Sillychris

If that's the case, I urge you to predict determinately where a single electron will end up after passing through a double slit setup.

I learned something today.

You feel weightless when your acceleration vector is equal to the gravitational field's vector, ie freefall. That feeling in your stomach when you first drop on a rollercoaster is the same phenomenon. As pointed out previously, thrust and friction are two things that can prevent your acceleration and gravity vectors from matching. However, if you are careful, you can utilize these things to match and achieve temporary "weightlessness". This is the principle of parabolic microgravity flights. KerikBalm phrased it nicely: "happens at engine cutoff, and ends upon reentry"

I always figured Kerbosene was the liquid fuel with maybe kerbassium nitrate as the oxidizer.

Since we're on the topic of SR now, I'd like to point out a very common misconception in regard to Lorentz contractions. Even in many texts on the subject, Lorentz contractions are erroneously described as an observed contraction in the direction of travel. Lorentz contractions correctly describe a length contraction if you could measure it directly, but due to the finite travel speed of light what is actually observed is quite different. Through some strictly algebraic derivations, it can be shown that a relativistic object will appear to be rotated towards the optical observer (The forward surface will appear rotated towards and the rear surface will appear to be rotated away) of course for a strictly one dimensional object, this has the effect of also appearing to be contracted. Just some food for thought. Try the derivations using the lorentz contraction factor and light travel time to observer, it's very interesting and not too hard!

So, in my example let's swap 10 years and 18 years for seconds to make the math less annoying. Let's add our passage through space r=sqrt(x^2+y^2+z^2) with an analogous passage through time of say c^2t^2 (to get the units the same). Of course these are vector coordinates, so they have to be added in quadrature. This gives the total distance I have traveled through spacetime of s^2=r^2+c^2t^2 if I were sitting on earth for 18 seconds, s^2=0+9E16(18s)^2=2.9E19 if I were zipping along at 0.83 c, s^2=[(18s)(3E8)(0.83)]^2+9E16(10s)^2=2.9E19 in both cases, my spatial velocity did not matter, I still moved through spacetime at the exact same speed. This is the constant I was referring to. If you divide both side of the equation by c^2, you will find your velocity through spacetime is always a constant.

It's called "time dilation" and I don't have it backwards. Time from an observer's reference frame appears to pass more slowly for a relativistic object. Of course, from the object's reference frame space simply appears to contract in the direction of travel while time passes at full speed. Both perspectives give the same amount of time passing. The point is, if I had spent 18 years of earth time travelling through space at 83% the speed of light I would only have aged 10 years. Time thus passed more slowly for me while my spatial velocity was extremely high. I'm not making this up... time dilation is a well established and observed phenomenon and is hammered into your head in undergraduate physics.

Today I was pondering dark energy and then something hit me. In SR, one considers time as a 4th dimension. The faster an object with rest mass moves through space, the slower it moves through time. It turns out that with some relatively simple derivations you can Demonstrate that adding an object's movement through time and movement through space always yields a constant. This is also true for particles with zero rest mass which experience infinite time dilation and move at precisely c. The connection I made while pondering was that dark energy may have a similar relationship to another quantity that is assumed to be unrelated. A quantity that is continually decreasing? Maybe free energy of the universe? Or maybe it could be linked to the ever increasing entropy of the universe? Please, speculate away. I am specifically looking for connections to already known quantities, but Any contributions are welcome. Note: Dark energy is what physicists have named the source of the accelerating expansion of the universe. Nobody knows why the universe's expansion is accelerating, but Astronomers are pretty sure it is. Astronomers also have an excellent track record of being right.

Exo Squad was awesome. It was about good guys and bad guys battling eachother in exo suits. http://adultmult.tv/images/Exosquad_2.jpg

Don't get me wrong, I am in favor of mechanical t-rexes just as much as squishy meat filled ones. What I'd really like to see is a real dinosaur with weapons training and a rider face off against a mechanical facsimile with integrated weapons and a pilot. I think using Godzilla movies as evidence for whatever point you choose is now valid. Also, did anyone watch the 90's animated series Exo-Squad?

