From: Adrian Tymes (wingcat@pacbell.net)
Date: Fri Feb 28 2003 - 14:54:15 MST
--- scerir <scerir@libero.it> wrote:
> Adrian Tymes:
> > I'll believe it when they build a device that can
> > provably do this. Not until then.
>
> Yes, according to Frank Wilczek, also of MIT, all
> that presents many
> interesting questions on the basic idea of what
> "motion" is,
> especially when there are no stars or galaxies (i.e.
> spacetime
> doesn't curve). Actually he doubts that there will
> be any practical
> applications to this since the effect is extremely
> small.
> "A meter-sized object gyrating in a spacetime curved
> as dramatically
> as the surface of Earth--far more sharply than most
> regions of spacetime--
> could make headway of only about 10-23 meters per
> contortion. At one
> stroke per second, it would take the swimmer
> hundreds of thousands of
> years to move the width of an atom."
Which neatly excuses their inability to measure it.
If it takes hundreds of thousands of strokes to go the
width of an atom, well, there *are* motors, about the
size of a shirt button, that will do millions of
revolutions per minute. Enough to get measurable
motion, in any event, even ignoring further
potential multipliers like gear ratios.
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