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San Francisco, 11:03 AM
Sun Nov 8
10 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/05/09
Sounds like it might have pretty spectacular failure modes. #blackholes
11/04/09
11/04/09
I don't know about you guys, but I'm going to go about eating all the radioactive material I can find lying around. Eventually something will give me absorbing powers. #blackholes
11/04/09
If it's possible, it's being done and being done everywhere.
The evidence of its pollution should be everywhere.
No black hole technology pollution.
No black hole technology.
No black hole technology.
No life elsewhere .
Show's over. Nothing to see. #blackholes
11/04/09
11/04/09
Besides, you contradict yourself. The evidence of its pollution should be everywhere only if there's life elsewhere and they are using this technology. The fact that we aren't detecting it doesn't mean *both* there's no life and there's no black hole technology - it means one or the other (or it means nothing, since we couldn't detect it anyway). #blackholes
11/04/09
If we are not unique (I was not consulted, so I shall not vote), it is statistically inconceivable that we are the first or will be the last, to do anything.
That band of possibility is billions of years wide and what we can 'see' of it goes right back to the beginning (not all of, but some of all).
You're right, there is no 'now' in the universe, anywhere except 'here' but their 'now' doesn't need to be 'close' or 'recent' (essentially the same thing).
They've had plenty of time. #blackholes
11/04/09
That it is both theoretically and practically possible and that its achievement is simply a matter of time, effort and engineering [on a long enough timescale practical difficulties and limits of resources simply cease to be relevant (or worth mentioning)].
If you choose to accept the basic premise, you choose to accept the pollution consequence (it's tied to the theoretical and practical premise).
If it's possible, its been done by others.
If it's been done by others, it produced pollution.
If it produced pollution, that pollution is detectable.
If we choose to look, we will detect it if it's there.
(The fact that we haven't yet, is because we haven't tried yet.)
If we try to detect it and don't, and at the end of that, still accept the basic premise, we must accept the conclusion.
At the moment we are alone by default.
Then we will be truly alone. #blackholes
11/04/09
So what I'm saying is, the light coming in from around us could very likely be showing us an image of a time before a certain species developed said technology. Perhaps millions of years before they did. Perhaps we are the most intelligent species so far in the universe, who knows. #blackholes
11/04/09
11/05/09
11/05/09
Perhaps many civilisations built BH generators - and they all went horribly wrong!
How do you determine the difference between a natural BH and an artificial one?
Could also be that our super-advanced neighbors have figured out, that this will never work, will work badly or have a high propensity for disaster, and have therefore found other means of producing energy and visiting other stars at their leisure. #blackholes
11/05/09
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11/06/09
On the other side, there might not be somebody else with intelligence to invent this. And I understand that you think that if there is no one else out there, the inventing of such machines is not worth it, because that would mean the rest of the universe being duller than Earth. But even if there actually are no one else out there, we would still some day need to get away from Earth (if nothing else does before, the Sun exploding will surely leave the Earth inhabitable) and we might need to travel far, travel fast. And in addition, by trying to figure out how to make machines like these function properly, I guess we would learn a lot, even if we don’t succeed.
My point is that we should try anyway, without consideration of there being or not being other species out there. Only if it is dangerous for someone/something (for instance us, our planet or other planets) should we avoid inventions (or attempts on inventions) like these.
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11/04/09
Kinda like playing Mafia Wars on FB. #blackholes
11/04/09
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That, and H.R.Giger designs the housing. #blackholes
11/04/09
Those two sections discuss alternative ideas for interstellar travel and why they're not feasible at this point. #blackholes
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11/04/09
The upshot is that the authors propose a lot of *very* interesting ideas and questions, well worth studying in detail, but don't answer any of them, which is a little disappointing (though not entirely unexpected, because this isn't high-school physics where everything has an easy answer).
Regarding the "using BHs to create more BHs" issue and associated concerns that the 2nd law of thermodynamics might be circumvented, that isn't the case.
The authors propose that the first BH (or SBH, for subatomic BH, as they call it) be created with a focussed spherically-shaped laser in the gamma-ray part of the spectrum. Think of it as a firing squad spread around a circle, shooting at the same time towards the center of the circle. Now think of doing that using lasers rather than bullets and using a tiny sphere rather than a circle. The squeezing of so much energy into such a small volume would create a subatomic BH.
The problem is that this is not very efficient, and that's where using BHs to create BHs comes in. Once a few BHs have been created by the inefficient method, these BHs can be allowed to evaporate (that is, shrink due to Hawking radiation) and their Hawking radiation can be harnessed and focussed into some small volume, creating another BH.
This does NOT violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics. It merely uses a more efficient producer of energy (a pre-existing BH rather than a laser). However, in isolation (that is, without continually feeding mass to the BHs already in existence) this process cannot continue forever, because *that* would be a violation of the 2nd law.
So, those commenters here on io9 who said that this isn't a violation of the 2nd law and that this is merely a better energy-conversion process are entirely correct. #blackholes
11/04/09
David Cronenberg will be known as the 20th century Jules Verne in a couple century #blackholes
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11/04/09
What about inertia?
Wait a gosh darn minute...this sounds familiar. #blackholes
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[en.wikipedia.org] #blackholes
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11/04/09
Rather, it uses exotic matter (matter with a negative energy density) distributed in such a way that the geometry of the spacetime surrounding the ship is flat inside a bubble (hence no inertial effects), but curved outside. The curvature on the surface of the bubble behind the ship is different than that ahead of the ship, so the stresses in spacetime "push" the bubble forward.
And during all that, you're comfortably inside the bubble, in a region where spacetime is flat.
It's an awesome idea and totally possible theoretically, were it not for the fact that it requires a form of matter that, as far as we know, simply doesn't exist. #blackholes
11/04/09
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11/04/09
When you get close to the event horizon the difference in the gravity, even at short distances, is so great that it will pull the ship apart faster than the ship can fall in as a whole. #blackholes
11/04/09
11/04/09
Or, in less dramatic terms, extreme tidal effects. #blackholes
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11/05/09
11/06/09
It would be the new bulimia I suppose... #blackholes
11/07/09
11/04/09
1PM - 2PM Earth to spaceship
2PM -3PM spaceship to hell
3PM - 3PM ???
3PM - 4PM long wait in orbit around Neptune #blackholes
11/04/09
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11/04/09
I always found it implausible, because in order to move the black hole forward, you'd need to create an amount of energy equivalent to the amount of energy that the black hole is pulling you towards it with, thus cancelling out the effect. #blackholes
11/04/09
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11/04/09
Create one in front of the ship, it lies stable in spacetime (black holes are not drawn/do not fall towards matter), thus making the ship fall towards it. Cancel the black hole before you get to close. That should give some forward momentum. Rinse and repeat.
This would still require a black hole generator mounted on the hood and a smart contraption that cancels the blackhole without causing a 1 AU blastradius. #blackholes
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11/04/09
Somehow that doesn't seem right. Am I not getting something here? #blackholes
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