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Warp Drive
A warp drive or a drive enabling space warp is a fictional superluminal spacecraft propulsion system in many science fiction works, most notably ''Star Trek'', and a subject of ongoing physics research. The general concept of "warp drive" was introduced by John W. Campbell in his 1957 novel ''Islands of Space'' and was popularized by the ''Star Trek'' series. Its closest real-life equivalent is the Alcubierre drive, a theoretical solution of the field equations of general relativity. History and characteristics Warp drive, or a drive enabling space warp, is one of several ways of travelling through space found in science fiction. It has been often discussed as being conceptually similar to hyperspace. A warp drive is a device that distorts the shape of the space-time continuum. A spacecraft equipped with a warp drive may travel at speeds greater than that of light by many orders of magnitude. In contrast to some other fictitious faster-than-light technologies such as a jump ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fredric Brown
Fredric Brown (October 29, 1906 – March 11, 1972) was an American science fiction, fantasy, and mystery writer.D. J. McReynolds, "The Short Fiction of Fredric Brown" in Frank N. Magill, (ed.) ''Survey of Science Fiction Literature'', Vol. 4. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Salem Press, 1979. (pp. 1954–1957). He is known for his use of humor and for his mastery of the " short short" form—stories of 1 to 3 pages, often with ingenious plotting devices and surprise endings. Humor and a postmodern outlook carried over into his novels as well. One of his stories, "Arena", was adapted to a 1967 episode of the American television series ''Star Trek''. According to his wife, Fredric Brown hated to write. So he did everything he could to avoid it. He'd play his flute, challenge a friend to a game of chess, or tease Ming Tah, his Siamese cat. If Brown had trouble working out a certain story, he would hop on a long bus trip and just sit and think and plot for days on end. When Brown fin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tests Of Special Relativity
Special relativity is a physical theory that plays a fundamental role in the description of all physical phenomena, as long as gravitation is not significant. Many experiments played (and still play) an important role in its development and justification. The strength of the theory lies in its unique ability to correctly predict to high precision the outcome of an extremely diverse range of experiments. Repeats of many of those experiments are still being conducted with steadily increased precision, with modern experiments focusing on effects such as at the Planck scale and in the neutrino sector. Their results are consistent with the predictions of special relativity. Collections of various tests were given by Jakob Laub, Zhang, Mattingly, Clifford Will, and Roberts/Schleif. Special relativity is restricted to flat spacetime, ''i.e.'', to all phenomena without significant influence of gravitation. The latter lies in the domain of general relativity and the corresponding tests of ge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Time Dilation
In physics and relativity, time dilation is the difference in the elapsed time as measured by two clocks. It is either due to a relative velocity between them ( special relativistic "kinetic" time dilation) or to a difference in gravitational potential between their locations ( general relativistic gravitational time dilation). When unspecified, "time dilation" usually refers to the effect due to velocity. After compensating for varying signal delays due to the changing distance between an observer and a moving clock (i.e. Doppler effect), the observer will measure the moving clock as ticking slower than a clock that is at rest in the observer's own reference frame. In addition, a clock that is close to a massive body (and which therefore is at lower gravitational potential) will record less elapsed time than a clock situated further from the said massive body (and which is at a higher gravitational potential). These predictions of the theory of relativity have been repeatedl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Length Contraction
Length contraction is the phenomenon that a moving object's length is measured to be shorter than its proper length, which is the length as measured in the object's own rest frame. It is also known as Lorentz contraction or Lorentz–FitzGerald contraction (after Hendrik Lorentz and George Francis FitzGerald) and is usually only noticeable at a substantial fraction of the speed of light. Length contraction is only in the direction in which the body is travelling. For standard objects, this effect is negligible at everyday speeds, and can be ignored for all regular purposes, only becoming significant as the object approaches the speed of light relative to the observer. History Length contraction was postulated by George FitzGerald (1889) and Hendrik Antoon Lorentz (1892) to explain the negative outcome of the Michelson–Morley experiment and to rescue the hypothesis of the stationary aether ( Lorentz–FitzGerald contraction hypothesis). Although both FitzGerald and Lorentz a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Negative Mass
