Posted on 02/11/2006 4:31:06 PM PST by PatrickHenry
On Tuesday, Feb. 14, noted physicist Dr. Franklin Felber will present his new exact solution of Einstein's 90-year-old gravitational field equation to the Space Technology and Applications International Forum (STAIF) in Albuquerque. The solution is the first that accounts for masses moving near the speed of light.
New antigravity solution will enable space travel near speed of light by the end of this century, he predicts.
Felber's antigravity discovery solves the two greatest engineering challenges to space travel near the speed of light: identifying an energy source capable of producing the acceleration; and limiting stresses on humans and equipment during rapid acceleration.
"Dr. Felber's research will revolutionize space flight mechanics by offering an entirely new way to send spacecraft into flight," said Dr. Eric Davis, Institute for Advanced Studies at Austin and STAIF peer reviewer of Felber's work. "His rigorously tested and truly unique thinking has taken us a huge step forward in making near-speed-of-light space travel safe, possible, and much less costly."
The field equation of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity has never before been solved to calculate the gravitational field of a mass moving close to the speed of light. Felber's research shows that any mass moving faster than 57.7 percent of the speed of light will gravitationally repel other masses lying within a narrow 'antigravity beam' in front of it. The closer a mass gets to the speed of light, the stronger its 'antigravity beam' becomes.
Felber's calculations show how to use the repulsion of a body speeding through space to provide the enormous energy needed to accelerate massive payloads quickly with negligible stress. The new solution of Einstein's field equation shows that the payload would 'fall weightlessly' in an antigravity beam even as it was accelerated close to the speed of light.
Accelerating a 1-ton payload to 90 percent of the speed of light requires an energy of at least 30 billion tons of TNT. In the 'antigravity beam' of a speeding star, a payload would draw its energy from the antigravity force of the much more massive star. In effect, the payload would be hitching a ride on a star.
"Based on this research, I expect a mission to accelerate a massive payload to a 'good fraction of light speed' will be launched before the end of this century," said Dr. Felber. "These antigravity solutions of Einstein's theory can change our view of our ability to travel to the far reaches of our universe."
More immediately, Felber's new solution can be used to test Einstein's theory of gravity at low cost in a storage-ring laboratory facility by detecting antigravity in the unexplored regime of near-speed-of-light velocities.
During his 30-year career, Dr. Felber has led physics research and development programs for the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the Department of Energy and Department of Transportation, the National Institute of Justice, National Institutes of Health, and national laboratories. Dr. Felber is Vice President and Co-founder of Starmark.
Source: Starmark [Felber's own firm, apparently]
Age and treachery always beats youth and idealism. :)
LOL. Talk about your SSC...maybe the entire solar system is acting as a resevoir for the greys to run "planet-smashing" experiments ? ;-)
Cheers!
...and then he remembered the r**2 dependence
Large, as in dust particles.
What's going on here?
Technically, it won't be a millenia for you. Closer you get to C, slower the time for you.
I think that's where the Felber Effect comes in. I was just out on the patio & was struck by several moonbeams. Didn't hurt a bit...they simply reflected or refracted, due the strength of their 'anti-gravity' forward fields...no trauma whatsoever!
Don't PANIC!...
"The first ten million years were the worst. The second ten million? They were the worst too. The third ten million I didn't enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of a decline."
Cheers! [...if you can manage them ;-) ]
What's going on here?
Whatever it is, it doesn't pass the smell test, IMHO.
"3-1/2"
Here is where I get confused. The spaceship is travelling .99c relative to the earth. But that means also the Earth is travelling .99c relative to the spaceship. So why doesn't that mean time on the earth slows down to only 14% of spaceship time, rather than the otherway round? What decides which body gets the "time bonus" when both are actually moving the same speed relative to one another? Where is the object of reference?
The ones who stay home also are seen as living slow, as seen from the ship.
But if he can make it work, it won't matter whether I or anyone else understands it or believes it or not, so I'm not sure why a press release is warranted. Just get it past peer review and/or build it, and the buzz will take care of itself.
None of this will be particularly useful unless it can be harnessed in the controlled environment of a ship.
If anti-gravity effects can be produced by masses moving at close to the speed of light, what abour masses circulating in a large toroidal field, with acceleration driving them past the point where they would generate anti-gravity effects, and then allowing their circliing around again to be boosted again?
Something like a bootsrap drive, even if it is only for the utility of reducing acceleration stresses.
Clearly we will need to learn a great deal more about the behavior of large amounts of plasma brought near to the speed of light, as we would most likely be doing if we learn to control fusion using a Tokamak-like design.
It does have a faint whiff of serendipity, but I love it when a plan comes together.
That's why I'm investing in Fusion.
So if the ship arrived back on earth they would have both been gone for the same period of time? I thought that if you went on a year long lightspeed trip around the solar system and returned back home you would find a whole century had gone by on earth.
We've had threads on the "twin paradox," and why the universe "knows" which twin stays young. Basically (the limit of my recollection) it's because the traveling twin is the one who's experiencing all the acceleration, both in leaving earth and then in returning. I'll leave it to others to explain it better.
Can you say "Twins Paradox" ??
The problem is that there is NO preferred reference frame for things moving at constant velocity...
Supposedly it can be resolved by going to General (not Special) Relativity.
Cheers!
Yes, that's what I make of it. Felber merely begins to appear at .57c, then strengthens. Thus, we'd be 100% vulnerable below .57c and not reach full immunity until we actually became light at c...
QED...
Yeah, but what's the significance of the square root of three?
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