posted
OK, so relativity says that matter can't travel at the speed of light. You can go faster or slower, but not exactly at it. As I understand the general concept of warp drive, it allows you to jump past C without actually hitting it. Now if acceleration is delta-v over time, and time is zero, wouldn't that make acceleration infinite, if you're jumping from one speed to another without passing through the intervening speeds? Boy, that is one HECK of a damping field!
------------------ "How do you define fool?" "I don't attempt it. I wait for demonstrations. They inevitably surpass my imagination." - CJ Cherryh, Invader
posted
Well, as a ship jumps to warp, it's not technically "accelerating". The space around it is moving, the ship is just sitting there. The ship is moving relative to everything else but the space around it, so would its real velocity be zero? At least, that's what the voices tells me.
------------------ "God's in his heaven. All's right with the world."
posted
The concept behind today's "warp drive" theories (and, I expect, Trek's) is that matter and energy cannot move faster than c, relative to the space around it, but space can move faster than c, relative to the space around it. So, rather than moving yourself, you make a bubble of space around you move beyond light-speed. Therefore, you stay stationary w/ respect to the bubble of space, and the bubble moves past c, which is allowable, since it's just space, not matter or energy.
------------------ Lister: "Cat, what are you doing?" Cat: "I'm courting." Lister: "Courting who?" Cat: "Whoever shows up!" -Red Dwarf, "Me�"
posted
Exactly. I'm probably going to change my sig if I see one more post asking about acceleration effects when a ship goes to warp.
*ahem*
Warp drive is a non-Newtonian form of propulsion. The drive system "warps" space past the subspace bubble formed around the ship. The more rapidly the coils fire, the more rapidly space "slips" past. Inside the subspace field, the ship is traveling relative to itself and however much of "reality" was enclosed within the subspace bubble at the same speed it was when the warp drive was engaged. No inertial effects are involved, ergo no intertial damping is needed.
--Jonah
------------------ "It's obvious I'm dealing with a moron..."
posted
However...there was a Voyager ep where Paris says, "The ship might survive the jump to warp, but without intertial damping, we'd all be stains on the back wall." (or something close). I don't remember what ep it was.
I don't know how this figures into the whole equation...
------------------ "The sons of the Prophet were valiant and bold, And quite unacustomed to fear. But, of all, the most reckless, or so I am told, Was Abdulah Boul Boul Ameer." Aban's Illustration www.alanfore.com
posted
somebody really quick with a stop watch with really little increments....
Isn't it the time is takes an atom to quiver side to side or some such thing???
------------------ "One's ethics are determined by what we do when no one is looking" Nugget Star Trek: Gamma Quadrant Star Trek: Legacy Read them, rate them, got money, film them
"...and I remain on the far side of crazy, I remain the mortal enemy of man, no hundred dollar cure will save me..." WoV
posted
Yes, I believe that's correct Ritten. Since time can only be measured if something changes, the smallest amount of measurable time would be the fastest change we can measure: the vibration of a certain atom (I don't remember which one though).
------------------ "The sons of the Prophet were valiant and bold, And quite unacustomed to fear. But, of all, the most reckless, or so I am told, Was Abdulah Boul Boul Ameer." Aban's Illustration www.alanfore.com
posted
Time clocks in used, or that have been used, are mercury ion and cesium. US Naval Observatory (dang, we even have our hands in time... )
The Planck time is the time it would take a photon travelling at the speed of light to across a distance equal to the Planck length. This is the �quantum of time�, the smallest measurement of time that has any meaning, and is equal to 10-43 seconds. No smaller division of time has any meaning. With in the framework of the laws of physics as we understand them today, we can say only that the universe came into existence when it already had an age of 10-43 seconds. PhysLink
------------------ "One's ethics are determined by what we do when no one is looking" Nugget Star Trek: Gamma Quadrant Star Trek: Legacy Read them, rate them, got money, film them
"...and I remain on the far side of crazy, I remain the mortal enemy of man, no hundred dollar cure will save me..." WoV
posted
I never understood why one of the first things to go ofline in a battle are the inertial dampners... It's very critical to have them offline, so you'd think it have a good failsafe build in, or at least a backup...
------------------ "We have a good arrangement. He supplies the weapons, I use them." - Blade
posted
You may not need inertial dampeners for warp, but you DO need them for impulse. So there.
P.S. You'd think they'd have invented effective breakers too, but noooo. We have warp drive, nuclear fusion, transporters, replicators, deflectors, but no breakers. Makes lots of sense to me. Yep.
------------------ "A celibate clergy is an especially good idea because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism."
-Eleanor Arroway, "Contact" by Carl Sagan
[This message has been edited by Daniel (edited May 10, 2001).]
------------------ "How do you define fool?" "I don't attempt it. I wait for demonstrations. They inevitably surpass my imagination." - CJ Cherryh, Invader
posted
My opinion on the 'shaking around' during battle is that if they don't *say* the inertial dampeners are down, they are not down, and the shaking results from the dampeners being 'surprised' by the sudden jolt you get from a weapon.
Also, I there seems to be *some* connection between intertial dampeners and warp drive: haven't we seen refrences to bad things happening on ships that have thier dampers when exiting warp?
My vague personal idea would be that something about warp drives makes the ship vibrate, perhaps from multiple subspace fileds beings formed and bouncing off each other. A sudden exit from warp would induce pretty powerful vibrations, or something...
posted
Yeah, don't quote Voy! ;-) (Is it even considered "canon" by us?) ;-)))
------------------ Kryten: Pub? - Ah yes. A meeting place where people attempt to achieve advanced states of mental incompetence by the repeated consumption of fermented vegetable drinks. - Red Dwarf "Timeslides"
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