The more you post the more smug you become.....if the field cancels the gravitational effect of acceleration and makes the mass of a vessel smaller the faster it goes then the concept works genius.....in case nobody told you...the FI in sci fi means Fiction!!! The concept of this system is based on an assumed understanding of physics that guess what? We don't and may never have there Admiral Atomic
I accounted for that by nullifying gravity within the field. Without gravity your point is not valid....
and
if the field cancels the gravitational effect of acceleration and makes the mass of a vessel smaller the faster it goes then the concept works genius
gravity has nothing to do with it we are talking about inertial mass here, whether there is gravity or not mY still reaches infinity at c hence prevents further acceleration. this is because F=ma so a whatever force you engine provides you can never accelerate to c because as you approach it the (apparent) mass skyrockets and your acceleration drops until a=0. F=(infinity)a , for any value of F a still equals zero (in physics atleast, some mathematicians may argue otherwise but those arguments do not correspond to physical reality). or look at it in terms of a constant power(e/t) from the engine(note this is not the same as constant force) that also hits the same problem of m going to infinty. nullifying mass would have a far closer effect to what you desire than nullifying gravity, but even with zero rest mass a photon does not exceed the speed of light.
the gravity like forces felt during acceleration are not what prevents you reaching c, they are painful/lethal for your crew but(unless they are too great for the ship's structure to survive) do not affect the speed or performance of your ship. you mention a system whereby mass drops with speed, that might let you reach zero mass and hence achieve c(although here are all sorts of paradoxes there) but what then? at c you will still stop accelerating(like a photon does), negative mass does not help as that would cause you to lose speed every time you tried to burn the engines. then there is time dilation from the Y factor, that will unavoidably complicate things until at v=c time stops. so once time has stopped who will pull the lever to apply reverse thrust when you approach the destination?
just use warp/hyperspace, nothing to prove them impossible using present physics. drop the ship into another dimension for ftl and you can shorten the distances so dodge the c barrier altogether. no remodelling required, no changes to the overall effect of your drive produced, the ship will still be able do the same things but without getting into an unwinnable confrontation with the laws of physics.
I'm sorry if I come off as smug; that's not my intent. I'm trying to introduce some levity into the conversation. If that ended up coming across as smug, I apologize.
I will note, though, that you've resorted to insults and name-calling in response to civil discussion. For what reason? You are not under personal attack, no one (at least, certainly not me) is out to demean or upset you. My own hope and goal here is to foster discussion and understanding about science, no matter how speculative that science may be, in the interest of improving the verisimilitude of any science fiction setting--yours included.
if the field cancels the gravitational effect of acceleration and makes the mass of a vessel smaller the faster it goes then the concept works genius.....
"The gravitational effect of acceleration" is not a phrase I know how to parse. Mass concentration generates gravity, which is a force that imparts acceleration to surrounding masses. Acceleration is not gravitation, nor is gravitation an effect of acceleration.
Decreasing an object's mass absolutely means that it will require less propellant to achieve greater acceleration. However, as you begin to approach c, Lorentz transforms will result in mass increase, length contraction, and time dilation. Unless you reduce mass to zero, mass and time will always hit infinity when velocity hits c.
Unless you "cheat" it, by using hyperspace, wormholes, something akin to Alcubierre's warp drive, and so forth, this is always the case. Relativity is experimentally well-substantiated (GPS wouldn't work without factoring it in, for example), so you can't just "turn it off" without massive, massive side-effects.
in case nobody told you...the FI in sci fi means Fiction!!!
Given that you are creating a universe, I assume you are planning to tell made-up stories--fiction. If you wish to disregard all scientific understanding, you've delved into fantasy fiction that happens to be set in space. It's common and distressingly popular to defend poorly thought-out science in science fiction by pulling out the "it's science fiction" line, but that just isn't what makes something science fiction.
Neither, however, is delving deep into speculative (or fantastical) underpinnings of the technology of a setting. The old saw is that a cop doesn't need to explain precisely how his gun works in crime fiction; he just shoots it. The same can be and often is true of FTL. How it works isn't important to reveal to the audience; that it is some flavor of FTL is usually sufficient. (This, incidentally, is how something like Star Wars--by most accounts a straight-up space fantasy--can still be science fiction. They never explain how any of the tech works, which allows us to speculate how it might really work. If they provided an explanation that clearly didn't work, the credibility of the entire setting takes a hit.)
But! If you do choose to explain how it works, that explanation must make sense. If a cop explains that his gun works by having the hammer impact the posterior of a tiny unicorn, which causes it to ram its horn into the end of a bullet, prompting the bullet to fire, that needs to make sense in the context of the rest of the setting...or the audience members are going to throw their hands up and have done with your story. If nothing about tiny unicorns exists anywhere else in the setting, that's going to come off as totally absurd.
