Full warp ahead Mr. Scott!

[JohnAnthony]

Well, not exactly but getting closer...

Antimatter Atoms Trapped for First Time?"A Big Deal"

 

[RabidAlien]

Nice! Next, they need to figure out antigravity, so we can get our flying cars.

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

You said it RA!!!!!!!

 

[mikewint]

Wouldn't get my hopes up RA, since gravity isn't a real force any than centifugal force is real. The former a consequence of mass warping spacetime and the latter a consequence of inertia

 

[RabidAlien]

Pshaw! Mere trivialities! </English accent>

 

[Njaco]

I want a plasma phase rifle in the 40 watt range!

 

[vikingBerserker]

It would make rabbit hunting a little more exciting.

 

[HealzDevo]

Actually if I understand my science from watching the Elegant Universe correctly, there is actually a particle called the Gravitron. The reason why it is weaker than a lot of the other forces that we know about is because it is actually free to float into other dimensions. Scientists think they may have caught a glimpse of this process in one of the particle accelators but they are not quite sure yet...

Therefore, if this is the true nature of gravity then there is no reason to think that we might not be able to work out how to switch it on and off...

 

[mikewint]

The Graviton as an actual particle carrier of the gravitational force was a strictly made-up entity when theoretical physicists where still hoping that a GUT (Grand Unification Theory) could actually include all field-effect forces: Strong Force between Quarks (carrier: Gluon); Electromagnetic between charged particles(carrier: Photon)and Weak Force Beta-Decay (Carrier W Z Particles). Both light and time are warped by gravitational fields there cannot be a particle exchange without mass and photons are massless, yet light is bent by gravitational fields. The beam of light is merely following the warped spacetime produced by the presence of mass.
Additionally if gravity had a carrier particle, gravity would have a speed and that would have to be equal to or less than the speed of light. Thus we'd be able to measure the Speed of Gravity
Now if CERN can generate the elusive Higgs particle we'll know why objects have mass

 

[Lucky13]

*Headache*

 

[JohnAnthony]

I don't know much about the science of warp drive but I'm pretty sure you'd need a really big propeller.

 

[RabidAlien]

Now if CERN can generate the elusive Higgs particle we'll know why objects have mass

'Cuz God said so.

 

[Gnomey]

CERN is on course to discover the Higgs bosun, just a question of time. It is all very cool!

 

[mikewint]

That's of course if it actually exists.
And as for Warp Drive, it actually does not "drive" the ship, it (warp drive) warps the local spacetime like a very very large mass and the ship, simply slides down the distorted spacetime continuum much like a sled on a snowhill.

 

[HealzDevo]

But hang on Mikewint, that is making a rather big assumption isn't it that the speed of light is the universal cosmic speedlimit? I know Einstein said it was, but then we found out about other things which he ignored such as the world of the microscopic. Whereas gravity we know can effect light. Because we know that the laws of physics go weird around black-holes. We know that black-holes superconstraint the gravity of the space around them. Also we know that light tends to travel in waves. Because of the effect of the black-holes we know that gravity affects light. Therefore I'm not sure that in an experiment where you turned off a sun that the light would cease before the gravity, both together or whether gravity would cease before light.

 

[mikewint]

HealzDevo- let me illustrate with a Gedankenexperiment (Einsteins) imagine an elevator with an infinitely long shaft. the elevator is accelerated up the shaft at a constant rate, say 9.8 m/s squared. inside the elevator there are no windows and the occupants cannot see any of the exterior world. Fred jumps up, rises for a time and then returns to the floor. Fred holds a ball in his hand which he releases. the ball falls to the floor. Fred turns to his class and announces the effect of an invisible gravitational field. from the outside of the elevator the truth is obvious. Fred accelerated away from the floor but the elevator also accelerating catches up to him and smacks him in the feet. The released ball remains stationary while the elevator floor catches up with it until the floor smacks the ball. More importantly to our Gedankenexperiment is that Fred moves to the far wall of the elevator, takes out a flash light and shines it toward the opposite wall. the light beam leaves the flashlight and begins its journey toward the opposite wall. during the time it takes the beam to cover this distance the elevator has moved upward. the beam strikes the wall at a lower point than the one it was aimed at. Increasing the acceleration of the elevator moves this strike point even further down the wall. Look Fred exclaims gravity can bend a light beam. Since so called gravitational fields are indistinguishable from an accelerated system, gravity is not a true force any more than centrifugal force. Masses warp the spacetime continum and objects and light beams follow the warped fabric of spacetime. No force required.
that the speed of light in a vacuum is a constant to all observers is a relativistic effect that speed has on the fabric of spacetime and massenergy so that the very things that we use to measure speed, distance and time are altered TO SOMEONE NOT IN THAT REFERENCE FRAME. to those in the reference frame all is normal, it is the observers frame of reference that is distorted
Einstein did not ignore the atomic world it operates by its own rules which Einstein could never accept "God does not play dice with the universe"
Blackholes are a concept that extends relativity into a singularity of infinite mass, zero volume, and zero time. since our system of mathematics has division by zero as an undefined function all bets are off but because of these very same relativistic effects it would take a black hole infinite time to form