01-30-2012, 08:02 AM
"Behold! Our latest technological marvel! The end result of weeks of intense research and hours apon hours of grueling construction! A device so brimming with potential and simple genius..."
"It looks like a mirage to me", Joel interjects.
"... that it has the potential to change the course of human history!", George begins to continue but he is interrupted when the device begins to beep loudly.
"What does that mean?"
"It means you should avert your eyes".
"Why?"
"Quickly!"
Jack speaks up for the first time since the beginning of the presentation, "Joel, you really should do as he says", he states in a to-calm voice as he turns around and covers his eyes.
Five seconds pass, the beeps increase in pitch and tempo until it sounds like a single piercing shriek. Impossibly, the noise becomes even sharper for a second and a blinding flash of light, visible even with eyes closed and hands covering faces, fills the room.
Mercifully the noise stops.
Joel slowly climbs from where he is crouched on the ground, "what the heck just happened!"
----
Half an hour later, when everyone’s ears had stopped ringing, George begins to explain the device, “the idea behind the device is really quite simple; instead of increasing the mass of an area of space and thus creating a gravity-well, it does the opposite and creates a bubble of space where all objects have a mass of absolute zero”.
Joel remains silent for a moment before slowly raising his hand, “two questions: one, how the heck is that even possible? And two, what’s the point?”
“The science is far too complicated to explain in words so I’m not even going to try”, George replies dismissively.
“As to the point… well let me show you”, Jack finishes. Jack reaches into one of the pockets of his greatcoat (its many pockets had become a necessity lately, used to store tools, nanite blocks and data-chips) and pulls out a small hologram projector. Jack holds the small disk out in front of him and pushes a button on its side, “time, mass, gravity and light are all interlinked. A good example of this is a Black Hole”, as Jack speaks the projector emits a single beam of light which quickly widen into a sphere. “The incredible mass of a Black Hole gives it a massive gravity-well”, there is a disorienting rushing sensation as the hologram quickly zooms in on a quarter of the sphere. “This gravity-well is so powerful that the relative speed of light near a Black Hole is slowed to such a degree that it cannot escape”, a line (helpfully labelled ‘light’) appears and begins to travel towards the quarter-sphere. Upon touching the sphere, its speed diminishes slightly and it curves towards where the centre of the sphere would be had it not been cut into quarters; as it travels its curve grows sharper and sharper but its speed slows drastically. Jack presses another button and the hologram disappears; “now… would you agree with me that in empty space, there is no gravity?”
Joel nods, “if you aren’t close to a planet or asteroid or anything, then yes”.
George smiles, “wrong! If you have mass then something else with mass, no matter how far away it is, will pull you towards it or it towards you. No matter how far away you travel, you can’t escape gravity”.
“You learn something new every day”, Joel replies sarcastically, “is there a point to this?”
“The point is that light will also never be outside the reach of gravity!” George exclaims excitedly.
Joel looks at him flatly, “so…?”
George sighs and Jack takes up the explanation where George left off, “the speed of light is relative, as you saw it can be altered by gravity-wells. What we take for granted as the ‘normal’ speed of light is in fact just the average speed of light when far away from any large gravity-wells”.
Joel speaks up again, “once again, what’s the point to all this?”
George grins, “what would happen… if light wasn’t affected by gravity?”
“The speed of light would increase, wouldn’t it?”
George begins rubbing his hands together with glee, “not just increase, it would become infinite!”
Jack takes up the explanation, “that’s what the machine does; it creates a bubble of space where gravity-wells diminish in strength. As a result, the speed of light is faster inside the bubble than it is outside the bubble”.
Joel looks thoughtful, “altering the speed of light… that is impressive, but what are the practical implications, how does that help us? All I saw was a bubble of shimmering air, kind of like a mirage but more pronounced”.