That is exactly what "reducing the mass to exceed the speed of light" does.
The concept of this system is based on an assumed understanding of physics that guess what? We don't and may never have there Admiral Atomic
All FTL concepts depend on either some existing loophole that we don't yet have the engineering means to test out, or a postulated mathematical one. That's fine; that's a given for science fiction stories. But your system, as you wrote it out, actively rejects aspects of science that are well-understood and established. It's this that I'm taking issue with. Note that I have no problems with your postulation of a means of mass-reduction in principle. The idea of reducing the effect of mass, especially as it pertains to acceleration potential, is really neat. It's your incorrect conclusion that doing so will permit travel at or above c that I am pointing out.
Please, please, please understand that I'm not here to say "Haha, you're wrong, look at how wrong this person is, everyone!" That is in no way my desire. I want to help provide a clearer understanding of this topic and to, by extension, help you refine your setting so that it achieves your goals for it without disrespecting the science that underpins the real universe.
I'm starting to get a little pissed off. And I call BS on your claim of levity. I've conversed online with people like you for years..you have a Sheldon Cooper aire to your posting personality. I have a bit of that at times myself but I can admit it, can you? Conscience intention is irrelevant. You don't fully realize just how insulting your posts can be and then you act offended when a person fires back. I may get hot headed, but I don't just invent something to get hot headed about. You were talking down to me..period. The fact that you can't see that and you refuse to be objective towards what you have posted enhances my negative opinion of you and fuels my hostile response. I have no trouble admitting I was being insulting and I have some anger issues..(I'm working on that)...But from where I'm sitting, you fired the first shots. What you need to understand is that your lecture on physics despite your claim that it was not an "I'm right and you are wrong" post was just exactly that...If not that then what was it? Did I ask you to copy and paste some wikipedia-esque physics lessons? I don't recall doing that...
Both of you (spacefighter and McC) are posting smugly...you are making all these grandiose comments regarding the science of high speed physics with a tone that inflects you don't think that I know anything about the topic. And that I somehow need to be saved from my ignorance and lectured on material I was reading about when I was 14..BTW, that was over 20 years ago and I've read a helluva lot more since then. There isn't anything that either of you have posted that I am not aware of or conceptually understand as much as one could without a super-genius IQ and multiple physics degrees. That is piss me off point number one..You assume ignorance where there isn't any. If you would of simply stated "I don't think that would work" and I responded by asking why this conversation would have had an entirely different tone. But did you do that? Nope, you just jumped straight into a proverbial "1+1 cannot equal 3!!!" when I never said it did and your "schooling" was not asked for..you just didn't get what I was saying and still don't.
Piss me off point number two is that both of you are in a sense "demanding" that I adjust the FICTIONAL physics of a FICTIONAL universe regarding a FICTIONAL star drive concept that exists in..what was it? ahhh yes...FICTION, all just to meet your standard of the definition of science fiction. You obviously understand physics pretty good..are you familiar with the concept of arrogance by any chance? And especially you McC..to label my concept as poorly thought out is pretty damn insulting. I have been one of the most outspoken SFM members regarding wanting to see more sensibility and believability designed into people ships. So to imply I "poorly thought something out"...well that right there is what set me into orbit more than anything else you stated.
I donAât know why IAâm sharing this as I doubt it will make a difference and I obviously canAât prove it but I actually had a conversation with a physicist that everyone here would recognize about this concept. I wonAât give the name because IAâm certain that would incite doubt as to the legitimacy of the conversation. I was lucky enough to sit next to him on a plane while I was deadheading a few years ago to pick up a broken airplane and ferry it home. We had a long conversation about how people with only a black and white understanding of science make his life miserable. He said science is a lot like art, and even more like philosophy. It's not as absolute as many want to believe it is. He said one has to imagine a concept into existence before its feasibility can ever be researched in the first place. I got the chance to explain my concept thoroughly ..IAâll never forget the look on his face and what he saidAâ¦AâWell..thatAâs a helluva an idea. It would be nice if we actually understood enough about the universe to know whether or not something like your idea and many others could eventually be realized.Aâ He then smiled and said Aâwho knows..maybe one day people will be trotting around the universe in ships powered by an engine named after you!Aâ I then asked him if he actually thought it could work given more knowledge..he laughed and said Aâ there is nothing in my current understanding of physics that says it could..but at the same time, I could hardly disprove it either. There is just so much we donAât know!Aâ This particular gentleman probably has an IQ that equates to all of ours combined..you'll forgive me if I defer to his opinion.
From my point of view you assume you understand something that you clearly don't because you are speaking in a tone of absolutes. I donAât respond well to that especially when the people that actually developed the science of what you are preaching demonstrate a flexibility towards possibility that you seem to curse. Did it ever occur to you that the concept might be beyond what you can grasp with the miniscule definition I have offered and maybe I didn't feel like writing a dissertation on something that doesn't frakin exist anyway? That maybe you might be the one who doesn't understand the material you are preaching? Why not ask for further explanation vs. making blanket statements? Not at any point in any of your posts did you ask me a question..all you did was lecture me. That may be because I have not explained it adequately but I think it has to do with something I consider to be far more obtuse.
