I understand how fuel works just fine. I’m just saying that while our understanding today of how fuel works does not equate to how fuel works for the universe necessarily. Safe assumptions that it does, but in the end, until we actually explore the vast universe, we can never be certain.
Fusion and fission both work with non-biological prerequisites to create a fuel source, as opposed to oil and natural gas which are both at their core biological byproducts that manage to be a good fuel source. Solar, hydroelectric, thermal, wind… these all don’t necessarily require life to exist, just physics. All ways to at least be used as a fuel source, if not the purpose we are discussing.
It starts delving into the realm of science fiction, but to assume life is a prerequisite for fuel in all of the universe is as short-sighted as thinking there is no life other than us in the universe. Our knowledge is vast… within the bubble of our current understanding. What’s beyond that is point I’m trying to make. For all we know, we may discover a mineral on another planet that could be harvested and used as a fuel source that surpasses everything we currently know of. The possibilities are endless, really.
You don’t get it. We’re not finding anything on an alien world that we really can’t find here. Alternate fuels? Like what? Either it’s going to be a mineral we can already find on earth or know exists now, or we’re going to find some sort of plant/animal (which is where we get fuel, oil, etc), which means life. If we find some sort of new element/crystal that is able to be used as fuel, that pretty much signals new life.
You need to understand, in space, either we’re finding a giant lifeless rock made of stuff we already have here, or we’re finding some form of life. We’re not going to find whatever it is you think fuel can be. Fuel is basically just something we use to produce energy. Usually it involves burning, which involves LIFE. Even if you burn some fucking cotton or straw or a leaf or a tree, or whatever, it’s life. This isn’t a case of “oh well there are things we don’t know”. Perhaps I’m not explaining it well enough, but if we find a new ‘fuel’ or whatever that means LIFE. The only things in space to be found are giant hunks of matter we currently have on earth, or giant hunks of matter that might have life.
If we find something in space that we can burn as fuel, it means we found life. Or we found something we already have here on earth (elements used with fusion/etc). We’re not going to just find magic crystals or whatever that somehow have never been found on earth, but aren’t a form of life.
You can find what you’re looking for in Special Relativity. Relativistic momentum for massless particles is E/c. I don’t know how to derive it. I haven’t taken a dedicated Relativity course yet.
You can probably start with Compton effect, since that was the first time we actually saw photons displacing electrons by colliding with them.
Yeah, I’m a bit skeptical about the fast space travel part. The EM drive is too inefficient.
[details=Spoiler]I dug up how the EM drive supposedly works.
I did a simple calculation: to move a Space Shuttle to the Moon in 4 hours using the EM drive would take almost 1 trillion times the world’s electrical consumption in one year.
[details=Spoiler]That’s if we want to slow down the Shuttle halfway through so it doesn’t crash onto the Moon at 100,000 kph.
If we don’t want to do that, it’s only about half a trillion times. Heh.[/details]
You say this, but that’s kind of my point. While it seems outlandish or impossible, it’s only because you’re thinking with your current knowledge of what is possible. With what we have seen to be true. But we’re constantly proving, time and time again, that what we perceive one day can be destroyed the next. And that’s simply with what’s around us. Expand that scope to a galactic scale alone, and you can’t really be honestly 100% sure of anything, statistically speaking. Thinking like that is no different than thinking that we’re alone in the universe. It’s just as difficult to grasp for someone who believes what they understand as the only possibility. Just because your thoughts are based in scientific evidence doesn’t mean it’s RIGHT, just that it’s right as we know it.
Look at it this way. Let’s roll the clock back 400 years, and proceed to tell people around you that one day we might be able to harness lightning to give us light and heat, even at night, and it would be completely safe. You’d get the same reaction you’re giving me right now. And with good reason. You have no proof, and what you say sounds like fictional rantings of a madman. Time and research eventually brought about a reality that was inconceivable before. And today, it’s seen as something that is so obvious in how it really works, but the idea is the same as you expressed.
Today, we have NASA right now breaking everything we knew about physics over its knee. You know, something we knew was absolute. Considering these things, is it really THAT farfetched to think it unreasonable that our knowledge of chemistry is just as absolute? Meaning, not at all?
To put it one way, we think of non-carbon-based life as unlikely, but the first aliens that we may end up running into one day could very well be silicon-based.
maybe it’s not breaking anything. Conservation of momentum must be maintained because it’s an extension of the conservation of energy. If Conservation of momentum is not valid, it means quantum mechanics most basic operators fail and the Schrodinger equation shouldn’t be giving us the results it does.
that means the theoretical warp drives that create energy spheres in the shape of a donut are much more viable. GG.
lol that’s what I’m saying. We ain’t finding anything in space that isn’t something we already have on Earth (basic elements, metals, gems, gases, liquids, etc). If we find something that isn’t already on Earth, it’s gotta be proof of life. Like we’re not going to find some random ass silicon object that just so happens to not grow on earth, or some glowing goo that burns for days.
It’s not a matter of lack of understanding or knowledge, it’s fucking elementary physics.
Be careful though guys, scientists have found life with differing elements to the expected combination. Which is proof life could be ANYWHERE even on earth. Fuck it, there could be “humans” at the bottom of the ocean looking at the top of the sea as space. Shit will get weird
if only it was that simple