miles (08/04/82)
The functional device is not to realistic. But the whole idea sounds kind of nice. The part about having no intrinsic velocity has interesting possibilities. But would that mean that one is using the motion of that which is around him to get from one point to another? Of course, where they not, if i remember correctly,(if the same story) utilizing the fact that space is supposedly curved, and instead of travelling around the sphere of space, they travelled through it? Not to long ago, and i will have to check where, a university in the States came up with pretty good evidence that space is not curved. The idea being, that were space curved then all the stars would be be perfectly spherical. Einstein himself said so. But, using very accurate and precision equipment, the univ. made measurements of the spherosity of the sun, and found it to deviating from a perfect sphere around the equator, by a small percent of about 0.00019%. I am not sure of that value, but it was small, and that number seems to be what i remember it to have been. I will check and see if i can't dig up the article. Perhaps someone else read it. Anyhow, the error is small, but large enough to "destroy" the theory of curved space, which would pose interesting problems with quantum physics. Just the same, Andersons method is interesting, and not to be forgotten, out of sci-fi have come many technical developments that were once put down as sci-fi only. Raymond S.
KING@KESTREL@sri-unix (08/06/82)
It's not that non-spherical stars refute the assertion that space is curved. It is that possible imperfections in the Sun's shape could provide an alternate hypothesis as to why Mercury's orbit wasn't a closed ellipse. I seem to remember that he discovered some imperfections in the Sun's shape, but they were'nt enough and his apparatus's accuracy is subject to question in the scientific community. Dick