Mass Effect drive discussion

[tblaxland]

Staff note: Discussion moved from Mass Drive Control MFD 2.0

 

[palebluevoice]

It reduces your mass.

How does that allow you to go FTL?

 

[jangofett287]

It doesn't. Not in real world physics anyway.

 

[jedidia]

How does that allow you to go FTL?

You have a drive that works by reducing your mass, and this is your question? :lol:

 

[palebluevoice]

You have a drive that works by reducing your mass, and this is your question? :lol:

There's some kind of higgs killer drive somewhere, I mean E=mc^2 and all that, so it's possible under current physics, there's just no known way to do it...for now, I guess I'll tell myself that it gives you negative mass to go FTL. No idea what negative mass is, if it's significant, if it exists, or if it would let you go faster than the speed of light(that would probably warrant a new thread).

 

[jedidia]

for now, I guess I'll tell myself that it gives you negative mass to go FTL.

I tell myself that there's three cackling women sitting around a cauldron and chanting in welsh somewhere in the drive section...

 

[flying coffin]

...for now, I guess I'll tell myself that it gives you negative mass to go FTL. No idea what negative mass is, if it's significant, if it exists, or if it would let you go faster than the speed of light(that would probably warrant a new thread).

Wouldn't negative mass be antimatter? it is definitely known to exist, if only for very short periods of time, and definitely not very much of it exists at one time, at least here on earth.

 

[RisingFury]

I guess I'll tell myself that it gives you negative mass to go FTL. No idea what negative mass is, if it's significant, if it exists, or if it would let you go faster than the speed of light(that would probably warrant a new thread).

Negative mass would not be good enough. You'd have to have imaginary mass. Square root of negative one imaginary. Nothing like that is known.

Wouldn't negative mass be antimatter? it is definitely known to exist, if only for very short periods of time, and definitely not very much of it exists at one time, at least here on earth.

Current understanding says antimatter has positive mass, not negative. What you want to ask if how antimatter would react to gravity - would it repel matter and attract antimatter. That hasn't been measured because we currently lack the equipment precise enough to do it, however, IIRC, current understanding points in the direction that it shouldn't be any different.

 

[jedidia]

Wouldn't negative mass be antimatter?

No. Antimatter has positive mass. Plus, we know that antimatter exists, something we cannot say about negative mass.

 

[Spacethingy]

The [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive"]Alcubierre drive[/ame] - doesn't that need negative mass to work?

 

[Maximusfive]

How does that allow you to go FTL?

Well, IIRC, according to the game its from, they actually make mass effect 'corridors' between locations, in this corridor, EVERYTHING gets its mass reduced.
So, theoretically, since energy is mass, and vice versa, light itself gets its mass reduced and thus travels faster, thus raising the speed of light in the corridor above its speed outside the corridor; This allows the vessel to travel FTL relative to space OUTSIDE the corridor, while still being slower than light INSIDE the corridor.
Note, however, that forming a mass effect 'corridor' over interstellar distances, requires a pretty large station, which they call "Relay's", IIRC(I haven't played it in quite a while).

Would that work with real physics, I don't know, it sounds plausible to me, but I'm definitely NOT a physics guy by ANY stretch of the imagination; So I wouldn't be surprised at all if it wouldn't work with real physics.

 

[jangofett287]

Well, IIRC, according to the game its from, they actually make mass effect 'corridors' between locations, in this corridor, EVERYTHING gets its mass reduced.
So, theoretically, since energy is mass, and vice versa, light itself gets its mass reduced and thus travels faster, thus raising the speed of light in the corridor above its speed outside the corridor; This allows the vessel to travel FTL relative to space OUTSIDE the corridor, while still being slower than light INSIDE the corridor.
Note, however, that forming a mass effect 'corridor' over interstellar distances, requires a pretty large station, which they call "Relay's", IIRC(I haven't played it in quite a while).

Would that work with real physics, I don't know, it sounds plausible to me, but I'm definitely NOT a physics guy by ANY stretch of the imagination; So I wouldn't be surprised at all if it wouldn't work with real physics.

