Antimatter seems the boldest — and newest — of propulsion concepts, but in fact Eugen Sänger’s work on the uses of antimatter in rocketry goes back to the 1930s. The German scientist thought it would be possible to reflect gamma rays produced by the annihilation of electrons and positrons to produce thrust. His work wowed the Fourth International Astronautical Congress in 1952, but there was a catch: the gamma rays created by this reaction seemed too energetic to use the way Sänger hoped — they penetrated all known materials and could not be channeled effectively into a rocket exhaust.
Which is why most antimatter designs since have focused on antiprotons. When antiprotons and protons annihilate each other, they produce not only gamma rays but pi-mesons, short-lived particles also known as pions. Many of these are charged as they emerge from the proton/antiproton annihilation, and can therefore be controlled by sending them through a strong magnetic field. Early designs by Robert Forward and David Morgan (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) took advantage of these traits even though the technology to produce sufficient antimatter lagged far behind their visionary concepts.
But antimatter researcher Gerald Smith and colleagues have been working on a study for NASA’s Institute for Advanced Concepts that takes us back to positrons, one that could power a human mission to Mars with tens of milligrams of antimatter. Not only would such a design be far lighter than competing chemical and nuclear options, but it would be fast enough to dramatically shorten flight time to the Red Planet; advanced versions might make the trip in as little as 45 days.
Smith’s background in antimatter research needs little elaboration; he is a towering figure in the field. While at Pennsylvania State University, he oversaw two key hybrid designs called ICANN II and AIMStar that used antimatter as a catalyst to induce nuclear reactions. The author of hundreds of research papers, he is also the designer of both the Mark I portable antimatter trap and the current state of the art, the High Performance Antimatter Trap (HiPAT).
He is, in other words, a key figure when it comes to wedding powerful antimatter technologies to practical spacecraft designs. Now head of Positronics Research LLC in New Mexico, Smith has built on the lessons learned from these earlier concepts to promote a new design that seems to offer enormous benefits, if we can produce the antimatter needed to make it fly.
One advantage of positrons is that the gamma rays they generate are about 400 times less energetic than those created by antiprotons, making the spacecraft a far safer place for human crews. According to a description of Smith’s work posted on the NIAC Web site (PDF warning), the positron/electron annihilation “…results in the creation of two soft 511 keV gamma rays. These gamma rays can be easily absorbed to heat a working fluid in a closed, high-efficiency thermodynamic power system, or directly into a propellant.” The NIAC work is ongoing — Smith’s Phase I study was completed in March and he is now making the case for an advanced Phase II project that will examine design variants like the positron reactor shown below.
Image: A diagram of a rocket powered by a positron reactor. Positrons are directed from the storage unit to the attenuating matrix, where they interact with the material and release heat. Liquid hydrogen (H2) circulates through the attenuating matrix and picks up the heat. The hydrogen then flows to the nozzle exit (bell-shaped area in yellow and blue), where it expands into space, producing thrust. Credit: Positronics Research, LLC.
The high cost of antimatter is always an issue, but one that may become manageable. Smith is now estimating that the 10 milligrams of positrons a human Mars mission would require could be produced for roughly $250 million. It seems a reasonable assumption that antimatter production costs will continue to go down, just as it is also reasonable to question the wisdom of using staged chemical rockets with launch costs of $10,000 per pound when designs that could undertake far more sophisticated missions are waiting to be developed. Let’s talk more about these notions tomorrow and dig into antimatter’s advantages when it comes to deep space work.
This has been a productive thread indeed! Jim, please feel free to keep those posts coming in, as the great majority of readers don’t post but do enjoy examining the various concepts in this and other topics.
paul, i feel exactly the same way,thank you.i feel the idea that the others examining some ideas is in and of itself a valuable commodity! you never know when the aha! factor will kick in. but that goes both ways… i still wish they would lend a word to the proceedings! have a great weekend,your friend george
Thanks Paul and George;
I will continue to post my thoughts on this website. I could not stay away from doing such as I am so intrigued by the concept of interstellar travel.
George, I have some additional interstellar travel concepts to post later this weekend. I am still formulating my thoughts on them but should be ready to post by tommorrow evening.
Thanks, again;
Your friend;
Jim
Hello again Paul, George, and all other readers of this website;
In fact, I could not even stay away for 1/2 hour.
A couple of additional interstellar propulsion concepts occured to me over the past few days, one of which dawned on me as I was reading the latest issue of “Science News” magazine today.
1) The first concept I will discuss involves an application of optical materials with a negative index of refraction. A large light sail membrane or other high area mass specific structure composed of a material of negative index of refraction could potentially be used to pull a spacecraft manned or unmanned to extremely relativistic velocity simply be being deployed. Theoretically, such materials would be pulled on by incident electromagnetic energy rather than pushed aeay by incident EM energy. An exotic negative index of refraction material that can operate over frequencies ranging from cosmic microwave background radiation through x-rays might be an ideal propulsion energy source to power ion, electron, MPHDD, EPHDD, EMPHDD, photon rocket and other forms of interstellar propulsion.
In addition to harnessing extremely blue-shifted CMBR and star light once the craft has been brought up to a 1/{[1- [(v/c) EXP 2] EXP 1/2]} value of about 1,000, the craft could take advantage of star light beaming stations set up along the path of the oncoming starship instead of having to contend with dopplar redshift based losses of effeciency associated with beamed electromagnetic energy from behind. The craft could effectively utilize these sources for the value of pure momentum transfer as well as to power active onboard propulsion systems. In fact, relative to the accellerating craft, the incident light source would theoretically appear more powerful as the craft approached C more closely. Either one or a plurality, perhaps many beaming substations could be set up over a lightyears long pathway so that the craft can continue to rapidly accellerate once it passes a preceeding station. Once the craft leaves the vicinity of the beaming stations and has approached highly relativistic velocities, it might harvest the energy available from the ambient interstellar, and perhaps one day, intergalactic environment.
Such a craft might harvest interstellar gas ions, atoms, or molecules for use as a reaction mass to power its one or plurality of various types of optional reactionary propulsion systems. As stated above, the craft might passively be powered by incident photons to receive a pull from in front rather than a push from behind.
If a negative index of refraftion material could some how be fabricated from sheets of neutron dense material, for example, some form of such material with a thickness equivalent to the width of the cross section of one to a few neutrons as they exist within the atomic nucleous, then perhaps such a material could be deployed once the ship achieved ultra-relativistic velocities wherein the star light or the CMBR would be dopplar shifted to gamma ray frequencies.
Perhaps a negative index of refraction membrane could be produced in the form of a largely open spaced mesh or grid-like membrane wherein the spacing between the grid fibers is on the order of or smaller than the wavelength of the incident dopplar shifter electromagnetic radiation. This might perhaps be true for incident photons of CMBR radiation wavelength thru hard gamma rays. For lower frequencies, a grid like sheet made of ordinary molecular materials might be used. For hard gamma rays, a nuetron dense material might be used. Multiple sails, each for a different range of dopplar blueshifted incident light might be used at different stages of propulsion. The different sails could be carried along with the ship upon the beginning of its journey and sequentially deployed as the ship accellarates and/or they could be fabricated in situ as the ship approaces C and deployed as appropriate for harnessing of the incident photon energy. Alternatively, the materials of the initially deployed sails could be partially or fully recycled and reused to produce sails capable of harnessing shorted wavelengths.
To slow down, sails made of positive index of refraction material could be deployed to act as a break. Once again, such sails could be of continuous monolithic sheet construction or could be grid like for greater mass specific breaking power. The sails could be carried along with the ship from the begining and/or fabricated and/or recycled during the voyage.
To learn more about the fascinating possibility of producing materials with a negative index of refraction, visit the Duke University of Chapel Hill website.
2) The second interstellar travel concept occured to me while I was reading “Science News” magazine this morning. One of the articles related to how permanent magnets composed of organic compounds are possible. These magnets might be poduced by molding the matetrials out of which they are formed at low temperatures into various configurations including membranous magnets. The point I am trying to make is that potentially, large area magnetic sails might be crafted that therefore have a large area to interact with interstellar and/or intergalactic magnetic field. A large sail area would allow the sail to sweep out a large area of magnetic field flux lines thus resulting in greater reaction force between the sail and the interstellar or intergalactic magnetic fields.
Alternatively, the sail could be placed within a magnetic field based mass driver having a large aperture wherein the driving magnetic field would not need to be quite as intense at it would be otherwise in order to produce rapid accellerations. Some possible regions where such a sail might effectively utilize ambient magnetic fields include the regions around main sequence stars with strong magnetic fields, the environment of supermassive blackholes such as those that appear to harbor the center of atleast most galaxies, etc..
Anyhow, that’s the rap for now.
Once again, that you both George and Paul for the encouragement. I will attempt to formulate my thoughts on some additional interstellar propulsion methods and post them within a day or so.
Very Respectfully;
Your Friend Jim
jim, thank you for comming back so soon.and as usual…with great ideas!! i very much like the exotic twist of a ship being pulled not pushed and i think i read or maybe wrote something like that not too awfully long ago.as i sat here trying to recall…i think i may have…and i was wrong – it was a bit ago indeed.the idea was for a gravity drive . i proposed a device that could “lock onto” the gravitational field of say a star and then “simply” use that force to fall toward it at an ever increasing velocity! and jim your concept for an intergalactic spacecraft was also real good not many would have the imagination for that either! further the idea of magnetic drives are also good and imho valuable…thats what i love about groups like these we figure…any force of nature that contains a great deal of energy…magnetic,atomic,gravity,etc. might “easily” be used or at least concieved of as,being useful for space craft propulsion! i look very much forward to your next group of ideas too.you know jim over time i have had what i consider to be a few good ideas regarding space craft propulsion but you are PROLIFIC!! guess thats my remarks for now,thanks again jim ,paul, anybody out there reading!! all the best – your friend george
i saw that special on the history channel last night but missed about the first 8 minutes of it!!very interesting. i think having it on tv to further get people thinking is a fine idea just like what we are all driving at here.question though my friends… did mark millis say anything early on that i missed!? felt like kicking myself for not catching the beginning – yeah i know i had the vcr on but i had a problem. that is why i have to ask! now,having said all that,i must admit nothing was really said that i did not already know.frustrating to realize that in almost ALL of this we are only at the beginning of the beginning!! respectfully to one and all your friend george
Hi George;
Thanks for your response to my latest posting.