Here is the obtuse (not to mention a monumental egotistical assumption) I was referring to:
"I want to help provide a clearer understanding of this topic and to, by extension, help you refine your setting so that it achieves your goals for it without disrespecting the science that underpins the real universe."
Man where to begin with that little gem...Firstly..desire for design critique was implied by the fact that I posted my ship here in the first place, but taking it past it's functional appearance and aesthetics into a "real-world physics analysis" is an entirely different discussion and one that I wasn't interested in. I wasn't interested in it primarily because of what you quoted above.. You appear to be of a non-dynamic mentality when it comes to science..I find what you stated above absurd. Considering the likely totality of all there is to know about the "real universe" we probably know next to nothing. I can almost guarantee you that if someone read what both of us have posted here 300 years from now they'd probably feel we were both full of shat. This is not a new mentality that I have encountered. The FICTIONAL technologies that I design into my work are just that..FICTIONAL...and just because they violate your very black and white view of things does NOT mean that someday an entirely new understanding of physics may emerge that makes your understand completely 100% obsolete. As a designer I choose to not limit the technical fictions in my work by the "current" understanding of physics. If that's what you like then goodie for you...I don't take that direction all the time especially when it comes to the particulars of stardrives.
I fundamentally believe that human science is on the brink of completely re-writing physics including a complete revision if not total invalidation of general relativity and I'm not alone. Many quite famous scientists not only agree with me on that but are actively working on research projects that are paving the way toward that end. It won't be the first time this has happened and it almost certainly will not be the last. You like "hard" science fiction..I get it. I do too. But I also like a healthy dose of "what if" in science fiction. That does not digress my particular style into fantasy. And your assessment that it does..well..it's insulting and all it is at the end of the day is your opinion. You insofar as any credentials you may or may not have are no more likely to be credible than me - that's sort of a law of message board physics. Next time ask if I want to get into diagnosing the believable feasibility of a technical concept I come up with..don't assume - then lecture...And if you do don't be surprised when I tell you to go pound sand.
I may be vulgar and more hostile...but you are FAR from innocent.
I wish I could believe you. We started off with five forces. Two of those unified rather well--electricity and magnetism.
So we then had four electromagnetism, the weak nuclear force, the strong nuclear force...and then...gravity--which doesn't play well with others. This may be a force our universe shares with other nearby universes.
This means it is less likely to be altered.
Now you have heard of electrogravitics--but I don't buy into that because gravity wants to be such an oddball.
What we got instead was the electroweak force--in that the electromagnetism joined with the weak force--not gravity.
If gravity and the electromagnetic force could be so easily linked, we'd see cows and cars hovering in electrical storms...
Gravity just has to be difficult.
Now anti-gravity is do-able--you just have to be universe sized to have things race away from each other. So all the cool ideas of energy from nothing and repulsive gravity only work on vast scales, sadly...
Besides, if you could tear a hole in reality for a wormhole--it might cause collapse of the vacuum.
But I hope you are right. It would be nice not to have to rely on jets and rockets...
If gravity and the electromagnetic force could be so easily linked, we'd see cows and cars hovering in electrical storms...
Gravity just has to be difficult.
not exactly, the forces only unify at really high energies. at the energy scales involving cars, cows, lightning and even the gravitational potential of earth spread across such a large area such unification won't happen. for even electroweak unifiction you need 0.1 teraelectronvolts or so, we can gurantee that if gravity can unify it will do so on far greater energies than this, remember we are talking about TeV in one particle, as the kinetic energy of a 1kg mass a Tev wouldn't even get it to 1m/s.
sorceress21, i really like your designs and from looking at the images they have seemed rather believable. mass reduction is fine for sub light speeds, if it's possible(that depends on the existence or not of negative mass) then it would really aid in minimizing the energies a starship would need for sublight maneuvres. my advice is post some pics and some model work and lets put all this theory business into the past(of course the rate at which it does that rather depends on your Y factor, lol).
I wish I could believe you. We started off with five forces. Two of those unified rather well--electricity and magnetism.
So we then had four electromagnetism, the weak nuclear force, the strong nuclear force...and then...gravity--which doesn't play well with others. This may be a force our universe shares with other nearby universes.
This means it is less likely to be altered.
Now you have heard of electrogravitics--but I don't buy into that because gravity wants to be such an oddball.
What we got instead was the electroweak force--in that the electromagnetism joined with the weak force--not gravity.
If gravity and the electromagnetic force could be so easily linked, we'd see cows and cars hovering in electrical storms...
Gravity just has to be difficult.
