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]
Cool, sounds like it also makes it harder to get into high speed collisions.
LOL!
Ah Dam Bubba now what ya gonna do with all them hoods?
From one of your threads the other day. It just cracks me up!!
Sure, they've got some proof. I think the idea of mass causing a curvature of spacetime is certainly something that has been observed, but Einstein did more than come up with that idea. He also came up with specific mathematical equations that he asserted represented the manner in which spacetime was curved. Those equations have not been fully tested, and that is why they sent up the sattelite. If those equations are off just slightly, then this guy's calculations might be useless.
Certainly no fun for anyone on the ground.
Assuming this guy is right there is still the time dilation problem. Time would move much faster on Earth than on the spacecraft buzzing along at near the speed of light. So we get to launch it but never get to see it return. That's no fun.
Of course, my dear.
An unmentioned complication appears to be finding these conveniently accelerated stars, and then getting in front of them.
It rather sounds like the setup line to an old Red Skelton Gertrude and 'Eathcliffe seagull joke.
"Say, Gertrude?"
"Yeth?" *Pause for laughter*
"Does it seem to you that we are traveling very, very fast?"
"If you thee that thteam locomotive coming up behind uth, you'll put on a burtht of thpeed too!" *cue laugh track*
Congratulations - you just rediscovered an important scientific question! It's called Fermi's Paradox.
Also, when particles are made to collide, they're definitely moving faster than the "Felber point," so if they were each putting out an anti-gravity beam, the results of their collision would be way different than what's predicted -- and routinely observed. Or ... maybe this accounts for what's observed, but in a totally different way. I can't handle that speculation.
bump for later.
"I don't wee any flying cars. Why?"
Because flying cars don't have any tires to wee on, dummy.
I'm on my 3rd gargleblaster.
There are two related papers of his in the arXiv, http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0505098 entitled Weak 'Antigravity' Fields in General Relativity and http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0505099, entitled Exact Relativistic 'Antigravity' Propulsion (both from mid-2005). The arXiv is free access (warning: the appearance on the arXivs does NOT mean an article has been peer reviewed).
The gravitational effects of a subatomic particle are not of any measurable size. Doesn't matter if you're talking gravitational, or anti-gravitational. You need a planetary-size mass moving at close to the speed of light
Ping
:-( :-( :-(
I'm a bad kitty.
My point is slightly different from Fermi's. Fermi was trying to answer the question of whether there is life in other parts of the galaxy. He assumed that if there were, then they'd be able to get here. So where are they?
I assume there is life out there. It's not quite so clear to me, though, that they can get here. Even getting to the nearest star would take centuries with any conceivable advances in science that we might imagine. And certainly, there is no life in that solar system, since it's a double system.
If this guy is right, though, then clearly they could get here, so where are they?
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