Semi-OT: A General Tech Question Thread for me :)

El_Phil · #1 September 25th, 2005, 10:09 AM

In comparison to breaking cause and effect I think we can safely say every other possible problem is minor.

Starhawk · #2 September 25th, 2005, 10:12 AM

Really I've heard that fold space is actually a simpler proposition compared to "warp" and "FTL" speeds, for that matter the Bab 5 and HH "Hyperspace" might be an even more accurate form of what FTL may look like in the future if we ever get it.

Oh and El_Phil as far as internal gravity goes I've read up on some stuff and other folks think that all it would take to get internal gravity is to have a "hyper dense" alloy or material located at the bottom of the ship to create a "pull". What is your opinion on this please

El_Phil · #3 September 25th, 2005, 10:34 AM

Hyperspace is shaky, partly the theoretical existence is very much conjecture. More seriously getting into a 'higher level' dimension whatever you call it would be tricky. More tricky would be getting back to the one you came from.

Wormholes could, maybe be used for backwards time travel depending on layout and a variety of other things. This is a bad thing and so travel through them would be impossible, ie they'd collapse as soon as you try and use them. If your wormhole is so arranged that you don't time travel it has more chance of working.

On the grav plating, the density gets ridiculous. As in 1.5E9 kg of mass beneath 100mm beneath your feet will give you ~1g. In real numbers thats 1.5 million tons of material compressed so much the centre of this mass is 0.1m under your shoes. I think you'd agree the density starts getting ridiculous. There's also the point that is unidirectional and falls off with distance. So if it's just at the bottom then your upper decks have much lower gravity (it's a squared law so double the distance and the force drops by 4.). If you have plating per deck then the crew will be attracted to the ceilings, not as strongly as too the floors, but enough to be very disoreintating and bad for the body. Imagine being weakly torn apart all the time.

Gravitons... It's a logical extension of quantum mechanics so they probably do exist. Probably. But they're only 'messenger' particles, you need the source of the gravity for them to be created, so they don't really solve the problem.