“The optical illusion is caused by refraction as rays of light travel through what is essentially a different medium. When the machine shut down, the speed of light inside the bubble was instantaneously lowered to its original value. The bright flash occurred as the same effect that causes the mirage was applied to the entire area of the bubble instead of only the edges”, Jack explains. “As to the practical implications, consider this: current FTL technology requires the use of a sending and receiving Jump Gate or, in the case of our own JHC drive, the coordinates of the destination Jump Hole. When colonizing new systems ships must travel either through the constantly shifting Jump Hole network, a dangerous proposition when entering new territory, or send construction ships at sub-luminal speeds to the system to build a receiving Jump Gate”, Jack pauses, “basically, it’s a pain in the butt”.
“The underlying problem is that ships can’t travel faster than the speed of light. You can circumvent that by messing with space, but as Jack explained before that method has its own problems”, George explains.
Realization dawns on Joel’s face, “wait! Are you saying that this machine will allow us to break the speed of light?”
George looks surprised at that, “what? No! I just said that was impossible didn’t I?”
“Well then what are you trying to get at?” Joel replies, looking annoyed.
“If you raise the speed of light, say by a factor of two, in a thin column of space between your starting point and your destination then you can travel through that column twice as fast while expending the same amount of energy”, George explains in a lecturing tone.
“But you would break the speed of light if you made the column powerful enough right?” Joel interrupts.
“No! You can’t br…”
“What George is trying to say”, Jack cuts in, “is that you would never actually break the speed of light because the speed of light inside that column would be faster than the speed of light outside the column. So no matter how powerful you make the column and no matter how fast you go, the speed of light will always be faster… it’s actually very convenient”.
Joel nods his understanding, “thank you”. Turning to George he asks, “why the heck couldn’t you say that?”
“Because it should be blindingly obvious”, George replies.
Joel let's his head fall forward and pinches the top of his nose, "you realize that you don't need to explain your inventions to me right? Just show me where it needs to go and lend me someone from the labs to supervise, my team and I can get it installed just as quicky".
"Nice try Joel, you still get briefings on any new tech", Jack chides.
"Well, it was worth a try".
"It looks like a mirage to me", Joel interjects.
"... that it has the potential to change the course of human history!", George begins to continue but he is interrupted when the device begins to beep loudly.
"What does that mean?"
"It means you should avert your eyes".
"Why?"
"Quickly!"
Jack speaks up for the first time since the beginning of the presentation, "Joel, you really should do as he says", he states in a to-calm voice as he turns around and covers his eyes.
Five seconds pass, the beeps increase in pitch and tempo until it sounds like a single piercing shriek. Impossibly, the noise becomes even sharper for a second and a blinding flash of light, visible even with eyes closed and hands covering faces, fills the room.
Mercifully the noise stops.
Joel slowly climbs from where he is crouched on the ground, "what the heck just happened!"
----
Half an hour later, when everyone’s ears had stopped ringing, George begins to explain the device, “the idea behind the device is really quite simple; instead of increasing the mass of an area of space and thus creating a gravity-well, it does the opposite and creates a bubble of space where all objects have a mass of absolute zero”.
Joel remains silent for a moment before slowly raising his hand, “two questions: one, how the heck is that even possible? And two, what’s the point?”
“The science is far too complicated to explain in words so I’m not even going to try”, George replies dismissively.
“As to the point… well let me show you”, Jack finishes. Jack reaches into one of the pockets of his greatcoat (its many pockets had become a necessity lately, used to store tools, nanite blocks and data-chips) and pulls out a small hologram projector. Jack holds the small disk out in front of him and pushes a button on its side, “time, mass, gravity and light are all interlinked. A good example of this is a Black Hole”, as Jack speaks the projector emits a single beam of light which quickly widen into a sphere. “The incredible mass of a Black Hole gives it a massive gravity-well”, there is a disorienting rushing sensation as the hologram quickly zooms in on a quarter of the sphere. “This gravity-well is so powerful that the relative speed of light near a Black Hole is slowed to such a degree that it cannot escape”, a line (helpfully labelled ‘light’) appears and begins to travel towards the quarter-sphere. Upon touching the sphere, its speed diminishes slightly and it curves towards where the centre of the sphere would be had it not been cut into quarters; as it travels its curve grows sharper and sharper but its speed slows drastically. Jack presses another button and the hologram disappears; “now… would you agree with me that in empty space, there is no gravity?”
