I can almost hear Michael Bolton crooning that one out.
Exotic Matter
Scott DeWar
Prof. Emeritus-Supernatural Events/Countermeasure
oh. so no anti photons. got it.
tomBitonti
Adventurer
Wait, I thought photons didn't interact with each other, although, they like to be in the same state.
TomB
TomB
They don't.
Well, to first-order approximation they don't - they are electromagnetic waves, and so they like to interact with electric charges, even when they themselves are neutral. There are some more rare effects that make for a non-zero probability of it happening.
But either way - when a particle-antiparticle pair interact, they turn to energy, which likely comes out as photons that had energy that totaled up what went into the particle-antiparticle pair.
When the photon-antiphoton pair interact, they turn to energy, which likely comes out as... photons. Photons with the same total energy as what went in. So... they'd look *exactly the same*. How would you really know if they'd interacted or not?
Freyar will likely grump at me now for being a tad inexact. I'll deal
Scott DeWar
Prof. Emeritus-Supernatural Events/Countermeasure
well, In your defense, explaining fizziks to simple 'lektrishuns like my self is an inexact science.
Jester David
Hero
Exotic matter is odd. It's rule lawyering physics. "This isn't strictly against the universe's RAW so it's possible."
If the right exotic matter exists we could make wormholes or warp drives. And if we find pixie dust we can fly.
If the right exotic matter exists we could make wormholes or warp drives. And if we find pixie dust we can fly.
Mustrum_Ridcully
Hero
I liked when some scientist said to new discoveries that the Alcubierre drive might not need exotic matter equivalent to the Jupiter mass, but only that of, say, the Voyager probe: "So basically, we don't need a million unicorns to go faster than light, we just need one?"
But, that comparison might not be quite fair. Or at least not if we replace unicorns with pixie dust - pixie dust can have any property we want, there are no restrictions or descriptions that would allow us to test for its existence. For exotic matter of the "negative mass" type, we could at least postulate properties that we could test for. We're much closer to explaining how something happens - how the pixie dust does make us fly is undefined (does it remove gravity? Invert our mass? does it create an electro-magnetic field? Alter the laws of physics.)
Negative Mass Exotic Matter would be in contrast well-defined.
Jester David
Hero
90% of the mass of the galaxy already can't be explained, and now we're adding in something that would reduce the effective mass?
It's cool and we can look for it, and maybe it exists. But it's not worth assuming it's a thing.
Especially since the Alcubierre drive has other problems, such as the inability to stop, steer, or have anything inside NOT be flashfried by Hawkings radiation.
An Alcubierre drive is only slightly less ridiculous than an infinite improbability drive.
The two things that have been mentioned are matter with negative energy density (which is not necessarily negative mass), and matter which exhibits gravitational repulsion (which again, is not necessarily negative mass).
Jester Canuck said:
With respect, this is kind of like trying to use the lack of a bit and bridle to dismiss the overall concept of a horse.
Those issues are things that we in the field would call "engineering details". If you can get it to work at all, these are not apt to be massive problems. Steering, for example, is almost trivial. Assume, for a moment, that you have the exotic matter required to form a warp bubble. Steering comes from small alterations in the distribution of that exotic matter, to slightly change the shape of the bubble. Compared to the immensity of the base assumption, mere steering is child's play.
As for Hawking radiation - dude, you're talking about having a warp drive. A main deflector dish isn't far behind
Jester David
Hero
With respect, this is kind of like trying to use the lack of a bit and bridle to dismiss the overall concept of a horse.
Those issues are things that we in the field would call "engineering details". If you can get it to work at all, these are not apt to be massive problems. Steering, for example, is almost trivial. Assume, for a moment, that you have the exotic matter required to form a warp bubble. Steering comes from small alterations in the distribution of that exotic matter, to slightly change the shape of the bubble. Compared to the immensity of the base assumption, mere steering is child's play.
As for Hawking radiation - dude, you're talking about having a warp drive. A main deflector dish isn't far behind
Steering is tricky because you're cut-off from regular space and unable to respond to new signals or changes. Which isn't much of an issue, since if you see something you have to steer around, by the time you can see it you've already hit it. Stopping is the bigger issue. And not releasing a death wave of energy that has built up in front of you.
All these could be worked around given time and energy. But figuring out a reliable way of stopping and not unleashing a planet destroying radiation way isn't very useful science until you can build such a device. And building such a device isn't useful until you have the unicorn to power it.
To me it feels like making a budget for spending your lottery winnings. Sure, if you win the jackpot and have a detailed financial plan it's easier and you're less likely to make rash & foolish financial decisions, but you might be better off working towards an independent financial future.
In this case, working on rotating ships that can withstand the radiation of space or perfecting suspended animation/cryosleep. Or downloading brains into robot bodies so we can live as infomorphs before uploading into robots upon arrival.
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