Thinking very far ahead into the future, it occurred to me that in the far distant future, should cosmic engineering projects become possible on the scale of galaxy superclusters, for example, for mass requirements on the order of 10 EXP 15 solar masses (or one quadrillion times the mass of the sun), perhaps rotating blackholes could be artificially created with mass ranges in the 10 EXP 15 solar mass range by gradually adding mass to a location of space by whatever technological means would be most appropriate. Since you are familliar with spacetime warps and wormholes, in accordance to your interest in the subject, imagine creating a Kerr class or rotating blackhole of the above mass wherein the central rotating annular loop near the center of the blackhole could serve as a gateway to another location in spacetime within our universe or perhaps to another alternate universe with or without the same set of laws of nature, fundamental physical laws, or dimensionalily. Now this concept is rather old by a few decades, at least, but setting up a large number of stations might be a way to preserve the lifetime operating conditions of such a system for time periods on the order of 10 EXP 100 years. Producing and using even larger blackholes, for example, those of masses of 10 EXP 18 to 10 EXP 20 solar mass range would facilate much longer lived systems. Note that creating such systems would also lock up substantial amounts of mass so that it may remain concentrated instead of becomming ever more diffuse as the universe expands, assumming that our universe will expand forever.
Perhaps such large blackholes can serve as a mechanism of concentrating masses of that on the order of that contained in the currently observable universe, i.e., ~ 10 EXP 22 solar masses, or greater by utilizing the spacetime warps at the center of one or more Kerr blackholes to transport supermassive blackholes from differing locations into a common location, wherein their combined masses can aggregate. If such a system can be made to work, then the repeated feeding of a central Kerr blackhole essentially without limit can occur, thus locking up all the more mass into a given region of spacetime and hopefully preserving it from the great cosmic cool down as the universe expands into eternity. Note, also, that the larger the blackhole, the longer its lifetime is as a result of its decreased temperature of energy emmission that results from the quantum mechanical process of Hawking Radiation emmission. Perhaps the characteristics of the various zero point vacuum energy fields within our universe will be significantly altered as the universe continues to expand in the cosmically distant future such that, for a given mass of blackhole, the degree of Hawking Radiation Emmission will decrease and/or continually decrease, hopefully without the potentially disruptive effects of any universe wide phase changes that could occur during the blackholes lifetime, thus permitting blackholes to have even longer lives which would reduce the rate at which they would need to be restocked as a result of such energy emmission.
I wonder if it would be possible to set up concentrically and/or offset concentrically rotating rings within the center of a Kerr Black Hole. Perhaps, the larger the blackhole, the greater the number of such concentric rings could be set up near its center. It might be the case that concentric rotating rings as such would produce novel spacetime characteristics that could be utilized for transportatation systems and/or other cosmic infrastructural elements.
That’s all for now. I have more to post later this evening or into the early morning hours tomorrow.
Respectfully;
Jim
An interesting idea occured to me which others must have considered before hand that involves the use of an energized nuclear isomers for very local manned interstellar transport, perhaps to locations as far away as Bernard’s star.
I have read online from various websites about the possibility of utilizing an excited state of Hf 178 as a fuel for spacecraft propulsion systems. One gram of Hafnium 178 would store as much energy as 50 Kg of TNT making it approximately 2 1/2 orders of magnitude less energetic than nuclear fissionable fuels such as U-235, Pu-239, and other high atomic number nuclear fuel grade radioactive elements or isotopes. The problem with Hf 178 as a energy source, at least as a carry on board energy source, is that it is far to low in energy yield to do meaningful manned mssions to the nearest stars. It is approximately 3 1/3 orders of magnitude less energetic than complete nuclear fusion for what would be typical for nuclear fusion rocket fuel, and about 6 orders of magnitude less energetic than pure antimatter fuel.
However, is it possible that there might be a nuclear isomer with useful stored energy on par with nuclear fission, or perhaps even nuclear fusion wherein the energy release does not perturb the isotopic species of the isomer to the extent that the nucleous decomposes or decays into other elemental or isotopic species? If so, such isomers might be useful for moderately relativistic manned missions to the nearby stars for long term use into the future wherein the nuclear isomer fuel could be reused over and over again as it is recharged with energy, repeatedly, without elemental or isotopic transmutation. As a result, the supply of such an isomer would not need to be manufactured, mined, or otherwise obtained for a ship once the ship has been fueled. The nuclear isomer could be used to power a ion, electron, or photon rocket, or an MPHDD, EPHDD, an EMPHDD etc.. Additionally, a bulk supply of such an isomer might not entail destructive energy release within the configured mass of the isomer, just as nuclear energy can be nondestructively obtained from the fuel rods that contain the fuel for typical nuclear fission reactors except that some of the atomic constituents of the fuel rods undergo nuclear transmutation as the fuel is used in addition to natural decay of the fissionable species contained within the fuel rods. Obviously, this is true because the maximum operating temperatures within a nuclear fission reactor are on the order of 1,000 Kelvins due to gradual energy release within the reactor core. Many metals including steel remain solid at temperatures significantly above this, for example about 1500 Kelvins or about 2500 degrees F for steel which is close to its melting point.
Perhaps some undiscovered isotopes of known elements and/or some elements and/or isotopes from the yet to be created elements from the conjectured island of stabiltiy could have sufficiently high and stable energized isomeric states for the above purpose.
George, regarding accellerating spacecraft headlong torwards stars, I could see using blackholes, perhaps even stellar massed blackholes for gravity assists if they happen to be numerous throughout the Milky Way Galaxy. Perhaps accellerating towards a stellar massed blackhole but not travelling so close to its event horizon so as to be torn apart by the tidal forces it would impose on a spacecraft could provide a mildly relativistic increase in the kinetic energy of the ship for each blackhole encountered along the ships itenerary. Neutron stars and white dwarfs might serve a simmilar function because of the very intense gravitational fields within their immeadiate vacinity. Very massive main sequence stars during the normal part of their life cycles may be of use here. One can imagine a spacecraft having a planned itenerary that takes it past one such dense or massive stellar body after another gradually building up velocity through gravity assists from each such encounter.
For stellar massed black holes, neutron stars, and white dwarfs, perhaps a craft can more closely approach such objects without the crafts internal structures and occupants from being torn apart simply by constructing the craft out of very strong materials and using some mechanism to cancel out the tidal forces exerted on the ships crew members. Perhaps some how using nanotechnology to temporarilly differentially charge the bodies of crew members and then selectively exposing them to electric fields could do the job.
Anyhow, my brain is tired so I will quite for the night.
Very Respectfully;
Jim
thank you as always for the ideas jim i appreciate hearing them and yeah black holes etc as you suggest,might be a very good fit for that “gravity drive” idea of mine i mentioned a little while back. hope we can talk again soon. all the best to you your friend george
Hi George;
I enjoy hearing your ideas as well.
Using your idea of locking onto the gravity of blackholes, can you imagine how relativistic a spacecraft could become if it locked onto a natural or artificially created blackhole of 10 EXP 15 solar masses! The craft would have thousands of years earth reference time frame to accellerate under 100s of billions of G’s. The event horizon of such a blackhole would have a radius of approximately (1.5)10 EXP 15 Km or about 150 lightyears. If one could somehow accellerate as such torward a blackhole that massive and then at a critical moment shield the craft from gravity so that the craft shoots right on past the blackhole, one can imagine the incredibly relativistic velocities and time dilation factor that such a craft would attain.
Better yet would be to accellerate towards such a blackhole and then some how activate a high intensity antigravity field that is actually repulsive in sign relative to the blackhole such that the craft would be accellerated upon passing the blackhole with accelleration values of billions if not trillions of G’s.
Still better yet would be to activate a regular gravity field of greatly enhanced intensity within the craft relative to the blackhole as the craft approached the blackhole and then somehow reverse the sign of the gravity field to one of great antigravity intensity thus causing the craft to be repulsed with billions if not trillions of G’s. Enhancing the inbound gravity field and outbound antigravity field to even greater intensity would seem to allow for even much higher velocities and time dilation factors for the spacecraft. George, this is a good application of your gravity drive concept. Keep the good ideas comming!
Hopefully, the production of such gravity fields will turn out to be possible one day, although many physicists would say that the production of antigravity fields is not possible because such would violate the principle of the conservation of energy. However, the formation of our universe from the intitial Big Bang may be the ultimate free lunch.
Note that supermassive blackholes on the order of the above example given (or perhaps even larger if possible) would be more likely to permit high intensity gravity field emmitting craft from being torn apart from tidal forces induced by the differential pull of the blackhole with respect to different locations within the craft than would smaller less massive blackholes.
Thanks again.
Your Friend Jim
thank you jim a great way to accelerate and a really nice use of my idea! i know the idea is that we can NOT accelerate faster than light,however somebody humor me… what if we could? not by means of wormhole or warp field but in normal space.would we enter a parallel demension? move back ward in time? since this idea is forbidden in our normal universe,then might we not travel back to the moment of the big bang? or further back than that.neat trick since we are told that time and space both began with and expanded with,came into being with,the big bang. as i once alluded to – a whole new physics textbook!! comments anyone? respectfuly to all your friend george ps lol jim,you should really like this topic,you enjoy thinking big,so…what could have been before the beginning existed before the “existance” was here and where would that be!or if we flew ftl in normal space thereby “breaking the law” then what kinds of “spooky” things might we expect! again i thank everybody and await your ideas. respectfully, george
Hi George;
Thanks for you continued comments and encourgement.
Last night I had just finished reading the book “Gravity’s Arc:…”. Torward the end of the book, the author suggested that wormholes might be extracted from the socalled spacetime foam that theoretically exists according to certain theories of the spacetime structure on the scale of 10 EXP -35 meters and 10 EXP-43 seconds. The wormole would somehow be blown up or opened by some means. One method for holding open a wormhole with a mouth diameter of one meter would take the equivalent magnitude of negative energy of 10 billion stars shinning for a year located in a band 10 EXP -18 centimeters in thickness lining the inside of the wormhole mouth. This is roughly the magnitude of the energy equivalence of an entire red dwarf star with a mass of 10 EXP 26 metric tons or about 10,000 times the mass of the Earth. The thickness of the energy band would be proportional to the cube root of the radius of the wormhole and the negative energy requirement would be proportional to the size of the wormhole mouth. For a one light year diameter wormhole, the energy band would therefor need to be thinner than the diameter of a proton in an atom and would need to incorporate the magnitude of energy equivalent to 10 EXP 16 red dwarf star masses or about 10 EXP 15 times the mass energy equivalent of the Sun. However, given millions if not billions of years of human technological evolution, we might be able to do such and much much more.
The book related how wormholes could potentially be gateways to alternate universes or to distant regions within our universe and/or distant points in time located far into the past or perhaps far into the future also within our universe.
Another, more bazaar concept near the end of the book was that of chaotic inflation wherein baby universes are supposedly forming constantly in just about every microscopic region within our universe, and upon their birth in their own big bangs, they essentially immeadiately cut themselves off from our universe and expand into their own growing spacetime wherein each universe has simillar laws to ours to varying degrees and some universes have very different laws of nature, constants of nature, dimensionally, and degree of spacetime curvature. Andrei Linde is the main proponent of this theory and accordingly, our universe may be one such universe that branched off from a parent universe, which may have originated from its parent universe, perhaps for an infinite regress. Linde refers to each lineage of ever branching parent, parallel, and child universes as a fractal-verse.
