The thread on Sling-Shot Maneuvers has evolved into the beginnings of a discussion on the nature of gravitic drives in Traveller. Back in 1998, the definition in TNE's FF&S led to some interesting discussions on the Traveller Mailing List regarding the nature of thruster plates and artificial gravity. I'd like to offer something I gathered together from some of those discussions. It's not offered as the definitive answer, especially in light of quantum physics advancements since then but is just something fun that was useful in my campaigns as window dressing and to help jog player interest in learning more about physics in general. Discuss or ignore at you see fit.
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 09:21:32 -0500
Dr. Eugene Podkletnov, a researcher at the Tampere University of Technology, Finland, reported that during a superconductivity experiment, tests showed a small drop in the weight of objects placed over a device made up of a rotating superconducting ceramic disk suspended by three electric coils enclosed in a cryostat.
The latest experiments by the Finnish researchers have reportedly registered a two percent drop in the weight of objects suspended over the cryostat. Controversy over this report has been fueled by Podkletnov's decision to withdraw a paper he had submitted to the Journal of Physics-D: Applied Physics, possibly due to patents being filed for the privately-funded research.
NASA has already contributed $150,000 to Dr. Ning Li, a research scientist at the University of Alabama Huntsville Center for Space Plasma and Aeronomic Research to duplicate the tests. Li published a 1991 paper in Physical Review-D on gravity-modification experiments based on the interaction between rotating superconductors and the local gravity field. Her theories postulate that the lattice-ion structure in a superconductor plays a significant part in superconduction. Rotation of the lattice ions caused by the EM field generates a gravito-magnetic force which can affect the local gravity field.
--end file--
Traveller Tech Brief: Artificial Gravity and Inertial Compensation
Original Author: Jaimie Young
Modifications to Original Article: David Smart
Additional Ideas Taken from Discussions by: Glenn Hoppe, Glenn Grant, Richard Hough, Earl Wajenbourg, Milan Merhar
Final Draft Version: 1998May30 0917pmCST
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gravitics technology is a way of converting electromagnetic energy into gravity by creating gravitons and began, for the Solomani, as superconductivity experiments by Dr. Eugene Podkletnov, a researcher at the Tampere University of Technology, Finland. Gravitons are the (as yet undetected) bosons that mediate the gravitational force. They have zero mass and travel at the speed of light. Particles that experience the gravitational force (which seems to be all particles, including photons) do so by exchanging gravitons. The graviton flux intensity around any object therefore depends on its mass (or mass-energy). Unfortunately, no one really understands what mass is and why it exists, so the relation between gravity and mass is not understood, although a conceptual particle called the Higgs boson comes into it somewhere.
Nevertheless, we can see that gravitics technology is a way of producing/negating gravitons without using either mass or the energy-equivalent. Gravitons might be negated by causing them to decay into non-interacting "Gravitinos"
Artificial Gravity Overview
- - You need two plates to generate a gravitational field between them.
- - The direction of the gravitational force is *always* perpendicular to the plates. (no pushing/pulling sideways, unless you pivot the floor and ceiling )
- - A byproduct of the generation of this artificial gravity is an inertial dampening field.
- - The "strength" of the inertial dampening field is independent of the strength of the gravity field. The magnitude/direction of the artificial gravity can be adjusted without affecting the ability of the inertial compensators to compensate for inertial forces.
- - At higher tech levels, modulation of the artificial gravity field allows one to increase the amount of g-forces that can becompensated by the inertial dampening effect.
Artificial Gravity Details
Gravitic plates manufactured of gravitic dipoles are mounted in floor-ceiling plate pairs. They modulate the field in the intervening space only, allowing any natural field can penetrate the enclosed volume: the natural graviton waves (note: NOT gravitational waves, they're something different; and NOT gravity waves either, they're something different too) would form part of a probability wave superposition with the artificial field within the enclosed volume. The floor-ceiling plate pair can then be seen as a device for increasing/decreasing the probability of finding a quantum of gravitation within the enclosed volume. Because dipole effects drop off as an inverse-cube, the floor-ceiling plate pair form a near-infinite potential well to the artificially created gravitons, but allow naturally produced gravitons to penetrate from outside and pass through the device so as not to distort the external field. The artificial gravitons can be tuned or polarized so as to reflect from the ceiling plate. Also note that gravitons formed inside the device leak out by quantum tunneling but these are usually masked by a local planetary field or are lost in the depths of space.
