Crush...Yiff...Destroy!

stinkweedskunk · Prattler Joined: 14 Nov 2005 Posts: 155

This was just posted on Slashdot:

http://science.slashdot.org/science/06/01/05/1839256.shtml?tid=160&tid=14

and here is the actual article...

http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=16902006

I just want to see how many of you think that this idea of faster than light travel would indeed be plausible using the theories explained above. The article states using intensely powerful magnetic fields to actually generate artificial gravity to propel a starship, and if this gravity field was powerful enough, it would cause the ship to slip into another dimension (in terms of length, width, height, and time, not alternate universes) in which the speed of light is increased and insane speeds could be reached.

I personally think it takes a few steps in the right dimension, although I find it hard to believe that the constant speed of light could change, if you follow Einstein's theories. I am also skeptical about using a basic universal force (electromagnetism) to generate another one (gravity). I do think that artificial gravity could one day be used to manipulate spacetime, and allow for FTL travel using something like Alcubierre's warp drive theory.

And I'm sorry for making some of your brains hurt. :)

Beauty of Nature · Venter Joined: 29 May 2005 Posts: 246

This was just posted on Slashdot:

http://science.slashdot.org/science/06/01/05/1839256.shtml?tid=160&tid=14

and here is the actual article...

http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=16902006

I just want to see how many of you think that this idea of faster than light travel would indeed be plausible using the theories explained above. The article states using intensely powerful magnetic fields to actually generate artificial gravity to propel a starship, and if this gravity field was powerful enough, it would cause the ship to slip into another dimension (in terms of length, width, height, and time, not alternate universes) in which the speed of light is increased and insane speeds could be reached.

I personally think it takes a few steps in the right dimension, although I find it hard to believe that the constant speed of light could change, if you follow Einstein's theories. I am also skeptical about using a basic universal force (electromagnetism) to generate another one (gravity). I do think that artificial gravity could one day be used to manipulate spacetime, and allow for FTL travel using something like Alcubierre's warp drive theory.

And I'm sorry for making some of your brains hurt. :)

So far there is not one base in theory.
Even today gravitation is pretty much a mystery.
There is no plausible theoretic connection between electromagnetism and gravition at the moment.
All that may point to it are unconfirmed experimental results.
Strong magnetic field have always played a part in artifical garvity/anti gravitation myths.
Main reason being the earth magnetic field and diamagnetic effects that falsify the experimentation rigs.

If you put a strong electro magnet onto a scale that rest on a wooden table
for example then the magnet will apear lighter when energized.
The reason is the diamagnetic carbon in the table's wood.
When magnets are involved then it gets hard to get conclusive results since the field reaches quite far and interacts with everything in the room.
Supraconductors are part of anti gravity myths. They are supra-diamagnetic.

I only consider experimental results plausible when I get a theoretic and mathematic explanation and if the experiment confirmed by serveral independant experiments. So far I never seen any experiment that would confirm a direct connection between electromagnetism and gravity.
Just someone saying: "Wow! This aluminium cylinder became 20%lighter when I applied a 1.5 tesla !" is just not all that surprising.
Those are magnetic effects, not gravity or propulsion.

stinkweedskunk · Prattler Joined: 14 Nov 2005 Posts: 155

Ok, but think about this. Applying Einstein's widely accepted stuff that all matter and energy is interchangable, could it not be said that a powerful electromagent would weigh slightly MORE when switched on, due to the fact that the magnetic field generated is stored potential energy, thus increasing the overall mass of the device? I deduce this because light ( a form of electromagnetic energy) does exert a tiny gravitational pull, and is influenced by larger gravity wells such as stars and black holes. Although not what the article intended, this might be one way magnetism could affect gravity.

Beauty of Nature · Venter Joined: 29 May 2005 Posts: 246

Ok, but think about this. Applying Einstein's widely accepted stuff that all matter and energy is interchangable, could it not be said that a powerful electromagent would weigh slightly MORE when switched on, due to the fact that the magnetic field generated is stored potential energy, thus increasing the overall mass of the device? I deduce this because light ( a form of electromagnetic energy) does exert a tiny gravitational pull, and is influenced by larger gravity wells such as stars and black holes. Although not what the article intended, this might be one way magnetism could affect gravity.

Quantum mechanically we are talking about magnetons.
The magnetons are already there before the magnet is energized.
Inside the magnetised matter and inside the conductor inducing the field.
So, by energizing the magnet you do not add magnetons to the contraption.
Like the electrons that conduct the current everything was already there.
The maxwell equations show that quite nicely.
So the only mass increase could only come from potential energy.
Problem is that this increase is so incredibly tiny that nobody will ever be able to measure it.
One joule of stored energy translates to roughly 10^-17 kilograms.
Just divide E by c^2 and you get your m.
Same would happen to charged capacitors, spinning masses or tensioned springs.

