BOUNCE starship-design: Non-member submission from ["Kevin 'Tex' Houston" <hous0042@email.umn.edu>]

[stevev@darkwing.uoregon.edu]

>From stevev@darkwing.uoregon.edu  Mon Jul 21 21:37:40 1997
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Date: Mon, 21 Jul 1997 23:32:55 -0500
From: "Kevin 'Tex' Houston" <hous0042@email.umn.edu>
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To: Starship design group <starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu>
Subject: Gravity and black holes.... eeep!
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Ok, here's the deal....

I've been thinking about something ever since I was Kyle's age, I've
never been able to learn enough math/physics to really take a stab at
it, and it is so against standard physical model that to even discuss it
would, I fear, make me look stupid.  So i never even mentioned the ideas
in this forum.

That said however, a few recent missives from lee have sent me thinking
again, and kyle's flights of fancy have given me the courage to speak
up.  

The idea is one that explains gravity, the speed of light, Lorentz
contractions, and black holes......   like i said, eeep!

Note:
Because I lack the required mathmatics background, there will be much
hand-waving.  

The basic idea is that gravity is produced by our space-time's
deceleration in a spatial fourth dimension.

Consider a two dimensional universe in the shape of a sphere.  From some
initial explosion, it is expanding.  but because of tension in the
surface, it is slowing down. 
Now consider a round leaden disk placed on the inside of the sphere. 
the disk will tend to pull the surface out a little bit, and any
lifeforms near the surface of the disk will wonder why they are pulled
toward the disk.  In fact, they are just sliding down the curved 2-D
spacetime.  perhaps Einstein was more right than he knew, gravity and
acceleration are indistinguishable because gravity *is*
(de)acceleration.

Now imagine a steel BB rolling around the inside of the sphere.  because
it is moving in a circle (about the center of sphere which it cannot
sense) it also undergoes acceleration in the radial direction.  This
also causes the surface to bulge out slightly (more so, the faster the
BB goes) which would also be interpreted by any nearby lifeforms as a
gavitational effect (apparent mass increase in near light-speed objects)

Since the BB can't 'see' in the third direction, it must preceive itself
traveling in a straight line.  At some critical speed however, the BB
cannot accelerate any further.  To do so would be to rip a hole in the
surface of the sphere.  as the BB accelerates (by turning on it's rocket
engine) it tries to move in a 'straight' (for us 3D observers) line, but
is prevented by the universe itself (the sphere).  If the tension of the
universe's material were much like rubber, then there would little
resistance at low speeds, but more and more resistance (exponetially
even) at higher speeds.

Consider a close up view of the sphere (here represented in cross
section).  because the Object is 2D also, the curved surface appears
straight   <NOTE, ascii art follows:>

 inside       |        outside
              |
              |
              \
               A
               I
               I  'Heavy' object
               I
               I
              /
              |
              |
              |
              |
              |


here the object has only it's 'rest mass'

But as the object travels faster and faster, it beigns to push out the
side of the Universe (which is actually curved you'll recall)  like so:

   x
   |           x           x
   |           |           |
    \           \           \
     \           \            \
      A           \             \
      I            A        IIIIA
     I           II        /
     I         II          |
    I          |           |
   /           |           y           
  |            |
  |            y
  y


 .25 C       .75 C        .99999 C

final case is a little exaggerated perhaps, but I'm sure you get the
idea.  you'll also note that the surface (2D speak for space) between
points x and y has decreased.


for a black hole the surface looks like:

    |
    |
    |____
        |
        |
        |
    |----
    |
    |


since no amount of pushing against the fabric of space will make you
move, you would be stuck inside the hole (after being ripped to shreds
by the steep gradient of the event horizon)


How likely is this, can a mathmatical model be derived which would
refute or support this model.  Are there any predictions one could make
about such a universe that would be at odds with our own?  

Or is this like the topological transformed earth where the surface of
the earth is mapped to the inside of a sphere and the space towards the
center of the sphere becomes increasingly compressed so as to be able to
contain all the stars and galaxies.  Totally self-consistent, but
offering no fundamental insights because it is indistinguishable from
reality?


-- 
Kevin "Tex" Houston 		http://umn.edu/~hous0042/index.html
Webmaster			http://www.urly-bird.com/index.html
"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and
Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." A. Einstein