[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: starship-design: Anti-antimatter
L. Clayton Parker writes:
> > The first is probably the most easily shot down: power the ship
> > from an enormous relativistic or near-relativistic flywheel. There's a
>
> Hmm, you mean like a rotating black hole? I think Robert Forward has
> already proposed this one. Check out a few of his books. Bear in mind that
> now you have to accelerate the mass of the black hole also...and anything
> spinning at relativistic speeds is going to have the same mass moments as a
> black hole anyway...
I remember reading that a black hole can have up to 29% of its energy
tied up in angular momentum. Unfortunately to get the energy back out
you have to throw more mass into it in such a way that some of the mass
is given to the black hole and the rest spews out carrying away some of
the rotational energy.
Of course, with a quantum black hole you can do partial conversion of
mass to energy by feeding it at the same rate that it emits mass/energy
due to quantum evaporation. If you run out of fuel you have to be able
to toss the black hole away before it blows up due to runaway
evaporation; the rate of evaporation is inversely related to the mass of
the black hole.