Artificial Gravity

{Altarian battlecruiser hailing Terran scout ship. Could y'all stop spinnig please? You're making us dizzy watching you} courtesy of Dodger(Scooby) on IRC

First of all, Faster-Than-Light travel is likely impossible, according to Einstein. Therefore all our nifty space movies, shows and games are a moot point. Let's hope ol' Albert was in error!

However, the problem of gravity, or the lack therof is already present. Humans lose muscle and BONE without gravity. It also causes other problems.

At present, we have no way of making "artificial gravity" but one of the foremost theories is about using centrifugal force; a la BABYLON 5, spinning the ship. In B5, the entire station spins to simulate gravity...you are basically pinned against the inside of the hull, giving the illusion and physical effect of gravity. The same goes for all the Human large ships in the series.

One reason why B5 is one of the more realistic concepts, in my opion.

First of all, Faster-Than-Light travel is likely impossible, according to Einstein. Therefore all our nifty space movies, shows and games are a moot point. Let's hope ol' Albert was in error!

If you look into the theories behind so called 'faster than light travel' in almost all the nifty space movies, you'll notice that they don't actually travel faster than light. They use wormholes a shortcuts through space-time, open portals to other types of space (such as hyperspace in B5) where space-time flows differently, they open sort of hybrid wormholes/hyperspace corridores (slipstream from Andromeda), folding space (from Dune), or they mess with space-time itself by creating artificial fields around their ships which move space-time at the same time as their engines propell them at sublight speeds (such as warp fields in Star Trek). The last one is sort of like running on a conveyor belt in the direction it's moving (thus allowing you to travel faster than you can normally achieve, even though you yourself are travelling at a normal speed. To relate back to ST the warp field makes space-time into a conveyor belt of sorts, and the sublight engines just chug along at normal speeds.

Only the poorly thought out space movies and such actually have ships travelling at faster than light speeds... That is, unless Albert was wrong (or just missed something that nobody has thought of yet) and we actually can travel faster than light. In which case those poorly thought out movies turn out to be right and all the 'scientifically accurate' movies look stupid in hind sight.


Edit: I forgot to actually talk about gravity, since that was the original topic of this thread, so let me just say I agree with you on the whole B5 gravity thing.

Real quick let me comment on the FTL stuff. Currently Einstein is considered to be right. But there are several schools of thought right now that think that bending space (ala warp drive) may be possible. The only problem with this approach is that the energy required to do so would be more than the total amount currently recorded in the known universe! But then that opens to debate the idea that since energy can neither be created nor destroyed the cumulative total of energy in the universe is zero. (This ties in nicely with the idea that there are actually zero forces occurring in the universe when looked at using a inertial reference frame)... But that theory conveniently ignores gravity, which brings me to my next point.

No one really "understands" gravity. Sure the effects of gravity are easy to see and measure, but old' gravity has been pretty slippery in terms of nailing down specifically why and how it exists. Basically we know right now that there is a positive attraction between all matter in the universe (not getting into anti-matter or dark matter right now). What we don’t know is why or how. This has made theorist rather unhappy in trying to create a "Grand Unified Theory". Interestingly enough though there has been several experiments in trying to create "anti gravity" the famous levitating of a frog for example. But in reality that just been an attempt to bend around the force of gravity, not really create or nullify its effect.

Whew! That was rather long winded but I hope it clarified the difficulties we have been having with making some of this science fiction into reality!

It all conects to Einsteins most known work E=mc^2, it tells us that energy is matter, and that matter is energy.
Well to travel at 20 mph. you don't need that much energy but as you accelerat you need more energy (delta)E=½*m*v^2, m is mass, and v is velocity, so the more energy you add the more you will add to the ships total weight, so the more energy you need. You get the pictur.

FTL travel considered in the movies is ussually a literal boost to very fast speeds. Actual theoretical thoughts on it usually involve the folding of space/time in such a way to stay w/in the laws of physics. To an outside observer however it appears as if they've breached the laws of physics.

Einstein predicted that nothing could be accelerated to the speed of light, there does not appear to be a restriction on things going faster than light however. There are numerous examples of this on record. Weird particle interactions that occur instantly at any distance (ie FTL).

Waagghh is right, FTL particles has been recorded in, among others, the particle accerlerator underneath Sudbury in Ontario, Canada.

Based on current science, FTL is not possible for an atomic mass. The energy required to move it increases to infinity as it approaches the speed of light. However, there are lots of things in the universe as yet unexplained by modern science. For instance, it's generally accepted the extreme gravity of of a black hole bends space and time. This is were the theory comes from about bending space in order to cross vast distances in a short time, .i.e. wormholes. Could happen in about 1000 years on the current course of technology. In that case, we'd have a complete understanding of gravity so non-centrifugal artificial gravity would be a natural course.

FTL travel considered in the movies is ussually a literal boost to very fast speeds. Actual theoretical thoughts on it usually involve the folding of space/time in such a way to stay w/in the laws of physics. To an outside observer however it appears as if they've breached the laws of physics.

I though I already covered that in my post. But thanks for the backup.

Tachyons? You can't accelerate to reach the speed of light, but as mentioned, there's no rule that says you can't start at a speed faster than the speed of light....

Weird particle interactions that occur instantly at any distance (ie FTL).

Well quantum tunneling is possible, but no new information is actually transmitted though.

Holy crap what do you people do for a living. I think you just caused my brain to shut down...


...and were back..

But more to the original point before you scientist all started debating, i think that adding gravity equipment to the game would just be so much fluff.

GC1 had an artificial gravity tec. All it did was extend your range. I suppose these PQ25 planets are not really big, but just very easy to work with.

