What Will Happen to a Fan in Space?

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A fan in space, when turned on, will spin its blades but will not produce any propulsion because there is no air to push against. While the motor will cause the blades to rotate, the absence of a medium means no force can be exerted, resulting in no movement of the fan as a whole. The base of the fan will rotate in the opposite direction to conserve angular momentum, but again, this does not lead to forward motion. The discussion also contrasts the operation of rockets, which expel mass to generate thrust, with fans that rely on pushing air. Ultimately, using a fan for propulsion in space is ineffective due to the lack of a medium to interact with.
  • #51
jarednjames said:
You are claiming that published science is wrong. Read the materials and learn from it. I assure you, all the stuff you're thinking about it has already gone through someones mind.

Next time, ask why something is what it is and don't simply tell us it is wrong. Then you'll avoid such reactions.

And no, my goal isn't to motivate. It is to help educate others and learn more myself.

Anyone who wants to be overly speculative and make ridiculous claims doesn't belong here. Those are the rules.

I'm sorry if any of you felt I was saying you're wrong. That is why I felt inclined to tell you that I acknowledge the fact I'm a newb. I'm just trying to understand myself, and at one point I did ask for an example equation to explain a certain part of this convo...

Technically, I am following the rules since I am keeping things within my own education level and understanding. I start college to get a degree in Engineering Science this month, and I was just trying to dive in before it all starts. I never had an interest in Physics until I completed Calculus II, but now I am really interested.

In the future, I will try to hold back my spontaneous thoughts. I realize they can be ridiculous...a lot of people think I'm an idiot just based on my personality, but when it comes to exam time I do really well. I just don't want to accept some things the way they are. You all should understand that. HOW AWESOME WOULD IT BE TO VISIT ANOTHER GALAXY!? I'd love to see how life has evolved somewhere else. It's a shame we can't live longer...yet... lol
 
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  • #52
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster-than-light"
 
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  • #53
Thus, because the pilot cannot place infrastructure ahead of the bubble while "in transit", the bubble cannot be used for the first trip to a distant star. In other words, to travel to Vega (which is 25 light-years from the Earth) one first has to arrange everything so that the bubble moving toward Vega with a superluminal velocity would appear and these arrangements will always take more than 25 years.[5]

Cool stuff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive"
 
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  • #54
Discussion of speculative material is not allowed.

FTL travel isn't possible. Period.

Those models, by their own admission are all speculative.

What is it you want us to look at in the FTL wiki page? Rgardless, I would recommend you check the references. It will tell you whether or not what is written is published theory or purely speculative.

EDIT: Read the piece on travel in your faster than light wiki page. It tells you it isn't possible.
 
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  • #55
Let's say that you are traveling at 99% the speed of light relative to an observer. If you expend the same amount of fuel that got you to 99% the speed of light, you would only accelerate a small amount relative to that observer, and would be going a little bit over 99%. And if you do it again you get even less velocity for the fuel you expend. This continues to happen as you get closer to the speed of light, making it so that you can never reach it, only get very close.

Actually, look up the Large Hadron Collider. They accelerate protons upwards of 99.9999% the speed of light. As the protons gain speed, it takes more and more energy to accelerate them the same amount.
 
  • #56
I calculated somewhere that those 99.9999% the speed of light(or whatever figure I used then) was equal to just 10km/s shy of C. Imagine what the world would look like while zooming around at that speed(my idea is highly distorted FoV and copious amounts of blue/redshifted images).

Anyway I was wondering, since the average density of outer space certainly is >0, what acceleration could such a fan achieve(outside of the gravitational influence of any bodies. :)
 
  • #57
martix said:
I calculated somewhere that those 99.9999% the speed of light(or whatever figure I used then) was equal to just 10km/s shy of C. Imagine what the world would look like while zooming around at that speed(my idea is highly distorted FoV and copious amounts of blue/redshifted images).

