Re: Gravity and Black Globes

>      1)  Can a ship in a black globe be detected by a densitometer?

	Well, my understanding was that a black globe sucked up all
	incident "energy".  Apparently, this is all energy in the form
	of electromagnetic radiation.  Less understandably, the Black
	Globe affects the manueverability of the craft inside.  I have
	assumed that this is because as well as absorbing the
	electromagnetic force (photons), it absorbs gravity too
	(gravitons), rendering reactionless thrustors and gravitic drives
	useless.

	This leaves the strong and weak nuclear forces
	which it apparently doesn't affect.  I don't know if it can
	affect the strong force; this might make it capable of
	disintegrating the nuclei of matter which passes through it,
	which would liberate a lot of energy and make it a very bad idea
	to let the black globe touch any matter.

	As the black globe absorbs gravitons, it shields the ship inside
	from the gravitational effects of the outside.  Hence, while the
	black globe is "on", the ship would not appear on a
	densitometer, which indicates in which direction large sources
	of gravitons exist.

	But, the black globe "prevents any transit" of matter across its
	boundary.  How it accomplishes this is a mystery to me.  My
	guess is that it appears to be matter to matter striking it,
	meaning that it has an electronic/nuclear structure that
	resembles matter.  To prevent degenerate forms of matter from
	bursting through the field, the black globe would need to appear
	as dense as neutronium, while maintaining its masslessness.
	Perhaps this is achievable by weaving a web of nearly
	impenetrable strong nuclear force over the surface of the globe.
	I would suppose that if someone sent an ultradense kinetic
	weapon moving near the speed of light, it would be possible to
	rupture the black globe's integrity until it was turned back on.
	Somebody help me out; this concept is starting to become very
	difficult to explore.

>      2)  Can a ship in a black globe be affected by a repulsor or
>  tractor?

	A repulsor or tractor creates a directed (anti-) gravity field,
	or conceptually, a stream of (anti-) gravitons, to affect its
	target.  I would think that the black globe would render a
	degree of immunity from gravity weapons similar to its immunity
	from densitometer detection.

Now, since a black globe is flickering, the ship should emit and absorb
gravitons any time the block globe is off.  For stealth, the globe ought
to be set to flicker at a rate which makes the ship appear to be
invisible.  For protection from gravitic weapon fire, the black globe
should be on as much as possible.

I would think that combining gravitic and electromagnetic sensors would
make detecting a stealthy black-globe-equipped ship much simpler, since
the black globe has two desriable flicker rates: one which makes it
blend into the electromagnetic background, and one which makes it blend
into the gravitic background.  If these two flicker rates are quite
different, the ship will have to choose to hide from a particular type
of sensor and will be visible (to some degree) with the other.  The
greater the disparity in desirable flicker rates, the more obvious the
ship is.  Considering the sensitivity of sensors, I would choose to
always flicker the black globe for electromagnetic stealth; the gravitic
sensors tend to be less sensitive for locating an object, and less able
to indicate the type/configuration of a object that is only visible
gravitcally.

>      Mass is related to momemtum (the faster you go the heavier you get).
>      If a ship has momemtum it has mass (as far as I know, at least according
> to Einstein's theories).  However, I don't know if it has the mass that could
> be detected by a densitometer (I don't believe densitometers measure mass as
> such).  Maybe WILSON can pass this onto USENET (there might be more technical
> people there, ie. some people who know more physics than we do, to give us a
> better answer).  If the globe has mass, it might probably be affected by a
> tractor or repulsor.

Ah, but photons have MOMENTUM, but are MASSLESS!  I think the key is in
interpreting densitometers as graviton counters.  I also think that the
globe itself need not mass anything, instead taking the form of a
multi-force field matrix (electromagnetic, strong, gravitic) bound into a
limited region of space (a sphere), with siphons to redirect energy flow
into appropriate collectors, which absorb the energy and store it as
stored electric potential in capacitors.

James