I would imagine, as I am sure others have done before me, that there might be inumerable fractal universe trees with each tree having an ultimate origin entirely seperate from the others, not only in space-time, but casually seperated from the other fractal universe trees by all other ontological and accidental aspects of existence and being.
The book makes the popular point among proponents of theories like these that perhaps we as a civilization in the very far distant future can determine how to, and develope the technology to, enter these parent, child, and/or paralell universes. The book goes as far as to say that according to some models of inflation, the amount of starting material to create a universe is very small wherein the positive energy of the matter and energy content of the universe is balanced by the gravitational energy content of the universe wherein these two forms of energy almost completely cancell each other out when they are added together. Thus, the author states that according to some theorists, it may be possible to create universes within a laboratory by compressing some form of matter into an energy state known as a false vaccuum, thereby triggering the explosive birth of a baby universe that essentially instantaneously cuts itself off from our universe so that our universe is not destroyed in the formation of the baby universe. He suggests that somehow, in the far distant future, we might develope technology that allows us to produce universes at will to specification and then travel into them, explore them, colonize them, or communicate and visit any intellegent races that might evolve within these universes.
Perhaps somehow the energy, spacetime, and other agents created in laboratory universe can be made to partially if not fully leak out into our universe for purposes of providing power to spacecraft which might have either reactionary and/or non reactionary propulsion systems. Perhaps such a spacecraft could have so much energy as such converted into its kinetic energy of motion through space that potential breakdowns in special relativity suggested by the theory of Doubly Special Relativity might allow the spacecraft to approach infinite inertial velocities of travel through our universe without the need for warp drive and/or wormholes. Perhaps such a system could be used to travel back in time to the very instant of the birth of our universe. If we could go back further in time, it would be very interesting to know what we would find.
Another interesting concept mentioned within the book was the possibility that tiny ultramicroscopic blackholes might be producable by the Large Hadron Collider or LHC when it comes on line next summer. It is strongly believed that any blackholes created by the particle accellerator would be so tiny that they would virtually instantly radiate away by the process of Hawking Radiation Emmission and so they would pose no danger of swallowing up the Earth. They would last about 10 EXP -25 seconds which is a ten trillionth of a trillionth of a second before decaying into a tiny burst of thermal radiation.
The point of trying to produce and detect blackholes by their subsequent decay may shed a lot of light on the nature of gravity which is still a very mysterious force or phenomenon even though we have learned a great deal about it. It is believed that learning more about gravity may allow us to detect indirectly, study, and more clearly characterize higher dimensional space such as the 10 or 11 dimensional spacetime that suppedly exists according to string theory, and its over arching theory called metatheory.
If we learn more about these supposed extra dimensions, then perhaps we may one day use wormholes to cut through them or use some other higher dimensional transport mechanism to take short cuts through these additional dimensions to distant locations in spacetime within our universe or perhaps to other universes.
George, if you find the time, I recommend you obtain a copy of “Gravity’s Arc: The Story of Gravity from Aristotle to Einstein and Beyond”” by David Darling. The first half of the book is mainly the history of gravity science, which is of interest in itself. However, the second half is great, and gets better and better torwards the end of the book. I bought my copy through a mail order book club.
Anyhow, that’s the rap for now.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
hi jim, by golly if i may use a technical term that last posting of your should be required reading for all of us here on line! so…the lhc may produce its own black holes !! thank goodness that they will be so small and quickly pass out of existance due to hawking radiation. i can hardly wait for it to come on line… i am sure we will learn fantastic amounts about the universe maybe even getting evidence for the multi verse etc. , you know…all of those concepts we all hold so near and dear! best of all the physics we learn may be the very element that triggers a breakthrough for star flight ! you know what i always say,a person of high intelligence hears an idea…mine yours anyones,he then says,wait a minute,if this then maybe that,and…we are off to the races with a concept that will grow and give us some really really advanced science that will lead us to the stars,by means of…well by means of – you name it,anything might be!!! read a comment by dr marc millis very recently where he more or less told all of us to trust he and his collegues and to have patience,they ARE WORKING on such ideas!! i posted that i do trust them 100% and that patience is something i am learning! point is,this is the sort of thing that as i said above may lead us “off to the races” as i put it.there is every chance this in fact may be our best chance.really is that not the point of all the concepts we bandy back and forth here,so that some thing will come of it? guess for the moment that is all i have to say.thank you one and all and (lol),one more time,if you are one of the persons who reads here but does not post – once again i invite you to jump in !! very respectfully to all,your friend george
Hi George;
Thanks again for the encouragement.
During an introduction survey type of astronomy course that I took many years ago, I recall that the professor of that course made some comments to the effect that it might be the case that there could be other realms originating from analogues to big bangs (such as those that are conjectured to result in accordance to the theory of chaotic inflation that I mentioned above) wherein the laws of math and/or logic might actually be different in these realms then they are in ours and, furthermore that there might be enumerable sets of such differing math and/or logic laws each one differing from all the rest. The professor even went as far as to say that perhaps in some of these realms, if they are real, the sum of 1+1 might not equal 2.
The above odd concept regarding summation sounded completely preposterous to me when I first heard this comment and it made me feel a little insecure regarding my cherished notions about the stability and immutability of certain eternal truths, but then my mind starting rambling on and it occurred to me that if this is so, might we take the idea a little bit further and propose that there might be real ontological classes of entities such as a class of objects, beings or a being, that actually transcends pure existence, a sort of hyper existence or super existence if you will, that would include and/or go beyond pure existence.
Shortly afterward, it occurred to me that perhaps there is a whole ontological category that is completely different from existence, and thus not identical to existence but yet which is not nothing or not nonexistence in the nothing sense of negation. Following this concept I began to wonder if there is an ontological category of the same class as being, but entirely or atleast partially distinct from being. I then wondered about other ontological analogues, such as those related to the ontological class of reality. It further occurred to me that there might not only be ennumerable such ontological categories for each of the three respective classes mentioned above, but also ennumerable distinct and different classes as such.
I then started to reign my thinking in for theological reasons because I started thinking that if God is pure being, how can there be anything such as hyper being, let alone other ontological classes such as hyper existence, hyper reality. Then it occurred to me that perhaps God is pure being and much much more and perhaps God is self trancendent yet still completely Himself. As a Catholic, I remember reading a Church document that I believed was titled the “Credo…” (I do not recall the exact title) wherein the Triune Godhead existing in the Three Divine Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, was said to be Thrice Holy, and it occurred to me that maybe this is an example of self trancendence because of the use of the phrase Thrice Holy. I began to think that if God is self existent like theologians claim He is, as well as all powerful, then why could he not take any form he desired and why could he not express himself in any mode of being that he desired. To paraphrase the Bible “that God is unimagionably far above every name that can be spoken or imagined”, we can humbly delight that what ever or how ever we choose to describe God or define God, God is unimaginably exulted and far above that name, concept, etc.
Now, I am still unsure of the ramifications of the above concepts, however, I began to feel a kind of euphoria about the endless possibilities of not only ever learning more about God in the next life through an eternal process of constant discovery and fellow ship with God, but also the possibility of being dazzled by what I might learn of God’s creation especially if other universes or realms exist with; not only different laws of physics, constants of nature, dimensionality, degree or type of spacetime curvature and the like, but perhaps also with different laws of mathematics, logic, and perhaps even simple arithmetic. I then realized how much I don’t know but now I had renewed hope of spending an eternity that would be one of eternal discovery with ever new notions, concepts, and other novelties to be discovered and with ever more to delight my sense of wonder and curiosity. I now realize that I and every other human being in this life can hope to make the first steps in this process of discovery. For me, my chosen first steps are now to ponder and study how we as humans can advance our manned spaceflight capabilites, and space transportation systems so that we can explore this wonderful universe we live in that just might be one of an infinite number of universes and one of enumerable types of universes.
With so much to learn, even regarding the actual engineering analysis and design of relatively near term working spacecraft (perhaps even spacecraft that require no new physics to start with) that might take us to the nearest stars, I am like a little kid in a candy shop. In hopes and dreams for such and more, I emplore all Catholics, Christians, Jewish people, Muslims, Hindus, Buddists, atheists, agnostics, etc., in short for everyone to look forward to a future civilization of brotherly and sisterly love and beat the horribly destructive scientific weapony that we have managed to create in to plowshares.
To quote “StarTrek”, let us plan to boldly go where no man has gone before.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
thank you jim,good ideas! as far as other realms where 1 and 1 do not =2!!!! yes in all the realms of infinity that we hypothisize about today – yes WHY NOT! other universes parallell universes and dimensions,13.7 billion light years to the edge of just our part of the universe – what is not possible and who would dare say so!??also… i am frequently reminded of the aliens from 2001 a space oddyssey by arthur c clarke…they had become pure energy stored in space! another truly BIG idea! the kind of thing dr clarke does so well. and yes yes yes in spite of anybodies beliefs we MUST learn to live together in understanding peace and learning!! otherwise aliens are likely to find only a radioactive cinder if they visit!! one last thing for now,as i see it science is good or better put the science is good,what we NEED now is the ENGINEERING to make it all work! my opinion. thank you your friend george
well,things seem to be slowing down here but after 114 postings,should i be suprised?had a subject once on one of the posting boards,when i used to go there alot that ran i believe something like 135.still i hope more will be heard here under a practical positron rocket…it has been such a great run!! respectfully to one and all your friend george scaglione
Hi George;
Its good to here from you.
It occured to me that perhaps as we learn more about the phenomena studied within the field of quantumchomodynamics, the nuclear force analogue of quantumelectrodynamics or QED, perhaps there is some potentially interesting types of exotic, perhaps very exotic, materials than can be developed as a result of both experimental and theoretical research.
Note that protons and neutrons are composed of 2 up quarks and 1 down quark, and 2 down and 1 up quark respectively. Perhaps if other stable composite particle combinations of quarks could be developed, then perhaps materials with unknown properties could be developed that could be utilized some how as an energy source and/or structural construction materials for the fabrication of interstellar spacecraft.
In publicly available literature, there is mention of particles called pentaquarks, which are theoretically short lived composite particles composed of five quarks. In particular it has been reported in 2003 that a pentaquark was observed which was composed of 2 up quarks, 2 down quarks, and 1 antistrange quark. However, the pentaquark lived for only 10 EXP -20 seconds before decaying into observed particles.
If certain combinations of up, down, strange, charmed, top, bottom quarks and/or their antimatter counterparts could be fabricated into particles with which to create macroscopic quantities of exotic materials, one can dream of the potential applications for manned interstellar spaceflight. Perhaps the construction of any such bulk materials might result in applications as bazaar as the use of negative energy to line the mouths of macroscopic wormholes to prevent them from collapsing.
Anyhow, I will have more on this later this evening as I am about to have lunch.
