Paradoxes and Dilemmas

(quoting Larry Burford and sub-quoting Tom Van Flandern)

<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>
<BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote><BLOCKQUOTE id=quote><font size=2 face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id=quote>quote:<hr height=1 noshade id=quote>Getting back to the question of FTL measurements: if it is possible to build sun-pumped lasers, might it not also be possible to design some sort of gravity amplification by stimulated emission of radiation, or gaser, through feedback loops between the sun's FTL (gravitational force changes) energy and a gravimeter (or other device, perhaps as yet uninvented)?<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>
That sounds like an interesting suggestion. I am unfamiliar with the details of lasers, so cannot readily address what a gravitational analog might consist of. But I strongly suspect that the wave nature of light plays a role. However, "gravitons" are apparently pure particles with no wave properties. That might prevent inventing a "gaser". But it wouldn't prevent creating ultra-dense matter states that could serve as "sails" in a graviton wind able to produce special gravitational phenomena. -|Tom|-<hr height=1 noshade id=quote></BLOCKQUOTE id=quote></font id=quote><font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size=2 id=quote>
Lasers depend on the ability of a given amount of mass to produce different amounts of light under different conditions. In particular, electrons within the mass are encouraged to absorb energy under one set of conditiions and then release it under another set of conditions. These process can be intermittent or continuous, and can occur sequentially or simultaneously.

I don't think we know enough about gravity yet to know whether an analogous set of processes can exist. But...



If gravity is in fact caused by something like the LeSage model then gravitons are not created by mass and therefore their creation rate can't be changed by any sort of manipulation of mass.

But it might be possible to alter the rate at which gravitons are absorbed and/or reflected by matter. So instead of "Gravity Amplification by Stimulated Emmission of Radiation" (GASER) we might be able to do "Gravity Attenuation by Stimulated Absorption/Reflection of Gravitons" (GASA/RG"). ...? yuck

This would be especially useful if it could somehow be made <b>directional</b>.

If some of Dr. Van Flandern's recent speculations about planetary explosion mechanisms are correct, the ability to increase a mass's gravitational attenuation factor could be sort of dangerous. Especially if done on a large scale.

Maybe this is the answer to the Fermi Paradox? If intelligent, technically sophisticated creatures tend to discover how to do this and inadvertently blow up their home world before they are safely established elsewhere, we know why no one has contacted us yet.

We can, however, modulate a gravitational acceleration field. Just move a mass around. Gravimeters can measure the difference between someone in the lab standing "right here" versus standing "over there". Even if a wall is between them.

If we define these two different readings as zero and one respectively a message can be sent through solid walls and/or faraday cages.

But gravimeters take a long time to make a measurement - a second or more, I believe (anyone know for sure?). So this experiment couldn't tell the difference between gravity moving at 100 meters/sec and gravity moving at 10^100 meters/sec. And it would take a long time to send even a short message.

But its a start ...
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These ideas have set me to thinking about the problem of feedback loops. If a gravimeter, for instance, is trained on the moon's actual position in the sky (as opposed to its apparent position), theoretically, if the instrument is finely enough tuned, it will register gravitational effects. If a gravivmeter registers effects caused by the presence or movement of a human being on the other side of a wall, I suspect it might pick up the moon as well. Now, what to do with the signal? It is a one-way signal, as far as I understand it, unless and until we have some sort of instantaneous feedback from the moon. How to achieve this? This is where your engineering expertise comes in, Larry. The problem, as I see it, becomes one of constructing the right kind of reflector. We have to gather the signal, and reflect it back to the moon (again, recall that we are aiming at an invisible target in the sky, carefully aligned in our sights by a combination of calculations of celestial mechanics, and, preferably, real-time tuning of the gravimeter itself to the moon's strongest signal direction). This process of tuning, itself, might be a potential feedback loop, given the right circuitry, which I don't believe we have the technical understanding to build any time soon (say, within months). However, an adjustable-shape reflector combined in one apparatus with a gravimeter might become a feedback loop (two-way communication) with the moon (or other celestial body).
I choose the moon because, who knows how powerful such a loop might be? In fact, I would construct the device so that the duration of "soundings" of the moon would be infinitesimally short, at least until we better know the effects. The most obvious shape to try as a reflector is a sphere, which, after all, Nature favors.