Could there be, well, let's call them acceleflavors for lack of a better term. Wherein we would be talking about different types of acceleration. And by different I don't mean some variance in the bottom line for the relativistic mass that would underlie them all (because the energy/inertia equation must always balance at some point), but rather in what effect this relativistic mass has on spacetime, during acceleration, and after, as this assumed new mass continues to move its total effect through so much other relativistic goings on.
For instance. I cannot help but wonder if there are inherent differences, which of course we've never thought to suspect before, between firing a projectile by cannon, accelerating it by expelling mass away from it directly (as in rockets of various types), or by magnetic acceleration; where one could be forgiven in thinking that what is really going on there might be tiny, individual, moments of acceleration, at each new magnetic source of repulsion; because, of course, it is individual magnets, that are doing each little new push, one after the other, faster and faster.
I ask this question now because I can't help get a scenario out of my mind of late. It just popped in, mind you, of its own accord, a little while back. And it involved envisioning what would happen if you could make a linear accelerator say, oh, a light week or two long; which would, of course be pretty damn long. And of course the power requirements were easy enough to toss off to further imagined fusion energy plants, placed at whatever sweet spot of separation made the most sense.
In this scenario I then have a quite big, standardized naturally, launch pod. Loaded with a lot of something that really doesn't matter. Which is then accelerated at the leisurely pace of one gravity for the entire two light week length of the accelerator.
What I wonder about is how the inertia would express itself, down the full length of the accelerator, once the launch pod finally left the end point. Would it travel down the thing like a wave, crushing structure as it went, or be immediately assumed for the entire structure, cushing it all at once?
I think I may have got a part of my mind thinking on this because I've been wondering about how you would counteract the, essentially mass driver thrust, if you will, if you also had another, equally long driver, butted up to the first, but naturally pointed in the opposite direction. If you did a co-launch, so as to prevent either launching structure, as a whole, to go careening off on their own opposite directions, relative to their respective launch pods; if you did that co-launch, wouldn't be a mind bonker of an energy release event?
You really have to wonder about something like this because we are also starting to talk about very large relativistic masses, once the pods finally left their endpoints. I mean seriously. Two light weeks of possible acceleration at 1 g?
Once could again be forgiven if they thought that it might be one hell of a rebalancing of equations, where these two things are butted up at. Maybe so much so you could you conceivable create a mini singularity?
But even beyond that. Once accelerated. Do electro magnetically accelerated objects affect spacetime just slightly different enough to make a difference in gravitational equations?
One maveric physicist already thinks we could correct Newtonian physics by simply re adjusting how tensors handle mass at certain distances. Maybe there are some other subtleties going on with not only how a thing gets accelerated, but also in significant part, what gets accelerated?
For instance there, what if water was accelerated magnetically somehow. And you could then have a very large, relativistic water mass objects. Water, as well as other things, have already shown new mind blowing phases for each (under different pressures and such), and more, it seems, keep getting discovered.
Some of this may be easy to explain, and understand, but some of it may also beg further questions, and I would hope, a desire to explore relativistic mass a great deal more. But that's just the opinion of a systems guy who doesn't always get really deep into the details.
I just can't help but think how cool it would be, though, if we could build really, really, large in place accelerators, out there. Accelerators at least the length, in linear measure, or the circumference of, our moon. I just have this very deep feeling that we will discover some useful things if we go to the trouble of creating the massive infrastructure on the Moon it will take to do it. The very thing we need to do anyway, assuming of course we want to take saving the planet seriously. Because that's how we'll be able to create the first step in the new Isthmus that humanity must make or face drowning in our own numbers.
Just some more things to think about as we rush into what is clearly becoming more and more unknown territory; both in a social/economic sense, but also in a sense of how we will have to go about finding out about things, anew.
One thing is certain from my perspective, however. Better to accelerate to go to new places in the cosmos, or accelerate to better understand what accelerated things are in the larger sense, than to accelerate very tiny things, at ever increasing energies, just to blow other tiny things up to see what comes flying out. One method involves careful observation, with carefully limited direct involvement, to come to new theoretical understandings. The other involves much more invasive interaction, in order to make observations, at ever more relativistic scales of consideration. With what we know of entanglement now, that ought to be an approach that at least gets a lot more critical scrutiny than it ever gets now.
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