Thanks;
Jim
Hi George;
In continuation of the comments I made in my earlier blog, I thought that I would describe some well known concepts in electromagnetic theory, but that once seemed counterintuitive when they were first conjectured about and/or discovered in an attempt to convey the idea that eventhough a lot has been learned about the phenomena under the unbrella of quantumchromodynamics, perhaps there is much room for further improvement in the theory from both the fundamentals standpoint as well as the computational standpoint, perhaps even before other more exotic theories supercede QCD such as the potential future experimental varification of one or more Grand Unified Field Theories (GUT), one or more Supersymmetric String Theories, Metatheory, one or more P-brane theories etc.
The following 7 items are examples of counter intuitive innovations, inventions, and discoveries within the field of electromagnetic theory even after Maxwell’s Theory of Electromagnetism had been developed and after Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory equations were well understood. Thus they point to lessons for us to learn regarding potential improvements to and applications of QCD which in itself is not as well understood as electromagnetic theory.
1) The property of superconductivity was once viewed as odd when it was discovered that certain compounds and elements when cooled to near absolute zero, conduct electricity without resistance although all known superconducting materials have temperature, current density, and transmission power limits beyond which they revert back to non-superconducting materials.
2) The property that magnetic fields cannot effectively penetrate superconducting materials, (atleast magnetic fields with the strength limitations that are imposed on us by our current laboratory equipment) whereby a piece of known superconducting material cooled to superconducting mode will float stationary above a suitably strong magnetic field and will even spin while suspended by the magnetic field if the superconductor is tweeked by hand.
3) The properties of socalled metamaterials which are still the object of laboratory research (See the website of Duke University of Chapel Hill NC) whereby the effect of electromagnetic radiation impinging on these materials would in theory be to apply pressure on these materials in the direction from which the light impinges.
4) The development of laboratory materials that slow the speed of photons traveling through them to many orders of magnitude less then the speed of light without destroying the electromagnetic identity properties of the photons in the process.
5) The development of Stealth materials that open literature states are radar absorbing materials used to cover stealth fighter planes such as the F 117, the B2 bomber, and the Advanced Tactical Fighter, etc.
6) The discovery aided by theory that quarks have electric charges having magnitudes in 1/3 multiples of that of the electron or proton, namely plus or minus 1/3 e, and plus or minus 2/3 e where e is the magnitude of the electric charge of the electron or the proton (e.g., for the anti down quark and the down quark, and the up quark and the anti up quark respectively).
7) The discovery of the lasing process which led to the development of the currently ubiquitous laser seen everywhere from computer read write mechanisms, laser copiers, CD and DVD players, to supermarket checkout bar code readers etc.
Anyhow one gets the point, the above list could go on and on to the point of completely boring the reader.
The point I am trying to make is the one I elaborated on in my previous blog, that further understanding of QCD may enable us to develope energy sources, very exotic materials, etc. with counter intuitive properties that might facilitate manned inter stellar space travel and/or spacecraft and/or other interstellar transport infrastructure.
Note that in the near term, there are ongoing attempts to discover stable elements and/or their isotopes within the socalled island of super heavy element stability. Nuclear chemists predict that there should exists elements with atomic numbers significantly above any of the known elements whereby such superheavy’s are atleast relatively stable. If and when they are discovered, it will be interesting to see what, if any, exotic nuclear and/or chemical properties they have.
Anyhow, that’s all for now.
PS, any readers of this website feel free to comment. No idea is to trivial to discuss. All insight is useful for advancing the state of the art of manned interstellar travel. Remember that people once thought that the idea of sending a man to the moon was wacky. And what are we about to doagain in a dozen years from now? send man (and woman) back to the moon through the Crew Exploration Vehicle or CEV.
Thanks;
Jim
Hi Folks;
I could not stay away from Centauri Dreams this morning before adding some additional comments.
I remember reading in a class textbook for a philosophy of natural science course I took about 8 years ago wherein one of the philosphers featured in the class text as a case study had mentioned the concept of a weak force neutral current and that such a current might yield practical technologies in an analogous way that an electric current through an electrically conductive conduit does.
According to the electroweak theory, i.e., the theory that unifies the electromagnetic force and the weak nuclear force, there are three weak force bosons: the W, Z, and Z naught bosons as the weak force mediators. The photon is the fourth bosonic mediator of the electromagnetic aspect electroweak interaction. The Z naught boson mediates the weak neutral current. The effect of the Z naught boson on the amplitude of electromagnetic field processes is very small at ordinary everyday particle interaction energies. The correction to the amplitude of electromagnetic processes is tiny with the value of (E/Mz) EXP 2 associated with the virtual Z boson. However, at individual particle interaction energies on the order of 91 GeV or higher, the effects of the weak force in the electroweak interaction become more significant.
The weak force is responsible for the beta decay of unstable atomic nuclei. It is also the only known interaction capable of changing the flavor of quarks. Also, the weak interaction is the only known interaction that violates P, and CP symmetry. Thus it may have some undiscovered unique technological applications.
Even given that the effective range of the weakforce carrying particles is about 10 EXP -18 meters, I wonder if there might still be some aggregated net effects of a macroscopic scale level of weak force Z naught boson currents that might yield some exotic yet to be discovered applications. Perhaps in the future, manufactured macroscopic scale continuous materials with neutron-like density such as macroscopic quantities of neutronium, quarkonium etc, might be used as conduits for weak neutral currents in such a manner that the material does not decay or be otherwise destoyed in the process of conducting the weak neutral current. Since the weak neutral current is a correction to the amplitude of electromagnetic processes, perhaps some sort of additional field can be generated in an analogous way that an electric field induced electrical current also produces a magnetic field. Just as there is a symmetry in Maxwell’s equations of electromagnetism between electric fields and magnetic fields, perhaps the production of a macroscopic current within continuous macroscopic samples of neutron dense material, wherein the current is the result of the effects of the aggregated weak force bosons, could result in the production of an analogous symmetry effect to that seen in electromagnetism.
It is open to speculation what sort of applications any such technologies would enable. I don’t think Coulomb, let alone Maxwell at the time he developed his equations, would have fully invisioned the applications that would have resulted form their initial theoretical results. A simple comprehensive dictionarial list of definitions of electromagnetic devices, let alone the number and variety of such devices including brand names of such devices, could probably fill many volumes. Who knows what products that any possible analogous weak force technologies could yield. If such are possible, I have no doubt that they will find their way into manned interstellar spacecraft in one form or another at some point in the future.
Anyhow, my brain is worn out so I will stop here.
Thanks;
Jim
thank you jim,very good stuff. and as to exotic materials…yes that is another area where we probably need alot more thought! no doubt it will be applicable in some very exciting ways to interstellar flight too! as you so correctly point out…did not people think that simply flying to the moon was nutty!! also is not exotic material needed to help hold open traversable worm holes…or at least something in the same ballpark! more postings by more people could only be a help.if somebody found there way to a discussion like this one on a site like this one – it is pretty much a sure thing that they are pretty smart and i for one would like to hear what they have to say. best to one and all i’ll see you later. your friend george
Hi George;
Thanks for the valuable critique. You are absolutely right about the high degree of intellegence of anyone who is able to find their way to a discussion like this. One would also be very well grounded to say that even holding an interest in these topics to the extent that they would want to visit websites like this is in itself a good sign of a high degree of intellegence.
Regarding a somewhat humerous account from someone I use to know regarding manned spacetravel and the possibility of finding extraterrestrial civilizations, I on more than one occasion heard this person say, “There is no life out there. We have been to the moon and found nothing. Therefore there is no life out there”. This comment sounded so dumb that I had to seriously surpress my desire to laugh. However, this gentleman is I nice guy so I was not about to argue with him.
George, I am not sure if you heard of or read about NASA’s supposed plans for a manned expedition to an near Earth orbit crossing asteroid to study the composition of the asteriod for mining feasibility and as practice for manned missions to Mars and beyond. Also, I forget whether or not I have brought this up in one of my previous blogs, but it sounds so interesting that I mention it here if I have not already.
Anyhow, its good to hear from you;
Your Friend Jim
yes jim i think i have heard about crewed missions to asteroids,they are probably a good idea.they just come under the category of one more thing we have to get used to trying! mining asteroids may turn out to be a really productive thing in the long run ! so…this guy you know says no life on the moon = no life!! well errr aaah,as you say if he is a cool guy and a friend,then no biggie either as you imply!! just hope at this juncture that we will be able to bring the shuttle program to a logical conclusion and then smoothly if i may use that term…head back to the moon! heard we then plan the beginning of a lunar base by 2024 and maybe mars by 2030. well,it is a srart! thanks your friend george
About 1+1
Hi Hiro;
About 1 + 1 not equaling 2 in certain realms, the idea seemed really strange to me when I first heard of the concept. However, given that microscopic quantum mechanical phenomena can involve an admixture of fundamental states during certain time dependant evolutions and superpositions of the wavefucntions that characterize these states, one might be tempted to take this concept further, in an analogous but differing manner, wherein in some bazaar realm, the mathematical objects of socalled truths might exist as an admixture of fundamental truths that ordinarilly would be mutually exclusive.
What sort of realm this would be and whether or not we could ever interact with it, I have no clear idea. I will have more on this subject later this evening or tomorrow morning.
Hi George;
It would be interesting for mankind to start prospecting the Asteroids. I can imagine the value for spacebased infrastructure and infrastructure on other planetary bodies being boosted by asteroidal mining activities. There might be huge mineral deposits within the asteriods, perhaps lots of rare and precious metals if not certain known but exotic isotopes of such.
I will be back here later on.
Your Friend;
Jim
thank you jim and thank you hiro for joining in. i will be back later too with something i have been planning to say but had no time for thus far.for example,right now i must soon head out on an errand that has nothing to do with space lol,yes as weird as that seems! respectfully all your friend george
I think it’s some kind like this:
1 = sqrt(1) = Sqrt(1^2) = sqrt([-1]*[-1]) = sqrt(-1)*sqrt(-1) = i*i = i^2 = -1.