FTL is a literal boost to very fast speeds, true, but requires folding of space or time, possibly both. While traveling at its normal speed (mach 1000K around), which is not that close to light, it simultaneously compresses space/time in front of the ship, and lengthens space/time behind the ship. Also, there are star gates (Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Galciv 2) which are portals which teleport the ship. The wavy stuff inside the gate's circle is an electromagnetic field. I think it breaks down the parts of the ship that pass though the gate into particles, transfers them (warps-well, yeah) them to another gate, restabilizes, and reassembles the particles there. And for the gravity-cool stuff. Would be more hassle tho but i like it.

Let's drop FTL talk and talk GRAVITY, the original subject.

Okay, so speaking about gravity in the game...

Have you considered that maybe these ships don't have artificial gravity? Each turn is considered to be a week...so in theory, people are on board these ships only months at a time. That's easily accomplished even today.

Have you considered that maybe these ships don't have artificial gravity? Each turn is considered to be a week...so in theory, people are on board these ships only months at a time. That's easily accomplished even today.

if they have no gravity it will effect how the living conditions are on the ship, say if it took you several weeks to get to a planet, in the beginning you don't have hyperwarp or even Ion Drive in somecases so going to some planet on the far reaches that is on the edge of your availible range would cause some serious defects to a human to say the least. Your bones would deteriorate at a fast rate in a weightless environment so even a few weeks could see major bone loss and muscle loss and you could not stand or walk right upon entering a hevier gravity than you started with or the same gravity.

I bet a lot of money that life support takes care of that.

Heh. The easiest way to create artificial gravity is a gyroscope. What they could do is just include a small gyropscope module in the larger ships, and have people "work out" in them for a few hours a day. It would be enough to prolong peoples' survivability in space to a few years.

Umm.. and what the heck guys? Why doesn't the ISS have a gyropscope. Hmm... oh yeah, because Americans would rather invest money in pointless and misguided endeavors here on Earth, rather than the future of our race.

Amusingly, recent studies are showing Einstein is wrong. Light emitted from stars shortly after the creation of the universe was found to be traveling faster than our current light constant. In short - the constant c was larger millions of years ago. Since a constant cannot change, this would nullify (or require significant revision to) all we know about field theory.

Now, unfortunately this gives weight to those String Theory people... who have tried making a theory to explain what is observed. In this case, the various string dimensions change size and have impacts on the constants in our observable universe. Pretty nutty.

I've heard stories from several relatives and older business partners that literally send shivers up and down my spine. Learned, mature adults who claim to have witnessed such things only described about in books such as the Philadelphia Experiement. It makes you wonder...

The real question isn't whether we can create artificial gravity, it is why does Cold fusion keep eluding us? Every time I see an article posted on CNN about it, it mysteriously gets pulled the next day, then deleted from the arcives and only exists on conspiracy theory forums (and my memories). Then you read about all these scientists vanishing - and it all reeks. Granted this is only a casual observation of the bigger picture, but it is puzzling. Supposing a coverup has/are taking place, we might've invented things such as artificial gravity and cold fusion a dozen times over... well, one could hope

In other news:

tinfoil stock gained 50 points today in heavy trading...

the Yor are on the rampage again...

Alan Bradley died today due complications from his recent surgery to repair a deteriorating arterial wall. Sources close to the president say it stems from his long days in space during his service years, without the benefits of artifical gravity...

Another Torian freighter was impounded by Martian port authorities on suspicion of recieving stolen cargo. MPA authorities have yet to comment. It is rumored that the freighter was trying to make off with a load of purloined blue jeans...

*cut to commercial*

It's pretty different thing to create gravity where there was none than to reduce gravity in a place where there is too much of it! Concept of that is crazy~~ You would need some sort of... anti-gravity...

Amusingly, recent studies are showing Einstein is wrong. Light emitted from stars shortly after the creation of the universe was found to be traveling faster than our current light constant. In short - the constant c was larger millions of years ago. Since a constant cannot change, this would nullify (or require significant revision to) all we know about field theory.

1. I think you mean Billions of years

2. Since the speed of light in a medium is inversely proportional to the refractive index of the medium, perhaps space is not a pure vacuum. Maybe the ancient Greeks had it right with their concept of "Aether".

 

Oh my god, I hope none of you are physics majors! (If there are physics majors in here they need to review their kinematics)
Centrifugal force does not exist!
It is a fictitious force that shows up in a rotating reference frame. It is not a real force, the force you are looking for is called centripetal force. It's where a rotating object is split into two vectors, radial accel and tangential accel....it's kinda long to explain so I suggest looking it up before more people throw about the word "centrifugal".

Someone may try to argue with me so let me be clear, if there were a center fleeing force (centrifugal) it would be equal and opposite to the center seeking force (centripetal) and therefore there would be no rotation. (It's a bit more complicated than then but that's the idea)

Now do not be confused with the reactive centrifugal force, this acts on the pivot of whatever is spinning (like a ball on a rope, the tension on the rope is pulling inward on the ball (centripetal) and the tension is also pulling outward on the pivot (reactive centrifugal) but no center fleeing force is acting on the ball.

So a way to create artificial gravity is to spin a ship or station, thus applying a centripetal acceleration to whatever is inside.

Yes, that's a detail most people are unaware of. For the sake of conversation, people just say centrifugal force since it's more of a laymans term, but yea, there is a difference. When you say centripetal force, most people don't know what you're talking about.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Centrifugal effect merely a bi-product of inertia?

Personaly I think that worrying about if a Drengin assault force is equipped with the right gravity is a little pointless. They're going to steamroll your forces and invade your worlds all the same.