posted
I've come up with a rudimentary concept for an interstellar transit system. While some of the system's components are based in current quantum physics theories, other aspects are 'stretched' to fit my needs (without detailed explanation, as I believe such depth would bore the average reader).
I just wanted to gauge your reaction to the concept from the viewpoint of a potential reader of the story in which it will be featured. Those of you who understand physics far better than I (there are many of you, I’m sure) may feel the need to point out problems or discrepancies in the concept...please do so. I am attempting to work out the 'bugs' before I actively utilize the concept. Please note that this is not an excerpt from the actual story, but merely an overview of the technology that will be incorporated into the exposition of the piece.
My goal here is to come up with some kind of underlying concept to reinforce my use of the drive in the story. I don't like saying "The ship's engines came to life, forming a doorway in the fabric of space" without having some kind of semi-realistic tech to back it up.
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[Parallactic Drive]
- In 2218 Dr. Alistair Raphidon developed a theory based on the nature of Zero-Point Energy (ZPE). He postulated that since this energy is universal, transit through three-dimensional space might be possible by enveloping matter (which is itself composed of electrically charged particles that interact with the ZPE field) in Zero-Point Energy via indirect manipulation of the ‘frequency’ of the field. ZPE can be considered an energy flux “flowing orthogonally through our three-dimensional space” while “vibrating.” This ‘vibration’ generates “an electric field component in our space” which in turn creates “‘mini-white holes’ (flux entrances) and ‘mini-black holes’ (flux exits). The random action of this higher dimensional process gives rise to the observed zero-point fluctuations in three-dimensional space.” [1]
By manipulating these vibrations at any given point in space at a specific frequency modulation, matter to energy conversion through the formation of a ‘mini-white hole’ would dictate a parallactic exit vector (or ‘mini-black hole) defined by the modulations of the frequency. The so-called ‘parallactic’ element of the drive system is derived from the apparent (viewable) change in position of the drive core (transit vessel) as it passes through the ‘flux entrance’ and corresponding ‘flux exit.’ In simpler terms…the visible ‘shift’ of the object against the background of three-dimensional space due to a change in the position of the object relative to its origin. While the title Parallactic Drive does not directly involve the manipulation of the ZPE field, it does describe the subsequent shift in spatial position created by modulation of the field’s localized frequency.
posted
From the perspecitve of a reader: not a word of that made sense to me. I don't have a bachelor's degree in physics, unfortunately. How would the concept go in plain English? It sounds like you have research to back this -- if your explination is logical and easily digested, I think you'll be fine.
Posts: 189 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I do have a bachelors in physics, but without reading the reference, I am left only confused. I haven't read about zero point energy so I can't comment on it. it does seem backwards to me that the white hole is the entry and the black hole the exit. The ship emerges intact from a black hole, is that what you are trying to say?
Posts: 2 | Registered: Aug 2010
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If you want to sound scientific to non-scientists, what you've written ought to work. I doubt that scientists will do more than say, "huh?" to what you've written, and they won't take you seriously. (I had a couple of them read it, and one said, "Sounds like technobabble to me," and the other recommended that you just stick with "forming a doorway in the fabric of space" and leave it at that.)
I'd recommend that you concentrate on what your drive does and not worry about how it does it. Unless your story is about the drive, you really don't need to explain it.
Just like a tv. What does it do? What can go wrong with it? No one ever talks about the science behind it when they use a tv in a story.
posted
I have a BS in physics, and a PhD in CS. Here's my take:
What I didn't like: matter being enveloped in energy. This sounds New Age to me. You could fix it by saying, enveloped in a field (what kind? EM? Gravitational? Some other kind?). I also didn't like "vibration," although string theory uses this, because New Agers have taken that one over too. Try calling it "harmonic oscillation"?
What I did like: flux entrances/exits; white holes; zero-point fluctuations; exit vector. Some of this is very good technobabble.
...and, as the others say, the eyes glaze over; but then you were writing it as a technical paper, which makes lots of people's eyes glaze over. I think you've done a great job. Now you have a few terms to throw into the story--not the whole thing (your readers would revolt!), but little hints to make it sound scientific. Which it does.
posted
As I never expect 'real' scientists to take my SF concepts seriously, "technobabble" should do fine. Hey...it works for Star Trek.
*Insert Lopsided Grin Here*
To be honest with you, I don't consider myself capable of creating a truly believable FTL transit drive for a story (unless I borrowed heavily from previously postulated concepts...which I hate to do). In any case, I simply do not have the knowledge of quantum and/or conventional physics necessary to come up with something by myself. As long as my BS is reminiscent of a few theories or terms that are currently under consideration for future propulsion, I'm happy. I already decided that my reference to the drive in the story will be quite cursory. Probably something along the lines of one character saying to another character that it would take him/her too long to explain the nature of the tech to someone who happens to be utterly ignorant of advanced connective physics. Something humorous, probably. If I can pull it off.
