Re: RE: starship-design: Casimir-Foreward balloon

[KellySt@aol.com]

In a message dated 1/15/00 11:37:46 AM, chithree@boo.net writes:

>On another unrelated propulsion topic, a physicist friend of mine was telling
>me about 
>virtual particles (a particle and an anti particle are constantly popping
>into existence 
>and annihilating eachother, so to conserve matter another two pop in, and
>so on. At 
>any given time there are virtual particles all around, appearing and 
dissapearing.
>
>I was wondering how theoretical this is, if you guys buy it (or have heard
>of it), and how 
>it could be applied to propulsion. I think the startrek ships fly with
>matter-antimatter 
>reactions. Could they just bussard the matter/antimatter out of space and
>let them go 
>off in a combustion chamber?
>
>
>Connor


Its been thought that you might be able to tap into those virtual particals, 
or zero point energy.  It would be way beyond anti-mater/mater reactions in 
efficency.  Power without carrying and fuel and at fantastic power densities. 
 If we could tap that our interstellar flight concepts would be radically 
somplified.

Kelly