End Of Brief
And there you have it. Have fun with it.
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 09:21:32 -0500
Dr. Eugene Podkletnov, a researcher at the Tampere University of Technology, Finland, reported that during a superconductivity experiment, tests showed a small drop in the weight of objects placed over a device made up of a rotating superconducting ceramic disk suspended by three electric coils enclosed in a cryostat.
The latest experiments by the Finnish researchers have reportedly registered a two percent drop in the weight of objects suspended over the cryostat. Controversy over this report has been fueled by Podkletnov's decision to withdraw a paper he had submitted to the Journal of Physics-D: Applied Physics, possibly due to patents being filed for the privately-funded research.
NASA has already contributed $150,000 to Dr. Ning Li, a research scientist at the University of Alabama Huntsville Center for Space Plasma and Aeronomic Research to duplicate the tests. Li published a 1991 paper in Physical Review-D on gravity-modification experiments based on the interaction between rotating superconductors and the local gravity field. Her theories postulate that the lattice-ion structure in a superconductor plays a significant part in superconduction. Rotation of the lattice ions caused by the EM field generates a gravito-magnetic force which can affect the local gravity field.
--end file--
Traveller Tech Brief: Artificial Gravity and Inertial Compensation
Original Author: Jaimie Young
Modifications to Original Article: David Smart
Additional Ideas Taken from Discussions by: Glenn Hoppe, Glenn Grant, Richard Hough, Earl Wajenbourg, Milan Merhar
Final Draft Version: 1998May30 0917pmCST
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gravitics technology is a way of converting electromagnetic energy into gravity by creating gravitons and began, for the Solomani, as superconductivity experiments by Dr. Eugene Podkletnov, a researcher at the Tampere University of Technology, Finland. Gravitons are the (as yet undetected) bosons that mediate the gravitational force. They have zero mass and travel at the speed of light. Particles that experience the gravitational force (which seems to be all particles, including photons) do so by exchanging gravitons. The graviton flux intensity around any object therefore depends on its mass (or mass-energy). Unfortunately, no one really understands what mass is and why it exists, so the relation between gravity and mass is not understood, although a conceptual particle called the Higgs boson comes into it somewhere.
Nevertheless, we can see that gravitics technology is a way of producing/negating gravitons without using either mass or the energy-equivalent. Gravitons might be negated by causing them to decay into non-interacting "Gravitinos"
Artificial Gravity Overview
- - You need two plates to generate a gravitational field between them.
- - The direction of the gravitational force is *always* perpendicular to the plates. (no pushing/pulling sideways, unless you pivot the floor and ceiling )
- - A byproduct of the generation of this artificial gravity is an inertial dampening field.
- - The "strength" of the inertial dampening field is independent of the strength of the gravity field. The magnitude/direction of the artificial gravity can be adjusted without affecting the ability of the inertial compensators to compensate for inertial forces.
- - At higher tech levels, modulation of the artificial gravity field allows one to increase the amount of g-forces that can becompensated by the inertial dampening effect.
Artificial Gravity Details
Gravitic plates manufactured of gravitic dipoles are mounted in floor-ceiling plate pairs. They modulate the field in the intervening space only, allowing any natural field can penetrate the enclosed volume: the natural graviton waves (note: NOT gravitational waves, they're something different; and NOT gravity waves either, they're something different too) would form part of a probability wave superposition with the artificial field within the enclosed volume. The floor-ceiling plate pair can then be seen as a device for increasing/decreasing the probability of finding a quantum of gravitation within the enclosed volume. Because dipole effects drop off as an inverse-cube, the floor-ceiling plate pair form a near-infinite potential well to the artificially created gravitons, but allow naturally produced gravitons to penetrate from outside and pass through the device so as not to distort the external field. The artificial gravitons can be tuned or polarized so as to reflect from the ceiling plate. Also note that gravitons formed inside the device leak out by quantum tunneling but these are usually masked by a local planetary field or are lost in the depths of space.
End Of Brief
And there you have it. Have fun with it.