Now anti-gravity is do-able--you just have to be universe sized to have things race away from each other. So all the cool ideas of energy from nothing and repulsive gravity only work on vast scales, sadly...
Besides, if you could tear a hole in reality for a wormhole--it might cause collapse of the vacuum.
But I hope you are right. It would be nice not to have to rely on jets and rockets...
The following is not directed at you specifically, just the mentality in general..I apologize in advance for my blunt reply.
Everything you just said..is true...But
Uggghhhhh...my god some of ya'll are so frustrating!!...And frankly I am thankful you are 3D modelers instead of research scientists..if you were we'd never leave low Earth Orbit again...
yes what you stated is correct..but it's only correct based on the CURRENT understanding of physics...that is my beef.
On June 3rd, 1969 if a scientist was seriously studying the potential of building a warp drive he or she would have been laughed off of whatever intellectual campus he or she was working at....Now..NASA is conducting lab experiments to generate a warp-field. And that is within the current laws of physics..You have to imagine what the future will bring...it's supremely arrogant of humans to make assumptions that any of our science is the end all or near the end all of a particular discipline..need I remind you that the five forces we actually started off with were Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Steel. It took quite a bit longer..and a whole lot of persecution of some very smart people to get to electromagnetism. And that just 200 years ago people still lit their homes with oil lamps...I find it laughable that we went from that...to being able to make any forecast on the limits to how much more we will learn in a mere two human lifetimes..If anything..the progress we have made in a remarkably short amount of time should solidify a message that in another 1000 years...well..do you see where I'm going?
Its not a matter of believing me..its a matter of letting go of scientific arrogance and embracing the likelihood that science isn't even in its infancy..it's probably still just a microbe against the vastness of a universal timeline. The mentality that "we've just about got it all figured out" baffles me.
We have come a long way in a short time...too far in my opinion...science has surpassed our social and psychological evolution and because of it we'll be lucky if any of us are alive to discuss this in 20 years let alone another 100. But you expect me to sympathize or conform to a belief that only 200 or so years of hard science has even scratched the surface of the universe it's not gonna happen...
A person can quote all the science they want...but they just can't overcome the fact that a species that is only about 175,000 years old..using hard science it's only possessed for about 2 centuries, supposedly knows what the hell it's talking about when it comes to the cosmology of a universe that very same science says is over 500 billion years old??...that math...just doesn't add up to anything but:
The thing is...when you have this conversation with actual scientists, you know..people that actually have doctorates in disciplines that you or me may not have even heard of or could pronounce...instead of getting scifi geeks that read a few books on cosmology and now think they have a degree in Astrophysics..you find that science..as a whole...just isn't as confident in our understanding of the universe as some of you guys appear to be...I suppose in that regard I should find this discussion far more entertaining then frustrating...
not exactly, the forces only unify at really high energies. at the energy scales involving cars, cows, lightning and even the gravitational potential of earth spread across such a large area such unification won't happen. for even electroweak unifiction you need 0.1 teraelectronvolts or so, we can gurantee that if gravity can unify it will do so on far greater energies than this, remember we are talking about TeV in one particle, as the kinetic energy of a 1kg mass a Tev wouldn't even get it to 1m/s.
sorceress21, i really like your designs and from looking at the images they have seemed rather believable. mass reduction is fine for sub light speeds, if it's possible(that depends on the existence or not of negative mass) then it would really aid in minimizing the energies a starship would need for sublight maneuvres. my advice is post some pics and some model work and lets put all this theory business into the past(of course the rate at which it does that rather depends on your Y factor, lol).
You don't get it man...you just don't get it...the drive doesn't just reduce mass.
..you are trying to apply real-world physics knowledge to something that doesn't exist and then tell me it's impossible...do you not see the intense frustration that your approach causes...I am attempting to create a fictional technology concept that no one else uses in a sci-fi universe...that's it man! I'm not trying to postulate a theory, write a thesis or entice NASA to build a sorceress21 engine!
The mass of a ship is reduced to the sub-quantum level..what happens at the sub quantum level kids?
PHYSICS BREAKS DOWN.....
Up is down, left is right...1+1 can equal 3...and you can be in two places at once...and the supposed light speed barrier is no longer valid...
I have no idea how to trick space/time into thinking my ship is so small it's physical state is in quantum flux..And neither do you..niether would freaking Carl Sagan if he were still with us..It's probably impossible but until one of you armchair physicists writes a thesis explaining why it can't work and get's it published and validated I'll thank you to stick to modeling...So if I can use a technique that doesn't exist, may never exist and probably will never exist to squeeze the mass of a ship all the way down into not just the quantum scale..but the SUB quantum scale, basically squeezing it into some other kind of universe or state..I'm pretty sure that you can't tell me how fast the damn ship can or can't go when REAL WORLD scientists can't even do that...