Anyway I was wondering, since the average density of outer space certainly is >0, what acceleration could such a fan achieve(outside of the gravitational influence of any bodies. :)

This depends on the density of matter in space where your at, the size and mass of the fan and vehicle, and several other variables. Short answer, very very very low acceleration.
 
  • #58
The fan would still need to have the pitch and rpm required to push those particles instead of being pushed by them (becoming a turbine). That would be a pretty tall order!
 
  • #59
jared69sib, your model of the universe is too simple to try to figure out what happens at close to the speed of light. You're thinking...well, 186,000 miles/second, if we accelerate long enough we will reach it.
No. The actual formulas for speed and acceleration are more complicated that simple kinematic equations.

In everyday life they do just fine, but when you start getting to very high speeds (fractions of the speed of light), these formulas cannot cope. For example, acceleration is distance/ time^2. However, as you go faster, the distance AND the time actually warp and stretch. As you get closer to the speed of light, the space and time will stretch away from you so that you will NEVER reach the speed of light. Not if you convert all the mass in the universe into energy and put it into one atom. Not even if god himself tried to accelerate that atom, would He be able to make it go the speed of light.

Even if we convert to Hinduism and employ many gods to accelerate that atom, they might be able to add a few extra 9s to the 99.99999999999999999999999% of the speed of light, but NEVER actually reach it.
 
  • #60
Now there's a thought. Considering the best estimate of how much "STUFF"( [dark] energy, matter, whatever else you can think of) there is in the universe, just how many additional 9's could we add behind a single proton?

But yea, there's a reason why classical/Newtonian mechanics is a separate entity from relativistic mechanics. :)
Just as there is a reason why relativistic mechanics is separate from quantum mechanics:
They don't fit together at all.
(not yet anyway)
 
  • #61
jarednjames said:
Those models, by their own admission are all speculative.
I would not call Alcubierre Drive speculative. Yes, as an actual implementation, it relies on negative energy densities which we have no reason to believe exist. However, it's not the only case in General Relativity where an object appears to travel faster than light. There are plenty of metrics that are certainly possible that yield similar results. They simply aren't practical as means of getting from A to B. Locality is a local phenomenon. Name itself should be sufficient to suggest that. So it's entire reasonable to discuss faster-than-light travel within this framework.

Of course, jared69sib is bringing it up completely out of context. In any local frame, the ship in Alcubierre warp bubble is traveling slower than the speed of light, and so it has nothing to do with discussion.
 
  • #62
martix said:
I calculated somewhere that those 99.9999% the speed of light(or whatever figure I used then) was equal to just 10km/s shy of C. Imagine what the world would look like while zooming around at that speed(my idea is highly distorted FoV and copious amounts of blue/redshifted images).

Anyway I was wondering, since the average density of outer space certainly is >0, what acceleration could such a fan achieve(outside of the gravitational influence of any bodies. :)

I was actually thinking that you would actually see okay even traveling near the speed of light thanks to the distance ahead of you. You'd see a frame about every 1,800 miles, but because of how spaced out everything is in space you'd still have a sense of your location relative to everything...
 
  • #63
Lsos said:
jared69sib, your model of the universe is too simple to try to figure out what happens at close to the speed of light. You're thinking...well, 186,000 miles/second, if we accelerate long enough we will reach it.
No. The actual formulas for speed and acceleration are more complicated that simple kinematic equations.

In everyday life they do just fine, but when you start getting to very high speeds (fractions of the speed of light), these formulas cannot cope. For example, acceleration is distance/ time^2. However, as you go faster, the distance AND the time actually warp and stretch. As you get closer to the speed of light, the space and time will stretch away from you so that you will NEVER reach the speed of light. Not if you convert all the mass in the universe into energy and put it into one atom. Not even if god himself tried to accelerate that atom, would He be able to make it go the speed of light.