In theoretical physics, negative mass is a type of exotic matter whose mass is of opposite sign to the mass of normal matter, e.g. −1 kg. Such matter would violate one or more energy conditions and show some strange properties such as the oppositely oriented acceleration for negative mass. It is used in certain speculative hypothetical technologies, such as time travel to the past and future, construction of traversable artificial wormholes, which may also allow for time travel, Krasnikov tubes, the Alcubierre drive, and potentially other types of faster-than-light warp drives. Currently, the closest known real representative of such exotic matter is a region of negative pressure density produced by the Casimir effect. In cosmology In December 2018, astrophysicist Jamie Farnes from the University of Oxford proposed a "dark fluid" theory, related, in part, to notions of gravitationally repulsive negative masses, presented earlier by Albert Einstein, that may help better un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anti-gravity
Anti-gravity (also known as non-gravitational field) is a hypothetical phenomenon of creating a place or object that is free from the force of gravity. It does not refer to the lack of weight under gravity experienced in free fall or orbit, or to balancing the force of gravity with some other force, such as electromagnetism or aerodynamic lift. Anti-gravity is a recurring concept in science fiction. Examples are the gravity blocking substance "Cavorite" in H. G. Wells's ''The First Men in the Moon'' and the Spindizzy machines in James Blish's ''Cities in Flight''. "Anti-gravity" is often used to refer to devices that look as if they reverse gravity even though they operate through other means, such as lifters, which fly in the air by moving air with electromagnetic fields. Historical attempts at understanding gravity The possibility of creating anti-gravity depends upon a complete understanding and description of gravity and its interactions with other physical theories, such ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rubber Science
Rubber science is a science fiction term describing a quasi-scientific explanation for an aspect of a science fiction setting. Rubber science explanations are fictional but convincing enough to avoid upsetting the suspension of disbelief. Rubber science is a feature of most genres of science fiction, with the exception of hard science fiction. It is also frequently invoked in comic books. The term was coined by Norman Spinrad in an essay entitled "Rubber Sciences", in Reginald Bretnor's anthology ''The Craft of Science Fiction.'' Usage Rubber science was Spinrad's term for "pseudo-science ... made up by the writer with literary care that it not be discontinuous with the reader's realm of the possible." The term and concept have subsequently been adopted by science fiction writers to describe science based on "speculation, extrapolation, fabrication or invention." For example, '' Star Trek: Voyager'' script consultant Andre Bormanis used "the so-called rubber science or the very ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Photon
A photon () is an elementary particle that is a quantum of the electromagnetic field, including electromagnetic radiation such as light and radio waves, and the force carrier for the electromagnetic force. Photons are massless, so they always move at the speed of light in vacuum, (or about ). The photon belongs to the class of bosons. As with other elementary particles, photons are best explained by quantum mechanics and exhibit wave–particle duality, their behavior featuring properties of both waves and particles. The modern photon concept originated during the first two decades of the 20th century with the work of Albert Einstein, who built upon the research of Max Planck. While trying to explain how matter and electromagnetic radiation could be in thermal equilibrium with one another, Planck proposed that the energy stored within a material object should be regarded as composed of an integer number of discrete, equal-sized parts. To explain the photoelectric effect, Eins ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Special Relativity
In physics, the special theory of relativity, or special relativity for short, is a scientific theory regarding the relationship between space and time. In Albert Einstein's original treatment, the theory is based on two postulates: # The laws of physics are invariant (that is, identical) in all inertial frames of reference (that is, frames of reference with no acceleration). # The speed of light in vacuum is the same for all observers, regardless of the motion of the light source or the observer. Origins and significance Special relativity was originally proposed by Albert Einstein in a paper published on 26 September 1905 titled "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies".Albert Einstein (1905)''Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper'', ''Annalen der Physik'' 17: 891; English translatioOn the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodiesby George Barker Jeffery and Wilfrid Perrett (1923); Another English translation On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies by Megh Nad Saha (1920). The incompa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lorentz Factor
The Lorentz factor or Lorentz term is a quantity expressing how much the measurements of time, length, and other physical properties change for an object while that object is moving. The expression appears in several equations in special relativity, and it arises in derivations of the Lorentz transformations. The name originates from its earlier appearance in Lorentzian electrodynamics – named after the Dutch physicist Hendrik Lorentz. It is generally denoted (the Greek lowercase letter gamma). Sometimes (especially in discussion of superluminal motion) the factor is written as (Greek uppercase-gamma) rather than . Definition The Lorentz factor is defined as :\gamma = \frac = \frac = \frac , where: *''v'' is the relative velocity between inertial reference frames, *''c'' is the ''speed of light in a vacuum'', * is the ratio of ''v'' to ''c'', *''t'' is coordinate time, * is the proper time for an observer (measuring time intervals in the observer's own frame). This is th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
