Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Scood]

A guy named John Hutchison comes to mind when i think of anti gravity and gravity generators. His electromagnetic and electrical experiments give some very interesting and controversial results.

[mainiac]

If a hydrogen atom winked into existence in some random patch of deep space, the effect on the overall potential energy of the universe would be very small.  From this simple thought experiment we see that conservation of energy is not a concern.

Furthermore, it's only the change in gravity level that would be doing work and thus require energy by Newtons 2nd law.  Suppose you have a room with nothing in it but vacuum a weight and a thin wire holding that weight.  Remove the wire and the weight falls because of it's potential energy.  Set up the experiment first but turn on your anti-gravity generator before removing the wire and the weight stays in mid air motionless.  Then remove your anti-gravity generator and the weight falls just like before.  So adding and removing the gravity had no net effect, only a temporary one.

[Starver]

I mostly[1] found that original idea of "You can use the induced force of gravity to provide a gravity-based power source sufficient to power the induction of the gravity" to be a bit dodgy.  If that's what was trying to be said[2], someone's forgotten about losses and inefficiencies.  Which will exist even in the power transfer to this elusive "electrogravitanium"-type stuff.



Also, this conversation reminds me of that episode of DS9 where Siskos Sn and Jr decide to re-enact a "Kon-Tiki"-type solar-sail trip between star systems, in a replica claustrophobic capsule of a craft.  "But for our own comfort," goes my paraphrasing of the father's chat with his son, "I've installed a bit of gravitational plating".  Nah, mate, it's so you don't have to worry about Paramount's SFX budget being wiped out by trying to hide the strings, or booking you a trip on the Vomit Comet a la the Apollo 13 movie.



[1] Well, not exclusively, but I'm ignoring the other stuff that already flashed conceptual alarms in other people.   Of course, Scood has ninjaed me on the inefficiencies issue, but I spent more time than I wanted (less time than would do it proper justice) drawing that diagram, so I'm still posting.

[2] The alternative is that it was an attempt to make perpetual energy, like using the following badly diagrammed setup:

Code: [Select]

   _____
  /  _  \
  |^|  v    |
  | |       |
  |^|~~~~~~~|
  | |~~~~~~~|
  |^|~~~~~~~|
  | |~~~~~~~~\
  |^|~~~~~~~~~\
  | #########~|
  |^# PULLS #~|$$
  | ######### |
$$|~# S77∩d #v|
  |~######### |
  \~~~~~~~~~|v|
   \~~~~~~~~| |
    |~~~~~~~|v|
    |~~~~~~~| |
    |~~~~~~~|v|
    |       | |
    |    ^ _|v|
       \_____/
...to get a whole lot of water giving power (at the $$ points) that can then spin the drained water around the side of the device (where gravity doesn't affect it) before being sent back into the other tank as feedstock for more gravitational energy farming from the back-to-back gravity system.  But nope, that's got the same problem anyway.

[Starver]

I mostly[1] found that original idea of "You can use the induced force of gravity to provide a gravity-based power source sufficient to power the induction of the gravity" to be a bit dodgy.  If that's what was trying to be said[2], someone's forgotten about losses and inefficiencies.  Which will exist even in the power transfer to this elusive "electrogravitanium"-type stuff.



Also, this conversation reminds me of that episode of DS9 where Siskos Sn and Jr decide to re-enact a "Kon-Tiki"-type solar-sail trip between star systems, in a replica claustrophobic capsule of a craft.  "But for our own comfort," goes my paraphrasing of the father's chat with his son, "I've installed a bit of gravitational plating".  Nah, mate, it's so you don't have to worry about Paramount's SFX budget being wiped out by trying to hide the strings, or booking you a trip on the Vomit Comet a la the Apollo 13 movie.



[1] Well, not exclusively, but I'm ignoring the other stuff that already flashed conceptual alarms in other people.   Of course, edit: Scood the person before Scood, whose post I must not have read properly before replying, looking at the time of posting... has ninjaed me on the inefficiencies issue, but I spent more time than I wanted (less time than would do it proper justice) drawing that diagram, so I'm still posting.

