I've been thinking (ouch!).

Physics and technology encompass and exploit natural phenomena. Is there any reason to think that we can do or create things at a fundamental level that are not already demonstrated in nature?

For example, you may say that there's no TV in nature. But everything it's built on is. Electron flow, phosphorescence, magnetic fields, etc. We just exploit these things.

But where do we see natural antigravity? Or objects travelling ftl? Or wormholes? Are these things truly impossible since they don't naturally occur? Another way to phrase the question is, if it's possible, should we see evidence of it in the universe?

Just some random synapses firing in the hopes of sparking some interesting discussion.

Is it Possible? No.

I was going to not read your article, but in glancing at, happened to read it. However, my answer still stands ;)

Why would you not read one of my posts Aer? I'm offended. And deeply hurt. I read your posts. You're mean. I'm tellin'. Wahhhh...

OK - let's analyze this one at a time. First on the list: antigravity

Well, I suppose we first must define gravity. Gravity is the curvature of spacetime caused by bodies with mass. So what is mass? I would say mass is a form of energy, but I think most people think of mass as another word for energy (thus, relativistic mass and whatnot comes into play). We must settle this point before we can continue. What do you consider mass to be? Be specific.

Why would you not read one of my posts Aer? I'm offended. And deeply hurt. I read your posts. You're mean. I'm tellin'. Wahhhh...Because I just wanted to answer the thread title and that be that. Turns out you had to actually write an interesting thread.

Mass is that which has inertia. That which does not, is energy. Ok?

Sounds good. Anyway, back to antigravity - or gravity I guess. We want to counter this curvature, so it stands to reason that we need something that can counter curve spactime - I think "flatten spactime" would be a better wording. Now how might this work? Whenever I think of curvature of spacetime, I get a horrible image of that 3D Simpsons episode. And I just can't see the flattening so to speak to be possible :confused:

Would all of spacetime around the object have to flattened? or just a portion? I suppose a gradient effect could be in order to do just a portion.

Ha! Yeah I loved that episode. Anyway, I have exactly the same thoughts on it. I even call it a "gravity planer" when I talk to myself in my head(!). I have always thought that you would need a mass/energy equivalent to the mass that was causing the curvature in the first place. Namely, an earth mass equivalent to counter the existing earth mass. Ugh.

Well, I guess this is another subject. But what about artificial gravity? If there is a way to produce artificial gravity, then it stands to reason that there might be a way to produce artificial antigravity.

I would categorize antigravity as Maybe, but most probably not or not anytime soon.

All approaches I can imagine require equivalent masses to generate the gravity/antigravity in order to counter or create the spacetime curvature.

The important question is this. We live in a world where we've learned to manipulate natural phenomena to our advantage. Can we create new phenomena that do not occur in nature?

Well, we are apart of nature. And if there is a way, nature usually finds it - if it is through "us", is it really that much different? It has been said before that perhaps we are just a means by which nature tries to understand itself.

Back to antigravity for a thought: perhaps the best way to think of gravity is a distortion of spacetime rather than the 3D planar curved surface.

If you consider a volume of spacetime that is distorted as you approach the center of this volume, then might it be possible to create rippled distortions in this volume, where the ripple distortions counter the uniform distortion that already exists?

Interesting idea. The problem is energy. How much energy would it take to counter a tiny area of the gravitational distortion caused by a whole planet?

Probably somewhere around a lot.

Perhaps energy expendature won't be a problem sometime in the future.

Suppose such a ripple were to exist in the curvature of spacetime. How might this affect an orbiting satellite for instance? Would the satellite fall into the ripple, or would the ripple reverse the direction of the satellite by having it fall backwards so to speak. Basically, I am pondering what happens to an object that approaches this ripple perpendicular to the actual ripple slice through the gravitational field.

I imagine it would react exactly as if a mass had passed by.

This paper by Podkletnov and Modanese may be of interest. Effects, which appeared
to be anti-gravitational in nature, were observed in this experiment. Pendulums containing spheres of different materials, including metal, glass, ceramics, wood, rubber
and plastic, were placed inside glass cylinders under vacuum and observed to be repelled by a 'beam' emitted by Podkletnov's superconducting apparatus. In demonstrations shown to physicist, barriers of different materials placed between the
apparatus and the glass cylinders containing the pendulums had no effect in blocking
the beam. This is not the original experiment done at a earlier time. A cut and paste and a link:

(b) Evidence of the gravitational-like nature of the eect.
The gravitational-like nature of the eect is best demonstrated by its independence
on the mass and composition of the targets (see Section 3). We are aware, of course, that
gravitational interactions of this kind are absolutely unusual (see Sections 4.1, 4.3). For
this reason, several details of the experimental apparatus were designed with the explicit
purpose of reducing spurious eects like mechanical and acoustic vibrations much below
the magnitude order of the observed anomalous forces.
Indirect evidence for a gravitational eect comes from the fact that any kind of
electromagnetic shielding is ineective. Note that if one can explain in some way the
anomalous generation of a gravitational field in the superconductor, its undisturbed prop-
agation follows as a well-known property of gravity (see Section 4.2). Indirect support for
the gravitational hypothesis also comes from the partial similarity of this apparatus to that
employed by Podkletnov for the stationary weak gravitational shielding experiment [1]."
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/physics/pdf/0108/0108005.pdf

I am not knowledgeable enough to endorse or reject the paper, but it is interesting.

Interesting...

I've been thinking (ouch!).

Physics and technology encompass and exploit natural phenomena. Is there any reason to think that we can do or create things at a fundamental level that are not already demonstrated in nature?

For example, you may say that there's no TV in nature. But everything it's built on is. Electron flow, phosphorescence, magnetic fields, etc. We just exploit these things.

But where do we see natural antigravity? Or objects travelling ftl? Or wormholes? Are these things truly impossible since they don't naturally occur? Another way to phrase the question is, if it's possible, should we see evidence of it in the universe?

Just some random synapses firing in the hopes of sparking some interesting discussion.
You seem to be pondering the difference between observed, natural, fundamental, physical phenomena (compared with) not-yet-observed, natural, fundamental, physical phenomena. I don't think something can be ruled out as impossible just because it has not been observed yet. (So don't give up hope.) It does look discouraging after awhile, but are you ready to rule out wormholes out as occurring in nature somewhere?

Even if some amazing new technological invention were to be developed, like the obligatory Time Machine in so many movies, the underlying principle on which it operates would still have to be categorized as a newly discovered natural phenomenon. As you said, such devices are really just exploitations of natural phenomena when studied at the fundamental level. For example, the time machine would probably have to operate by creating a worm hole, or finding one, or some other use of something in nature. (I, for one, do not believe in the supernatural.)

As a side note, this topic (unintenionally?) overlaps somewhat with the 'Reciprocal time dilation has not been observed in 100 years' topic. I tend to think that SRT is correct in theory, yet impossible to occur in reality (in the case of uniform translational motion only). I thought of it as analagous to someting like a math formula that works for every case except one in particular (division by zero for example). The inside-out version of the question asked in this thread, 'Just because it's impossible in one certain case, can't it still be a valid theory in our universe?' However I am still confused about it, and recently in other threads, I have read that SRT never claimed reciprocity. This just confuses me further, and makes me wonder what T'=gammaT is supposed to claim. But I digress, and will wait to see if this subtopic is addressed in the appropriate thread.

But I digress, and will wait to see if this subtopic is addressed in the appropriate thread.

Thank the lord above and the holy host of angels. SRT = Stupid Redundant Threads. Just kidding. Maybe. :p

SRT = Stupid Redundant Threads
That sounds ridiculously similar to string theory. Is SRT and string theory one in the same?

Who knows. Strings, spacetime, blobs of vacuum fluctuatons, colliding branes... What a mess. :confused:

I recall some type of noodle was included in your repertoire. What was that Theory of Everything again?

Yes. The "bow tie pasta noodle" Theory of Everything. You remembered it! Cool! Maybe there's something to it...

superluminal,

Let me just say a few things about antigravity:

First, if like poles attract and opposite poles repel in the gravitational interaction (which is the opposite of the electromagnetic interaction) then this would eventually lead to a complete seperation of gravitational mass from antigravitational mass in our universe. So if antigravitational mass does exist in our universe, it's likely that it's very far way from us.

Second, if the gravitational field is not curved spacetime, but is instead similiar to the electromagnetic interaction, then the gravitational field has a sister field that appears at right angles to the gravitational field and its motion (just like the magnetic field appears at right angles to the electric field and its motion). This sister field (gravitomagnetic field) can then be converted back to a gravitational or antigravitional field. So for example, you can make an antigravity engine using complex rotation. (Think about it, it's easy to figure out how it would work).

Finally, if we were to assume that photons, and other light speed particles, are gravitational dipoles (gravitational field in the front of the particle, and antigravitational field in the rear), it would not only explain why and how these particles travel at c, but also why the omnidirectional speed of light is equal to c in an object that is stationairy on the surface of the Earth (stationairy in the Earth's gravitational field).

We couldn't see atoms 100 years ago but now we can. We couldn't see or even know about particles 100 years ago but now we can see them. That means that just because we can't find something today we won't find it tomorrow.