The joke is that our world is mass/energy conservative.
The mass you added to the magnet came from somewhere else.
It is not unlike picking up a few atoms of mass and sticking it to the magnet.
I do not see how this would lead towards a warp engine.

stinkweedskunk · Prattler Joined: 14 Nov 2005 Posts: 155

The key towards building a warp engine is to figure out some way to manipulate spacetime to form a "bubble" or distortion wave around the ship so that you can accelerate the bubble instead of the ship. This way the ship stays at rest relative to its local space and does not experience the effects of time dilation. Gravity already naturally bends spacetime, however, like you said, a better understanding of quantum particles would be needed, as we would have to figure out some way to manipulate "antigravitons" (they do exist in quantum mechanics, although no one has seen any proof or effects of them).

But you never know. There may be something you and I don't know about that these guys are willing to try. People thought it was impossible to exceed the sound barrier until some hare-brain strapped himself inside a big orange rocket with wings and proved them wrong. You gotta give them credit for trying and experimenting.

This world is getting smaller and smaller. I think more attention should be paid to space exploration, because sooner or later we are going to have to move off this mudball.

Mitch · Vociferator Joined: 01 Jun 2003 Posts: 670

This was just posted on Slashdot:

http://science.slashdot.org/science/06/01/05/1839256.shtml?tid=160&tid=14

and here is the actual article...

http://news.scotsman.com/scitech.cfm?id=16902006

I just want to see how many of you think that this idea of faster than light travel would indeed be plausible using the theories explained above. The article states using intensely powerful magnetic fields to actually generate artificial gravity to propel a starship, and if this gravity field was powerful enough, it would cause the ship to slip into another dimension (in terms of length, width, height, and time, not alternate universes) in which the speed of light is increased and insane speeds could be reached.

I personally think it takes a few steps in the right dimension, although I find it hard to believe that the constant speed of light could change, if you follow Einstein's theories. I am also skeptical about using a basic universal force (electromagnetism) to generate another one (gravity). I do think that artificial gravity could one day be used to manipulate spacetime, and allow for FTL travel using something like Alcubierre's warp drive theory.

And I'm sorry for making some of your brains hurt. :)

Nope, FTL travel (or indeed just information exchange) is ruled out due to the possibility of causality violation i.e. FTL effectively = time travel. The trouble is, the reason why can't be explained simply.

Beauty of Nature · Venter Joined: 29 May 2005 Posts: 246

Not to mention that any reaction mass free propulsion system would be a perpetuum mobile or its exact oposite.

Two objects in space can move apart at a speed greater than light.
The two points are just not able to interact while they do so.
So each get their own reference system that is nonexistant when to the other.
Before being able to interact, one of the objects has to return into the other's reference system. Therefore there would be no time paradoxon because any interaction has to be done in the causal way and with lightspeed at maximum.

The last link Mitch provided rules out FTL in one system of reference.
It simply says we can not witness or measure anything going faster than light.
At FTL you will have not one but two seperated systems.
The lightspeed simply prevents both systems from being in contact.
---> causality restored, FTL is not forbidden but imeasurable.

GoManVanGogh · Vociferator Joined: 18 Nov 2003 Posts: 678

Yeah, right.

Wayd Wolf · Vociferator Joined: 06 Oct 2003 Posts: 705

Problem with that simple dismissal of it being a causality violation is that no one has ever proven light is NOT presently observed at a retarded speed and what the ultimate speed of light would actually be. It is well established that the speed of travel of photons in any given medium is directly related to the quantum electrodynamics of that medium.

Supposed vacuum is not actually empty and is instead full of energy, and this quantum vacuum as it is called must according to the laws of quantum electrodynamic interact with everything within it including photons.

My favorite theory is that in a true vacuum where the prodigious energies of the false vacuum were not present the speed of light would be infinite. However, since what matters in physics is geometric relationships, that would mean to avoid violation of conservation of energy you would need to modify Einstein's little throw-away formula to account.

Thus as the local speed of light climbs towards infinity, mass must decrease so that E remains the same. Farther afield it is also theorized that time can be accounted for as movement at c along another dimension we do not directly observe which sits at right angles to the other three we know and so if c and time are related then if c goes to infinity, m goes to zero, and the passage of time is instant and the distance between any two physical points is thus also zero as is history itself.

Opposite end of the scale, c goes to zero, m goes to infinity, all distances become infinite, and time is forever as in nothing ever happens.

If powerful magnetic fields were gravity distortion sources, many of the most powerful objects in the universe would behave much differently than they do. More likely to be important would be the electric scalar and magnetic vector potentials which have been proven to exist (the first by the Aharanov-Bohm experiment and the second by a Japanese research group working on superconductivity). We still have not bothered much in mainstream physics circles with these things but we know they are real and so we have to eventually find a way to integrate them into the framework.