It has some flaws, though.
hello all,here is something i posted on one of the boards a couple of years ago that went on for over 100 postings pretty much as this subject has done.figured i’d try it out here to see what might happen.has to do with travel by worm hole as in carl sagans book contact…i will ad something as i go along as i see the need.suject is how travel like that might be developed.and yes i know alot of this assumes alot even,technology that we do not yet posses.but as i say some ideas : i thought that step one could be the study of black holes and the deviseing of a craft that could pass through one (here i am falling back on the sf idea of a black hole being a bridge of sorts in itself between two places),this ideas first attempt would have the drawback of ‘landing” you anyplace you happened to be taken.(maybe not so good for the occupant of the craft – but maybe this would be a good slot for a.i. – the machine would not worry or care,hopefully it could in some way signal us too).as eveyone must see by now i am talking about technology that is potentially centuries or maybe a thousand years advanced of ours. “sub space” radio ala star trek would be handy and comes to mind.in part two of the plan we have learned enough to construct our own worm hole or einstein – rosen bridge.unfortunately probably still taking us wherever it wants to go( we really need that advanced communications technology,but don’t forget i am just blue skying about some potential advanced ideas that i find facinating).but by step three as i project it we would have finally learned to build ourselves a worm hole ,bridge that could take us where WE want…my original example was the orion nebula so as to be able to study the birth of stars etc. again,finally by step four we would have learned enough to create a virtual transit system to take us anywhere we wanted to go in our galaxy (universe?).so there it is…pretty blue blue skying…but if i don’t share it here,then where? ideas? comments? insults? be glad to hear from everyone and or anyone. very respectfully. your friend george
hiro, about your comment above which is mainly math. i had a good look at it in the most logical way i could muster and enjoyed it.when it comes to math you obviously know more than i but still i took it to be a way of explaining the way that beings in the parrellel universe which jim suggests might think! glad for any comment you might see fit to pass along either on this or the “transit system” of my own deviseing above. thank you your friend george
Hi George and Hiro;
Thanks for the feedback. George, thanks for the comments regarding wormholes. It is always good to here your ideas and share your perspective on such topics. Hiro, its good to here your perspective and comments also. They are both of great benefit to all the readers of this website.
A few more ideas occurred to me regarding manned interstellar travel.
The first idea is to use a system of charged particle beams to concentrate a very large amount of electric charge in a small volume wherein the electric charge would be used to propel a manned spacecraft to relativistic velocities very rapidly. As an extreme example, one can imagine a system of beams with the combined power output of the fictional Death Star in the movie Star Wars, wherein an entire planet was obliterated with an apparent explosive velocity for the planetary debris of about 30,000 kilometer/second which is the equivalent kinetic energy of an Earth sized batch of nuclear fusionable material undergoing explosive nuclear fusion. The energy released would be roughly equal to the mass of the moon converted into energy or about 10 EXP 19.5 metric tons of matter converted into energy. If a 1000 metric ton spacecraft where able to harness 1/3 of this energy for propulsion, then the spacecraft would reach a time dilation factor of 10 EXP 16.5 which would allow the craft to travel 10 EXP 18 light-years during an average span of one human generation ship time or about 30 years. This is roughly 100 million times the radius of the observable universe..
Another idea involves some undiscovered and unknown way to cause a conservation electric charge violation in certain unknown nuclear or subatomic particle interactions wherein perhaps some sort of high energy neutrino beam could be directed toward a neutron star wherein a net one billionth of its mass would be converted into charge particles, say electrons. The amount of force that would be exerted on the outwardly exploding star could be approximated by the following simple thought problem.
Take two lumps of electrons, each lump having a mass of 10 EXP 21 kilograms or about a billionth of the mass of a neutron star. Then let the masses repel each other by the coulombic force according to the equation [1/(4 x Pi x epsilon naught)] x [(q1 x q2)/ (r^2)]. Doing a rough calculation yields a repulsive force in Newtons equal to about F = (10 EXP 12)x[(10EXP33)^2]/(10 EXP 8) = 10 EXP 72 Newtons. Assuming for simplicity that the force is expended over an average distance of 10 kilometers or 10,000 meters, the resulting energy of explosion would be equal to 10 EXP 76 Joules. This is equivalent of 10 EXP 56 metric tons of matter converted into energy or the energy equivalent of 10 EXP 29 stars with the mass of the sun ( a whopping approximately 10 million times the mass contained within the observable universe). If most of this energy could be transferred to the kinetic energy of a 1000 metric ton spacecraft, the spacecraft would achieve a time dilation factor of 10 EXP 53, thus allowing the spacecraft to travel 10 EXP 54.5 light years during one human generation ship time. This is a huge distance at approximately 10 EXP 44 times the diameter of the currently observable universe. For a spacecraft with the mass of our Sun, the time dilation factor would work out to be about 10 EXP 29 which would allow the craft to travel 10 EXP 31.5 light-years in 30 years ship time. For a craft with the mass of the Milky Way Galaxy, the time dilation factor would be approximately 10 EXP 18 thus allowing the craft to travel 10 EXP 19.5 light-years in 30 years ship time. For a ship with the mass of the Milky Way, this distance works out to be roughly a billion times the diameter of the currently observable universe.
However, a problem might arise in the process of producing such a large explosion in so confined a space, namely the formation of a black hole. Perhaps the electric charge falling into the black hole would still produce an electric field that would extend out form the black hole since black holes are defined by their mass, spin, and in cases where net charged matter has fallen into them, electric fields. Perhaps since the electromagnetic force is about 10 EXP 41 times stronger than the gravitational force on a charged subatomic particle to charge particle interaction bases, the electric field generated by the explosion would overpower the gravitational field produced by the huge energy burst creation. This may however, pose additional dangers. Perhaps something similar to a naked singularity might result since the cloaking effect of the gravitational field of any such formed black hole might be at least partially cancelled by the effect of the black hole’s electric field communication with the outside of the black hole. It has been suggested that the production of a macroscopic naked singularity might trash the universe including its laws of physics, structure, space-time structure, and the integrity of its constituent particles and constants of nature, perhaps resulting in complete chaos.
A space craft with such high kinetic energies would in theory become its own black hole with respect to the surrounding universe thus possibly destroying the spacecraft. However, if the black hole could be used as a space time warp, it might allow the spacecraft to travel to cosmically very remote locations in space and/or time without traveling the intervening distance such as by way of a wormhole, Einstein Rosen Bridge, or other type of space-time warp. I addition the spacecraft might be able to travel into another universe, or into higher dimension space-time perhaps into one or more of a potential plurality of dimensions of time within this higher dimensional space-time.
If neutrinos won’t work for the above charge generation process, then perhaps some sort of weakly interacting massive particle or other exotic cold dark matter candidate could work. Also, a way of avoiding the complete destruction of the spacecraft by the energy of explosion and the incredible forces of acceleration would need to be developed. Perhaps billions if not trillions of years of future research and development would allow the problem to not be so daunting.
Any such explosion could be disastrous for all life within our observable universe and far beyond. So it would be best if the isolation of the environmental effects of such an explosion in terms of the cloaking the energy of the explosion should somehow prevent the energy from leaking out away from the spacecraft.
Note that the apparent abundance of matter over antimatter in our universe is thought to be the result of an asymmetry in certain interactions that favor the production of certain matter particles over their antimatter counterparts in violation of the Fermi-Dirac matter-antimatter pair production and annihilation process wherein this asymmetry developed in the very early instances immediately following the initial start of the big bang.. For some particle species, such asymmetry has been observed in the statistical analysis of major laboratory experiments.
Perhaps some sort of similar effect involving the violation of the law of conservation of electric charge on a macroscopic aggregate of subatomic particles could be artificially facilitated. One potential way of getting around the free lunch aspect of any would be creation of energy and/or electric charge might be to interpret such energy as being drawn from the zero point vacuum energy fields, and or a supply of real energy, electric charge, or mass from unseen hidden spatial or spatial-temporal dimensions.
Anyhow, my brain is fried for now.
I be back tomorrow or the following day.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
Im back already, I am sorry about the smiley face that showed up in my last posting. The value I meant to express in its place is 10 EXP 8 in the denominator of the rough calculation.
Thanks;
Jim
interesting stuff jim thank you always interesting to read your ideas about star travel problem is our current technology is not up to our ideas!!you know i have a group of people i e mail with on a pretty regular basis.i have encouraged them to come over here and have a look.we will see if they will or not.when the posting boards changed and i no longer liked them i selected the best of the people i had been talking to and began my own discussion group via e mail which i dubbed “spacegroup” one more idea before i sign off for now…as i probably already mentioned at some point i own the entire cosmos series on dvd,in it carl sagan says of leonardo da vinci (allow me to paraphrase),his ideas where good but he was TRAPPED in the wrong century!!! why oh why should that come to mind at this juncture!? lol your friend george
Hi George;
Its good to here from you again.
Regarding mankinds efforts for manned spaceflight. There is an interesting short article (more of a picture caption) in the latest issue of Popular Mechanics magazine wherein yet another company in the U.S. is developing a rocket powered suborbital spacecraft capable of carrying 3 or more persons in suborbital flight. This company tested a prototype or at least some version of this spacecraft to a hieght of about 300 feet, that then hovered, and then landed in a soft controlled descent. It seems now that the news is out about the potential economic benefits for space tourism, more companies are jumping onto the bandwagon. An added benefit to all of this private enterprise research and development is that some of this technologies could have valuable application for the military and thus our national defense.
Such could be very important as a deterent to potential aggresors given the currently somewhat unstable international political climate.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
jim it is good to see more and more commercials getting into the idea of manned space flight.certainly this will have applications as regards our interests too.heck buddy this is the usa and the promise of dollar signs WILL push most anything very nicely indeed thank you.in this case it just so happens to be very much to our benefit. good news your friend george
Hi George;
Thanks for the comments.
I’d like to mention the promise of paraffin being used as a rocket fuel and the work that NASA is doing to develope paraffin based solid rocket fuels. According to one NASA website, paraffin as it has been incorporated into small scale rocket combustion tests, appearently burns rapidly in the presence of pure oxygen and according to a NASA website, it is being seriously considered for use in space shuttle rocket boosters that may optionally have the ability to fly back to the launch site so that they can be easily reused. It turns out that the only combustion products of paraffin are carbon dioxide and water. Therefor, it is much safer in terms of combustion products than currently used solid rocket fuels. Also, paraffin is much cheaper, safer to store, and safer to handle than other solid rocket fuels.
Another benefit of paraffin based solid rocket fuels is, unlike other types of solid rocket fuels, a paraffin based solid rocket can be shut down and restarted thus permitting safer managment of emergency situations involving rocket launch and flight of paraffin based rockets.
Now the primary web-based source that I used to learn more about this fuel is about 4 years old, however, according to open literature on this subject, the testing of paraffin based solid rocket concepts is well underway.
Paraffin based rockets could be critical to Earth orbit access and perhaps to other nearterm manned missions to other planetary bodies within the solar system. Because paraffin is so cheap and safe, carrying it to spacecraft in low Earth orbit or in lunar orbit would be safe. I can imagine the liquid oxygen for oxidizing the paraffin could also be brought up from Earth or perhaps a lunar liquid oxygen production facility.
Low cost and safe access to Earth and lunar orbit could eventually be very instrumental to the assembly of large manned interstellar spacecraft, what ever form they might take. Granted that we are not ready to launch a manned interstellar mission to nearby stars yet, any development of precursor systems for cheap access to Earth and/or lunar orbit cannot come a moment to soon.
Anyhow, that’s all for now. I plan to be back at the site later today/early tomorrow.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
yes jim any advances in this subject can not come one single moment too soon 100% correct….but if we had acess to leo more cheaply safely etc then i am SURE advances in just flying around the solar system would come sooner! not to mention the earlier development of star ships! go team!!! as they say.see ya soon buddy and have a nice whats left of the week end! your friend george
Hi George;
Some additional manned interstellar travel concepts occurred to me of which the first one I will mention is a spin-off of a concept that I read about in another blog site.
