[/dev/urandom] Teleportation
In my last entry, I chose between 3 powers: teleportation, invisibility, and flight. I chose the obvious time saver, teleportation. Which led me to go to the good ol' Morris Miller and Science Libraries at Utas to read up more about how feasible it could be.
Let's just say, unfortunately for me, it isn't. :P
Light travels at about 299.8 million metres per second in empty space. Physicists like to call this value c. It's the c used in that famous equation by that famous physicist guy, I think his name was Albert something. I digress.
The three methods of teleportation I had covered in my earlier post were travelling faster than light, travelling slower than light (about 99.9999% of c), and tearing a gap in space to make a wormhole. Travelling near or faster than c has it's problems. First problem is getting there. Next problem is what happens when I hit something while travelling from point A to B. And the third is slowing down. And wormholes are a
Getting to c is pretty hard, since you need a lot of energy to accelerate yourself to that speed. And the faster you go, the more energy you'll need, since when you accelerate something it gains mass. Weigh a pendulum. Then start it swinging and weigh it again. It will weigh more. In any case, this is quite obviously not efficient (since that famous theory of relativity kinda states you'll end up needing an infinite amount of energy to get me to c). So getting faster than c is pretty much impossible. Also, since my mass would be increasing, it may have an adverse effect on the environment.
If I did manage to get to c or faster, then that second problem rears it's ugly head. It doesn't matter what I'd be trying to go through, be it rock air or water. I'd end up resembling a rather thin, squashed, bloody pancake. Well, whatever survived the acceleration and didn't burn away due to friction (Air is a lot harder than most people who haven't seen a cyclone think).
Then there's time dilation. The faster something moves, the slower time seems to run. When you try to go faster than c, time stops. This opens possibilities for time travel, but our definition of time is also linked to our value of c: in empty space, light will travel 299.8 meters in the time it takes one second to pass.
So, traveling at or near c while teleporting is out of the question.
Now for wormholes. Sounds like a lot of fun: I rip a hole in the fabric of space in front of me, rip a new one at the destination, join the two, and hey presto, a teleporter!
Well, there's a few problems here. One of which is an edge in space.
Wanna know what the only edges in space known to exist are? They're called singularities. Pretty spiffy sounding name, right? Well, singularities are kinda special, since they are naturally only found when hidden by a mass so large that it generates a gravity well that not even light can escape. An event horizon, if you will.
Hrmm. Event horizon. Large gravity well. Massive. Black hole maybe?
Roger Penrose stated in his cosmic censorship hypothesis that there's no such thing as a singularity without an event horizon (however it doesn't hold, since there's been simulations to the contrary that this may be untrue). So, a singualrity without an event horizon is a whole new kettle of fish. It may let you know what infinitely dense material looks like, it could spew who-the-hell-knows-what into the universe, it could emit light. But if it was on this planet, it wouldn't be healthy for anything near it.
So, um... damn.
I was really looking forward to instant travel. Oh well.
Let's just say, unfortunately for me, it isn't. :P
Light travels at about 299.8 million metres per second in empty space. Physicists like to call this value c. It's the c used in that famous equation by that famous physicist guy, I think his name was Albert something. I digress.
The three methods of teleportation I had covered in my earlier post were travelling faster than light, travelling slower than light (about 99.9999% of c), and tearing a gap in space to make a wormhole. Travelling near or faster than c has it's problems. First problem is getting there. Next problem is what happens when I hit something while travelling from point A to B. And the third is slowing down. And wormholes are a
Getting to c is pretty hard, since you need a lot of energy to accelerate yourself to that speed. And the faster you go, the more energy you'll need, since when you accelerate something it gains mass. Weigh a pendulum. Then start it swinging and weigh it again. It will weigh more. In any case, this is quite obviously not efficient (since that famous theory of relativity kinda states you'll end up needing an infinite amount of energy to get me to c). So getting faster than c is pretty much impossible. Also, since my mass would be increasing, it may have an adverse effect on the environment.
If I did manage to get to c or faster, then that second problem rears it's ugly head. It doesn't matter what I'd be trying to go through, be it rock air or water. I'd end up resembling a rather thin, squashed, bloody pancake. Well, whatever survived the acceleration and didn't burn away due to friction (Air is a lot harder than most people who haven't seen a cyclone think).
Then there's time dilation. The faster something moves, the slower time seems to run. When you try to go faster than c, time stops. This opens possibilities for time travel, but our definition of time is also linked to our value of c: in empty space, light will travel 299.8 meters in the time it takes one second to pass.
So, traveling at or near c while teleporting is out of the question.
Now for wormholes. Sounds like a lot of fun: I rip a hole in the fabric of space in front of me, rip a new one at the destination, join the two, and hey presto, a teleporter!
Well, there's a few problems here. One of which is an edge in space.
Wanna know what the only edges in space known to exist are? They're called singularities. Pretty spiffy sounding name, right? Well, singularities are kinda special, since they are naturally only found when hidden by a mass so large that it generates a gravity well that not even light can escape. An event horizon, if you will.
Hrmm. Event horizon. Large gravity well. Massive. Black hole maybe?
Roger Penrose stated in his cosmic censorship hypothesis that there's no such thing as a singularity without an event horizon (however it doesn't hold, since there's been simulations to the contrary that this may be untrue). So, a singualrity without an event horizon is a whole new kettle of fish. It may let you know what infinitely dense material looks like, it could spew who-the-hell-knows-what into the universe, it could emit light. But if it was on this planet, it wouldn't be healthy for anything near it.
So, um... damn.
I was really looking forward to instant travel. Oh well.