An episode from Futurama once had a scientist speaking:
Quote
The engine does not propel the ship forward, rather, it moves the universe about it.
Now that was just so altruistic now, wasn't it? Allow me to offer my two cents on this, no matter how whimsical or impossible it may seem.
Scientists believe that all matter in the universe is subject to just four basic forces. All matter is held together, or pushed apart, by these fundamental forces: Gravity, Electromagnetic force, Strong nuclear force and Weak nuclear force. The understanding of these four forces has been heavily influenced by quantum electrodynamics, the theory that views all electromagnetic radiation not as a continuous beam of energy but a stream of energy in discrete packets called quanta.
These "packets", are known as photons in electromagnetic radiation. These photons can be thought of as both particle and wave; in wave from, it can travel even in vacuum as a self-sustaining syncronization of both electric and magnetic waves.
Hence the term "messenger particles". Photons are not exactly actual particles, contrary to the second word of the aforementioned term. Simply put, these mesenger particles are just the means by which the universe transmits packets of energy. Photons (or virtual photons, for some) are the messenger particles for the EM force. For the Strong nuclear force, we have the (virtual) pion, the stuff that, simply put, glues all the photons and neutrons together in the nucleus so that the particles don't go flying off in all directions by repelling other particles of the same charge.
The Weak nuclear force has W and Z particles. From a book: "When a neutron decays into a proton and an electron, W particles pass energy between the particles." I have just as much idea as you do on this.
Now, the force of interest, to me, is gravity, supposedly trasmitted by messenger particles called gravitons, as yet undetected. They are supposed to be of infinitesimal size, enabling them to travel an infinite distance.
When I encountered this knowledge, I have imagined the particles in the universe to be constantly "bursting" with gravitons continually. It is, graphically, a bit like radiation, where an unstable isotope gradually "sheds" itself in the form of alpha or beta particles. However, unlike radiation, these graviton-bursts do not cause the object to lose mass. Clear so far?
Now, I also imagined gravitons to
1) mysteriously pass "through" matter (after all, imagine how absurd it would be to be pushed away by a stream of gravitons from the earth? And considering how "massive" blackholes are, just imagine the graviton "firing" rate of such a blackhole. It would be stupid if particles supposedly drawn to it were pushed off)
2) "pull" any particle it passes through in the direction from whence it had come (In other words, a graviton ejected from the center of the earth would pull any matter it comes across towards the center of the earth)
Oookay, so far so good. now, imagine an alien technology that is capable of, not only detecting, but also manipulating gravitons. Already, we have encountered self-sustaining graviton-emitting engines in nature: blackholes. Now, what if this alien technology did just the opposite. Instead of emitting gravitons from itself, effectively attracting other objects to it, imagine the engine to be drawing gravitons to itself, attracting it to other objects.
This graviton "magnet" I have just described was pointless, really, 'coz it will just attract the object itself to all the other objects in the universe, effectively making it cavort around in a seemingly random fashion as the celestial bodies move about. However, if this "magnet" were to be "targettable", or controlled, we can, for all we know, make a craft go left, right, up, down, forward or back, as a matter of fact, go any direction we wish it to simply by targetting the "magnet" in the direction we wish the craft to go and turning the engine on. It can bank sharp curves or zoom at deadly speeds (although I have no wish to imagine how ill its occupants might be from all the hyper-roller-coaster ride).
I'm not sure it's credible, although I am definite it is possible. As the book I hold sayeth: "Gravity is the least understood of the four basic forces."
Oh, yeah. Simply put, an anti-gravity engine. It's not that, of course, but the notion is pretty much the same
Edited by salamangkero, 24 September 2006 - 05:43 PM.