[12th_Monkey]

long article, lots of Trekish science and exotic stuff. Please read, comments welcome.

[ETL]

“The fastest object ever built by the human species is the Voyager 1 space probe, moving at a speed of 18 miles per second. If it were heading toward Proxima Centauri (which it’s not), Voyager 1 would reach our nearest stellar neighbor in about 80,000 years.”

Coincidentally, that just happens to be the orbital speed of Earth around the Sun (~18 miles/sec, or ~66,000 miles/hr).

[Free Vulcan]

Give me a break. Everyone knows this is what the Romulans use, not us! Geesh!

[mountainlion]

So how do they plan to keep form running into things?

Travel at the speed of light rules out radar things. By the time you got a return form an object you would be on top of it.

[ETL]

"Every pound of starship moving at 99.9 percent the speed of light...."

Of course when you start talking about speeds close to that of light, it brings up all sorts of weird stuff like time dilation and length contraction.

Here's an explanation of time dilation that I wrote myself a few years ago. Hope it makes sense. The graphic I found on the Web.

First, from Wikipedia: "One second is defined as 'the duration of 9192631770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the caesium 133 atom'..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second

Now imagine, instead of a vibrating 'caesium 133 atom', we have a beam of light bouncing back and forth between two mirrors within a vertical tube. Now let's say, for the sake of argument, that it takes precisely 'one second' for the light beam to reach the top mirror (tick), reflect off it, reverse and reach the bottom mirror (tock).

Now let's say the light tube, or 'light clock', is resting on a flatbed train car, and on the flatbed is an observer who we will call "Observer A". To Observer A, who is moving along with the train and is therefore 'at rest' with respect to it, the light beam simply travels from the bottom of the tube *vertically* to the top of the tube and then straight back down again. From the relationship, speed equals distance over time, we get time equals distance over speed. So this is then how Observer A defines time (t=distance/speed). Important to note here, is, according to theory and supported by experimental evidence, light travels at the SAME SPEED for ALL observers.

Now let's say there is an observer B standing on the embankment alongside the train watching it pass by. From this observer's point of view, or frame of reference, the light beam does not simply travel vertically up and down but rather in a slanted or diagonal path, since the train is in motion, let's say from left to right as Observer B sees it. Now since the light beam travels a diagonal path between tick and tock, again, from OB's stationary point of view, the light beam therefore is traveling a LONGER distance (from OB's perspective). Therefore, since the light beam is traveling a longer distance (from OB's perspective) AND since light travels at the same speed for all observers, the light beam MUST take a longer time to bounce between the two mirrors (tick-tock). Therefore, the two observers (A and B) do NOT agree on what a "second" is.

http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/classes/252/srelwhat.html

The mathematical relationship between the two paths is based on the Pythagorean Theorem for right-triangles that many of us used in high school.

Here is that mathematical relationship (between time as perceived by the two different observers) that is derived from the familiar Pythagorean Theorem (a squared + b squared = c squared, c being the longest leg of the 90 degree (right) triangle depicted in the above illustration):

-ETL

[Alex Murphy]

In his 1955 paper Geons, John Wheeler, one of the pioneers of the theory of black holes, coined the term "Kugelblitz" — which translates literally to "ball lightning." He suggested that if enough pure energy could be focused into a region of space, that energy would form a microscopic black hole...

PFL

[apillar]

They tried that in “Event Horizon”...it didn’t end well...

[buffaloguy]

V’ger 1 is moving at 38,000 mph which is 10.5 miles/sec. Possible confusion between kilometers and miles pet hour.

[Ray76]

“Schwarzschild Kugelblitz”

May the Schwartz be with you.

[GraceG]

It has also been theorized that if you built one of these things and kept it fed (you have to add matter to it or else it would eventually evaporate in a BOOM) that you could use the power from on e device to start additional devices...

Basically it is just a Matter to Energy conversion engine that uses a trick of gravity to stay stable.

If you over feed it the amount of energy released actually goes DOWN... It is kinda paradoxical that way...

[Squawk 8888]

[GraceG]

[ In his 1955 paper Geons, John Wheeler, one of the pioneers of the theory of black holes, coined the term “Kugelblitz” — which translates literally to “ball lightning.” He suggested that if enough pure energy could be focused into a region of space, that energy would form a microscopic black hole, ]

Which is interesting as some have speculated that Ball Lightning is actually a cosmic ray that has impacted at high energies into the atmosphere and that has become a micro black hole that then slowly evaporates... Could explain how they appear to pass through regular matter (the core is very tiny and at that scale solid matter as we perceive it is quite porous)

[Bubba_Leroy]

That's racist!

[DJ MacWoW]

Did You Know?

The Current FReepathon Pays For The Current Quarters Expenses?

Please Donate And Keep FR Running

[Blood of Tyrants]

The problem is not getting sucked into the black hole, too.

[The Cajun]

Bookmark.

[UCANSEE2]

"One approach to accomplishing total energy capture is to surround the Schwarzschild Kugelblitz with a tiny Dyson Shell. "

[techcor]

Bump for later comments. Some sci-fi authors have already used this but I can’t remember if it was Larry Niven, Greg Bear or Gregory Benford. Possibly somebody else.

[DugwayDuke]

Suppose you build one of these things. After you get some Unobtanium to build the Dyson Cap, of course. You accelerate to 72% of the speed of light in five years. And, then the power source thingy, having used up all it’s energy, ‘evaporates’. Then a few years later, you get where you want to be. How do you stop?

[commish]

Everyone knows the only true way to conduct interstellar travel is through the use of an Infinite Improbability Drive.

[Rebelbase]

I have no clue as to the science but the concept reminds me of the first person to consider using moving water to power a mill.

Exploiting space’s natural resources.