Mach Thruster Update.

On 9/7/2020 8:20 PM, Alain Fournier wrote:

About throwing money at Alcubierre's drive, I wouldn't throw a tonne of
money at it, but if I could, I certainly would throw a negative tonne of
money at it :-)


Somehow I *knew* you were heading in this direction ....

Dave

"David Spain" wrote in message ...

On 9/7/2020 8:20 PM, Alain Fournier wrote:

About throwing money at Alcubierre's drive, I wouldn't throw a tonne of
money at it, but if I could, I certainly would throw a negative tonne of
money at it :-)


Somehow I *knew* you were heading in this direction ....

Dave


Heading in this direction or heading negatively in that direction? :-)


--
Greg D. Moore http://greenmountainsoftware.wordpress.com/
CEO QuiCR: Quick, Crowdsourced Responses. http://www.quicr.net
IT Disaster Response -
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On 9/23/2020 9:32 AM, Greg (Strider) Moore wrote:
"David Spain"Â* wrote in message ...

On 9/7/2020 8:20 PM, Alain Fournier wrote:

About throwing money at Alcubierre's drive, I wouldn't throw a tonne
of money at it, but if I could, I certainly would throw a negative
tonne of money at it :-)


Somehow I *knew* you were heading in this direction ....

Dave


Heading in this direction or heading negatively in that direction? :-)



I'm not sure direction is relevant when you've exceeded the speed of
money.

Dave

On Sep/23/2020 at 11:36, David Spain wrote :
On 9/23/2020 9:32 AM, Greg (Strider) Moore wrote:
"David Spain"Â* wrote in message ...

On 9/7/2020 8:20 PM, Alain Fournier wrote:

About throwing money at Alcubierre's drive, I wouldn't throw a tonne
of money at it, but if I could, I certainly would throw a negative
tonne of money at it :-)


Somehow I *knew* you were heading in this direction ....

Dave


Heading in this direction or heading negatively in that direction? :-)



I'm not sure direction is relevant when you've exceeded the speed of
money.

Dave

The speed of money? Where does that fit in the light-speed,
ludicrous-speed and plaid-speed scale?

As for using an Alcubierre drive, Serguei Krashnikov proposed a scheme
where only a few negative milligrams of exotic matter is needed to
transport small atoms at super-luminal speeds. The utility of
transporting small atoms like this would be more about transporting
information than about transporting the atoms themselves. So this brings
up the question: are atoms really the best option for transporting
information like this? Could an Alcubierre-Krashnikov drive be used to
transport photons faster than light? I don't think that the fact that
photons are massless is important here, the payload isn't accelerated at
all, it is the space around the payload which is warped. But if the
photon is a gamma ray, it is much smaller than an atom and volume does
seem to be severely restricted for such a drive. What would be the best
payload for such a drive?


Alain Fournier

On 9/23/2020 4:29 PM, Alain Fournier wrote:
I'm not sure direction is relevant when you've exceeded the speed of
money.

Dave

The speed of money? Where does that fit in the light-speed,
ludicrous-speed and plaid-speed scale?

The speed of money is essentially somewhere between the speed of
imagination and the speed of realization.

As for using an Alcubierre drive, Serguei Krashnikov proposed a scheme
where only a few negative milligrams of exotic matter is needed to
transport small atoms at super-luminal speeds. The utility of
transporting small atoms like this would be more about transporting
information than about transporting the atoms themselves. So this brings
up the question: are atoms really the best option for transporting
information like this? Could an Alcubierre-Krashnikov drive be used to
transport photons faster than light? I don't think that the fact that
photons are massless is important here, the payload isn't accelerated at
all, it is the space around the payload which is warped. But if the
photon is a gamma ray, it is much smaller than an atom and volume does
seem to be severely restricted for such a drive. What would be the best
payload for such a drive?

Anything that fits inside the transporter beam? Essentially using
quantum mechanics and spooky action-at-a-distance to get around the
light speed hangup. I've always thought that if you can essentially
assemble something in zero elapsed time anywhere in the universe, that's
probably the best way to travel. The trick is getting the receivers
where you want them.

Dave

On Sep/24/2020 at 04:14, David Spain wrote :
On 9/23/2020 4:29 PM, Alain Fournier wrote:
I'm not sure direction is relevant when you've exceeded the speed of
money.

Dave

The speed of money? Where does that fit in the light-speed,
ludicrous-speed and plaid-speed scale?

The speed of money is essentially somewhere between the speed of
imagination and the speed of realization.

As for using an Alcubierre drive, Serguei Krashnikov proposed a scheme
where only a few negative milligrams of exotic matter is needed to
transport small atoms at super-luminal speeds. The utility of
transporting small atoms like this would be more about transporting
information than about transporting the atoms themselves. So this
brings up the question: are atoms really the best option for
transporting information like this? Could an Alcubierre-Krashnikov
drive be used to transport photons faster than light? I don't think
that the fact that photons are massless is important here, the payload
isn't accelerated at all, it is the space around the payload which is
warped. But if the photon is a gamma ray, it is much smaller than an
atom and volume does seem to be severely restricted for such a drive.
What would be the best payload for such a drive?