"Nice ship. How's it work?"
"Quite well, thank you."
In retrospect..that is exactly how I should have answered that question and that is exactly how I'm going to respond to future such inquiries regarding my designs..thanks Roj..your simplicity of such matters is always a breath of fresh air...word.
Well I'll say this: In regards to the concept of the FTL, I thought it was rather interesting. It reminded me of say hyperspace data transmission, because thats what we the average person are use to (warp/hyperspace/etc). In any event, there was enough information explained to where I said "Well gee that sounds legit," which in science fiction, is pretty much the response you want.
If it sounds like it works, and people draw references to a combination of things, then your job as a writer is pretty much set. Plus, as an audience, who has a little bit of basic physics understanding, my thought is necessarily "Thats wrong" or "You should have did it this way," its more along the lines of "I wonder how they are getting around X,Y,Z? What are the limits? What are the pros and cons?"
I mean lets me serious, in science we talk about the possibility of multiple dimensions, etc. In that case, whos to say in some off alternate reality, the compression drive is fact and not fiction?
My overall bloated point is, I really like the ship. And I meant to ask, does space contract toward the drive pods too, as its compressed? And is this compression in the same vein as data file compression? I know you mention greater velocity, but is there something lost, beyond the obvious energy requirement?
Part of me wants to reply to all of the statements thus far, both in an effort to assuage bruised egos, correct misconceptions, provide whatever additional information I can, and stand up for several things that I think are important or worth saying.
However, I don't think any of that will be productive. I'm not going to waste everyone's time--mine included--on explanations that are unwanted or that will fall on deaf ears, whether those explanations are about intention, physics, credentials, psychology, philosophy, or any of the other topics we've touched on.
I am instead going to bow out of this thread from this point forward.
sorceress21, I'm sorry that what I had to say, or the way in which I said it, struck a nerve for you. I am genuinely sorry that this line of discussion has upset you, as that was never my desire or intention. Good luck on the model. It's looking great so far. I hope your world-building efforts continue to be enjoyable for you and tantalize both your imagination and the imagination of whatever audience you choose to present them to.
Normally, I don't comment on these nerd fest discussions because it's not my place, but this thread has gotten really out of hand. (like some many others have in the past :rolleyes:) I think a lot of people need to remember that this is a science fiction ART forum, not a science fact forum. Sorceress is posting art, not a plan for an actual space ship design. Just comment on the art and leave it at that. Don't harass users over whether or not their stuff will actually work. WHO CARES?! It's art!! Some of the most famous science fiction vehicles are very impractical, but nobody cares. They're cool. When Doc Brown told us the flux capacitor was what made time travel possible, we didn't ask "how?" We just said "cool."
In retrospect..that is exactly how I should have answered that question and that is exactly how I'm going to respond to future such inquiries regarding my designs..thanks Roj..your simplicity of such matters is always a breath of fresh air...word.
I always just tell people that it works on some kind of yet-to-be invented tech and leave it at that.
I agree Evil...and McC your apology is accepted and I apologize to you as well for my hostility. I wish I had an update to post...but I'm working..waiting in Charlotte for a late airplane we need to take our self loading cargo to PIT.
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the gravity like forces felt during acceleration are not what prevents you reaching c, they are painful/lethal for your crew but(unless they are too great for the ship's structure to survive) do not affect the speed or performance of your ship. you mention a system whereby mass drops with speed, that might let you reach zero mass and hence achieve c(although here are all sorts of paradoxes there) but what then? at c you will still stop accelerating(like a photon does), negative mass does not help as that would cause you to lose speed every time you tried to burn the engines. then there is time dilation from the Y factor, that will unavoidably complicate things until at v=c time stops. so once time has stopped who will pull the lever to apply reverse thrust when you approach the destination?
just use warp/hyperspace, nothing to prove them impossible using present physics. drop the ship into another dimension for ftl and you can shorten the distances so dodge the c barrier altogether. no remodelling required, no changes to the overall effect of your drive produced, the ship will still be able do the same things but without getting into an unwinnable confrontation with the laws of physics.
I will note, though, that you've resorted to insults and name-calling in response to civil discussion. For what reason? You are not under personal attack, no one (at least, certainly not me) is out to demean or upset you. My own hope and goal here is to foster discussion and understanding about science, no matter how speculative that science may be, in the interest of improving the verisimilitude of any science fiction setting--yours included.
"The gravitational effect of acceleration" is not a phrase I know how to parse. Mass concentration generates gravity, which is a force that imparts acceleration to surrounding masses. Acceleration is not gravitation, nor is gravitation an effect of acceleration.
Decreasing an object's mass absolutely means that it will require less propellant to achieve greater acceleration. However, as you begin to approach c, Lorentz transforms will result in mass increase, length contraction, and time dilation. Unless you reduce mass to zero, mass and time will always hit infinity when velocity hits c.