Joel nods, “if you aren’t close to a planet or asteroid or anything, then yes”.
George smiles, “wrong! If you have mass then something else with mass, no matter how far away it is, will pull you towards it or it towards you. No matter how far away you travel, you can’t escape gravity”.
“You learn something new every day”, Joel replies sarcastically, “is there a point to this?”
“The point is that light will also never be outside the reach of gravity!” George exclaims excitedly.
Joel looks at him flatly, “so…?”
George sighs and Jack takes up the explanation where George left off, “the speed of light is relative, as you saw it can be altered by gravity-wells. What we take for granted as the ‘normal’ speed of light is in fact just the average speed of light when far away from any large gravity-wells”.
Joel speaks up again, “once again, what’s the point to all this?”
George grins, “what would happen… if light wasn’t affected by gravity?”
“The speed of light would increase, wouldn’t it?”
George begins rubbing his hands together with glee, “not just increase, it would become infinite!”
Jack takes up the explanation, “that’s what the machine does; it creates a bubble of space where gravity-wells diminish in strength. As a result, the speed of light is faster inside the bubble than it is outside the bubble”.
Joel looks thoughtful, “altering the speed of light… that is impressive, but what are the practical implications, how does that help us? All I saw was a bubble of shimmering air, kind of like a mirage but more pronounced”.
“The optical illusion is caused by refraction as rays of light travel through what is essentially a different medium. When the machine shut down, the speed of light inside the bubble was instantaneously lowered to its original value. The bright flash occurred as the same effect that causes the mirage was applied to the entire area of the bubble instead of only the edges”, Jack explains. “As to the practical implications, consider this: current FTL technology requires the use of a sending and receiving Jump Gate or, in the case of our own JHC drive, the coordinates of the destination Jump Hole. When colonizing new systems ships must travel either through the constantly shifting Jump Hole network, a dangerous proposition when entering new territory, or send construction ships at sub-luminal speeds to the system to build a receiving Jump Gate”, Jack pauses, “basically, it’s a pain in the butt”.
“The underlying problem is that ships can’t travel faster than the speed of light. You can circumvent that by messing with space, but as Jack explained before that method has its own problems”, George explains.
Realization dawns on Joel’s face, “wait! Are you saying that this machine will allow us to break the speed of light?”
George looks surprised at that, “what? No! I just said that was impossible didn’t I?”
“Well then what are you trying to get at?” Joel replies, looking annoyed.
“If you raise the speed of light, say by a factor of two, in a thin column of space between your starting point and your destination then you can travel through that column twice as fast while expending the same amount of energy”, George explains in a lecturing tone.
“But you would break the speed of light if you made the column powerful enough right?” Joel interrupts.
“No! You can’t br…”
“What George is trying to say”, Jack cuts in, “is that you would never actually break the speed of light because the speed of light inside that column would be faster than the speed of light outside the column. So no matter how powerful you make the column and no matter how fast you go, the speed of light will always be faster… it’s actually very convenient”.
Joel nods his understanding, “thank you”. Turning to George he asks, “why the heck couldn’t you say that?”
“Because it should be blindingly obvious”, George replies.
Joel let's his head fall forward and pinches the top of his nose, "you realize that you don't need to explain your inventions to me right? Just show me where it needs to go and lend me someone from the labs to supervise, my team and I can get it installed just as quicky".
"Nice try Joel, you still get briefings on any new tech", Jack chides.
"Well, it was worth a try".