yeah, i heard about the 11 dimensions. but im not buying it till they prove it.

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Slingshot?
Just use a star's gravitational pull to slingshot you out into space at huge speeds?

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they do that all the time. thats what its called. gravitational slingshot iirc. satellites reach their position by accelerating due to gravity of planets. they orbit a few times, then sort of change their position so they're released from orbit and are now traveling faster.

as for finding how to rip through a 4D dimension, it wont be easy. but imho, the answer lies after we find how to detect and if possible, manipulate dark matter and energy. most on the site may know that the amount of matter that we've detected that are present in the universe simply dont account for the maths. we should be gone back into a huge crunch by now. but following models, currently known matter only accounts for 30% of total mass which *should* be present to keep the universe at its present state and for it to behave the way it is doing now.

they give credit to dark matter. needless to say, they are fascinating stuff. imho, its not black holes that hold centres of galaxies together, but rather, dark matter. imho if it were blackholes, it'd be sucking in the entire galaxy.

oh, note a few things. there's little to no air friction in space, unless you get into dust clouds even then, i dont think it'll be a huge problem. all you do is get a conventional drive, load it up with buttloads of fuel. fire it off into space, let it drift into deep space, and then fire it up. it'll accelerate until it runs outta fuel. by then which it should be going pretty damn fast. if you got enough, you might even reach light speed. but at speed of light, or anywhere significantly near, equations of physics get a little unstable. you might want to watch your teacups - mass gets distorted.

back to ripping through space. what you do, is find a wormhole. the name's just stuck. yeah, find a wormhole that links two sides of the universe together. jump in, and you're all set. finding the wormhole, and also where it leads is the trick. thats why i think we need to fully understand dark matter and energy better. they may just hold some answers.

Also there's the problem with wormholes (if they exist) being on the scale of the Plank Length, which is 1.616 x 10^-35 metres. Slightly too small to fly through.

i read somewhere that if wormholes do exist, for various reasons messages are the only thing that can go both ways.

I should think the miniscule size would be one of them

@Kimk
Stop doing that! You're making my brain hurt

Before ANYBODY asks....
I had my username BEFORE the game even existed. Thank you.

"Dark matter"? They call it "dark energy" now kimk *shakes head* .

I think I'm gonna write a book in which the main character discovers that he can travel FTL just by persistently shaking his head.


>-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-<
Careful what you wish for... You just might get it.
>-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-<

Okay, lets recap what we got.

1 - Subspace travel: Jump from normal space into another dimention, and then return via the same technology at your destination.

2 - Wormhole theory: Use natural occoring wormholes to go fater than light.

3 - Warping space: Bending the fabric of space to allow a shortcut

4 - Bubble theory: Accelerate a bubble instead of a craft to FTL speeds.

now ive seen 1, 2 and 3 a whole lot before in other sci-fi, 4 i havent heard of though.

Good ideas, keep em coming!

the plank length is 10^-34 thank you, thirty FOUR

I shall go back to my book such things and post what it says about light speed travel. Later.

Edited by - Griffon_26 on 11/10/2004 9:28:24 PM

Bubble drive seems to be the most promising. As I recall, the only way to have enough energy to go as fast as light is to be pure energy, so having the energy bubble push you seems logical. If you went faster than light wouldn't you be somewhere before the people there could see you? It'd be like a cloaking device... Also keep your ears peeled, NASA's looking to break the world speed record soon with a new scramjet engine test...

Kimk

What gives spiral galaxies (like the Milky Way) the spiral then? Of course we are orbiting a huge black hole. Like I keep saying, we have a high enough orbital velocity to orbit the damn thing. Think about it, why are we not getting sucked into the sun? Because we have a good orbit. Now, if we were to suddenly stop moving, then we would get sucked straight into the sun. If the sun were to dissapper instantly, after 8 minutes and 20 seconds (the time it takes light to reach us on earth), it would get dark and we would sail off into space according to the tangent line of our orbit.

Also, the reason why we cannot achive the speed of light is not that we can't get enough fuel, but it requires an Infinite amount of energy because we have mass. If we have no mass, then we could achive it (the Tachyon).

as for wormholes, we need to get that device from the Magic School Bus :-p and shrink ourselves down to that level. Or, like in Stargate, the wormhole somehow de-molecularizes us then transports us through...

There is "dark matter: There is also Anti-matter.

And there is Dark Energy

Edit: Spelled Kimk's name wrong... Sorry dude

Edited by - [email protected] on 11/11/2004 5:32:21 AM

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If we have no mass, then we could achive it (the Tachyon).

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It doesn't even need to be a hypothetical particle like that. Photons, anyone?

And @Griffon_26

1.616 x 10^-35 metres. Check Wikipedia or any number of other online sources.

Photons are still bound by the speed of light. If I am reading this site right, photons only have 0 mass when they are standing still.