OT - Physics Question on Anti-Matter

[Renegade 13]

Randallw said:
So clearly there is no such thing as an infinite energy source.

That's not entirely true. Blackholes represent a massive amount of potential gravitational energy that I'm sure could (eventually) be harnessed by mankind. However, physicists believe that blackholes do "decay" slowly over time, losing mass, so it is possible that even blackholes would eventually all disappear, though that would take hundreds of billions or trillions of years.

[aegisx]

Speaking of infinite energy.. you all should enjoy this if you haven't already.

http://infohost.nmt.edu/~mlindsey/asimov/question.htm

[Suicide Junkie]

Renegade 13 said:

That's not entirely true. Blackholes represent a massive amount of potential gravitational energy that I'm sure could (eventually) be harnessed by mankind. However, physicists believe that blackholes do "decay" slowly over time, losing mass, so it is possible that even blackholes would eventually all disappear, though that would take hundreds of billions or trillions of years.

How is it not true?
How do you plan to get anything out of said hole without reducing the hole's mass-energy?

Just because there is a lot of mass there dosen't mean it is infinite in any way. Where "a lot" is only a handful of stellar masses in many cases.

[Renegade 13]

Suicide Junkie said:
Just because there is a lot of mass there dosen't mean it is infinite in any way. Where "a lot" is only a handful of stellar masses in many cases.

A handful of solar masses? The central blackhole of the central galaxy of a galactic cluster is estimated to have up to several hundred billion solar masses. It'd take a while to use up that amount of mass/energy.

[Suicide Junkie]

Renegade 13 said:

A handful of solar masses? The central blackhole of the central galaxy of a galactic cluster is estimated to have up to several hundred billion solar masses. It'd take a while to use up that amount of mass/energy.

Those are pretty rare. And nowhere near infinite.
Lots of holes get formed from stellar deaths, with only 3-tens of stellar masses.

If the Big Bang Theory is correct then everything in the universe was created in that instant, albeit in different forms of energy and matter. Therefor, infinite energy is an impossibility because we live in a finite universe.

How so? Infinite density does not mean infinite energy.

Now, if the universe is infinite in extent and as homogenous as it looks from here, then indeed there would be infinite energy in it.
However you only have access to the observable universe, which is a finite volume of space, with a finite amount of stuff in it.

[shinigami]

Suicide Junkie said:

How so? Infinite density does not mean infinite energy.

Now, if the universe is infinite in extent and as homogenous as it looks from here, then indeed there would be infinite energy in it.
However you only have access to the observable universe, which is a finite volume of space, with a finite amount of stuff in it.

I think that was what I was saying, finite universe means finite energy.

For the universe to be infinite wouldn't that mean that somewhere in it energy and matter are being created or added to it? Seeing as physics, as we understand them, can only go back as far as a few milliseconds after the big bang and that time did not exist beforehand then it is possible that the BB is still happening and creating the additional energy for an infinite universe. Very esoteric theory that's hell to wrap my head around!

I think that in man's quest for infinite energy we'll find that it truly doesn't exist (barring extra-dimensional sources) in the strictest sense. However, from our limited point of view (ie, short lifespan compared to the universe,) we'll find plenty of sources that seem to be infinite.
What would you call that, practical infiniteness?

Anybody remember the space shuttle tether experiment? Compare that with some of Tesla's work and we might have an outstanding source of renewable energy. As for harnessing it....

[Suicide Junkie]

Why would being infinite force there to be addition/subtraction of matter?

It would start out infinite in extent with a finite density and as it stretches, the density goes down.


The conductive tether cutting through the magnetic field of the earth is a handy battery.
But the energy is coming from your orbital speed, which you got using the main engines. Of course, that does make it conveniently easy to deorbit without needing onboard fuel. Excellent for old satellites to ditch themselves once their useful life is up.

[shinigami]

If it is already infinite in extent, how can it be stretching or getting larger? Not trying to be a smartass, I just can't follow that line of thought.

Power is constantly being produced in our ionosphere by the collision of the solar wind with our magnetic field. I can see two major problems with tapping into it. First, and most obvious, is just how to do it efficiently. Second, how to keep it from being overloaded and destroyed by solar flares.

I can imagine a sat in orbit trailing a tether. As it orbits it is charging batteries. When the sat reaches a predetermined point in its orbit it beams the stored power to an Earth station as microwaves. Practicality and safety concerns aside, the main question has to be how much power could the thing produce? I have no clue.

[douglas]

No no, everyone changes rooms simultaneously and they use special teleporters that can take such things as "double my room number" as the destination so you don't even have to worry about how long it's going to take the people with room numbers with a trillion digits to enter them.

[Suicide Junkie]

Also, the fire code requires an instantaneous FTL intercom.