Re: Cheap Shots,

From: Alejandro Dubrovsky (s335984@student.uq.edu.au)
Date: Sun Jun 18 2000 - 09:02:45 MDT


* Michael S. Lorrey <retroman@turbont.net> [000615 11:16]:
>
> Essentially correct. Frankly I was ready to give up on the whole thing
> until I heard this from Cramer, and I'm still not sure I understand
> totally why he thinks it would work in those conditions. And you are
> right, under normal conditions you'd need some hellaciously cool
> materials to keep the centrifuge together under those relativistic
> velocities. The two possibilities that intrigue me though are a) using
> photons or other subatomic particles as the working 'mass' within the
> centrifuge, and b) usinge fluids that have a very very low internal
> speed of light.

AFAIK (and i'm not a physicist, or anywhere near), option (b) won't give
you anything at all. The speed of light in the relativistic equations
is the speed of light in a vacuum not in the local medium.

Alejandro Dubrovsky



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