Even if we convert to Hinduism and employ many gods to accelerate that atom, they might be able to add a few extra 9s to the 99.99999999999999999999999% of the speed of light, but NEVER actually reach it.
Thanks for your explanation. It did sink in before I happened to read this. I totally get it.

I heard something about particles that could actually be faster than the speed of light. Even photons, which are said to have no mass surely have some mass, even if it be 10 X e^-100000000. Hypothetically, of course.
 
  • #64
K^2 said:
I would not call Alcubierre Drive speculative. Yes, as an actual implementation, it relies on negative energy densities which we have no reason to believe exist. However, it's not the only case in General Relativity where an object appears to travel faster than light. There are plenty of metrics that are certainly possible that yield similar results. They simply aren't practical as means of getting from A to B. Locality is a local phenomenon. Name itself should be sufficient to suggest that. So it's entire reasonable to discuss faster-than-light travel within this framework.

Of course, jared69sib is bringing it up completely out of context. In any local frame, the ship in Alcubierre warp bubble is traveling slower than the speed of light, and so it has nothing to do with discussion.

I truly admire all of you capable of thinking with such speculative reasoning. We need more people of this type.
 
  • #65
jared69sib said:
I heard something about particles that could actually be faster than the speed of light. Even photons, which are said to have no mass surely have some mass, even if it be 10 X e^-100000000. Hypothetically, of course.

Particles that go faster than the speed of light? Photons certainly don't and they have no rest mass either.
 
  • #66
jared69sib said:
Even photons, which are said to have no mass surely have some mass, even if it be 10 X e^-100000000. Hypothetically, of course.

According to the theory of relativity, if a photon has ANY rest mass, even 10 x e^-10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000, it will not travel at the speed of light.
 
  • #67
jarednjames said:
Particles that go faster than the speed of light? Photons certainly don't and they have no rest mass either.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon" are hypothesised to travel fast than c, but there's no observational evidence for them.
 
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  • #68
OMG! I just had a break through. You say there is not enough energy in the universe to achieve greater speeds. BUT. Energy cannot be created nor destroyed. Therefore, we have an endless supply of energy to work with. We must find a way to harness entropy!
 
  • #69
jared69sib said:
OMG! I just had a break through. You say there is not enough energy in the universe to achieve greater speeds. BUT. Energy cannot be created nor destroyed. Therefore, we have an endless supply of energy to work with. We must find a way to harness entropy!

Not a breakthrough, but a facepalm moment.

No, you can't create/destroy energy, but it can end up in a form where is is no longer of use to us.

Once a star uses up all its Hydrogen/Helium fuel, it dies (or around about that time). Once all the stars go through this, the universe is pretty doomed. There is a finite amount of energy available to the universe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_universe
 
  • #70
jarednjames said:
Not a breakthrough, but a facepalm moment.

No, you can't create/destroy energy, but it can end up in a form where it is no longer of use to us.

Yet! LOL. You are totally right. It wasn't a breakthrough. :) Even in my own mind. Well, we need to find a way to put it to use! I mean, even as heat energy has it's advantages. We'll see it on automobiles soon. Pulleys that run solely on the influx of hot and cold air. The belt material expands and contracts turning the pulleys...
 
  • #71
jarednjames said:
Not a breakthrough, but a facepalm moment.

No, you can't create/destroy energy, but it can end up in a form where is is no longer of use to us.

Once a star uses up all its Hydrogen/Helium fuel, it dies (or around about that time). Once all the stars go through this, the universe is pretty doomed. There is a finite amount of energy available to the universe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death_of_the_universe

But is it not true that new stars are formed?

I don't buy it. Entropy has value to organisms and chemical reactions...I believe elements will reform...
 
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  • #72
jared69sib said:
Yet! LOL. You are totally right. It wasn't a breakthrough. :) Even in my own mind. Well, we need to find a way to put it to use! I mean, even as heat energy has it's advantages. We'll see it on automobiles soon. Pulleys that run solely on the influx of hot and cold air. The belt material expands and contracts turning the pulleys...

