What Will Happen to a Fan in Space?

[K^2]

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.

 

[jared69sib]

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...

 

[jared69sib]

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.

 

[jared69sib]

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.

 

[JaredJames]

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.

 

[Rap]

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.

 

[Vagn]

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.

 

[jared69sib]

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!

 

[JaredJames]

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

 

[jared69sib]

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...

 

[jared69sib]

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...

 

[JaredJames]

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.

 

[JaredJames]

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?

 

[jared69sib]

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...

 

[JaredJames]

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.)}

 

[jared69sib]

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...

 

[JaredJames]

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.

 

[jared69sib]

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..

 

[JaredJames]

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.

 

[jared69sib]

I was just reading that the explosion of stars (supernova) could pressurize stardust to form new stars...

 

[jared69sib]

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. ;)

 

[JaredJames]

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.

 

[Integral]

The OP has not posted since the end of Oct. this thread is wandering aimlessly.

Thread locked,