Gravity Generators

[athon]

Or worse still, why do some aliens look so...human? Or, for that matter, some humans so alien...

Athon

 

[WanderingKnight]

i'm under the assumption that gravitons have been ignored in this thread, since they have never been physically measured and are theoretical.

Real, theoretical, or otherwise, since gravitons are merely the "transmission" particle for gravity, their existance would alter the situations described not a smidge.

 

[woodguard]

I wonder if you took a 10 ton steel ball, spin is as fast as you could. I mean really fast.

Would it warp the space around it, forming eddies in space, and would gratify wells form in the eddies.
And I don’t mean the gratify well it has at rest.

 

[calladus]

Or worse still, why do some aliens look so...human? Or, for that matter, some humans so alien...

Athon

Convergent evolution of two completely different species - heck, the alien might not even have DNA but they STILL look like us!

Funny how convergent evolution can't get the ears right though.

 

[calladus]

even Mr Bad Astronomer admits that space movies feel weird when the ships don't make sounds, so cut sci-fi directors some slack.

It would make sense if the sound was from INSIDE the starship. But outside? Just use a musical crescendo or something.

Originally posted by Yehweh

Next thing you know you're gonna tell me that you dont like the way all the aliens species speak fluent English (and usually with American accents)...

Actually, that is starting to get better with all the linguistic help that shows like Star Wars and Star Trek are getting from the professionals. It is now possible to recite Hamlet in the Klingon Language .

But this still begs the question of aliens without the ability to form sounds as humans do. (Or with much greater ability?)

These kinds of things actually bother me - I'm told that this is a symptom of geekdom - but I don't see it.

 

[calladus]

I wonder if you took a 10 ton steel ball, spin is as fast as you could. I mean really fast.

Would it warp the space around it, forming eddies in space, and would gratify wells form in the eddies.
And I don’t mean the gratify well it has at rest.

I wouldn't think so - there's just not enough weight there.

Technically, the mass DOES warp space - that is a definition of gravity, warped space. Any mass generates it's own gravity, including yourself. Two masses are pulled mutually toward each other, in proportion to their mass.

If you have jumped into the air, and are falling toward the earth, the earth is pulling on you, and you are pulling on the earth. The earth's mass is greater, so it has much more inertia to overcome - but technically (mathematically) it is still being pulled toward your gravity. You don't really notice because you are being pulled toward the earth much faster.

As for the warp of gravity being thrown off in an 'eddy' - technically that means that it would be gravity without mass. Who knows if that is possible?

If you want to do weird things with gravity fields you need a hell of a lot of mass in a small volume. A black hole, or a micro-black hole. While micro-black holes are mathematically possible, Steven Hawking's work indicates that they will probably quickly evaporate out of existance. We probably won't find any in the wild.

To cancel out Earth's gravity, all you would need is an equivalent mass to earth directly above you! At the halfway point measured from the center of the two masses, gravity would cancel itself -

This might be fairly difficult to accomplish!