Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ames.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!hao!ames!barry From: barry@ames.UUCP (Kenn Barry) Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers Subject: Re: FTL Techniques (masslessness) Message-ID: <1086@ames.UUCP> Date: Thu, 15-Aug-85 02:55:17 EDT Article-I.D.: ames.1086 Posted: Thu Aug 15 02:55:17 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 19-Aug-85 07:15:12 EDT References: <2900@topaz.ARPA> <825@ncoast.UUCP> Organization: NASA-Ames Research Center, Mtn. View, CA Lines: 31 Quoted from <2900@topaz.ARPA> ["Re: FTL & Physics"], by Alfke.PASA@Xerox.ARPA... +--------------- | Photons (and anything else which travels at lightspeed) are massless. | You can multiply their mass by any gamma factor (the thing that goes | infinite at c) and it stays zero: thus, the formula still applies. | Interestingly enough, photons do have momentum, which varies with | wavelength, not speed. | | If we could get rid of ALL of a starship's mass, we could get it to go | at lightspeed very easily ... hmmm. Sounds like a great gimmick for a | space-opera. +--------------- One of Dr. Robert Forward's "Far Out Physics" ideas is along these lines. First, you postulate anti-mass - not antimatter, but negative mass. Its gravity pushes, and when it's combined with regular mass, you get cancellation, nothing, no energy. Anyway, you take approximately equal hunks of mass and anti-mass. The mass is your spaceship, the anti-mass your "drive". Hook 'em together (how?) (shut up, kid!), and the thing's inertialess (or nearly, depending on how exactly you measure the mass and anti-mass), because the total mass of the system's 0. It immediately flies off in the direction of the mass-end of the system (the mass pulls the anti-mass, the anti-mass pushes the mass) at a velocity approximating light. Anybody seen any anti-mass lying around? :-) - From the Crow's Nest - Kenn Barry NASA-Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- USENET: {ihnp4,vortex,dual,nsc,hao,hplabs}!ames!barry