[castor]

Would it be possible to accelerate faster than your mass can keep up with... thereby punching through the barrier before physics has time to catch up... allowing for infinite speed before infinite mass takes note?

Hmm.. but what is it that accelerates, if not the mass?

[Herra Tohtori]

Generating gravity fields through magnetic fields? Uh-huh.

I hope the DoD folks aren't dumb enough to take this seriously.

Actually, that's not so far-fetched as it might sound.

There are no actual gravity fields according to general theory of relativity. There are only energy and its interaction with space-time continuum. A lot of energy confined into one place curves the space-time regardless of its form (though relativistic energy forms such as kinetic energy naturally don't add to gravitational interactions, when you count every koordinate conversion into the equations, but that's getting technical...)

The point is that every form of energy curves the space-time continuum. Mass has energy according to famous equation E=mc^2... electric and magnetic fields have energy, thus they curve the space-time around them.

The trouble is, however, that for creating a magnetic field that would have equal energy to one gram of matter is utterly impossible for today's technology. If we want to create a similar effect, magnetic field should also be confined to equal volume as the mass is. For example, if we have a cube of iron that has a mass of 1 g (0,001 kg), it would be quite small in size, eh? However, it has equal energy to 89 875 517 873 681,764 Joules. That's a lot of energy... almost 90 TV. Converted to kWh, it is 24965421,63 kWh. That's the minimum energy input to create a magnetic field that has similar gravitational effects as one gram of matter. Naturally, confining this much energy in form of magnetic field into such a small space as the one manned by that one gram iron scrap would also be *quite* difficult, and my guess is that instead of working as planned, such energy density would cease to be a magnetic field and become something else, proposedly particles - which would bring us to starting point.

Damn, the cost of electricity needed to power up one-gram equivalent magnetic field is 943 693 € here in Helsinki. That is, if all electrical energy used would be converted to magnetic field without energy losses (which cannot be the case, actually...).

Needless to say, it's completely useless to create mass effects by magnetic field. For it to have any significant gravitational meaning it would require much greater mass equivalence than one gram, hence it would need literally astronomical amounts of energy output.

[Col. Fishguts]

Would it be possible to accelerate faster than your mass can keep up with... thereby punching through the barrier before physics has time to catch up... allowing for infinite speed before infinite mass takes note?

(Shot in the dark.. I know).

Hehe, if you did it really, really, really fast .... maybe.

That's where quantum effects occur. You can "borrow" immense amounts of energy, but have to give it back within a very short period of time. As long as you stay below Planck's constant with your energy*time product, you can do pretty much anything because it's not observable anyway. B
ut that only applies if you're an electron or smaller ...so good luck to you

[TrashMan]

Interesting....

However, I have a strange feeling that MABY, just maby, all those scientist have a better idea of what they are talking about than any wikipedia-physicist here at these forums.
Of course, they could allso be wrong...but only time will tell, right?

and one thing is certain - no matter what mode of inter-stellar transport you come up with it will ALLWAYS require astronomical ammounts of energy...in space, everything IS astronomical

[Janos]

Interesting....

However, I have a strange feeling that MABY, just maby, all those scientist have a better idea of what they are talking about than any wikipedia-physicist here at these forums.
Of course, they could allso be wrong...but only time will tell, right?

and one thing is certain - no matter what mode of inter-stellar transport you come up with it will ALLWAYS require astronomical ammounts of energy...in space, everything IS astronomical

US government - or any big government -  pours money into really stupid projects. Psychic warfare? Check! Invisibility machines and laser swords? Check! Black hole weapons? Check! The men who stare at goats? Check!

The idea is that although majority of these projects are complete bunk and never result in anything else than unintentional comedy and hilarity, some of them actually have benefits. NASA has an entire section dedicated to FTL systems and it's just one of those progs.

[Flipside]

Scientists are also far from never wrong, one only has to think the words 'Cold Fusion'.

[Black Wolf]

However, I have a strange feeling that MABY, just maby, all those scientist have a better idea of what they are talking about than any wikipedia-physicist here at these forums.

That's a terrible scientific attitude. If everyone just assumed that these sorts of people were always right, who knows what they would have gotten away with.

[Unknown Target]

He wasn't assuming they were right, he was assuming that they knew their material better than everyone here who happened to take a crash-course in reading through five pages of Wikkipedia documentation.

[karajorma]

He was missing the point that Janos made about how NASA and the American military have wasted millions if not billions on pie in the sky nonsense projects. So we have prior cases of both wasting money on things that someone "who happened to take a crash-course in reading through five pages of Wikkipedia documentation" could tell is a load of ****.

While I'm always willing to respect scientists who have greater knowledge in a field than I do, I always check their track record on the subject and NASA has a habit of wasting money on this kind of stuff.

[TrashMan]

I belive I said they may very well be wrong.

Research of FTL is a GOOD thing. Discovery of any FTL engine would prrolly be the biggest tech advancment in human history. WE can't stay on Earth forever you know...even if we don't poison it or blow it up we all know how it's gonna end...

[Fineus]

Cthulhu rises from the deep and takes command of us all?

[Unknown Target]

Only on a Monday.

[Flipside]

Well, they had to put off Ragnarok till Tuesday, cos of rain

[Kamikaze]

However, I have a strange feeling that MABY, just maby, all those scientist have a better idea of what they are talking about than any wikipedia-physicist here at these forums.
Of course, they could allso be wrong...but only time will tell, right?

No, science is all about being skeptical (see my signature). What you're describing is religion (if the bible says so, it must be true!).

[Moltke]

I would have that Freespace geeks would be more receptive to the idea.  I thought it was cool, anyway.

[Flipside]

Oh it is cool, but we don't let that get in the way of having a debate

[Herra Tohtori]

Well, it would be cooler than anything if it worked, but... Current knowledge of physics doesn't apply proposed kind of manipulation to space-time continuumwithout use of insane amounts of energy.

On the other hand: In the end of 19th century and in beginniing of 20th, most scientist thought that all of physics had mostly been figured out, and that classical dynamics and electrodynamics and wave motion and stuff was enough to explain all phenomena encountered in nature - only minor tweaking might be needed to apply, but general lines were thought to be firmly established and steady. Then came Albert Einstein and Max Planck with Special&General Relativity and the Quantum theory, which basically changed the very basis of pretty much everything.

Mother nature might have funny little surprizes behind her back. Even now we use on daily basis many devices that would be considered impossible to build or even to reverse engineer with use of just classical mechanics and electrodynamics... So, history has shown us that pretty much everything is impossible until it's made reality.

I cincerely DO hope that some day some more useful means of transportation will be utilized, than the currently only known way to travel through space (conservation of momentum). It would be such a waste of space not ever to be able to explore the universe further than solar system...

[Martinus]

Well, it would be cooler than anything if it worked, but... Current knowledge of physics doesn't apply proposed kind of manipulation to space-time continuumwithout use of insane amounts of energy.

Douglas Adams has already pointed out that you can cross vast interstellar distances with nothing more than a strong cup of tea as a power source.

[Turnsky]

Well, it would be cooler than anything if it worked, but... Current knowledge of physics doesn't apply proposed kind of manipulation to space-time continuumwithout use of insane amounts of energy.

Douglas Adams has already pointed out that you can cross vast interstellar distances with nothing more than a strong cup of tea as a power source.

sour cherry bubble yum is aparrently a pretty potent fuel source, too 

[Descenterace]

Scientists are also far from never wrong, one only has to think the words 'Cold Fusion'.

It's been done.

It didn't break even AFAIK, but it was done and it can be reproduced. IIRC it used a crystal to focus an electromagnetic field.