Unless you "cheat" it, by using hyperspace, wormholes, something akin to Alcubierre's warp drive, and so forth, this is always the case. Relativity is experimentally well-substantiated (GPS wouldn't work without factoring it in, for example), so you can't just "turn it off" without massive, massive side-effects.
Given that you are creating a universe, I assume you are planning to tell made-up stories--fiction. If you wish to disregard all scientific understanding, you've delved into fantasy fiction that happens to be set in space. It's common and distressingly popular to defend poorly thought-out science in science fiction by pulling out the "it's science fiction" line, but that just isn't what makes something science fiction.
Neither, however, is delving deep into speculative (or fantastical) underpinnings of the technology of a setting. The old saw is that a cop doesn't need to explain precisely how his gun works in crime fiction; he just shoots it. The same can be and often is true of FTL. How it works isn't important to reveal to the audience; that it is some flavor of FTL is usually sufficient. (This, incidentally, is how something like Star Wars--by most accounts a straight-up space fantasy--can still be science fiction. They never explain how any of the tech works, which allows us to speculate how it might really work. If they provided an explanation that clearly didn't work, the credibility of the entire setting takes a hit.)
But! If you do choose to explain how it works, that explanation must make sense. If a cop explains that his gun works by having the hammer impact the posterior of a tiny unicorn, which causes it to ram its horn into the end of a bullet, prompting the bullet to fire, that needs to make sense in the context of the rest of the setting...or the audience members are going to throw their hands up and have done with your story. If nothing about tiny unicorns exists anywhere else in the setting, that's going to come off as totally absurd.
That is exactly what "reducing the mass to exceed the speed of light" does.
All FTL concepts depend on either some existing loophole that we don't yet have the engineering means to test out, or a postulated mathematical one. That's fine; that's a given for science fiction stories. But your system, as you wrote it out, actively rejects aspects of science that are well-understood and established. It's this that I'm taking issue with. Note that I have no problems with your postulation of a means of mass-reduction in principle. The idea of reducing the effect of mass, especially as it pertains to acceleration potential, is really neat. It's your incorrect conclusion that doing so will permit travel at or above c that I am pointing out.
Please, please, please understand that I'm not here to say "Haha, you're wrong, look at how wrong this person is, everyone!" That is in no way my desire. I want to help provide a clearer understanding of this topic and to, by extension, help you refine your setting so that it achieves your goals for it without disrespecting the science that underpins the real universe.
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Both of you (spacefighter and McC) are posting smugly...you are making all these grandiose comments regarding the science of high speed physics with a tone that inflects you don't think that I know anything about the topic. And that I somehow need to be saved from my ignorance and lectured on material I was reading about when I was 14..BTW, that was over 20 years ago and I've read a helluva lot more since then. There isn't anything that either of you have posted that I am not aware of or conceptually understand as much as one could without a super-genius IQ and multiple physics degrees. That is piss me off point number one..You assume ignorance where there isn't any. If you would of simply stated "I don't think that would work" and I responded by asking why this conversation would have had an entirely different tone. But did you do that? Nope, you just jumped straight into a proverbial "1+1 cannot equal 3!!!" when I never said it did and your "schooling" was not asked for..you just didn't get what I was saying and still don't.
Piss me off point number two is that both of you are in a sense "demanding" that I adjust the FICTIONAL physics of a FICTIONAL universe regarding a FICTIONAL star drive concept that exists in..what was it? ahhh yes...FICTION, all just to meet your standard of the definition of science fiction. You obviously understand physics pretty good..are you familiar with the concept of arrogance by any chance? And especially you McC..to label my concept as poorly thought out is pretty damn insulting. I have been one of the most outspoken SFM members regarding wanting to see more sensibility and believability designed into people ships. So to imply I "poorly thought something out"...well that right there is what set me into orbit more than anything else you stated.
I donAât know why IAâm sharing this as I doubt it will make a difference and I obviously canAât prove it but I actually had a conversation with a physicist that everyone here would recognize about this concept. I wonAât give the name because IAâm certain that would incite doubt as to the legitimacy of the conversation. I was lucky enough to sit next to him on a plane while I was deadheading a few years ago to pick up a broken airplane and ferry it home. We had a long conversation about how people with only a black and white understanding of science make his life miserable. He said science is a lot like art, and even more like philosophy. It's not as absolute as many want to believe it is. He said one has to imagine a concept into existence before its feasibility can ever be researched in the first place. I got the chance to explain my concept thoroughly ..IAâll never forget the look on his face and what he saidAâ¦AâWell..thatAâs a helluva an idea. It would be nice if we actually understood enough about the universe to know whether or not something like your idea and many others could eventually be realized.Aâ He then smiled and said Aâwho knows..maybe one day people will be trotting around the universe in ships powered by an engine named after you!Aâ I then asked him if he actually thought it could work given more knowledge..he laughed and said Aâ there is nothing in my current understanding of physics that says it could..but at the same time, I could hardly disprove it either. There is just so much we donAât know!Aâ This particular gentleman probably has an IQ that equates to all of ours combined..you'll forgive me if I defer to his opinion.