[2] The alternative is that it was an attempt to make perpetual energy, like using the following badly diagrammed setup:

Code: [Select]

   _____
  /  _  \
  |^|  v    |
  | |       |
  |^|~~~~~~~|
  | |~~~~~~~|
  |^|~~~~~~~|
  | |~~~~~~~~\
  |^|~~~~~~~~~\
  | #########~|
  |^# PULLS #~|$$
  | ######### |
$$|~# S77∩d #v|
  |~######### |
  \~~~~~~~~~|v|
   \~~~~~~~~| |
    |~~~~~~~|v|
    |~~~~~~~| |
    |~~~~~~~|v|
    |       | |
    |    ^ _|v|
       \_____/
...to get a whole lot of water giving power (at the $$ points) that can then spin the drained water around the side of the device (where gravity doesn't affect it) before being sent back into the other tank as feedstock for more gravitational energy farming from the back-to-back gravity system.  But nope, that's got the same problem anyway.

[Fayrik]

If a hydrogen atom winked into existence in some random patch of deep space, the effect on the overall potential energy of the universe would be very small.  From this simple thought experiment we see that conservation of energy is not a concern.

Uh. I don't quite see where you're going with this.

Then remove your anti-gravity generator and the weight falls just like before.  So adding and removing the gravity had no net effect, only a temporary one.

But surely, the same goes towards the earth itself, as a source of gravity?

[Eagleon]

It doesn't take an infinite amount of energy to generate gravity. Just the amount needed to create the mass that generates the gravity. That in itself is a very large amount by our standards (but still finite), so any method that can directly generate gravity by itself will probably be relatively cheap. In the end, unless we're tapping into an outside system (which conservation of energy takes into account - it just becomes a larger system), we're still not going to be getting extra energy out of it. At most we could do some weird stuff with time, which is where the real applications for something like this would be I think.

The problem is that we really don't know what gravity is, why it's so weak, etc. Until we do it's all speculation, unless you want to get together enough mass to make a black-hole, or find a way to make stable neutronium. Black-holes aren't exactly something you want to be walking around on, and even a smaller,  condensed earth-sized mass is going to be majorly disruptive to the local solar system, nevermind natural and unnatural satellites ("Oops, we just made the moon spiral down to Earth, they're not going to be too happy.") and tides.

Basically, artificial gravity is one of those technologies that's probably not even as practical as, say, dyson spheres or the like. And if we really can generate large amounts of gravity using a relatively energy-efficient method, and we can create shielding to keep it in one spot, we're basically boned as soon as some homicidal idiot learns how to shut that shielding off. If this technology did come into being, we'd probably put any generators in deep space, where they couldn't do much to the inner system. Actually we'll probably end up changing ourselves and what we need (food, etc.) to not need gravity before we even know what it is.

[ChairmanPoo]

This thread reminds me of Asimov's "The Billiard Ball"

[breadbocks]

Fact: This would generate the same amount of power as was put in. Only thing is, a large portion would be thermal energy, and remain uncaptured.

[Fayrik]

At most we could do some weird stuff with time, which is where the real applications for something like this would be I think.

Speaking of which, I had an idea on how to send transmissions through warped time rather than space.
What if, rather than warping space to allow the speed of light (or other such energies) to go faster, we just speed up the time for the Transmitter and Receiver? Theoretically it could take relatively less time to travel space. Of course, there are still many flaws with that, just as there are with warping space to transmit energy.
'Eh, just some food for thought. (Though, it doesn't really help that our measurements of time aren't as accurate as those of distance or mass.)

Sometimes, I wonder if I think about this sort of thing too much.

[sonerohi]

I'm slightly puzzled by the people assuming that we could make hydro-electric our ho if we could control gravity. Unless we managed to trap a quantity of water inside two gravity spheres, one within or tangent to the other, then we would have the same problem as on Earth: The water does not flow back upwards. Even so, I'd imagine it would be far simpler and more viable to simply augment existing forms of energy production.

[MrWiggles]

Well, we really can't say what it takes to generate gravity, as the supposed Higgs Busson (sp), remains mostly mysterious. 

I think its kinda of silly to discuss how much energy it would take to generate it.