1) The possibility of transporting a material state of which a human personality, or perhaps a human soul is embodied, by transferring the existential information that defines a human personality in terms of its unity with the brain , to say a beam of neutrinos or other weakly interacting particles is intriguing to me today. I mention a beam of neutrinos or other suitable weakly interacting particle beam because such a beam is least likely to be dispersed by the interstellar medium. Note that a beam of neutrinos interacts so weakly with ordinary matter that a given beam of neutrinos could pass through a light-year thick sample of lead yet remain largely unattenuated. The idea would be to imprint the material aspect or material relationship of the link between a human soul and its embodying brain onto a beam of such particles wherein the particles would be beamed to a cosmically remote location, or perhaps even to a location within our local interstellar neighborhood. One problem that would need to be overcome would be how to reassemble the information within the projected beam into a body such that the disembodied personality, if not soul, would be able to function in a normal manner without loss of personal identity.
Perhaps such distant embodying material for the personality or soul can be itself converted to neutrinos or some other weakly interacting particle and then be beamed over interstellar, intergalactic, or even cosmic distances. Another method might be to transport the matter/energy through means such as a space-time warp, wormhole, other form of Einstein Rosen Bridge, or by macroscopically induced quantum teleportation etc. wherein the matter/energy could be reassembled into an appropriate human body or other form of host.
The philosophical and/or theological implications of such would be transport methods might not be so incompatible with the transport concept as such, even given the commonly held notions of the unity of the human soul with a human body being a human person and /or the concept of the spiritual naturally immortal nature of the human soul.
Regarding the minimalist view of human spirituality that holds that the human soul cannot exist without the body, why cannot the material conditions that support the soul in existence be transferred, transported, and/or transformed by any method that any other quantum mechanical aggregated macroscopic system can.
If one holds the minimalist notion of the human soul, then surely they should be more than open minded to the notion that the matter/energy state that supports the soul in its existence should be largely defined by quantum mechanical information and that such quantum mechanical information might be beamed, teleported, or otherwise transferred just like any other similar sized quantum mechanical aggregate system might be. Note that modern neurological research points more to the union of the human brain and soul rather than the unity of overall human body and human soul. It appears that the human brain works by electromagnetic, electrochemical, and chemical processes whether or not these processes are fundamentally quantum mechanical, classically mechanically based, or both in stead of some mysterious nebulous ontological unknowable physical process that is left for only God and the deceased to fully undersrand. Any such processes in any system has defining quantum mechanical information or states. Thus, I think that the minimalists need to adjust their philosophy to be more in line with the concept that the unity of the human soul with the body is not as accurate as the concept of the unity of the soul with just the brain. The brain seems to be the chief organ associated with any and all forms of human experience in this world and such insight is being validated all the more with the improved central nervous system scanning and/or imaging techniques and advances in brain science. Note however, that I am not at all an adherent to the spiritually minimalist points of view.
If one holds the maximalist view of human spirituality, which is the view that I favor, that the human soul is fundamentally independently existent from the brain, body, and matter/energy in general , and as such is naturally immortal and naturally incorruptible, per addends and per se, but which has unity with the human brain or body in this life , I still see no reason why it might not have some sort of material interface with the brain by which it is connected to or united with the brain. If the soul is united to the brain, then it has to be united by some mechanism and the only such mechanism that I can think of would be bounded on the brain side by a material interface which could be defined by physical quantum mechanical states just like any other physical entity or system in our universe. So therefore, why cannot this physical quantum mechanical information be beamed, transformed, or otherwise transferred either by itself or in conjunction with other beamed or transported matter only to be used to reunite the soul to a distant host body of some sort. Perhaps the soul, having experience only in union with the body in this life, would not even notice the transport process. It might seem that no passage of time occurred for the human soul during transport, even over a very large cosmic distance in space, space-time, or perhaps in time via time travel into the past or future. If the separation of the soul from the body is a natural process in death because it occurs so in a special way, there might still be a way to temporarily separate the soul from the body in either a different major or a different subtle way that does not result in the process of death or the final separation of the soul from the body,. but that allows the human souls interface with a body or host to be transported over macroscopic distances by means described above.
If tachyons (or faster than light particles) exist and are ever discovered, then perhaps they can be the medium of transmission for the physical based substratum of human consciousness within the physical world. Perhaps gravity waves would be a good choice also for transmitting such aggregated quantum mechanical information.
2) The second concept of manned interstellar transport that I will comment on tonight involves the concept of quantum mechanical entanglement, potentially quantum mechanical entanglement of potentially most if not all particles in our universe from their mutual precursor origin in the very instants after the big bang. If it is true that our universe arose from either a microscopic, or small macroscopic quantity of some exotic material, for instance a material referred to in some theories as a false vacuum, then why cannot the particles resulting from or created by the evolutionary process of the universe boot strapping itself into its post inflationary state some how be entangled with each other as a result of their mutual origin in an analogous way that two photons are which are produced by the splitting of a single photon into two lower energy photons by a microscopic beam splitter type apparatus such as those that are used to study the process of quantum mechanical photon entanglement.
Is it possible that there exist parallel but differing degrees of quantum mechanical entanglement among particles wherein, say, all of the particles within our universe could some how be mutually entangled at one level but for which the entanglement might not be deducible with current technology because of the subtleness of such would be entanglement and/or as the result of the quantum and/or classical background noise in the thermodynamic sense that might have developed to obscure any such phenomenon? Perhaps there indeed exists some sort of hidden variables in quantum mechanical phenomenon that have been over looked, remain undiscoverable with current technology, or for which we have not even developed appropriate theoretical and/or mathematical techniques to frame testable hypothesis about such.
If virtually all of if not completely all of the particles in our universe are entangled as such, then perhaps, some way can be found using such universal entanglement, to manipulate a cosmically remote aggregate of matter by manipulation a local aggregate of matter wherein the quantum mechanical information state of the local aggregate of matter could be transferred to the cosmically remote aggregate of matter wherein the transported quantum mechanical information is quantum mechanical information in the sense of that which we all ready have theories to describe such as electric charge, spin, mass, momentum etc. as opposed to any of the above hidden variables type of universal entanglement being conjectured about here. If such is at some point found to be possible, then perhaps spacecraft, manned or unmanned, can be instantly beamed to any location within the universe simply by transferring the quantum mechanical information of the spacecraft from one aggregate of local matter initially composing the spacecraft to a remote aggregate of matter scanned remotely by the same hidden variables type of universal quantum entanglement from say earth for suitability as a distant hosting aggregate for the teleported quantum mechanical information defining the quantum state of the spacecraft. If such teleportation is possible, then perhaps cosmically remote objects can have “force”, “energy”, “momentum” , “motion” etc imparted to them from afar. Any such technology would also be useful for outstanding surveillance techniques and remote detection and observation, even across even cosmic distances. The only drawback to all of the concepts conjectured in this section 2) is that they violate just about every cherished and theoretical frame work in which most of even current theoretical physics is based. The sending and reception of a signal at infinite speed violate the relativistic principle that no signal can be transmitted faster than light. The idea on undetected hidden variables that might one day be used to do some of the operations described above violates many currently established concepts in quantum theory.
Anyhow, I have had little to eat today, and so I am about to go to a local restaurant, if I can find one open at this late hour and have dinner.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
thanks jim,hope you found one open.but i’ll tell you i am pretty sure that arthur c clarke once wrote of aliens very advanced ones that where pure mind somehow “stored” in the geometry of space time.your comments reminded me of that concept…good going! thank you very much my friend.more and more this place (tau zero) is fast becomming THE ideas spot! good sf is usually a rich fund of ideas to imagine and talk about,right now i have the book “beyond infinity” on its way i hope it will contain plenty that i will be able to use right here.sounded very promising anyhow.got a whole list of sf authors from a book i recently re read by our administrator.put them together with google and came up with something i thought i’d like to read! anyhow than you one and all and i hope you will post your ideas soon too. respectfully to all george
Hi George;
Thanks for the comments and the critique. Arthur C. Clarke’s books sound, in general, really inspiring. Although I have not read many of his books, I think I should refamiliarize myself with his works. The concept you mentioned of very advanced aliens somehow storing pure mind in the geometry of spacetime sounds very interesting. The book “Beyond Infinity” sounds very interesting also, just from the title. I will have somemore ideas to post later this evening or early tomorrow morning.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
Hi George and all other Folks who read this website.
I thought that I would summarize breifly some of the various scenarios contemplated for low cost access to Earth Orbit for those who are unfamiliar with some of the concepts being considered for such by various space agencies, militaries, and the private commercial sectors. For those of us who are intrigued with the possibility of manned interstellar flight, it is probably very important for mankind to obtain low cost access to Earth orbit in order to assemble the large starships that will take us tto the nearest stars at first.
1) One potential low cost method of getting into orbit is the socalled rocket assisted scramjet (short for supersonic combustion ramjet) wherein such a craft would travel to the upper boundary of the Earths atmosphere to reach hypersonic speeds (perhaps as high at mach 17) wherein the crafts rocket propulsion system would take over. The reason for using the jet engine for much of the altitude gain is that jets engines obtain their oxidizer in the form of oxygen from the atmosphere instead of carrying all components of the fuel as is typical of rocket engines. Once the scramjet is effectively out of the atmosphere, it then relies on a modest but significant rocket boost phase to enter Earth orbit. Some current research on the fuel for the jet engine involves the use of kerosine which when combusted with atmospheric oxygen yields a maximim effective specific impulse or Isp = 3,000 instead of the rough limit of Isp = 500 for current chemical rocket fuels, the reason being that it is more effecient to burn fuel with atmospheric oxygen than to carry all components of chemical fuel onboard as is done by rockets.
2) Another concept, which I am sure just about all of you have heard about, is single stage to orbit in the form of a rocket such that the rocket craft would fuel up, take off, fly into orbit, then upon completing its mission, reenter the Earth’s atmosphere, and land on land. The concept envisions a reusable rocket that is basically as easy to fuel, takeoff, and land repeatedly in rapid sucession in a manner simmillar to current commercial jets at major airports. The obvious cost saver would involve rapid turnaround including fast refueling, and the absence of non reusable portions for the craft.
3) Another concept envolves carry a manned spacecraft up beyond the troposphere by a large mother craft or a relatively conventional aircraft wherein the spacecraft, a pure rocket, or rocket assisted scramjet, would seperate from the large mother craft and fly into low Earth orbit. One of my brothers who worked in the aerospace industy tells me that a large portion of chemical energy and thus rocket fuel expended by ground launched rockets is used to overcome the air resistance and the process of almost “hanging” in the lower atmosphere before the rocket obtains enough velocity wherein, at which point, its thrust is then effeciently converted into the kinetic energy of the craft. The commercial enterprise “Orbital Sciences Corporation” has developed such a sytem for launching relatively small satillites and sucessfully uses such a combination of small rockets lofted into the upper atmosphere by a conventional air craft wherein the rocket then seperates from the plane and flies its small payload into orbit.
