etc., etc. Even at the Zero Point.
A very good example is Helium. Even at 0 degrees Kelvin, also viewed as being the Zero Point, helium is still a liquid. This means, that even at the Zero Point, helium still contains energy, enough to keep it liquid. That is until we also apply pressure. It takes about 4 atmospheres of pressure to solidify helium at 0 degrees Kelvin. This kind of proves (but not truly) that even at the Zero Point, there is still energy. Thus, there is no such thing as "an object at rest."
But! It would be interesting if such a thing could be achieved through technology. That would mean an object at "absolute rest" would literally become The "center of the universe" since it would be at absolute rest and everything else is moving away from it.
The speed of gravity is infinite. As GOF pointed out, the effects of an object's attractive force (gravity), no matter how miniscule, is determined by where it IS, not where it WAS. So imagine a true, pure, hypergravitic drive. You could literally put yourself anywhere in the universe in less than an instant. No real time passing. Currently, in my FtF SM campaign, that is a type of drive the Terran Star Empire is currently working on. However, the best they have been able to do is about 10 to 15 LY in (as they call it) an instant. And, they have had problems with the X-Ships either imploding or exploding sometimes at the destination point. Currently, they are using a much less advanced system known as the Hypershunt Jump Drive, which I have mentioned here. I just have not mentioned that it works on hypergravitics which was first introduced by Isaac Asimov in his Foundation universe. Basically, that drive shunts the ship to FTL velocities with no real time passing. The deshunt also occurs with no real time passing. However, time still normally passes while in the hypershunt. And, no, for some reason, time does dilate while in the hypershunt. Time still passes normally. In other words, if you spent five days (432,000 seconds) in the hypershunt, then five days (432,000 seconds) has passed outside the hypershunt. Most often, the Terrans simply refer to such as "shunt" and "deshunt."
Once advanced enough, the Terran Star Empire will be able to "shunt" their ships from location to location with no real time passing, or if you prefer, instantaneously. Then as they continue to advance, they will discover how that drive will literally have no distance limitations. However, that is quite a bit of time down the stream.
rmfr
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I think it is more like everything is energy, just in different forms. A rock: energy, air: energy, sunlight: energy. Do we have the knowledge and/or capability to understand how this is so, and to tap all these types? No. Not yet, anyway.
Holy moly! I just watched an episode of Nova about "What is Space?" And it looks like I was right.* Even in "empty" space there is all sorts of stuff going on. Neat.
*At least that is the theory.
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I think it is more like everything is energy, just in different forms. A rock: energy, air: energy, sunlight: energy. Do we have the knowledge and/or capability to understand how this is so, and to tap all these types? No. Not yet, anyway.
Holy moly! I just watched an episode of Nova about "What is Space?" And it looks like I was right.* Even in "empty" space there is all sorts of stuff going on. Neat.
*At least that is the theory.
I watched the same show. What is truly interesting is how the "Golden Age" authors (Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, et. al.) speculated such things in some of their novels before such was known or speculated by the physicists.
rmfr
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Has there been a Wave Particle Drive any where?
MDC
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sounds familiar, but I'll have to sit and mull it over some to see if anything rattles free.
Seems Star Trek had something called a <something> Wave Drive.
rmfr
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sounds familiar, but I'll have to sit and mull it over some to see if anything rattles free.
Seems Star Trek had something called a <something> Wave Drive.
rmfr
I postulated that it would work the same but the drive would use special materials in the hull to turn the ship into a particle wave for FTL.
MDC
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Just had a thought about a Relativistic Substitution drive.... Everyone knows E=mc2 - If you calculate that out using the weight of the ship... you get a big number. But, just suppose you had the means to generate that energy (e.g. matter/antimatter annihilation), the drive would function by converting an amount of energy into mass, effectively substituting the light speed capability of the energy into solid matter. From a game point of view I liked that because:
1) it provides a sub-industry of collecting these lumps of matter which the ships leave behind
2) it provides bragging rights to pilots - for a perfect entry, the ship would just blip out of sight to be replaced by a chunk of something, and for a bad one there would be a very obvious light show.
3) there's an adventure hook for a corporation to refine that drive specifically so that it produces specific elements, suddenly cornering the platinum market for example.
4) it gives rules laywers something to do to calculate with extreme accuracy the exact mass of their ship, not to mention the roleplaying opportunities provided by over-zealous customs officers requiring you to declare even the replacement firing pin in your gun for the one that was a little worn down.
Still working on how such a drive would come out of it's tachyon-esque existence at the other end though. Details, details :)