Ask Ethan: Is antigravity even possible?

Big Think ^ | November 08, 2024 | Ethan Siegel

[Red Badger]

Space is a BIG PLACE Ping!..............

[Hot Tabasco]

I like the pictures but the rest of it makes no sense to me.....

[SunkenCiv]

Uncle Gravity is, dunno about Auntie Gravity.

[dpetty121263]

Nothing new under the Sun...

[Red Badger]

Well of course not!

It would burn up!...............

[Red Badger]

In Space we can take air, food, water and recycle as necessary.

But we can’t take gravity........

[PIF]

While the technologies we’d most desire, including:
* instantaneous teleportation,
* safe travel through a wormhole,
* or warp drive,
would all be transformative, they seem to require something that doesn’t exist within this Universe, at least as we understand it today.

—
Around 1850, James Clark Maxwell postulated all of those in his 200 field equations. All but 4 were thrown out by a self-educated man who lived in his mom’s basement and never revisited again.

Today, Maxwell is little known, and his original manuscript is near impossible to find.

He’s only remembered for his contributions to electrical theory. Where 4 field equations were turned into vector equations by the the self-educated man, giving us all we know about the electromagnetic spectrum - which covers pretty much everything. Neither Einstein nor Tesla would have amounted to anything without reading Maxwell first.

[Red Badger]

Notice that astronomers and scientists use the term ‘microgravity’ when talking about space travel.

You never leave the effects of gravity entirely..................

[uranium penguin]

Right now we are those Ancients, That may have been really smart.

Staring at the sea and Hypothesizing about how for it was to where the world ended. And trying to calculate how may day’s sail it would be until they sailed off the edge..

We have not even fully explored the depths of our oceans, the full extent of the moon are any other planets first hand.

But, we are still convinced we already know everything.

[dpetty121263]

I am not sure Mankind can avoid destroying itself, more than likely not.

[HYPOCRACY]

Best to use magic for things like this.

[algore]

It was not really that long ago that some guy was sitting under an apple tree.

I have seen advances in my lifetime that I did not expect.

back in the the 60s I remember thinking we were in the golden era and everything had been invented.

I was very wrong. So are these guys

[SunkenCiv]

People and things in Earth orbit are actually in freefall, even when they’re at geostationary orbit.

[BigFreakinToad]

the article hurt my brain

[Tell It Right]

Science shows that we can create artificial gravity as long as two things are in place:

1) The travelers in the craft are teenagers. And
2) Pizza in boxes are glued to the floor.

According to the 3rd law of teenage behaviors -- the travelers will cling to the floor.

[Phlyer]

Best to use magic for things like this.

Bing, bing, bing!! We have a winner.

Of course, you were talking about magic as Arthur C. Clarke talked about it, right?

One of Clarke's Laws is: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Two more:

1) If a distinguished and knowledgeable scientist tells you that something is possible, he is almost certainly correct.
2) If a distinguished and knowledgeable scientist tells you that something is impossible, he is almost certainly incorrect.

I am wary of any 'solution' that requires throwing out all we know of physics, because while we don't know it all, what we do observe sure explains a lot, and very well.

But it's fun to just decide that all the scientists are wrong and lurking just around the next corner is some 'magic' that makes everything rainbows and unicorns.

I'm not holding my breath.

[SpaceBar]

Terence McKenna once said that every civilization thinks they just need six more months and 5% more data and they’ll have everything figured out. We’re no exception.

[SaveFerris]

[But we can’t take gravity........]

I’m pretty sure that Tupperware makes a container for it.

With an easy-snap lid.

[Responsibility2nd]

Gravity Sucks.