4) Another concept envolves simply firing bulk material into orbit such as sattelites, materials for space-based construction, prefabricated componets for space structures, and supplies for life support such as food, oxygen, and water. Perhaps the best way to fire such objects into orbit is to use a long electromagnetic cannon such as a rail gun or mass driver. No doubt that the vessel in which the supplies shot into orbit are carried would have to be made of mechanically strong materials that are also very heat resistant as well. Perhaps the materials used in the outer casings of nuclear warheads which are designed to reenter the Earth’s atmosphere at a velocity of about 14,000 MPH could be used. Some proposed launch systems would fire the projectiles at a lower velocity inorder to reduce the extreme material performance requirements of the casings wherein once the projectile reaches the upper atmosphere a small but significant attached rocket motor is used to supply the velocity gain necessary for Earth orbit. Regardless of whether a rocket is used for this purpose, some sort of rocket will probably still be necessary to manuver the projectile into a stable orbit.
5) Another concept that one of my brothers is fond of envolves the carrying of fuel tanks into low Earth orbit wherein once the rocket craft reaches orbit, its fuel tank(s), or remaining fuel tank(s) if the craft is a multstage rocket, are simply cleaned up in Earth orbit and then used as modules which are then linked together to form space habitats, laboratories, and other orbital outposts.
6) Another concept envolves the use of an appropriately shaped craft, such as a toy top shaped saucer like craft with an aerospike feature on its bottom side wherein an intense pulsed laser beam is directed to the bottom of the craft. The sequential laser pulses explosively heat the air located just below the craft but adjacent to the craft through the laser pulses’ reflection and concentration by the optical geometry of the botton side of the craft and the downward axisymmetric protruding aerospike. The explosive air bursts propell the craft out of the atmosphere and into Earth orbit in this scheme.
7) Another concept that I recently read about for launching objects from the surface of the moon into lunar orbit involves attaching the payloads to a gigantic arrow of a gigantic lunar based crossbow. The velocity required to obtain lunar orbit from the surface of the moon is roughly equal to that of an antiarmour round fired from the barrel of a modern battle tank such as the U.S. M1A2 or M1 Abrams tank. Obviosly, the materials used in the construction of such a lunar crossbow would have to be very strong and capable of a high mass specific stored mechanical energy value.
Now, I do not mean to belittle the readers of this blog with the above seven concepts that most of you, I am sure are already familiar with. Rather, it is meant as encouragement. We can develope low cost access to Earth orbit and it is just a matter of governments, private enterprize, wealthy individuals, and yes, even various militaries to allocate funds for such research and development, and then fielding of such transport systems. The ways of doing this are many. Once that occurs, we have a place where we can construct large star ships to take us initially to the nearby stars. That is where the real fun will begin.
Anyhow, that’s all for now.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
jim,about 5 above. does’nt carrying fuel tanks to leo just get you involved in that same old problem about,lifting lots of fuel reqires carrying alot of fuel to lift alot of fuel… lol ! then,7,seems like the old mass driver concept on a somewhat simper scale,not that that makes it a bad idea though! i wonder if building large spacecraft in lunar orbit would not be more complicated than just dong it in low earth orbit in the first place. ideas anyone? comments? the rest of the ideas above are real good too don’t get me wrong.it is just that we need to get more people to pay more attention to them! same for alot about the space program and most especially our “little corner” of it right here.trying to do something about the first star ships stellar probes etc !!! thank you one and all your friend george
Hi George;
Thanks for the comments and critique.
Item 5 in my previous blog does indeed seem problematic in terms of using a lot of fuel to carry a lot of fuel. However, using a system like that discussed in item 5 envolving fuel tanks specifically designed to be used in low Earth orbit with appropriate interconnection features might have some value. Perhaps connecting the tanks into a ring like structure and causing the structure to rotate about its central axis for partial or full Earth gravity simulation might be useful.
Regarding item 7, it would definately be easier to construct a starship in low Earth orbit as opposed to lunar orbit under most circumstances. The only exception that I can think of would be that if a complete lunar manufacturing base were set up on the moon, it would be easier to lift the materials and components of a star ship out of the Lunar gravity well than it would be to do so out of the Earth’s gravity well. Of course, such a complete lunar manufacturing facility might get quite expensive and would only be practical if the bulk materials out of which the ships components are manufactured could be mined from the lunar surface and processed into metals and alloys there as well.
Anyhow, that’s all for now. I will be back at the site later on today or tomorrow morning.
George, thanks again for the insightful and critical review of my latest posting. As always, I look forward to your ideas and comments. By the way, the book “Beyond Infinity” sounds very interesting.
Your Friend Jim
yes thank you jim but i am still not very convinced of the concept of using alot of fuel to launch alot of fuel.i know deep in my heart that there is a much much better way! like maybe,antimatter where as i understand it you get a hell of a bang for the buck with small amounts of “fuel” that need to be carried. also… constructing a star ship in low earth orbit does seem to make alot of sense. have you ever seen installations like star base 133 on star trek!? basically its a space station,but A BIG ONE the enterprise can actually fly INTO it!!!!!!!! they have several such cool things,none of which i can realistically imagine for anytime soon! but we will get there some day.as for now however it is hard to imagine bulding anything that large in space. you know i remember attending a talk by gene roddenberry many years ago wherein he said how impressed he was by the size of kirk’s enterprise.the program was – he gave a speech,followed by a question and answer period followed by a screening of the original star trek flyer film. i did not say word one to him! must have been different times indeed! lol and have a nice day all your friend george
Hi George;
A few additional concepts regarding superconductive materials, antimatter conductors, and superconducting antimatter materials, occurred to me after reading through the news article about antimatter oscillations. Such ideas have most probably been considered by others before I have, and so I make no claim to be the originator of the following concepts. Because these concepts involve examples of extreme materials, and in some cases even bulk antimatter materials, under the influence of the electromagnetic force, perhaps experiments such as those discussed below could yield yet to be discovered aspects of electromagnetism and perhaps associated uses to facilitate interstellar travel in one or more forms. Given the asymmetry that might exist between matter and antimatter, deviations in electromagnetic phenomenon involving bulk antimatter manipulations over normal matter manipulations might become manifest for extreme bounding conditions.
1) One concept occurred to me about the possibility of conducting certain experiments with liquid superconducting materials if such can ever be developed. I wonder if any exotic unknown electromagnetic effects can occur if any of the following experiments can be conducted with any such would be superconducting materials. A) An exhaustive series of experiments involving current carrying liquid superconducting loops or toriodal arrangements of such materials wherein the materials flow through a substantially toriodal vessel in a perpendicular plane to the axis of the toriodal vessel. For this configuration, the experimental current flow direction setup would include current directions parallel to the direction of material rotation, antiparallel to the direction of material rotation, perpendicular to the directions of material flow in both possible perpendicular directions, and combinations of parallel, antiparallel, and perpendicular directions to form a helical pattern of current flow. B) An exhaustive series of experiments with the electrical current carrying superconductive materials wherein the superconductive materials flow through the toroid wherein the direction of the superconducting material flow is in a wrap around direction through the thickness of the toriod in a direction similar to the orientation of a human hand and fingers grabbing hold of a donut and gripping one side of it except wherein all radially oriented cross-sections of the toriod would have the liquid superconductive material flowing through them in closed loops whose planes are coincident with the associated radially oriented cross sections.. For this configuration, the experimental current flow direction setups would include current in one of either of the two directions parallel to the toriod’s direction of axial rotation, either of the two possible directions for crossectional loops of the toriod with orientations perpendicular to the axial rotational plane of the toriod, and combinations of the above parallel and perpendicular directions to form a helical pattern of current flow relative to the liquid superconductor containing toriodal vessel. C) An exhaustive series of experiments with the liquid superconducting materials flowing through the toriodal vessel, wherein every differential volumetric element of the superconducting material flows in a helical pattern in a similar manner to that of a wire wrapped around the thickness of a toriodal loop. For this configuration, the experimental current flow direction setups would include current directions in either of the two directions parallel to the toriod’s direction of axial rotation, in either of both possible directions for crossectional loops of the toriod with orientations perpendicular to the axial rotational plane of the toriod, and combinations of the above parallel and perpendicular directions to form a helical pattern of current flow relative to the liquid superconductor toriodal vessel. Note that the aspect ratios of the helical loop paths of the superconducting material flow and/or the direction of helical currents with respect to the circumference of the toriodal vessel can be varied for a more complete set of experiments, i.e., the number of material flow and/or current flow windings per circumference of the toriodal vessel can be arbitrarily varied.
Note that for certain forms of liquid superconductor, inner portion of the material can flow in a direction parallel to the major circumference of the toriodal vessel while the portion of the material near the inner surface of the hollow toriod can flow in either a perpendicular direction to the major circumference of the toriodal vessel, or in a helical direction with progression in either a parallel or antiparallel direction to the direction of material flow through middle portion of the hollow toriodal cavity. Perhaps some sort of superfluid superconductor could be used so as to avoid eddies induced by friction. Alternatively, the inner portion of the liquid antimatter superconductor can flow in a perpendicular or helical direction with respect to the major circumference of the toriodal vessel and the outer portion of the material can flow in a direction parallel to the major circumference of the toriodal containment vessel.
How one goes about getting the superconductive materials and the electric currents to flow in the above complete range of directions is a problem in kinematics and in some cases might require micromechanical manipulations within the vessels, or perhaps even nanoscale mechanical and/or nanoscale electrical current manipulation.
2) Regarding solid superconductors made of antimatter, one can perform all relevant antimatter experimental counterparts to all of the known types of simple electrical experiments with resistive regular matter solid conductors and/or regular matter solid superconductors such as: simply electrifying a linear conducting cable; electrifying a toriodal winding of an electrical cable, electrifying a linear helical winding of cable, as well as perform all other types of experiments that have been performed with normal matter solid resistive and/or normal matter solid superconductive materials. Other experiments rumored to be conducted with the rotation of normal solid matter superconducting disks can be performed with solid antimatter superconducting disks.
The experiments and electrical and electronic devices that utilize normal matter resistive conductors ranging from the various types of electric motors, through complex micro and nano electronic experiments and circuits including but not limited to semiconductors, capacitors, inductors etc., can be performed with solid antimatter resistive conductor counterparts.