And where does the hot air get its energy from?

There's no yet about it. We can't magically make energy. Period.
 
  • #73
jared69sib said:
But is it not true that new stars are formed?

Once all the stars use all the Hydrogen and Helium, what is there to make new stars from?
 
  • #74
jarednjames said:
Once all the stars use all the Hydrogen and Helium, what is there to make new stars from?

I don't buy it. Entropy has value to organisms and chemical reactions...I believe elements will reform...
 
  • #75
jared69sib said:
I don't buy it. Entropy has value to organisms and chemical reactions...I believe elements will reform...

Then you don't understand chemistry very well at all. It's not about what you do or don't buy, this fact.

If I remember correctly, everything works its way towards iron and then stays there.

What do you "form" Hydrogen from? You have to physically split another element to get it. Not a small feat to achieve.

Hydrogen is a fantastic fuel source, if we could simply split elements down to it and then use it we wouldn't have any energy problems. But, it takes more energy to get Hydrogen than you get out of it. So it's worthless doing.

(Please, if any of my posts here are inaccurate in anyway, someone correct me. I'm not brilliant at chemistry, but I believe these explanations are good enough for now.)
 
  • #76
jarednjames said:
Then you don't understand chemistry very well at all. It's not about what you do or don't buy, this fact.

If I remember correctly, everything works its way towards iron and then stays there.

Yea. I know. The more I read through it the more I understand...it's scary...

SO with that theory there will not be a 2nd bang? If that is the case, then how did the first bang even form?

Poetic. No? The "life and death" of the universe...
 
  • #77
jared69sib said:
Yea. I know. The more I read through it the more I understand...it's scary...

SO with that theory there will not be a 2nd bang? If that is the case, then how did the first bang even form?

That is a completely separate discussion, and something no person on this planet can comment on because we don't know enough about the first before we start commenting on a possible second.
 
  • #78
jarednjames said:
Then you don't understand chemistry very well at all. It's not about what you do or don't buy, this fact.

If I remember correctly, everything works its way towards iron and then stays there.

What do you "form" Hydrogen from? You have to physically split another element to get it. Not a small feat to achieve.

Hydrogen is a fantastic fuel source, if we could simply split elements down to it and then use it we wouldn't have any energy problems. But, it takes more energy to get Hydrogen than you get out of it. So it's worthless doing.

(Please, if any of my posts here are inaccurate in anyway, someone correct me. I'm not brilliant at chemistry, but I believe these explanations are good enough for now.)

Amazing. It wouldn't be worth while to break one helium down to make what? 1 hydrogen? I see your point then... Any energy expended just leaves us with less and less..
 
  • #79
Think of it like this, you can get Hydrogen from water. But, it takes more energy to split the H2 and O apart than you can get from the Hydrogen. Otherwise you would simply hook the device up to itself and have a perpetual source of energy.

Note, it isn't as simple as I made out to simply split a Helium into a Hydrogen.
 
  • #80
I was just reading that the explosion of stars (supernova) could pressurize stardust to form new stars...
 
  • #81
jarednjames said:
Think of it like this, you can get Hydrogen from water. But, it takes more energy to split the H2 and O apart than you can get from the Hydrogen. Otherwise you would simply hook the device up to itself and have a perpetual source of energy.

Note, it isn't as simple as I made out to simply split a Helium into a Hydrogen.

I get it. So where do you stand on global warming? LOL. Just a joke. I'm kidding. ;)
 
  • #82
jared69sib said:
I was just reading that the explosion of stars (supernova) could pressurize stardust to form new stars...

So, what's that got to do with getting the required fuel?

If the materials aren't present, you can't form a star.

I have a car plant of automated robots, if I don't have the materials to build the cars from I can't build cars.
 
  • #83
The OP has not posted since the end of Oct. this thread is wandering aimlessly.

Thread locked,
 
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