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Exotic Matter
Posted on Saturday, February 16, 2008 @ 13:27:23 GMT by vlad
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Dr. Paul J. Werbos writes: It would be really great if we could build interstellar vehicles that really work.
I agree that we should do the best we can to maximize the probability that it becomes real, sooner or later. But I have often wondered: how? And what is the probability, really? What is the path that gets us there?
I also agree that exotic matter -- matter which is gravitationally repulsive -- and backwards-time effects are the most promising routes to possible get there, SO FAR AS WE KNOW -- though what we know right now is ever so little compared to what is really out there.
Truth be told -- I think we are a lot closer to a successful challenge of beliefs about time ... see:
http://arxiv.org/abs/0801.1234
And I predicted exotic matter long before dark energy was "observed"...
http://www.werbos.com/SelfOrganizationInOrigins.pdf
But how to actually produce and confine exotic matter, if it exists and if it is possible?
So far as I know, we are a long ways away from that. There are really basic issues in nuclear physics which are not even being explored, because of ...
well, because a lot of folks seem to have forgotten about the scientific method and what it really requires of us. In my view.
http://arxiv.org/abs/0707.2520
So far as I know, there is no easy path here -- but the hard path is certainly worth the effort, because of how much is at stake.
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But... if we can't even get off the earth, due to near-universal incompetence on earth, one might argue that inner space is a more realistic destination at this moment.
Best of luck to us all,
Paul
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A 'GOLDEN CHANNEL' FOR NEW PHYSICS (Score: 1)
by vlad on Saturday, February 16, 2008 @ 18:35:39 GMT
(User Info | Send a Message) http://www.zpenergy.com | | A 'Golden Channel' for New Physics
by Laura Mgrdichian
A group of physicists has dubbed a particular
particle decay, the decay of the Bs meson into a neutral kaon and
neutral antikaon, as a “golden channel” for new physics, suggesting
that probing and studying the decay could lead to brand-new insight
into the physics laws that govern the tiniest bits of matter. The
scientists discuss their ideas, and how this decay could be studied in
the future, in the January 25, 2008, edition of Physical Review Letters. Source: http://www.physorg.com/news122294882.html [www.physorg.com] |
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COUPP experiment tightens limits on dark matter (Score: 1)
by vlad on Saturday, February 16, 2008 @ 15:30:18 GMT
(User Info | Send a Message) http://www.zpenergy.com | Scientists working on the COUPP experiment at the Department of
Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory today announced a new
development in the quest to observe dark matter. The Chicagoland
Observatory for Underground Particle Physics experiment tightened
constraints on the “spin-dependent” properties of WIMPS, weakly
interacting massive particles that are candidates for dark matter.
Their results, combined with the findings of other dark matter
searches, contradict the claims for the observation of such particles
by the Dark Matter experiment (DAMA) in Italy and further restrict the
hunting ground for physicists to track their dark matter quarry.
http://www.physorg.com/news122219619.html [www.physorg.com]
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Musing about how to get exotic matter if we can (Score: 1)
by vlad on Monday, February 18, 2008 @ 21:16:37 GMT
(User Info | Send a Message) http://www.zpenergy.com | Paul Werbos writes: Though I disagree with William Alek on many things, I agree with one major point -- that exploitation of "exotic matter" (matter or other stable patterns with negative mass-energy) is our best hope of someday being able to build interstellar vehicles orders of magnitude more economic than the slow ramscoops and generation ships that we now know we can do.
The word is "hope," not "know."
Still, the possibility of exotic matter has become ... a lot more mainstream lately, thanks to the strong astronomical evidence for "dark energy." (The "quintessence" models say we have no need for negative mass -- but "negative gravitational pressure"
would give us functionally the same thing. Ironically, my latest field models would give a direct handle on dark energy, and thus an easier way to analyze where to look for it, if we believe the quintessence argument, but I am skeptical.)
By the way, wikipedia has a pretty decent article on exotic matter; just google on the term.
And so, this leads to some obvious questions:
**IF** exotic matter SHOULD happen to exist, how could we first detect it, and then concentrate enough to use it?
I really don't think anyone on earth has anything like a concrete reliable answer to these questions.
Maybe astronomy can tell us more about the PROPERTIES of dark energy, to give us important clues about where to look. Maybe a more precise understanding of certain nuclear phenomena -- starting strong but getting to superweak interactions and neutrino fluctuations -- might be part of how to understand the clues better.
But at a certain point... with whatever clues we have... we will need to grope a lot in the dark to try to fund more. It's almost a bit like SETI, where we simply need to sweep somehow...
I don't think big accelerator sweeps would do the trick.
Two more plausible routes for groping, in my view...
(1) Experiments in space, if somehow... it is possible to attract or shepherd the stuff in deep space...
(2) Doing the best we can on earth, to probe the most promising places for possible relevant kinds of anomalies... and trying to understand them...
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From Wikipedia, it sounds as Bob Forward did some of the most obvious calculations.
If you take the ordinary stoichiometric equations of everyday thermodynamics...
and insert a negative mass species... you get a flat out divergence.
It doesn't make sense.
But if you instead take a lattice approximation to the state of the universe.. assuming a finite number of states at each point or cell or node... and assume dynamics like cellular automata or Markhov Random Fields... negative mass species are essentially no problem. That's probably as much as I should say for now, though I have looked a little further.
In the end.. our best chance of detection would be with a system made up of a couple of ... unique... many-body effects... something like nanopatterned materials.
But the degrees of freedom there are huge. How could we find a needle in the haystack... if it even exists at all?
One obvious .. hint... is that whatever might work for a muon laser would begin to get us into the nuclear/QED coupling regime... and that kind of very special coupling is the general sort of thing that we would need to explore here.
And, of course, the ability to scan many frequencies and such would be essential...
There are also some interesting hints from many-body optics and electronics about how to amplify what are usually small signatures, and focus...
Please forgive the fuzziness of all this. But it is the Unknown that we talking about here...
Best of luck,
Paul (not representing anyone) |
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Re: Exotic Matter (Score: 1)
by NAG on Tuesday, February 19, 2008 @ 12:55:51 GMT
(User Info | Send a Message) http://www.exec-eng.com | Paul, I all most never comment on things that other people do but I’ll make an exception here. I am no math wizard, but I have had a lot of dealing with nuclear and math people, they look always from inside the box and never seem to get outside the box.
From my perspective the universe is Bigger on the Inside than the Outside. You should take some time to think about this! Don’t just brush this off as BS. It may hold the answer to what you are looking for.
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