Re: (1696) Black globes and gravity

 In nessage 1696, [email removed] (Adrian Hurt) writes:
 >
 >Scott Kellogg writes (via Stephen D Smith):
 >
 >>       As a dedicated high guard vessel, an experiment in jump
 >> technology has been tested in the prototype:  the 'ANNIC NOVA' jump
 >> technique.  This drive does not use liquid hydrogen, but...
 >>
 >> **********CLASSIFIED*********CENSORED**********
 >>
 >> *...influx from the black globe.  As all energy is absorbed by the
 >> globe, the ship would use this energy for jump.  The ship would dive
 >> into a planets gravity well and turn the globe on.  Light, heat, and
 >> gravitation are converted into usable energy and this is dumped into
 >> the jump drive.
 >
 >If a black globe can absorb gravity and turn it into usable energy, does
 >this violate the law of conservation of energy?

     I wondered about this myself.  I first heard about Black Globes
when I first bought _High Guard_ about nine years ago.  I've tried to
keep relatively current since.  ;-)  I've never heard that a Black
Globe had any effect on gravity at all.  Electromagnetic energy and
physical projectiles, sure, but gravity?

 >Also, what happens to a piece of matter which hits a black globe?  Does
 >it bounce off, or get converted to usable energy too?  If it "bounces",
 >what happens to its kinetic energy?

     I always assumed that the Black Globe was modeled on the Langston
Field from Jerry Pournelle's Co-Dominium series.  It was black,
absorbed all electromagnetic energy that struck it and stopped fast
projectiles cold.  There are differences between the Langston field and
the Black Globe, though.  When the Langston Field had absorbed lots of
energy (from the lasers, nuclear explosions and other dangerous whatnot
of space combat), it would start to radiate it back out into space in
all directions (black body radiation, I assume).  If, however, it had
to absorb too much energy, it bled through to the ship inside the
field, and the whole shootin' match blew up (sound familiar?).  Another
difference is that material objects *can* pass through the Langston
field, if they are moving slowly enough (very slowly--like molasses
running uphill in winter).  Also, the ship inside the field can poke
antennae and such through the field so that they can have a look around
(of course, once they're outside the field, the bad guys outside can
shoot them off--minor drawback).  Couldn't maneuver, though--they used
reaction drives, and it could ruin your day to have your exhaust trapped
inside the field with you.  :-)

     Okay, where has this taken us?  To the issue of material objects
(missiles, asteroids, planets, old beer cans, etc.) striking the
surface of a Black Globe, I hope.  I'd say that, upon striking the
Globe, the object loses its kinetic energy to the Globe (relative to
the ship, of course), and stops.  It could then drift off, I suppose,
or have an entirely new vector applied to it by whatever way the ship
happened to be heading at the time.  In short, it "bounces off," in a
manner of speaking, having its original kinetic engergy absorbed by the
field, and then getting a brand new batch from the field.  This could
possibly be described as a conservation-violating collision.  Of
course, if you use a sufficient amount of handwaving, you can violate
physics all you want.  ;-)
 >
 >- --
 > "Keyboard?  How quaint!" - M. Scott
 >
 > Adrian Hurt                         |  JANET:  [email removed]
 > UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian     |  ARPA:   [email removed]
 >


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     Brent

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