3) Another concept occurred to me about the possibility of conducting certain experiments with liquid antimatter superconducting materials if such can ever be developed. I include the details below with somewhat redundant language relative to the discussion under item 1) above for clarity. I wonder if any exotic unknown electromagnetic effects can occur if any of the following experiments can be conducted with any such would be liquid antimatter superconducting materials. A) An exhaustive series of experiments involving current carrying liquid antimatter superconducting loops or toriodal arrangements of such materials wherein the materials flow through or within a substantially antimatter toriodal vessel in a perpendicular plane to the axis of rotation of the toriodal vessel. For this configuration, the experimental current flow direction setup would include current directions parallel to the direction of material rotation, anti parallel to the direction of material rotation, perpendicular to the directions of material flow in both possible directions, and combinations of parallel, antiparallel, and perpendicular directions to form a helical pattern of current flow. B) An exhaustive series of experiments with the electrical current carrying liquid antimatter superconductive materials wherein the superconductive materials flow through the toroid wherein the direction of the superconducting material flow is in a wrap around direction through the thickness of the toriod in a direction similar to the orientation of a human hand and fingers grabbing hold of a donut and gripping one side of it except wherein all radially oriented cross-sections of the toriod would have the liquid antimatter superconductive material flowing through them in closed loops whose planes are coincident with the associated radially oriented cross sections. For this configuration, the experimental current flow direction setups would include current directions in either of the two parallel directions to the toriod’s direction of axial rotation, either of both possible directions for crossectional loops of the toriod with orientations perpendicular to the axial rotational plane of the toriod, and combinations of the above parallel and perpendicular directions to form a helical pattern of current flow relative to the liquid antimatter superconductor containing toriodal vessel. C) An exhaustive series of experiments with the liquid antimatter superconducting materials flowing through the toriodal vessel, wherein every differential volumetric element of the superconducting material flows in a helical pattern in a similar manner to that of a wire wrapped around the thickness of a toriodal loop. For this configuration, the experimental current flow direction setups would include current directions in either of the two parallel directions to the toriod’s direction of axial rotation, in either of the two possible directions for crossectional loops of the toriod with orientations perpendicular to the axial rotational plane of the toriod, and combinations of either of the above two parallel rotational axial directions with either of the two perpendicular directions to form a helical pattern of current flow relative to the liquid antimatter superconductor containing toriodal vessel. Note that the aspect ratios of the helical loop paths of the liquid antimatter superconducting material flow and/or the direction of helical electric currents with respect to the circumference of the toriodal vessel can be varied for a more complete set of experiments, i.e., the number of material flow and/or current flow windings per circumference of the toriodal vessel can be arbitrarily varied.
Note that for certain forms of liquid antimatter superconductor, the inner portion of the material can flow in a direction parallel to the major circumference of the toriodal vessel while the portion of the material near the inner surface of the hollow toriod can flow in either a perpendicular direction to the major circumference of the toriodal vessel, or in a helical direction with progression in either a parallel or antiparallel direction to the direction of material flow through middle portion of the hollow toriodal cavity. Perhaps some sort of superfluid antimatter superconductor could be used so as to avoid eddies induced by friction. Alternatively, the inner portion of the liquid antimatter superconductor can flow in a perpendicular or helical direction with respect to the major circumference of the toriodal vessel and the outer portion of the material can flow in a direction parallel to the major circumference of the toriodal containment vessel.
Once again, how one goes about getting the superconductive materials and the electric currents to flow in the above complete range of directions is a problem in kinematics and in some cases might require micromechanical manipulations within the vessels, or perhaps even nanoscale mechanical and/or nanoscale electrical current manipulation. Also, the vessels would need to be made of antimatter in order to avoid an explosive interaction with the liquid antimatter superconductors that normal matter vessels would cause..
Other arbitrary spatial and/or temporally varying configurations for experimental set ups involving solid normal matter superconductors, liquid normal matter superconductors, solid antimatter resistive and solid antimatter superconductive materials, and/or liquid antimatter superconductors are also possible. Who knows what may be discovered as continued discovery, development, production and other advances involving exotic materials occur.
Anyhow, my brain is worm out for the night. I hope I did not ramble on too verbosely. I will be back at this sight by around late afternoon.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
jim as i read through what you just wrote and for that matter alot of things that have been said here ,know what came to mind?…COMPUTER MODELLING!!!! might be an “easy” way to look into all of this and a “little” cheaper than having to create new materials!!would be good if studies where done.ALOT of studies.could only serve to push thing in the right direction and maybe even give us a head start on many of these important subjects.again,my opinion. thank you once again your friend george
Hi George;
Thanks for the comments and critical review.
Good comments regarding computer modeling. Modeling capabilities will only get better. I logged onto the Cray website and read how they are planning to market a supercomputer which can perform on the order of 1 petaflops which is equal to 1000 teraflops. Imagine that, 10 EXP 15 flops!! The fastest supercomputers of the late 1970’s were at best in the 1 gigaflops range. An increase of a factor of 1 million in less than 30 years, that is truely inspiring!!! It seems as if there is no end in sight to increases in processing speed.
All of this computer power will no doubt have a role in greatly improved computational theoretical physics and computational theoretical applied physics which will have payoffs in research and development of interstellar probes and manned starships.
I will be back at the site by tomorrow morning with some more ideas once I formulate my thoughts on such.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
jim i am sure you are correct about the ever increasing abilities of our computers eventually winding up as a huge boone to science. but shamefacedly i gotta ask a question could you please elaborate on peta flops and terra flops i never heard those terms before today! thank you very much, george
Hi George;
I am happy to elaborate on both those terms.
Teraflops stands for 1 trillion floating point operations per second.
Petaflops stands for 1 quadrillion floating point operations per second.
Basically, the terms mean 1 trillion and 1 quadrillion calculations per second respectively.
I am sorry I did not get back to you sooner. I was buzy working on a project. However, feel free to ask questions at any time.
I have some other ideas to elaborate on, however, I will plan to post my thoughts on such tomorrow instead of today as I originally had planned. Time sort have gotten away from me today.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim
Hi George;
Since I am now wide awake after drinking a large Coke, I thought I would elaborate on my thoughts sooner rather than later.
1) The first idea I have to elaborate on involves the setting up of a gluon field or strong nuclear force field around every nucleus of every atom in a spacecraft while simultaneously setting up electric field gradients around the electronic shell configurations of every atom in a spacecraft in such a way that each atom is pulled in the same direction with a force proportional to the atom’s mass by virtue of the combined nuclear and electromagnetic forces acting on each atom. We have heard of the concept of nanotechnology, however the possibility of picotechnology and femtotechnology might allow us to manipulate matter on the scale of the atomic nucleus and its constituent nucleons. Perhaps precisely controlling the nuclear force pulling on the nucleus of every atom and the electromagnetic force pulling on the electron shells of every atom in a spacecraft would allow the spacecraft to be accelerated almost instantly to near light speed.
How one introduces the electric and the nuclear force fields is anyone’s guess, however, if microscopic wormholes could be generated with mouths around each nucleus and each electron shell, then perhaps such worm holes could be used as conduits to transmit the nuclear and electric fields in a precisely directional manner. Even if the wormholes cannot be made to stay open for very long, if they remain open for the time period on the order for which the gluonic fields and electric fields have a chance to be fully felt by the nuclei and electronic shells respectively, then perhaps the craft could be accelerated to almost C in the time period that it takes light to travel across a typical atom or about (10 EXP-10)[3x (10 EXP -9)] = 3 x (10 EXP -19) seconds.
In the case where the microscopic wormholes could stay effectively permanently open for each nucleus and each electron shell, the nuclear and electric fields might be applied continuously from the mouths of each wormhole. In the case where they continuously collapse, perhaps they can be continuously regenerated to produce a constant acceleration. If say a velocity of 83 percent of the speed of light could be reached in 3 x (10 EXP -19) seconds, the rate of acceleration would be about (250,000,000 meter/sec)/{[3 x (10 EXP -19)] sec} = 8.33 x (10 EXP 26) meters/(sec^2) or about 10 EXP 26 G’s. This would yield a time dilation factor according to special relativity of roughly about 3 x (10 EXP 18) in one second if the rate of kinetic energy transfer to the space ship were kept continuous and equal to that of the first 3 x (10 EXP -19) seconds. If this rate of acceleration could be maintained from 1 year Earth time to more than 1 billion years Earth time, there is a good chance that any existent, currently undiscovered, deviations in time dilation and other relativistic effects from special relativity would become manifest. In fact, the rate of acceleration would be so high, that since in general relativity, gravity is indistinguishable from acceleration, there ought to be general relativistic time dilation as a function of acceleration similar in extent to that which occurs ever so slightly just outside the event horizon of a black hole as a result of general relativistic gravitational time dilation. The craft might become so massive so quick that it becomes a blackhole with respect to the outside interstellar media, so therefore some methods might have to be devised to deal with this situation so that the craft does not get destroyed by falling into itself as its own blackhole.
One might ask where would the microscopic wormholes be drawn from. One possible answer is from the sea of zero point vacuum energy fluctuations or from the structure of space-time on the scale of 10 EXP-35 meters and 10 EXP-43 seconds which are roughly the Planck distance and Planck time scales respectively. At these distance and time scales, it is believed that space and time take on a discontinuous structure that some theories imply is a foam like seething cauldron of space-time structure fluctuations. Another possible answer is that the energy to form the wormholes and to supply the electromagnetic and nuclear energy would be drawn from otherwise completely hidden dimensions, higher dimensional space, or other universes or big bangs.
2) The second concept is similar to the first except that the nucleus of each atom is pulled by electric field gradients or a combination of electric field gradients and nuclear force gradients. If possible, whether or not method 1) or 2) is used, it would be necessary to prevent any aggregated effects of the electric fields acting on each atom from canceling out the overall acceleration thus resulting in a net field within the bulk matter composing the spacecraft and payload from becoming essentially zero, thus resulting in little or no acceleration.
3) The third concept I mention this morning is similar to the concept of electrogravatic propulsion wherein an electromagnetic field is used to produce a gravity field by way of any would be unification between electromagnetism and gravity, except that instead, a strong nuclear force field would somehow be generated from electric, magnetic, or electromagnetic fields, perhaps by some sort of application of certain G.U.T.s or grand unified field theories that attempt to explain the electromagnetic, the weak nuclear, and the strong nuclear force under one underlying set of principles or phenomenon.
Anyhow, that’s all for know. I plan to be back at this site later today.
Thanks;
Jim
jim fantastic ideas! that first idea about being able to accelerate almost instantaniously to the speed of light…is a GOOD one!! microscopic worm hole drives!! wow!! and yeah you”d need some work done on making sure that your ship is not destroyed by becomming its own black hole!! but you know these ideas great though they are remind me of the kind of technology which we assume that aliens millenia in advance of us already have! i hope a great number of people will read all that which you just wrote. ps on the other hand with teraflops and petaflops at hand…maybe our computing power will relativly soon allow ALOT more than any of us here had previouly considered possible. i see it comming no doubt. maybe even “mr data” soon,who knows? thank you and i sincerely hope that all the above will evoke alot of responses! your friend george
Hi George;
Thanks for the kind comments. I plan to be back onsite by sometime tomorrow as I formulate my thoughts on yet some more ideas. It would really be neat if Mr Data somehow showed up in our nanoelectronics R&D facilities during our life time.
Thanks;
Your Friend Jim