I think you meant to say "you are not in an inertial frame of reference" since the rocket is accelerating.

I remember seeing Star Wars for the first time and thinking not shooting that pod was a really weak plot device. I wonder if the guy that gave that order got fired. I really want a star wars style plasma/laser type gun. Maybe like a death ray.

I too grow tired of hearing about the partial story of wing lift. Have these guys never heard of an angle of attack?

I was going to make some witty replies to today's posts, but then I saw the T-rex post. Little arm problem finally solved! Why model mechs after a T-Rex when you can just Jurassic Park some dinosaurs and give them dinosaur size guns with riders?

But you can use smallpox on your enemies!

A mech would be best suited fighting giant monsters, I think. Like Kraken and giant fire breathing worms. They'd also be great for morale and propaganda.

How would you know to dodge in advance of the laser's arrival? You wouldn't know a laser was en route until it arrived. Of course, you could just juke around randomly to make it impossible for the enemy ship to predict where you will be in a few minutes. I suppose the enemy ship could saturate all your possible positions at that point in time, assuming they had enough power. "What, are we paying by the laser now? -From Family Guy parody of Star Wars.

It is my opinion that if this lofty goal is not achieved we ultimately doom all life in the solar system to extinction. We could possibly deploy deep space seeds, but the sheer distances involved in reaching a suitable extrasolar planet would be quite prohibitive to sublight travel.

I nominate Awaras for best mental image award. I eagerly await the day of rollerblading mechs! They could have ski/skate attachments for colder regions, too.

Excellent point.

Haha, I was being a little sarcastic. It's a common joke the theoreticians like to toss around "Oh, that's just an engineering problem"

The idea is that nothing can exceed the speed of light while travelling through space-time (actually, if you study relativity more deeply you find that everything is moving at the exact same speed through space time when you factor in moving through time as a dimension, ie photons experience no passage of time or infinite time dilation, if you prefer). Space time can't "travel" through itself. The speed limit applies only to things that exist in space-time. The cosmologists who are a lot smarter than me seem pretty confident that there is no reason to assume there is a limit on the expansion of space time. Also, how would you define the speed at which spacetime expands since you would have to measure it in reference to spacetime?

I think driveshaft technology could be seriously improved by the time mechs become feasible. Perhaps more lightweight methods of transferring power could be developed... unless they already exist? With a little bit of airtight tubing, you can spin a lightweight air motor with extremely high power/weight while storing the powerplant wherever you like. This is the principle of air-hand tools which are preferred for high power applications where the size and weight of an electric motor would be prohibitive. So the technology for lightweight drive wheels on the feet already exists today and it will only improve with time. Of course, the mech could always have free wheels on the feet equipped strictly with brakes and derive it's propulsion from thrusters of some type near the center of mass. To avoid reaction mass, a super-efficient electrically powered future propeller could be utilized

If you had some method to impart negative mass on an object... you could give it half negative mass and half positive mass. Assuming gravity acts repulsively on negative mass, the two should cancel out and give a net effect of zero. How to achieve negative mass? That's for the engineers. Shouldn't be too long.

I absolutely believe we should bring back extinct species. In particular, species whose extinctions we are responsible for. Not doing so if we have the means available is nothing short of evil. In regard to bringing back species that went extinct naturally, I also believe we should, except maybe only in captivity or on other planets. Here I feel there is no moral responsibility but instead a scientific responsibility. What we can learn from a reincarnated extinct species is beyond prediction. In regard to engineering new species, I believe this should be done as well. Once again, the potential for knowledge is enormous and we may just invent something that can help solve very serious problems and/or be used for terraforming colonization purposes. Engineering should be proceeded with carefully, with regulation, and with full disclosure, however.