Ahhh, well. I guess I'm just one who likes to build up a bit of a dossier on my tales. It's much like world creation, I suppose...though I tend to take it all the way down to an individual soldier’s sidearm. I seem to have this boyish enjoyment for coming up with new future-tech ideas. Even if they do tend to stretch the limits of believability. Ben Weaver did the same thing for his novel "Brothers in Arms," though on a more complex scale (he came up with several star systems and their colonies, I believe…most based as closely as possible on real science). But he didn't start writing the story until he was finished his 'model,' I think. I can never seem to do that. Too impatient.
Anyway, to answer Spaceman's question on mini-white/black holes...if I remember my research notes correctly, they were originally described by one John Archibald Wheeler, a theoretical physicist. Let me just paste the excerpt from one of the web pages I studied. I don't have the brainpower to rephrase it all right now.
-------------------------------------------- "Wheeler in his geometrodynamics, which according to Wheeler's calculations, is a sea of energetic fluctuations (called "quantum foam") with an energy density of 10 e94 g /cc per individual fluctuation. These fluctuations are also known as the Zero Point Energy fluctuations. Wheeler derived this value by inserting the empirical observations used to generate the ZPE's spectral energy-density expression of quantum mechanics, into the stress-energy tensor of general relativity.
According to Wheeler's "Geometrodynamics" [Academic Press, NY], The high frequency modes of the ZPE result in a huge local energy densities, resulting in space-time warps, similar to the black hole solutions of relativity, which Wheeler called "wormholes". Wheeler's "wormholes" channel electric flux between two separate locations in a 3D space or between our 3-space and other 3D universes, which universes are in what Wheeler called a "super space". In our local 3-space, these wormholes look like primitive charged particles or "mini holes", as Wheeler called them, whose polarity is determined by the direction of the electric flux. This electric flux normally passes orthogonally through our universe from a 4th physical dimension. According to Wheeler, small residual components of this flux can become aligned in our particular 3-space to manifest the zitterbewegung and the ZPE. This electric flux, as described by Wheeler, is shown to enter through what he calls "mini white holes" and exits our universe by way of what he calls "mini black holes". According to Wheeler, this is the basis mechanism of pair production. [Pairs of electrons and positrons] These pairs are constantly being created and annihilated in a fluctuating state of chaotic turbulence, resembling that of a turbulent plasma."
I found this amidst a discussion of another theoretical physicist's theory! While I think I grasp most of what was just said, I have a hard time compiling it all when I have to dig through other material that I do not fully comprehend. To be truthful, I think I actually enjoy reading about this quantum physics stuff. I must be a strange guy or something.
(I know...two smilies in one post. Bad form, Ink.)
So there you have it, in a not-so-small nutshell. "Mini-white/black" holes are descriptive names for entry/exit wormholes. I think. At least, that was what I was basing my drive theory on. Great, now I'm second guessing my own fictional technology with authentic worry. What next? I'll probably start to fret over whether Santa Claus will make it to my house this year, because of those predicted severe upper atmospheric disturbances over the North Pole. Nooooo!!!
(Just kidding on the disturbances by the way.)
(Okay...three is more than enough. Also, I think that talking to myself on a forum, however humorous it may be for other posters, is not a good sign of my current state of awareness. Time to get some shut-eye. G'night all.)
Inkwell ------------------ "The difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp." -Anonymous
[This message has been edited by Inkwell (edited August 08, 2005).]
[This message has been edited by Inkwell (edited August 08, 2005).]
(There are a few more, but I don't think it would be necessary or merciful to post them...after all, this is fiction we're talking about).
Inkwell ------------------ "The difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp." -Anonymous
quote:This electric flux, as described by Wheeler, is shown to enter through what he calls "mini white holes" and exits our universe by way of what he calls "mini black holes".
Ah, I see. The flux enters our universe by the white hole and exits our universe by the black hole. That means things go into the black hole, and come out of the white hole (from the perspective of our universe). So, for your transportation method, the black hole should be the entry point, and the white hole the exit point, as Spaceman suggested.
[This message has been edited by rickfisher (edited August 08, 2005).]
posted
I'll believe it if it the machine is made out if plastic and rivets. (White plastic with black vents and a green LED display would be cool too).
posted
Unless the drive itself is the focus of the story, you don't need to really get into the mechanism by which it supposedly functions. More likely, you only need to worry about the practical effects of its capabilities and limitations. Are there size/mass/energy constraints on what can go through these wormholes? Can they be opened in a area with a high gravitational/magnetic gradient? Could you open a conduit between a stellar core and your local city center or vice versa? How expensive is all this in terms of your planetary economies?