A guy named John Hutchison comes to mind when i think of anti gravity and gravity generators. His electromagnetic and electrical experiments give some very interesting and controversial results.

I admit that his videos, and unverified claims are intriguing, but even if they are true, are pointless. Since they cannot be duplicated, they cannot not be utilized in any practical measure.

At most we could do some weird stuff with time, which is where the real applications for something like this would be I think.

Speaking of which, I had an idea on how to send transmissions through warped time rather than space.
What if, rather than warping space to allow the speed of light (or other such energies) to go faster, we just speed up the time for the Transmitter and Receiver? Theoretically it could take relatively less time to travel space. Of course, there are still many flaws with that, just as there are with warping space to transmit energy.
'Eh, just some food for thought. (Though, it doesn't really help that our measurements of time aren't as accurate as those of distance or mass.)

Sometimes, I wonder if I think about this sort of thing too much.

This doesn't seem right. The intervening space-time will still be realitivty slower then the sped up receiver and and transmitter. And, c cannot be circumvented. Even though c can be verified in different mediums, it still cannot exceede c in its medium.

[Starver]

I'm slightly puzzled by the people assuming that we could make hydro-electric our ho if we could control gravity. Unless we managed to trap a quantity of water inside two gravity spheres, one within or tangent to the other, then we would have the same problem as on Earth: The water does not flow back upwards. Even so, I'd imagine it would be far simpler and more viable to simply augment existing forms of energy production.

Well, my 'example' (which I already know to be flawed, but was based upon an assumption of what the OP meant) is based upon a gravity field that can be applied to just a 'vertical segment', and thus the water forced out to one side is free to travel without impedance back into the tank.  For the sake of playing 'nice' with physics (well, as nice as possible, given the original assumption) I let it travel 'down' (although weightlessly) beyond and into an opposite-facing tank of the same type, whose outlet ('down', to it, up relative to the first feeder tank) eventually takes the liquid up to the top of the original water storage.

No, I don't know why this gravity generator doesn't have some sort of side-leakage.  I suppose it must depend upon the polarity of the neutron flow applied to the Unobtainium substrate perpendicular to the 4-space manifold, or something.


(Truly, "potential <=> kinetic".  You might as well have a Door (capital-'d') open upwards on the ground, leading to another Door open downwards being held in the air above it, and let something freefall down into the lower Door and out of the upper Door and into the lower Door and out of the upper Door...  No, I don't think you could get enough energy out of that arrangement to power whatever physical phenomenon enables such a Door-to-Door momentum-preserving transportation.  Apart from the fact that even without deliberately dropping anything through it, you'd get an increasing draft as the (slightly less dense) air near the upper Door allowed the (slightly more dense) air near the lower door to pass through, draw more air down there and if natural dampening wasn't sufficient you might end up with a hurricane force wind.  Still, we haven't even addressed the original problem of getting the Doors to work as described. )

[lemon10]

I'm slightly puzzled by the people assuming that we could make hydro-electric our ho if we could control gravity. Unless we managed to trap a quantity of water inside two gravity spheres, one within or tangent to the other, then we would have the same problem as on Earth: The water does not flow back upwards. Even so, I'd imagine it would be far simpler and more viable to simply augment existing forms of energy production.

Code: [Select]

---------------------
|A|777777*        |B|
---------------------
7 is water
* is a turbine
A and B are gravity generators
| are walls

Basically, you turn A on, the water flows to the left (generating power as it moves through the turbine), if you turn on B, the water flows to the right (generating power as it moves through the turbine). If you alternate you can generate energy as long as the turbine generates more energy then it costs to run a gravity generator, if so, you can generate a infinite amount of energy.

[thobal]

Wait a minute. Let me get this straight.

You guys are discussing the effects artificial gravity would have on the field of hydroelectric power generation?

[lemon10]

No, more the effect it would have on conservation of mass/energy, if it is possible to make a generator that generates more power then is put into the system (obviously modern hydroelectric doesn't count because its powered by the sun essentially), then the law of conservation of mass/energy would be fundamentally untrue (as well as the second law of thermodynamics).