A popular mechanism in Space Opera to explain whatever whacky technologies that bind the setting together is a sort of Unobtanium that can only be found space-side(See: Mass Effect). Well, turns out [url=http://nextbigfuture.com/2014/01/powering-starships-with-compact.html]there's a hypothesis regarding fast-rotating asteroids[/url] that simultaneously offers both a method for semi-fast interstellar travel(relatively speaking) and an explanation for the current universe's anti-matter paradox.
That, and it sounds like something out of a Greg Bear novel. Seriously, 'Compact Condense Quark Matter'. Awesome.
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Powering Starships with Compact Condensed Quark Matter from local very fast rotating asteroids
Fri, 2014-01-03 11:26
#1
Micah_Hakubi
Powering Starships with Compact Condensed Quark Matter from local very fast rotating asteroids
Fri, 2014-01-03 16:22
#2
Smokeskin
That's the most interesting
That's the most interesting speculative physics thing I've read in a long time.
I don't get why superconducting CCO's would reflect ordinary matter but not antimatter though?
Mon, 2014-01-06 17:28
#3
puke
After reading through the
After reading through the article, I'm a little fuzzy on what this stuff actually is. I am not a physicist, but I consume a fair amount of popular pseudo scientific fluff.
How is it different than the Quark/Gluon plasma thought to be at the heart of Neutron Stars? Why does it not require such awesome pressures to maintain its state, and how could it persist for so long on its own?
If it has such significant power output (compare to say a subatomic scale black hole the mass of Mt Everest, with a lifetime of a few hundred years) I must repeat: How has it lasted so long, how could ANYTHING last so long radiating that much energy, unless it started with significantly higher mass?
Also, if it has such power output, wouldn't it necessarily have a mass comparable to such a black hole?
If this is like a stable strangelet (as it is described as being like one in the article) how is it not behaving like a strangelet and converting other matter it contacts into strangelets? Are we redefining what we think strangelets are?
in short, WTF?