From my point of view you assume you understand something that you clearly don't because you are speaking in a tone of absolutes. I donAât respond well to that especially when the people that actually developed the science of what you are preaching demonstrate a flexibility towards possibility that you seem to curse. Did it ever occur to you that the concept might be beyond what you can grasp with the miniscule definition I have offered and maybe I didn't feel like writing a dissertation on something that doesn't frakin exist anyway? That maybe you might be the one who doesn't understand the material you are preaching? Why not ask for further explanation vs. making blanket statements? Not at any point in any of your posts did you ask me a question..all you did was lecture me. That may be because I have not explained it adequately but I think it has to do with something I consider to be far more obtuse.
Here is the obtuse (not to mention a monumental egotistical assumption) I was referring to:
"I want to help provide a clearer understanding of this topic and to, by extension, help you refine your setting so that it achieves your goals for it without disrespecting the science that underpins the real universe."
Man where to begin with that little gem...Firstly..desire for design critique was implied by the fact that I posted my ship here in the first place, but taking it past it's functional appearance and aesthetics into a "real-world physics analysis" is an entirely different discussion and one that I wasn't interested in. I wasn't interested in it primarily because of what you quoted above.. You appear to be of a non-dynamic mentality when it comes to science..I find what you stated above absurd. Considering the likely totality of all there is to know about the "real universe" we probably know next to nothing. I can almost guarantee you that if someone read what both of us have posted here 300 years from now they'd probably feel we were both full of shat. This is not a new mentality that I have encountered. The FICTIONAL technologies that I design into my work are just that..FICTIONAL...and just because they violate your very black and white view of things does NOT mean that someday an entirely new understanding of physics may emerge that makes your understand completely 100% obsolete. As a designer I choose to not limit the technical fictions in my work by the "current" understanding of physics. If that's what you like then goodie for you...I don't take that direction all the time especially when it comes to the particulars of stardrives.
I fundamentally believe that human science is on the brink of completely re-writing physics including a complete revision if not total invalidation of general relativity and I'm not alone. Many quite famous scientists not only agree with me on that but are actively working on research projects that are paving the way toward that end. It won't be the first time this has happened and it almost certainly will not be the last. You like "hard" science fiction..I get it. I do too. But I also like a healthy dose of "what if" in science fiction. That does not digress my particular style into fantasy. And your assessment that it does..well..it's insulting and all it is at the end of the day is your opinion. You insofar as any credentials you may or may not have are no more likely to be credible than me - that's sort of a law of message board physics. Next time ask if I want to get into diagnosing the believable feasibility of a technical concept I come up with..don't assume - then lecture...And if you do don't be surprised when I tell you to go pound sand.
I may be vulgar and more hostile...but you are FAR from innocent.
So we then had four electromagnetism, the weak nuclear force, the strong nuclear force...and then...gravity--which doesn't play well with others. This may be a force our universe shares with other nearby universes.
This means it is less likely to be altered.
Now you have heard of electrogravitics--but I don't buy into that because gravity wants to be such an oddball.
What we got instead was the electroweak force--in that the electromagnetism joined with the weak force--not gravity.
If gravity and the electromagnetic force could be so easily linked, we'd see cows and cars hovering in electrical storms...
Gravity just has to be difficult.
Now anti-gravity is do-able--you just have to be universe sized to have things race away from each other. So all the cool ideas of energy from nothing and repulsive gravity only work on vast scales, sadly...
Besides, if you could tear a hole in reality for a wormhole--it might cause collapse of the vacuum.
But I hope you are right. It would be nice not to have to rely on jets and rockets...
sorceress21, i really like your designs and from looking at the images they have seemed rather believable. mass reduction is fine for sub light speeds, if it's possible(that depends on the existence or not of negative mass) then it would really aid in minimizing the energies a starship would need for sublight maneuvres. my advice is post some pics and some model work and lets put all this theory business into the past(of course the rate at which it does that rather depends on your Y factor, lol).
The following is not directed at you specifically, just the mentality in general..I apologize in advance for my blunt reply.
Everything you just said..is true...But
Uggghhhhh...my god some of ya'll are so frustrating!!...And frankly I am thankful you are 3D modelers instead of research scientists..if you were we'd never leave low Earth Orbit again...
yes what you stated is correct..but it's only correct based on the CURRENT understanding of physics...that is my beef.
