ajs@hpfcla (03/17/86)
> ... antimatter pellets should be allowed to exist only millions of > miles from Earth, lest all life on one side of Earth be incinerated by > an explosion... An underlying concept seems to be: it takes brute force (energy) for long-distance space travel. This discussion on antimatter is about just how to get the "ultimate" brute force. The more energy you concentrate or manipulate, the greater the risks. You can play engineering games, but that basic truth seems undeniable. > ...all we have to do is somehow put a half twist on a small section of > space... any matter put through the twist would come through the other > side as antimatter. Now here is an example of using "finesse" rather than "brute force". I suspect (and hope) that if we ever achieve Universe-spanning means of travel, it will be by use of finesse, not brute force. The latter tends to be more expensive, dangerous, and "polluting". If you can twist space to produce antimatter, why can't you twist it to wormhole from hither to yon, and forget the stardrive? Alan Silverstein, Hewlett-Packard Fort Collins Systems Division, Colorado {ihnp4 | hplabs}!hpfcla!ajs, 303-226-3800 x3053, N 40 31'31" W 105 00'43"
kwh@bentley.UUCP (KW Heuer) (03/22/86)
In article <22000015@hpfcla> ajs@hpfcla (Alan Silverstein) writes: >Now here is an example of using "finesse" rather than "brute force". I >suspect (and hope) that if we ever achieve Universe-spanning means of >travel, it will be by use of finesse, not brute force. The latter tends >to be more expensive, dangerous, and "polluting". > >If you can twist space to produce antimatter, why can't you twist it to >wormhole from hither to yon, and forget the stardrive? Also, it is often assumed that it is intrinsically expensive to lift a mass from Earth's surface to orbit and beyond. Here, the finesse solution is to schedule flights so that whenever one is departing, another of equal mass is arriving; either a space-elevator or an orbiting bolo could be run with minimal energy requirements. I don't know about the feasibility of twisting spacetime (I do suspect that a wormhole could only take you to a point in your future lightcone, so no "instantaneous" teleportation), but A. Offutt & R. Lyon described a finesse interstellar train in _Rails Across the Galaxy_, which appeared as a serial in _Analog_ beginning August, 1982. The engineering difficulties present a problem, but no new laws of physics are needed. Karl W. Z. Heuer (ihnp4!bentley!kwh), The Walking Lint