What is Hyperspace?

[Guest JediIgor]

This weight increasing thing is a great problem even when you don't want to reach the speed of light.

Take fight plane pilots, they are already submitted to intense pressure when the approach the speed of sound. Imagine how it would be at the speed of light.

 

Don't worry, future ships will have inertial dampers built-in like in Star Wars .

 

But how about hyperspace? Did I miss the miraculous post that explained how it worked, or why are we going off topic about going to the speed of light (this is going past the speed of light!).

 

By the way, I personally wouldn't like to be "teleported" in the manner we are able to do now, . I'll wait until actual matter is moved thank you very much.

[Guest Scathane]

But how about hyperspace? Did I miss the miraculous post that explained how it worked, or why are we going off topic about going to the speed of light (this is going past the speed of light!).

Nope... You missed the miraculous post...

[Guest JediIgor]

But how about hyperspace? Did I miss the miraculous post that explained how it worked, or why are we going off topic about going to the speed of light (this is going past the speed of light!).

Nope... You missed the miraculous post...

 

So where is it then? How about a link?

[Guest Scathane]

Link.

[SOCL]

Interesting article there, Scath. According to what I've read, though, the theory of 10 or less dimensions has been rendered moot and that, in fact, the universe in which we reside consists of 11. Strange, I know, and I certainly won't pretend to understand the details, but if I remember correctly, the equations being used for

 

Then again, has anyone read the novel A Wrinkle In Time? It's a pretty cool book that talks about the first 5 dimensions. No, that's not where I found my information for the paragraph above.

 

To answer an earlier question about why planets and gravity in general pull things from hyperspace, quite simply, any large body of mass creates a gravity well. A gravity well is basically why asteroids get stuck in orbit around Earth or why Lagrange points (refer to the Trojan Asteroids) exist. Basically, imagine that you have a bowl and you roll a marble down the inside. Naturally, the marble will roll down into the center and up the other side, but will not fall out...instead it rolls back and forth until it finally comes to a dead stop. Okay, now imagine that bowl being placed inside the table so that the rim of the bowl is flush with the surface of the table. Traveling along the table's surface is just like traveling in space with the bowl representing some body of mass (i.e. a star, planet, etc.); if the marble is caught in the bowl, then it falls into the bowl's "gravity well" and is stuck. Only extra power (i.e. engines/sublight engines) can brake the gravity well's hold on the marble (in this case, you would need to use your hand to roll the marble out of the bowl and back onto the surface of the table). Hyperspace would work just about the same way, with the marble traveling at or past the speed of light (according to our current physics, this is impossible, but Scath pointed out that many things that were once fact are now fiction as they have been proven incorrect). Even so, if the marble is traveling at 'lightspeed' across the table's surface, the bowl will still cause it to have some fluctuation in travel (dangerous fluctuations at that!), hence why the ships in Star Wars automatically shut off their hyperdrives when they detect an unexpected gravity well in their path. If they didn't, it could cause some serious problems such as (best case scenario) being flung across the universe or (worst case scenario) being torn and pulled apart. Back to our marble example, if the marble's engines didn't shut down and/or stop the marble when it reaches the bowl (while traveling at the speed of light), it could possibly fling off the end of the bowl and go flying across the room (i.e. being flung across the universe) or it could (if the speed is fast enough and the bowl deep enough) get partially caught in the gravity well and be torn to shreds by the opposing forces of 'lightspeed' and gravity. Of course, the size of the gravity well (depth of the bowl) has quite a lot to do with this, hence why smaller celestial bodies of mass have no affect on something going the speed of light (i.e. asteroids, planetoids, and moons).

 

Of course, going faster than the speed of light could possibly be fast enough that one could 'fly' over the bowl without ever noticing it was there, the strian this would cause to the object, though, could be terrible and could very possibly destroy it (depening on its speed, of course). Going faster than the speed of light also has the complication of possibly making someone go backwards in time. This, of course, would make up for the years that would go by while traveling at the speed of light, canceling each other out so neither the passengers nor the recievers notice any change in time (i.e. ages between a passenger and non-passenger).

 

[/bEAK]

[Guest Scathane]

Nice, SOCL, very nice indeed! BTW, did you know that your bowl-example is exactly how we deduct that spacetime is curved by gravity?