I found the technobabble pretty annoying and not very convincing. It's a bit too obviously babble. The explanation for why it's called a "parallactic" drive--because you can see the apparent motion due to what we call "parallex" is just silly. We see all apparent motion because of parallex. The discussion of shoving something through a white hole and back out a black hole ignores not only the nature of black/white holes (which, as noted, seem reversed here) but any demand that the payload actually survive the trip.
Try to use existing vocabulary as much as possible, and use it to mean concepts with which the audience is at least somewhat familiar. I'm against deliberate obfuscation, if readers want to gloss the "technobabble", they will anyway. But readers that want to understand what's being said should be able to do it.
And going back to what I first said, it is more important to the story that readers be able to quickly understand what the drive can/cannot do. Explaining exactly how it does it is only to help with suspension of disbelief.
posted
Not sure if you mind, but when I read the descriptions (didn't understand much), when I came across ZPE, it made me think of the ZPMs on the Stargate series. ZPMs are zero-point modules, and there are (in my non-technical assessment) 'big batteries' used to power alien technology. This parallel might be good, bad, or unrelated, but that's what I thought when I read it.
Posts: 32 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
Hmmm. Some good posts since last night. Thanks go out to Spaceman and rickfisher for correcting that mini-black/white hole error. I must have confused myself at some point last night (not hard to do when I'm reading this stuff).
I like the idea of making the drive core(s) plastic...or what a crewman of the 23rd century would consider plastic. Perhaps a complex reinforced polymer of some kind, used throughout the ship? Think of it...a plastic starship. Like a big bathtub toy floating in space. Now that I think about it, such a polymer would probably be easier to fabricate and manipulate than advanced alloys...especially if it had an initial 'memory' state before being locked into one specific shape. Basically you could 'mold' the ship as you saw fit, using alloys only where needed (internal braces, outer skin, or other elements of the superstructure). Good thinking, hoptoad.
When you put the matter that way, Survivor, I tend to agree with you. Perhaps something along the lines of 'ZPE Transit/Aperture/Gate Drive' would be more clear and/or logical. I guess I just liked the sound of 'parallactic drive' better. What I really like about the general idea is that the drive doesn't have limitations based on where the ship is (i.e. a planet's gravity well), since the ZPE field is universal and may (this is currently theorized in RL) actually be responsible for gravity/mass. One limitation I plan to place on the drive is an enormous energy consumption, which limits how many times the drive can be used before it drains a ship's power reservoirs.
Computational power (to handle modulation of that pesky ZPE field frequency) shouldn't be a problem, since scientists are predicting that we will have near-atomic sized computer processors by 2035. I don’t even want to think about how fast they’ll be. Since my story is set roughly 200 years ahead of that...you get the idea.
BTW, as I thought I mentioned...the 'mini-black/white holes' are not true black/white holes as we currently understand them. That is, if I interpreted the theories correctly. Those were just Wheeler's terms for the entry/exit wormholes.
As for Stargate...no similarity was intended. I don't even watch the show. Now you've got me curious about how big those ZPMs are...since Zero-Point Energy is so potent. A coffee cup's worth could (theoretically) boil up Earth's oceans. It would make sense for them to be pretty small, unless they were designed to put out ungodly amounts of power at any given moment. You’d probably need an equally impressive power distribution network to handle all that juice.
Thanks for the comments, everyone.
Inkwell ------------------ "The difference between a writer and someone who says they want to write is merely the width of a postage stamp." -Anonymous
posted
This is why I write fantasy instead of science fiction. Not a lot of research is needed when you are traveling by horse. Posts: 2026 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Oh, of course it works after losing my entire post twice.
Long story short, it's far easier to extract a lot of ZPE from a lot of volume.
Speaking of energy extraction, it would be functionally impossible for a ship that used ZPE to ever run low on energy. It makes more sense to have a part of the ship that wears out quickly. So instead of running low on energy, your ships run low on spare ZPE modulation rods or something like that.
That's a good way to handle "exposition" without any actual exposition. You just give something a name and say what it does (wears out after every use, in this case). There are benefits to this approach, but I'm tired of typing them in.
posted
Just don't make a mistake like thinking that if Zero Point Energy is powerful, One Point Energy must be even more powerful.
Posts: 1517 | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
It's too bad that EJS is always making jokes to which there cannot be a meaningful reply other than laughing till you injure yourself on your keyboard. Because in cyberspace, no one can hear you laugh.
quote:Two Point Energy immediately becomes mass, through a process known as the Two Point Conversion.
The two point conversion is extremely difficult to justify most of the time, since in the game situation, the risk is often unwarrated. Settle for kicking the extra point. Not a problem for the Cardinals, who don't bother to score touchdowns.
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