Anything that fits inside the transporter beam? Essentially using
quantum mechanics and spooky action-at-a-distance to get around the
light speed hangup. I've always thought that if you can essentially
assemble something in zero elapsed time anywhere in the universe, that's
probably the best way to travel. The trick is getting the receivers
where you want them.

Dave

I thought about this some more. I was wondering what would be the best
payload for an Alcubierre drive. But the answer to my question might
very well be no payload at all. If at destination they can detect that
an Alcubierre drive has arrived, and know when and/or where that has
happened, even if the drive contains nothing, information can be
transmitted this way. And since the size of the drive seems to be a
limiting factor, if you reduce the payload to nothing, you don't have to
bother making the drive big enough to carry it.


Alain Fournier

Alain Fournier writes:

[trimming down a bit]

On Sep/24/2020 at 04:14, David Spain wrote :
Anything that fits inside the transporter beam? Essentially using quantum
mechanics and spooky action-at-a-distance to get around the light speed
hangup. I've always thought that if you can essentially assemble something
in zero elapsed time anywhere in the universe, that's probably the best way
to travel. The trick is getting the receivers where you want them.

I thought about this some more. I was wondering what would be the best payload
for an Alcubierre drive. But the answer to my question might very well be no
payload at all. If at destination they can detect that an Alcubierre drive has
arrived, and know when and/or where that has happened, even if the drive
contains nothing, information can be transmitted this way. And since the size
of the drive seems to be a limiting factor, if you reduce the payload to
nothing, you don't have to bother making the drive big enough to carry it.

And I've thought about my response a bit more as well. It would be somewhat
silly and naive to think that we humans would necessarily be the first
inventors of a Star-gate. So essentially the issue of receivers sort of solves
itself! The answer is any civilization that is sufficiently advanced to create
this technology will have a receiver at their location by definition! This
also neatly solves the Star Trek Prime Directive issue as well, since there is
already a significant barrier to entry and requires a level of technological
sophistication on the part of each party that is amenable to first contacts.

Also you can prevent hostilities and invasion by hostile aliens simply by
turning your receiver off! Of course this presumes one has invented one's own
Star-gate and that some interloper hasn't sneaked one into your system via
light-sail over a gazillion years that you don't know about!

Dave

Le Sep/29/2020 Ã* 15:38, David Spain a écritÂ*:
Alain Fournier writes:

[trimming down a bit]

On Sep/24/2020 at 04:14, David Spain wrote :
Anything that fits inside the transporter beam? Essentially using quantum
mechanics and spooky action-at-a-distance to get around the light speed
hangup. I've always thought that if you can essentially assemble something
in zero elapsed time anywhere in the universe, that's probably the best way
to travel. The trick is getting the receivers where you want them.

I thought about this some more. I was wondering what would be the best payload
for an Alcubierre drive. But the answer to my question might very well be no
payload at all. If at destination they can detect that an Alcubierre drive has
arrived, and know when and/or where that has happened, even if the drive
contains nothing, information can be transmitted this way. And since the size
of the drive seems to be a limiting factor, if you reduce the payload to
nothing, you don't have to bother making the drive big enough to carry it.

And I've thought about my response a bit more as well. It would be somewhat
silly and naive to think that we humans would necessarily be the first
inventors of a Star-gate.

You are presuming here that life is something frequent. We very well
might be alone. I'm not saying we are, and I hope we aren't. But until
we have proof that life has evolved somewhere else, independently from
life on Earth or until we understand the process by which life arose
here, we must admit that it is possible that we are alone. When we will
understand how our branch of life began, we will be able to evaluate how
likely it is that the same happened elsewhere. But with our current
knowledge, all we can say is that it did happen once, it might be only once.

So essentially the issue of receivers sort of solves
itself! The answer is any civilization that is sufficiently advanced to create
this technology will have a receiver at their location by definition! This
also neatly solves the Star Trek Prime Directive issue as well, since there is
already a significant barrier to entry and requires a level of technological
sophistication on the part of each party that is amenable to first contacts.

Also you can prevent hostilities and invasion by hostile aliens simply by
turning your receiver off! Of course this presumes one has invented one's own
Star-gate and that some interloper hasn't sneaked one into your system via
light-sail over a gazillion years that you don't know about!

I'm not sure turning your receiver off would be sufficient. If a
civilization can send a receiver to a star system let's say 10
light-years from here, then I would assume that such a civilization
could then move it around by a mere 10 light-years in less than a century.

You really have to hope that the major civilizations in your
neighbourhood are not hostile.


Alain Fournier