How gravity regulation works?

POSTED BY: CrevanReaver
UPDATED: Wednesday, February 21, 2007 23:48
VIEWED: 10797
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CREVANREAVER

Saturday, February 3, 2007 7:35 AM

According to Joss Whedon's "A Brief History of the Universe circa 2507 A.D." that was in Serenity: The Official Visual Companion terraforming the new worlds involved "gravity regulation".

Here's my theory on the subject:

Quote:
Gravity regulation involves "gravity regulation satellites". These satellites employ controlled beams of graviton streams, which specifically focus interference patterns on the "gravitational core" of a celestial body. A network of many satellites doing this results in significant fluctuation in the gravity field being imposed on that body. Controlling the focal point and interference patterns of the graviton beams enables use of this fluctuation to either decrease or increase the gravitational pull of a celestial body, literally changing its surface gravity.

Does anyone else have a theory?

THATWEIRDGIRL

Saturday, February 3, 2007 8:43 AM

huh. It's a theory. I find it highly unlikely that it's possible. But that's what science fiction is for...exploring the improbable. Oh and the human condition.

I'm sorry. I hear gravitron beam and think of Wil. I can't help it.

---
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ANOBJECTINSPACE

Saturday, February 3, 2007 12:33 PM

Gravity isn't something that can be put into a beam.

My theory would be that they somehow altered the Spin/size/density or all three of the planets in order to create a planet that had a Force of Gravity that was close enough to that of earth.

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LEADB

Saturday, February 3, 2007 12:39 PM

Well, if you can answer how they do artificial gravity on ships, you might get close to answering how they do it for planets. Keep in mind that even though Serenity was nigh completely inoperable in "Out of Gas", she still had gravity. This suggests it takes very little or no engery to maintain; or the system has a highly "inductive" property that allows maintenance of the gravity field despite power loss of some significant time. Or the writers didn't think about it.

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CITIZEN

Saturday, February 3, 2007 1:09 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AnObjectinSpace:
Gravity isn't something that can be put into a beam.

How do you know?

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ANOBJECTINSPACE

Saturday, February 3, 2007 1:41 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
Quote:
Originally posted by AnObjectinSpace:
Gravity isn't something that can be put into a beam.
How do you know?

Gravitiational Force is the attraction of two bodies with a mass.

.....
"It's just an Object"

CITIZEN

Saturday, February 3, 2007 1:57 PM

All we know is that as far as we can tell gravity only occures naturally where we have mass. Since we still don't know what 'causes' gravity for sure. Relativity says Mass warps space time in such away that it feels like Gravity, but can't tell us how Mass warps space time, Quantum Gravitational theories, OTOH, often talk about discrete particles, which is where the idea of the Graviton came from.

The point is we have no solid idea of what gravity is and what causes it, so we have no way of saying with certainty what can and what can not 'create' gravity.

And on last thing, it seems that gravity effects things that don't have mass, a photon has zero rest mass, yet light is bent by gravity.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.

ANOBJECTINSPACE

Saturday, February 3, 2007 2:04 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
All we know is that as far as we can tell gravity only occures naturally where we have mass. Since we still don't know what 'causes' gravity for sure. Relativity says Mass warps space time in such away that it feels like Gravity, but can't tell us how Mass warps space time, Quantum Gravitational theories, OTOH, often talk about discrete particles, which is where the idea of the Graviton came from.

The point is we have no solid idea of what gravity is and what causes it, so we have no way of saying with certainty what can and what can not 'create' gravity.

Quick read over Graviton. It is an interesting prospect.

.....
"It's just an Object"
[IMG][/IMG]

FLATTOP

Saturday, February 3, 2007 2:07 PM

I'll toss my $0.02 into the mix here...

Gravity (g) is the (or one of) weakest force(s) known. It can be overcome by any of the other forces (normal force, wind (multi-ton airplanes fly daily and are the safesest (statistically) way to travel), magnetic, chemical reaction, etc.

Ships:
With g being such a weak force, I would think that generating a field to simulate/overcome it wouldn't be terribly power consuming, or complicated. The g field generators never fail, but the computer telling 'em what to do may. The inertial dampners going offline would be a software/computer problem, not an actual failure of the field generators. In OOG the lights didn't fail, nor did the coms, so the inertial dampners (g field generators) didn't fail either.
Build the g gens into the surfaces of the ship so that no matter which direction the ship accelerates, there is a field gen to pull you (or push you) in the opposite direction. Rig the computer to compensate for all but say 1/10 (or less) of the true acceleration, and put a governor on it to max out at say 4 g. 40G burn feels like 1.4 (or less), concussion blast at 100g feels like 4g governed limit, but oscillates back and forth a bit because it's more compensation than the system was strictly designed for (or it's a warning system to indicate that the ship is approaching structural limits)). Serenity can lift with such small engines and so little fuel because it has, in effect, no/little inertia (mass) that needs to be overcome. Engines keep burning in atmo just to overcome the force of the wind (nil mass <> nil surface area. Sails are lightweight, but generate large forces.), and to be ready to zoomy away, and of course, to keep life support running.

Terraforming takes/took many decades. I would suspect that on a planetary scale this would imply taking (those fed cruisers take a BUNCH of raw material to build; and releasing atmosphere from ice or rock or wherever sufficient to sustain life can't be a small amount either) or depositing (Japanese make islands from trash so why not?) material to get the mass close to correct. But they must have had it dialed pretty tight with whatever technology they had, because I'd expect there to be folk from some world where local g was say 1.5 EarthThatWas who were shorter, but much denser/stronger than norm, and other folk from planets that were 0.5 ETW that were taller and weaker...
anyway, planets... I dunno how to make 'em so close.

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CITIZEN

Saturday, February 3, 2007 2:09 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by FlatTop:
I'll toss my $0.02 into the mix here...

Gravity (g) is the (or one of) weakest force(s) known. It can be overcome by any of the other forces (normal force, wind (multi-ton airplanes fly daily and are the safesest (statistically) way to travel), magnetic, chemical reaction, etc.

One of the theories why gravity is so comparitavily weak is because it interacts in all M-Theory dimensions, where as other forces don't. In other words it is no weaker than any other force, just spread more thinly.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.

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