Re: starship-design: Re: Aliens

[kyle <stk@sunherald.infi.net>]

Steve VanDevender wrote:
> 
> kyle writes:
>  > Why doesn't ZPE deplete? Your guess is as good as mine.
> 
> Who says it doesn't?  I've never seen even the physicists who propose
> extracting energy from it claim that zero-point energy won't be depleted
> by extraction.  

I don't think it does since there have been no witnessed disasters
accomanying ZPE. I think that if you use ZPE, somewhere, ZPE is
replenished. After all, why doesn't gravity deplete?

> At best, given the rather impressive energy densities
> quoted for it (i.e. billions of kilograms of mass equivalent per cubic
> centimeter of space) it would be sort of hard to notice, but if anything
> conservation laws are more sacred than relativity and quantum mechanics
> in physics.  "You can't get something for nothing" is one of the most
> fundamental principles of physics.

I don't think you can get something for nothing either. But if the
energy is there to begin with, technically, its not something for
nothing. Maybe ZPE has something to do with gravity? After you had used
up ZPE, assuming it is used up, which I doubt, you could recycle and
reuse the energy extracted, right? I also think that when ZPE is tapped
and depleted, it creates a disturbance in spacetime, which MUST be
filled, or the results could be catastrophic. Perhaps the defecit
neutrinos would fill such a gap.

Other Questions: (perhaps unanswerable)

Where are the deficit neutrinos? What are they?
What is gravity? I know the knee-jerk response is: its produced by mass.
But what IS it?
Why does light accelerate in a casimir cavity?

Kyle Mcallister