Mass Effect drive discussion

[jedidia]

So if we can do this digitally, perhaps physical mass compression would be feasible.

That's two entirely different things, though. Data compression is merely the art of replacing information by an algorithm that can produce that information. Short of a trekian teleporter that can store physical matter as information and recreate it, it doesn't work that way in the physical world.

 

[jedidia]

The
Alcubierre drive
- doesn't that need negative mass to work?

I thought it needed negative energy to work, but the existance of both is linked and therefore uncertain, so it doesn't make much difference. Make no mistake, the Alcubierre drive is only theoretically possible, and that the term "theoreticaly possible" is a bit ambiguous. It can either mean "all principles are based on proven theories, but I'll be damned if we ever manage to build such a thing", or it can mean "all principles do not directly violate proven theories, but some are based on unproven/not-yet-disproven hypothesises (how on earth do you spell the plural of "hypothesis"? I give up...), and might therefore not be theoretically possible in a decade or two". The Alcubierre drive belongs into cathegory 2, I'm afraid.

Now, if you had negative mass I postulate your mass would go closer to 0, until you reached 0 mass; if you had the right starting mass, you would be traveling c when your mass hits 0. Then what happens when you apply your thrusters?

a = F/m. Inserting zero for mass, you get garbage and the universe vanishes in a puff of mathematical projectile vomit... :lol:

 

[dgatsoulis]

(how on earth do you spell the plural of "hypothesis"? I give up...)

υπόθεση = hypothesis - singular

υποθέσεις = hypotheses - plural

 

[Linguofreak]

Current understanding says antimatter has positive mass, not negative.

I think I've heard that antimatter arises from negative-mass / backward-in-time solutions to certain quantum equations, but that its classical behavior still corresponds to a positive mass, or something like that.

What you want to ask if how antimatter would react to gravity - would it repel matter and attract antimatter.

Actually, an object with positive mass will attract both positive- and negative-massed objects, and an object with negative mass will repel both. (This is because an object with negative mass has negative inertia).