Gedankenexperiment - beautiful ideas in a sometimes ugly world.

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TheGreenGoblin
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Gedankenexperiment - beautiful ideas in a sometimes ugly world.

#1 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sun Mar 08, 2020 11:11 am

There is a lot energy around us in the universe in the form of matter, the motion of planets, stars and other exotic quasi-stellar objects and so on. Trouble is unlocking and utilising this energy requires energy too, lots of it!

Enter the Dyson sling shot! No not the overblown vacuum cleaner salesman whose machines suck, barely, but physicist and polymath Freeman Dyson's idea.

https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2019/03 ... slingshot/

Here, English born associate professor at Columbia University, David M Kipping takes the idea one step further.

Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

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Re: Gedankenexperiment - beautiful ideas in a sometimes ugly world.

#2 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Sun Mar 08, 2020 1:33 pm

Prof Kipping's paper is worth reading...

Kipping, David (2018), "The Halo Drive: Fuel Free Relativistic Propulsion of Large Masses via Recycled Boomerang Photons", JBIS, In Press:

https://arxiv.org/abs/1903.03423
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

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TheGreenGoblin
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Re: Gedankenexperiment - beautiful ideas in a sometimes ugly world.

#3 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Wed Mar 11, 2020 5:33 am

While not up there with Maxwell's Demon of Schrodinger's Cat this thought experiment by the aforementioned Prof. at Columbia University, has more than a whiff of practicality about it.

How about a stationary satellite or even a quasi stationary satellite?

Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

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TheGreenGoblin
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Re: Gedankenexperiment - beautiful ideas in a sometimes ugly world.

#4 Post by TheGreenGoblin » Fri Apr 24, 2020 3:02 pm

Is there intelligent life out there? Carl Sagan opines.

https://www.skeptic.com/downloads/Carl- ... 7f2a371058
Though you remain
Convinced
"To be alive
You must have somewhere
To go
Your destination remains
Elusive."

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