That explanation would be fine if photons had mass to begin with, but they don't. This is in fact WHY photons travel at the speed of light. the only way to travel AT the speed of light is to have no mass, and if you have no mass you can ONLY travel at the speed of light. So just reducing your mass, nice an idea as it sounds, doesn't actually get you anywhere. This is all tied in to the Higgs field. see this for more info:

 

[palebluevoice]

Well, IIRC, according to the game its from, they actually make mass effect 'corridors' between locations, in this corridor, EVERYTHING gets its mass reduced.
So, theoretically, since energy is mass, and vice versa, light itself gets its mass reduced and thus travels faster, thus raising the speed of light in the corridor above its speed outside the corridor; This allows the vessel to travel FTL relative to space OUTSIDE the corridor, while still being slower than light INSIDE the corridor.
Note, however, that forming a mass effect 'corridor' over interstellar distances, requires a pretty large station, which they call "Relay's", IIRC(I haven't played it in quite a while).

Would that work with real physics, I don't know, it sounds plausible to me, but I'm definitely NOT a physics guy by ANY stretch of the imagination; So I wouldn't be surprised at all if it wouldn't work with real physics.

Light doesn't have mass(nothing with nonzero mass can travel at the speed of light, or "c")...so you can't reduce its mass. As for speeding it up, the reason light goes the speed it does is that's the fastest anything can travel through space, including the force of gravity. It's like saying "the terminal velocity of people is 135mph, so if we lower the mass of Jim so that his terminal velocity is 5mph, I won't need a parachute". Gotta give em something for creativity though.

Negative mass would not be good enough. You'd have to have imaginary mass. Square root of negative one imaginary. Nothing like that is known.

I know it's not known to exist, but does that mean that if an object had negative mass it wouldn't work? I'm not familiar with the equation, but I understand that the faster you go, the more your acceleration adds to your mass rather than speed. at c.99999999%, most of your acceleration goes to mass, until you have infinite mass, which is impossible; ergo FTL/FAL is impossible. Now, if you had negative mass I postulate your mass would go closer to 0, until you reached 0 mass; if you had the right starting mass, you would be traveling c when your mass hits 0. Then what happens when you apply your thrusters?

 

[jangofett287]

Now, if you had negative mass I postulate your mass would go closer to 0, until you reached 0 mass; if you had the right starting mass, you would be traveling c when your mass hits 0. Then what happens when you apply your thrusters?

Disclaimer: I don't fully understand this bit of physics, but here we go anyway:
Its a nice thought, but to me it makes more sense, due to the shape of an X^2 curve, that your mass would 'decrease' if you started with 'negative' mass, leading you to have infinite negative mass at the speed of light. Oh, and you can also never travel faster than the speed of light because the speed of light will always be 3*10^8m/s in your frame of reference. That's what happens, the mass increase and the space contraction and time bending are all bits of the how it happens and still has light traveling at the same speed in all frames of reference. (IE YOUR frame of reference is bent so everyone else's can stay the same)

 

[Maximusfive]

Well, after hurting my brain trying to understand some things that I don't really have the background for, all I can say is:
Is it possible that they actually meant it affects relativistic mass, as opposed to rest mass, Since photons DO have relativistic mass?
Granted, their use of the term 'mass'(and the 'background' information you can view) strongly implies they mean rest mass, but regardless, would altering the relativistic mass of photons have any effect on their speed? :idk:

As I said above, reading on what exactly the differences between rest mass and relativistic mass are, hurt my head a little(Not feeling well today, maybe I'll try again tomorrow), so if that's WAY off the mark, sorry? :shrug:

 

[Icarus at home]

Hi guys, I have thought about this a lot too. From what I understand all Matter is coupled to the Higgs field by the Higgs boson, the more mass matter an object has the higher density the Higgs field will have around that object. My theory is if you could interfere with the Higgs bosons wave function, like the way light can cancel itself out then you could un-couple an object from the Higgs field and accelerate it past the speed of light. There would probably be some back pressure from the interstellar medium. This is just my idea, I have no evidence to back this up of course. :thumbup:

 

[jangofett287]