Maybe someone will eventually figure out how to generate them purely and copiously and what they do and how they differ from the electric and magnetic fields we already know.

So yeah, unless you can go faster than infinitely fast, you can't go faster than light.

AngryPuritan · TOP POSTER! Joined: 15 Jan 2005 Posts: 1437

My favorite theory is that in a true vacuum where the prodigious energies of the false vacuum were not present the speed of light would be infinite. However, since what matters in physics is geometric relationships, that would mean to avoid violation of conservation of energy you would need to modify Einstein's little throw-away formula to account.

Er, since all of existance didn't explode with the atomic bomb, either Einstein is wrong, or you are. I think I'm going to have to side with him.

You see, if retardation of top speed is the issue and light unhampered travels at an infinite speed, then wouldn't it always travel at an infinite speed? It would require and be assumed to have infinite kinetic energy (based upon whether you view light as particles or waves granted) and the coeffiecients of retardation of speed would mean nothing. That is to say if my rocket moves at 500 km/hr in a pure vacuum, and at 490 km/hr in a 'false vacuum', then it was reduced with measurable mathematics. Halve infinity, and it's still infinity.

The problem is one of basic human understanding of speed. We assume that if we double the force with which an object is propelled, we double it's speed, and therefore we can just add more force to an object travelling at the speed of light to make it break that barrier.

According to Newtonian Physics that's sound, and historically we once assumed similar about planes and the speed of sound.

But speed is a square increase, not a linear one. Near to the 'zero' end of the spectrum, the speeds seem linear... but if it takes me X amount of force to move an object to 50% the speed of light in a vacuum, applying 2X of force will only get me to 75% the speed of light, halving in closer each time I do it. Get too close, and time itself will bend to maintain the speed limit. Tis why if I was on a ship moving at 60% the speed of light, and another was moving toward me at the same, any measurable relativistic speed between us (since all speed is relative) would still not be above the speed of light, although the time gaps and differences would play having with the accuracy of the readings.

That's the crux. It's not about what really happens so much as what you can physically or theoretically measure.

Kadius · Needs to get out more Joined: 10 Feb 2004 Posts: 921

Faster than light travel? Sure, just let me turn on my black hole generator. You don't have any metal fillings or say, matter in you; do you?

Really, if we had a machine capable of going through the universe, it'd be like the machine from Contact (or perhaps even Stargate). No flying through space, just BAM; you're there.

Beauty of Nature · Venter Joined: 29 May 2005 Posts: 246

As you travel through space at near light speed there will be no problem ... untill a little dust grain comes flying along and smashes into your windshield... blowing a hole at about the size of the moon.

stinkweedskunk · Prattler Joined: 14 Nov 2005 Posts: 155

Faster than light travel? Sure, just let me turn on my black hole generator. You don't have any metal fillings or say, matter in you; do you?

Really, if we had a machine capable of going through the universe, it'd be like the machine from Contact (or perhaps even Stargate). No flying through space, just BAM; you're there.

You have a good point there. That is another proposed method of FTL travel, it's called Einstein-Rosen bridges, or simply, wormholes (black holes without a singularity, a tunnel from one point in spacetime to another).

All of you guys' arguments are valid, except you are still thinking in terms of linear space travel. IE, use conventional propulsion to accelerate an object to try to exceed light speed (which is impossible, like Angry Puritan said, each time I double the power to my engines, I halve the acceleration I get).

Which is where warp theory comes in. I'm sure all of you have seen the classic spacetime model of a flat grid-line piece of paper with large objects such as planets and black holes making gravitational dents in that grid. Now, imagine you have a ship sitting there in that grid. Instead of moving the ship itself, you simpy take a pair of imaginary scissors, cut a circle around the ship on that imaginary piece of paper, and move the circle (containing the ship) to another point on the paper. The ship, which is at rest and zero velocity relative to its local space (the circle cutout), does not experience any effects associated with speeds near the speed of light, such as time dilation and infinite mass increase.

AngryPuritan · TOP POSTER! Joined: 15 Jan 2005 Posts: 1437

There would always be a delay dependant upon the size of the bubble you need to create though. Gravity moves at the speed of light as well, so if you needed a 1/12 lightyear radius around the ship for this bubble to be safely operated (without ill effects on the people inside) it would take at very least a month to form.

JD_mcKenna · Qualificator Joined: 27 Aug 2005 Posts: 18

There would always be a delay dependant upon the size of the bubble you need to create though. Gravity moves at the speed of light as well, so if you needed a 1/12 lightyear radius around the ship for this bubble to be safely operated (without ill effects on the people inside) it would take at very least a month to form.

But it would be a start. If we're gonna get out to the stars, we gotta start somewhere.

Heck, look where the Wright Bros started and where we are now.