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Re: new 20K

From: Walter J Miller <wjm2~at~nyu.edu>
Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2005 11:28:19 -0400
To: Jules Verne Forum <jvf~at~Gilead.org.il>

Again, gentlemen, I think you're confusing the Michel version of Meteor with Jules' own.  You are talking about the Chase of the Golden Meteor, by Michel Verne, not about the Meteor Hunt by Jules Verne.  Cheers!  Walter James Miller----- Original Message -----

From: Garmt de Vries <G.deVries~at~phys.uu.nl>

Date: Sunday, October 16, 2005 2:39 am

Subject: Re: new 20K

> On Sat, 15 Oct 2005 spaceart~at~att.net wrote:
>
> > The machine used to affect the orbit of the meteor is a truly SF
> > device---although Verne (or whoever) apparently ignored the law
> of
> > action and reaction when describing it operating. Any force it
> applied
> > to shifting the meteor would have applied to the machine as
> well. I
> > remember thinking while reading the book that probably the only
> result
> > of shoving on the meteor hard enough to move it would be the
> flattening
> > of the device itself.
>
> It is clear from the text that the meteor was much lighter than
> the Earth.
> What the machine does, is create an absolute vacuum between itself
> and the
> meteor. The non-empty space behind the meteor then pushes it
> towards
> Earth. Of course, the non-empty space behind Earth wou! ld push our
> planet
> the other way, but this effect is much smaller, because Earth is
> larger.
> Assuming that the pressure from space is a constant, the ratio
> between the
> forces exerted on Earth and on the meteor goes with the square of
> the
> ratio between their radii, whereas the ratio between their masses
> goes
> with the cube of the ratio of their radii. The meteor thus
> experiences an
> acceleration that is larger than the accelaeration experienced by
> Earth by
> a factor equal to the ratio of the radii.
>
> By the way, the working of the machine is an interesting
> foreshadowing of
> the Casimir effect. In quantum mechanics, empty space is never
> empty.
> There is a constant appearing and disappearing of electron-
> positron pairs,
> which exist for a short time before annihilating again. But they
&g! t; do
> contribute to the energy density of the vacuum, which g ives rise
> to a
> pressure exerted by the vacuum on everything around it. Another
> ingredient we need is the concept of particle-wave duality. Every
> particle can, depending on circumstances, behave as a particle or
> as a
> wave. The wavelength is inversely proportional to the momentum.
> The most
> familiar example of this duality concerns photons: light can be a
> wave
> phenomenon (refraction, interference, etc.), but it can also
> behave as
> quantised particles (photo-electric effect). Similarly, you can do
> interference experiments with electrons, which you're more used to
> thinking of as particles.
>
> Now imagine two parallel, flat, conducting surfaces, close to
> eachother.
> Between them, only certain energies are possible for the electron-
> positron
> pairs: namely those energies for which half of the corresponding
! > wavelength fits exactly an integer number of times in the distance
> between
> the two surfaces. At the same time, outside the two planes, all
> energies
> are allowed. This means that there are fewer pairs inside the gap
> than at
> the outside. Thus, the pressure inside is lower than outside, and
> the two
> planes are pushed towards each other. Think about it: "empty"
> space
> exerting a real, macroscopic force! It takes a physicist to come
> with
> something like that :) But the effect has been measured, and it is
> as real
> as gravity.
>
> Sorry for the lecture...
> Garmt.
> Received on Sun 16 Oct 2005 - 17:29:10 IST

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