Hi guys, I have thought about this a lot too. From what I understand all Matter is coupled to the Higgs field by the Higgs boson, the more mass matter an object has the higher density the Higgs field will have around that object. My theory is if you could interfere with the Higgs bosons wave function, like the way light can cancel itself out then you could un-couple an object from the Higgs field and accelerate it past the speed of light. There would probably be some back pressure from the interstellar medium. This is just my idea, I have no evidence to back this up of course. :thumbup:

You've almost got it. The Higgs field permeates through everything at the same level, mass is determined by how strongly the particles that make up an object interact with it. In theory if you 'decoupled' yourself from the Higgs field, you would instantly fly off in a random direction at the speed of light. You may encounter some problems from things like air, walls, people and the ground. Oh, and you would be unable to stop until you recoupled to the Higgs field, at which point I have no idea what would happen to you. My guess is the particles formally known as 'you' would end up a thin smear spread across thousands of light years of empty space.

Oh, and Maximusfive, this is a video game we are talking about here, made by Electronic Arts. If you asked them that question they would probably have no idea what your talking about. I don't quite get what you mean by rest and relativistic mass. for this to mean something, mass would have to be a constant, and it isn't mass is connected to energy, which is itself connected to speed, so there is no 'rest' mass.

I think. Its 3AM and I'm discussing things I don't claim to fully understand. Here, have a mountain of salt.

 

[Maximusfive]

Oh, and Maximusfive, this is a video game we are talking about here, made by Electronic Arts. If you asked them that question they would probably have no idea what your talking about. I don't quite get what you mean by rest and relativistic mass. for this to mean something, mass would have to be a constant, and it isn't mass is connected to energy, which is itself connected to speed, so there is no 'rest' mass.

I have no doubt whatsoever that the game designers would indeed look at me and say, 'huh?', if I were to ask them that question.

Since I'm feeling better now, I went and did some research on the subject.
A photon seems to be a case of having 'mass', yet NOT having 'mass' at the same time, since photons seem to have no rest mass, yet they do have relativistic mass. (My interpretation)
Simplified, if it was possible to halt a photons momentum or to catch up with one, it would theoretically have a rest mass of zero in that 'Inertial frame', as the only 'mass' it has is from its momentum, which is always c.
I.E. If you subtracted the mass gained by the energy of the photon moving at c from its total mass, you'd get zero as the result. (Theoretically)
Explanation of rest mass
Mass in Special Relativity
The various different 'mass' terms


So, after hurting my brain some more, I conclude that: The 'Mass effect system' would NOT be able to reach FTL speeds in reality.
The system is normally used to reduce mass, to enable speeds closer to c. However, if it affected the relativistic mass of a photon, and the ONLY mass a photon has is from its momentum, 'reducing' the mass of a photon would actually slow down the photons, reducing their speed to something less than c, but it would NOT affect the speed of light limitation.
However, that could prove to be useful for some experiments; Like, ironically, measuring the rest mass of a photon .

So, 'Mass effect drive' for FTL travel? Pure Fiction.

....I need a good strong drink now, my head hurts....but at least I learned something.

(Also, to people better at physics than I am, am I right? or am I way off the mark?)

 

[Cras]

the Mass Effect is two seperate things actually in the ME universe.

One is mass effect fields which does what this MFD does, it lowers the mass of an object, so you can land huge ships on planets, take huge amounts of mass of planets using less fuel, blah blah blah that sort of thing.

The other is manipulating the speed of light within the field.

Mass effect fields are also used for various other contraptions in the ME universe, from fields, to alloy construction, to barriers allowing artificial atmospheres to be errected, to artificial gravity.

In short, Mass effect fields are magic. They are a bizarre incarnation of "dark energy" generated from a previously undiscovered element in the periodic table, one with the atomic number of 0, thus it is called Element Zero, or Eezo. Electrical current passing through Eezo generates dark energy, which generates the mass effect, blah blah blah magic, allows fun things to happen in the game.

Get too much Eezo in your brain, and bad things happen, like the original ME3 endings.

 

[Vast fury]

Well this principle might be possible. And if ever we can have it in our grasp, our expansion in space would be incomprehensibly fast....

What makes it far from being impossible is that, in our current capabilities as humans, we can now reduce digital data or digital mass. that's digital compression. that explains why file formats nowadays take lesser space in storage compared to older ones. So if we can do this digitally, perhaps physical mass compression would be feasible.