[Grand_Admiral_Thrawn]

The question is, does that model of Hyperspace and faster-than-light travel utilize the Genreal Theory of Relativity and other theories of its time, or does it use the modern String Theory.

 

The former, all of Einstein's work and that of others prior to the mid 80's, doesn't take into accound gravity because any equations solved with a gravity variable that is realistic gave unreasonable answers. Therefor, physicists stopped calculating for all situations but those in which gravity was so weak it's effect on the outcome was negligable.

 

String Theory is the link between quantom mechanics and gravity. This also leads to the Super String Theory and the M Theory. From what I'veread your explaination of dimensions follows suit with this theory.

 

I haven't been able to find an article that clearly links time travel with the String or Super Sting theories, so I can't be sure where we stand, or if the well-known idea of how to make it possible was already based on these theories.

[Guest Scathane]

I haven't either, but my bet would be string/super string theories...

[Grand_Admiral_Thrawn]

That was the direction I was leaning as well, what with all the talk of gravity wells. I'll have to pick up a book on the String Theory and see...

[Guest Scathane]

Let us know when you find out...

[Mad78]

I remember seeing a very interessting documentary about the string theory lately but I can't remember if they talked about time travel.

[Evaders99]

The Elegant Universe perhaps? I'm surprised if people haven't seen that one yet. All on string theory and such.. I believe it was a 3 part production for PBS.

[Stellar_Magic]

Its an excellent documentary, if you haven't seen it do so.

[Guest Scathane]

The problem is that, in Europe, we don't get to see all documentaries you guys have in the States.

[Trejiuvanat]

We in Latinamerica get some of the documentaries about a year later...

[Mad78]

The Elegant Universe perhaps? I'm surprised if people haven't seen that one yet. All on string theory and such.. I believe it was a 3 part production for PBS.

That might have been it. The thing i saw was in three parts. It was presented by a guy called Greene if i remeber well.

[SOCL]

Yeah, that's what I was talking about! String theory! It talks about how, in his waining days, Einstein was trying to write the theory, a theory he called "The Theory of Everything".

[Guest Scathane]

I doubt that anyone will ever write a successful theory for everything...

[Trejiuvanat]

Wasn't Einstein ultimate goal to create the 'Unified Field' Theory. (At least in Spanish it's called Teoría del Campo Unificado, I simply tried to translate it directly).

[Grand_Admiral_Thrawn]

From what I have read the Theory of Everything was suggested by Einstein, but I do not believe it was his ultimate goal. Like String Theory, the Theory of Everything was dropped for some time until new discoveries made it more plausable. It seems that is how humanity evolves: we create, we laugh at our creation, we forget our creation, we discover, we dust off our creation, we build upon our creation.

 

Unfortunately this also applies to the fashion world...

[Stellar_Magic]

Yeah Trej, the Unified Field Theory and the Theory of Everything are synonyms, both aim to describe all forces together in a single force or particle, string theory is supposed to do that.

[Trejiuvanat]

It's been a while since I read anything about Physics, even if I liked them pretty much. These days my entire existence is center in the horrid C++...

 

I hate you Stroustrup, I hate you!

[SOCL]

It's been a while since I read anything about Physics, even if I liked them pretty much. These days my entire existence is center in the horrid C++...

Sounds like my mathematics grades since about the 6th grade. I did okay with B's in Geometry and A's in Pre-Calculus, but low C's in Algebras I and II. Currently, I want to destroy Statistics and anyone who dares tell me it's easy.

[Guest Scathane]

I was merely thinking out loud in doubting that everything will once be explained... Just before Darwin wrote his famous Origin of Species, virtually every intellectual in the world thought that the origin of life on our planet was explained from A to Z. Not only Darwin's work brought different views on that, we're still discovering new things every day.

 

The problem, of course, in judging whether a theory explains everything is the same as with proving (directly) the universe is infinite: you can only find conclusive proof of the opposite, namely that it is finite.

Edited March 3, 2006 by Scathane

[SOCL]

The problem, of course, in judging whether a theory explains everything is the same as with proving (directly) the universe is infinite: you can only find conclusive proof of the opposite, namely that it is finite.

Yet, wouldn't your statment "we're still discovering new things every day" counter this notion?