[LMB] (chat) new essay

[Nicholas Rosen]

Michael R N Dolbear wrote:

> While Lois is away and we should be playing nicely, we might
> discuss the essay.

> == .. writing skills began to develop and grow. I do indeed use a
> somewhat generic ?space opera? galactic background, with an
> entirely bogus means for getting characters around the galaxy via
> ?wormhole jumps?. Since this violates both physics and economics,
> no one, least of all me, can consider my space-faring story-background
> to be serious futurism. ==

> Now, on the principle that Her Ladyship is always right even
> when she thinks she's wrong, wormholes and wormhole transits
> have not, so far, been shown to be in violation of the laws of physics.

> See Kip Thorne  _Black Holes and Time Warps_

I haven't read this, but while wormholes and wormhole transits
may not be violations of the laws of physics in every scenario,
I pointed out on-list some time ago that instantaneous or faster-than-
light travel via wormholes is incompatible with relativity, and why.

> Now anti-gravity and artificial gravity (anti-grav and lift tubes
> in BiA) may have to be a violation, does anyone know ?

There are problems.  For example, if you go up a lift tube and
then down a neighboring tube with no lift field, you've got a
perpetual motion machine going.  Maybe the First Law of
Thermodynamics isn't really being violated because power is
being supplied to the lift tube from an external source.  But I still
see problems, such as what would happen at the edges of the
lift field.  I suspect that some sideways vectors in the field would
have to be present; stepping into or out of a lift tube might not be
easy.

> As to economics, do we know enough ?

> The imported food available on Kline staion in EoA ?

> Combining physics and economics, we know the Bujold
> Nexus has sourcesof energy for its spaceship's 'norm-space
> thrusters' which allow accelerations of 1 g for ordinary ships
> and rather more for couriers (times in iVG). How this is done
> we don't know since fusion probably can't do it and no other
> source is mentioned in Komarr.

Right, so why can't they use spaecraft engines to heat up
Komarr faster than the soletta was doing it?  Among other
questions.


Regards,
Nicholas D. Rosen
http://ndrosen.livejournal.com