On June 3rd, 1969 if a scientist was seriously studying the potential of building a warp drive he or she would have been laughed off of whatever intellectual campus he or she was working at....Now..NASA is conducting lab experiments to generate a warp-field. And that is within the current laws of physics..You have to imagine what the future will bring...it's supremely arrogant of humans to make assumptions that any of our science is the end all or near the end all of a particular discipline..need I remind you that the five forces we actually started off with were Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Steel. It took quite a bit longer..and a whole lot of persecution of some very smart people to get to electromagnetism. And that just 200 years ago people still lit their homes with oil lamps...I find it laughable that we went from that...to being able to make any forecast on the limits to how much more we will learn in a mere two human lifetimes..If anything..the progress we have made in a remarkably short amount of time should solidify a message that in another 1000 years...well..do you see where I'm going?
Its not a matter of believing me..its a matter of letting go of scientific arrogance and embracing the likelihood that science isn't even in its infancy..it's probably still just a microbe against the vastness of a universal timeline. The mentality that "we've just about got it all figured out" baffles me.
We have come a long way in a short time...too far in my opinion...science has surpassed our social and psychological evolution and because of it we'll be lucky if any of us are alive to discuss this in 20 years let alone another 100. But you expect me to sympathize or conform to a belief that only 200 or so years of hard science has even scratched the surface of the universe it's not gonna happen...
A person can quote all the science they want...but they just can't overcome the fact that a species that is only about 175,000 years old..using hard science it's only possessed for about 2 centuries, supposedly knows what the hell it's talking about when it comes to the cosmology of a universe that very same science says is over 500 billion years old??...that math...just doesn't add up to anything but:
THIS - The person being mankind.
The thing is...when you have this conversation with actual scientists, you know..people that actually have doctorates in disciplines that you or me may not have even heard of or could pronounce...instead of getting scifi geeks that read a few books on cosmology and now think they have a degree in Astrophysics..you find that science..as a whole...just isn't as confident in our understanding of the universe as some of you guys appear to be...I suppose in that regard I should find this discussion far more entertaining then frustrating...
"Quite well, thank you."
You don't get it man...you just don't get it...the drive doesn't just reduce mass.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!
..you are trying to apply real-world physics knowledge to something that doesn't exist and then tell me it's impossible...do you not see the intense frustration that your approach causes...I am attempting to create a fictional technology concept that no one else uses in a sci-fi universe...that's it man! I'm not trying to postulate a theory, write a thesis or entice NASA to build a sorceress21 engine!
The mass of a ship is reduced to the sub-quantum level..what happens at the sub quantum level kids?
PHYSICS BREAKS DOWN.....
Up is down, left is right...1+1 can equal 3...and you can be in two places at once...and the supposed light speed barrier is no longer valid...
I have no idea how to trick space/time into thinking my ship is so small it's physical state is in quantum flux..And neither do you..niether would freaking Carl Sagan if he were still with us..It's probably impossible but until one of you armchair physicists writes a thesis explaining why it can't work and get's it published and validated I'll thank you to stick to modeling...So if I can use a technique that doesn't exist, may never exist and probably will never exist to squeeze the mass of a ship all the way down into not just the quantum scale..but the SUB quantum scale, basically squeezing it into some other kind of universe or state..I'm pretty sure that you can't tell me how fast the damn ship can or can't go when REAL WORLD scientists can't even do that...
Now do you get why I'm so agitated?
In retrospect..that is exactly how I should have answered that question and that is exactly how I'm going to respond to future such inquiries regarding my designs..thanks Roj..your simplicity of such matters is always a breath of fresh air...word.
If it sounds like it works, and people draw references to a combination of things, then your job as a writer is pretty much set. Plus, as an audience, who has a little bit of basic physics understanding, my thought is necessarily "Thats wrong" or "You should have did it this way," its more along the lines of "I wonder how they are getting around X,Y,Z? What are the limits? What are the pros and cons?"
I mean lets me serious, in science we talk about the possibility of multiple dimensions, etc. In that case, whos to say in some off alternate reality, the compression drive is fact and not fiction?
My overall bloated point is, I really like the ship. And I meant to ask, does space contract toward the drive pods too, as its compressed? And is this compression in the same vein as data file compression? I know you mention greater velocity, but is there something lost, beyond the obvious energy requirement?
However, I don't think any of that will be productive. I'm not going to waste everyone's time--mine included--on explanations that are unwanted or that will fall on deaf ears, whether those explanations are about intention, physics, credentials, psychology, philosophy, or any of the other topics we've touched on.
I am instead going to bow out of this thread from this point forward.
sorceress21, I'm sorry that what I had to say, or the way in which I said it, struck a nerve for you. I am genuinely sorry that this line of discussion has upset you, as that was never my desire or intention. Good luck on the model. It's looking great so far. I hope your world-building efforts continue to be enjoyable for you and tantalize both your imagination and the imagination of whatever audience you choose to present them to.
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And that's all I have to say on the subject.
I always just tell people that it works on some kind of yet-to-be invented tech and leave it at that.