Hyperdrive Engineering

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ULTRA said:
I suppose using stepped superconducting magnets would make the power easier to manage, and less than conventional magnets of the same weight. There have been some encouraging new developments in high temp superconducting wire recently as well reducing the need for super-coolants. I wouldn't want to be sitting near a 3-5 tonne ring spinning that fast when it decides it's bearings can no longer hold out.
I have seen an EM ring levitate, but have no idea how it was done. Maybe some hidden magnets. Also, some of the newer exotic superconducting magnets look quite cool, but whether they can be adapted for experiments like these is another matter, most of them appear to be dipole magnets.
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Don't forget the the material itself is subject to stress. 10000 rpms would either have to have a structure that would be a VERY solid material for your superconductor. (colder is denser unless the materials acts like a crystal at low tempertures), OR a VERY small rotating superconductor - to keep the mass down (then it would have to be a VERY effective superconductor) for a "warmer" superconductor.

The bearings, if they were physically connected, would pretty much have to be part of the rotating mass - adding to its energy gradent + providing a stablization surplus (depending on the shape and drag coefficient +adding to the kinetic friction problems). Magnetic Grapplers may be the answer, but would require a measured distance so that "other" forces (buried iron nails, iron in the red brick of buildings, etc) would not unbalance the rotation, if the magnetic field was too large (tenuous but extended) or intense (locally).

Micro-superconductors build in tandem may be an answer. Then the field would be limited in size, but providing an extended field effect that would power the system, providing not more than was put in, but more than is required to run the superconductor - allowing for more through-put.

Additionally if something went wrong the damage would localized - comparatively (if you are in a car wreck it feels differently than if you are watching one), but at least you wouldn't destroy the building or craft.
 
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Why would someone drive a metal carriage at 45 miles an hour when the horse and buggy looks normal...
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It's not the speed in a straight line I'm wondering abouth imagen if in stead of smooth lines or circles you had downright corners on the highway. At best it would keep the speed limit down but most likely it would result on metal stress and accidents.
In all making extreme manauvres is stupid unless you want to avoid something
 
kmguru said:
...theoretically, electromagnetic energy could be converted into gravity...

Time to build one....
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To convert electro magnetism into gravity, you need to output cold instead of heat. This is done because gravity is based on cold air dragging everything down, like a blanket. To make it generate 'cold' you should follow the priciple for an air conditioner - this will load the travel with 'gravitons', as I call it.
 
You could make a 2 meter mass spin at 10000 rpm, how do I know this?

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don't they have electromagnetic thrusters already?

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10,000 rpm isn't a problem

You have hard disk drives in your computer rotating that fast all the time.

Admittedly, they are aluminum platters, not palladium hydride or other high Tc material. Not sure what the tensile strength of a 300kg mass of a palladium hydride disk or ring at 75 Kelvin is; but I'm sure there are some alloys that could be used to encase it for added support.

You're not going to turn one of these drives on and off at the flick of a switch though. It's going to take some time to bring that big of a fragile mass up to operating speed.
 
Charlatan "This is done because gravity is based on cold air dragging everything down"

I always thought that cold air sank and warm air rose do to the molecules in warm air being a biy more "excited" than those in cold air. Cold air has less space between the molecules, is therfore more dense, and therefore technically has more mass than an equivalent body of warm air. Gravity is the attraction of two objects that have mass. The greater the mass the greater the attraction. In deep-space dust has mass and therefore gravity. Or am I completely wrong about gravitational theory. My point is is that gravity has an effect on cold air but is not based on it. If you cool helium to a cooler temperature than the rest of the room it still is going to float away unless you cool it a whole lot.
 
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According to one cited in this article, warp drive is several millenia off; is that overly conservative, or it's possible to exist within hundreds of years? Related, I've heard that travel time would be much shorter for travelers who travel near the speed of light than outside observers -- commentary?
 
convivial said:
According to one cited in this article, warp drive is several millenia off; is that overly conservative, or it's possible to exist within hundreds of years?
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Too hard to even estimate. The one method we know of that might work (the Alcubierre drive) is not realizable with anything like modern technology. Indeed, it would require insane amounts of energy even if we could get it to work i.e. more than the mass of the universe in antimatter to take a small ship across the galaxy.

Related, I've heard that travel time would be much shorter for travelers who travel near the speed of light than outside observers -- commentary?
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Yes. A passenger on a very fast ship might experience a trip to Barnard's Star as taking only 4 years, even though an observer on Earth observed the trip taking 8 years. (Barnard's Star is 6 light years away.)
 
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