Out of Gas and Gravity

POSTED BY: Ixian
UPDATED: Tuesday, September 12, 2006 22:39
VIEWED: 10890
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ANONYMOUS1

Sunday, April 30, 2006 6:48 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Ixian:
I guess we can assume the ship's batteries were still running (and would last longer than the air, at any rate) but would that be enough to power...gravity? I guess I had a hard time with that concept that air and heat could be completely cut off but gravity somehow still functions.

Hadn't thought of batteries.

Gravity drive might not have to use power.

Might be Dark Matter in the Gravity Drive.

Very small singularity??

KHYRON

Sunday, April 30, 2006 7:07 PM

We know nothing about the gravity drive of the ship, nor does anybody here, in fact not even most physicists and engineers, have an idea how such a thing could work. All we know is that, apparently, it does function fairly well without a large amount of electricity supplied to it (batteries being the only possible source of power). Anything else is just pure speculation on our part and if we take it too seriously we'll end up in the realm of Trek geekiness (no offence to any Trekkies here ).

Regarding the Serenity being deadstill in space thing, I don't think that was the case. She was probably still moving at the same speed as usual, just one can't tell because the stars in the background don't move. What made her look so still was the fact the the "camera" was in the same moving reference frame as Serenity, whereas it's in another reference frame whenever Serenity travels under her own power. So it's really a cinematographical effect to make Serenity seem helpless.

Then again, relative to everything else, anything can be seen as being deadstill (if it's the reference frame) or moving. But my point is, relative to the space around it, Serenity was still moving.

Welcome to the board, by the way. I wish my first post could have been that good.

Other people can occasionally be useful, especially as minions. I want lots of minions.

J6NGO1977

Sunday, April 30, 2006 7:13 PM

Remember the crew came across a 'dead ship' in'Bushwhacked' which also had gravity

SPACEMANSPIFF

Monday, May 1, 2006 6:17 AM

Gravity is a tricky business. It could be that the grav units are able to power themselves, sort of like a fusion plant, but based on a different concept. Grav generators may be totally self-sufficient.

The RPG book does a little explaining, saying that grav and anti-grav are ubiquitous in the "Verse, and no one thinks about it until it breaks, which is very rarely. You can't propel a ship with it, you still need a reaction drive, but you can lessen your mass so that you need less of a push.

Did he just go crazy and fall asleep?

J6NGO1977

Monday, May 1, 2006 9:10 PM

Quite recently I watched a Documentry in UK about the truth behind UFOs. A guy had created a form of anti grav in his garage. It actually showed a triangular object, about 1 metere across, he had created which was hovering about 2 metres above the ground. The interviewer was as stunned as i was. The guy who built it said it had something to do with the switching of electrical charges but he wasn't too sure himself. I think we are on our way to anti grav. It's not too far off

FREERADICAL42

Tuesday, May 2, 2006 5:32 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Dataless:
Quote:
Originally posted by Anonymous1:
zero point module?? (SG Atlantis)

On SG-1 and Atlantis a Z.P.M. Or Zed P.M. is a module that taps in to a scientific concept called Zero Point Energy. Zero point energy is believed to the energy source that creates gravity or it could just be fiction.

Did you know that every object no matter how big or small has a gravitational pull and that pull exerts its pull on every other object in the universe?

Zero-point energy is the energy of a particle with quantum number zero; it's not any sort of energy source. It bothers me that it's been used in a few different places as if "zero point energy" means some kind of energy source.

"See, morbid and creepifying, I got no problem with, long as she does it quiet-like."

FREERADICAL42

Tuesday, May 2, 2006 5:35 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by j6ngo1977:
Quite recently I watched a Documentry in UK about the truth behind UFOs. A guy had created a form of anti grav in his garage. It actually showed a triangular object, about 1 metere across, he had created which was hovering about 2 metres above the ground. The interviewer was as stunned as i was. The guy who built it said it had something to do with the switching of electrical charges but he wasn't too sure himself. I think we are on our way to anti grav. It's not too far off

This type of device is called a "lifter"; it relies on pumping massive amounts of voltage and current through a wire strung over another conductor (generally a skirt of aluminum).

NASA did a long investigation of this propulsion method because they thought it might be some form of antigravity; eventually it was discovered that all that was happening is the electricity through the wire is putting a charge on the air, and the newly charged air is attracted to the aluminum and something called an "ion wind" is made, which creates lift.

It's not anti-gravity, because no one has as yet isolated a way to generate gravitons. When we can do that, there will be anti-gravity, but we're far off from isolating gravitons.

"See, morbid and creepifying, I got no problem with, long as she does it quiet-like."

J6NGO1977

Tuesday, May 2, 2006 10:39 AM

aaaaahhh very interesting. I guess anti grav would be a way of reducing the gravitational pull of the earth. Not an easy thing to do :)

FREERADICAL42

Tuesday, May 2, 2006 3:54 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by j6ngo1977:
aaaaahhh very interesting. I guess anti grav would be a way of reducing the gravitational pull of the earth. Not an easy thing to do :)

It's even trickier than that. Think of gravity's pull as a beam which always approaches at the speed of light; to counteract it you'd need an equal beam coming from an opposite direction, or some similar magics.

"See, morbid and creepifying, I got no problem with, long as she does it quiet-like."

REDRIVER

Sunday, September 10, 2006 2:26 PM

what bugs me the most is not the gravity bein' still on in OoG. it's the fact that Firefly stops with the engine. that was made pretty clear thoughtout the episode from Kayelee and Mal's comments. how come the ship came to a complete stop in space? the fire/air ejection wasn't near enough to slow down a ship movin' at one precent of the speed of light.
anyways, guess what they ment is the ship stopped acceleratin' and not stopped movin'.
the only way to stop a space ship in space is to use reverse thrusters. which, I might add, would take 'bout as lon' if not longer as gettin' the ship up to its "max" speed.
and last but not the least. why was the episode called out of gas? weren't they out of air rather than "gas"? the engine was dead but there was no problem with the fuel.
just my 2 broken coins...

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