Subject:
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Re: Presenting the Suborbital Defender
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.space
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Date:
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Sat, 3 Aug 2002 05:26:15 GMT
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Viewed:
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542 times
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More than you want to know indeed:
The anti-particle particle pairs you mention happen as a result of
quantum theory and the uncertainty principle. Since energy can never quite
be zero, random fluctuations can appear, and then annhilate without breaking
the laws of physics as we've developed them. At the edge of a black hole,
at the event horizon, sometimes the anti-particle gets drawn in while the
particle escapes. We observe this as radiation emitted from the black
hole...and rightly so in a way because the antimatter will decrease the
overall energy of the black hole. Primordial black holes (theoretic black
holes that are really friggin' tiny...relative to normal black holes) are
theorized to be exploding once their energies are used up. This radiation
is called Hawking radiation after Stephen Hawking.
Antimatter propulsion works on the principle of accelerating particles
to obscenely near light speed (so people think anyway). The problem won't
be fuel, as you've said. There is still hydrogen in space. There's very
little of it, but it exists...it's not a TOTAL vacuum. Heisenberg's
uncertainty principle stops that. The trick is to gather the hydrogen.
You'd have to be going at a decent rate in the first place (or have a solar
system sized collector) to gather enough hydrogen. But that should be fine.
You just bring some hydrogen along for the ride at the beginning. The real
advantage of anti-matter drive is that propulsive force is not proportional
to "fuel" in the traditional sense. If you want to go faster, you just pump
in more anti-matter. This will release higher energies and accelerate
released particles ever closer to c (light speed), enabling more thrust.
It's not a constant-yield system like traditional solid fuel rockets.
So with those two in mind, catching particle-anti-particle pairs from
random quantum fluctuations probably won't be feasible. They happen too
fast first of all for most things (save a black hole) to catch. And even if
we could catch them, the initial energy barrier would be immense. Imagine
trying to create a controllable event horizon. Or failing that, imagine the
kind of device we'd need to detect quantum fluctuations, somehow capture
them, and then release them. It would have to be at least equal to the
amount of energy we'd need to create antimatter (otherwise, it'd be free
energy), but all condensed into one millionth of a femtosecond. Actually,
probably more like 10^(-30) or seconds or something ludicrous like that.
Now...gravitics...if we could manipulate gravitons and generate gravity
sinks on the fly....... :)
Your temporary anti-matter nerd,
Sonic
"Tom Sciortino" <tsciorti@band.calpoly.edu> wrote in message
news:H092nx.2nw@lugnet.com...
>
> "Sproaticus" <jsproat@io.com> wrote in message • news:H08vw7.As9@lugnet.com...
>
> <snip>
> > The only thing I think it's missing is fuel tanks -- but I wiggle my • fingers
> > like this and *poof* it magically flies anyway! :-,
> >
> > I think that the reaction mass is probably the single most common • neglected
> > component of spacecraft seen here, but who knows what propulsion will be
> > like in 100 years? Maybe we'll be pulling all the mass we need out of • thin
> > air by then...
> >
> > Cheers,
> > - jsproat
>
> In my universe, the engines double as the power source (ie, electrical,
> weapons, lights) and the prupulsion source. Of course, the more thrust
> being generated, the less power is available to other systems, but the • idea
> is to use engines big enough so that even at maximum thrust, there is • still
> more power than required for all other systems.
>
> I assume fuel to be contained within the engine, unless it's a very small
> meneuvering thruster. With high efficiency antimatter systems, even a few
> grams of antimatter yields a tremendous amount of energy when reacted with
> matter, so I never worried about having "fuel tanks."
>
> And now, from the more-than-you-wanted-to-know department, it may be
> theoretically possible to pull reaction mass out of "thin air" as you say.
> ;) I read somewhere that particle/anti-particle pairs have been known to
> snap into existence and then immediately annihilate and go back to where
> they came. If you could capture the anti particle... of course, you
> probably would have to be inside a black hole or something...
>
> -- Tom
>
>
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: Presenting the Suborbital Defender
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| "Sproaticus" <jsproat@io.com> wrote in message news:H08vw7.As9@lugnet.com... <snip> (...) fingers (...) neglected (...) thin (...) In my universe, the engines double as the power source (ie, electrical, weapons, lights) and the prupulsion source. (...) (23 years ago, 3-Aug-02, to lugnet.space)
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