Re: Interplanetary exploration in a fantasy setting (surgeon's general warning: contains reactionless drives)

KJK::Hyperion wrote:
On Aug 10, 4:47 am, "M. Trimble" <u...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
With some luck and basic newtonian mechanics you
discover isotopes.
Let's replay that one, with an accompaniment of some careful explanation
of how a leads to be, please.

No idea, really, but that's how they were discovered. You know you
have elemental hydrogen but the mass doesn't add up, maybe? You throw
some atoms around and a distressing lot of them fall too short? I
guess something like that. "Luck" to try the right kind of experiment
with the right elements and tools at the right time and see a
statistically significant deviation, I guess

2. Given a change in conductive medium (as for example air versus the
crystal of a well-crafted prism) light can and will bend, or refract,
implying a *slight* (read: really, really *really* tiny)change in velocity.

Doesn't light-in-a-medium alternate between being photons and
excitons, anyway? Excitons have mass

But if excitons have mass, how does light not possess mass, therefore inertia?

I've been working on that for a number of years now, in the interest of
disproving the red-shift

Please, please, let's keep on topic, I still have a couple of
questions. And an Usenet thread on magical invisible wires and space
dragons is not a proper substitute of the peer review process.
Respectfully, I think it is, because we're assessing the possible interrelation between science and magic, and the possible means whereby magic affects the real world. Or, to put it in cruder terms, we're discussing how magic could lead to alchemy.

a carrier particle of some sort, then, able to affect the natures of
atoms at the will of the caster?

Maybe. Even then, it would be a *magic* particle, living in an N-
dimensional metamaterial space rather than the M-dimensional material
space our physics studies. "Magic" proper, in fact, is the interaction
(any interaction) between material and metamaterial, material-to-
metamaterial being "casting" and metamaterial-to-material being
"enchantment". You would be able to detect a "magic particle" only by
observing enchantment happen. And this is a possible reason why my
scientists could waste *ages* trying to explain phenomenons like
quantum mechanics without success: they would automatically assume it
to be a form of enchantment (strictly speaking, it *is*, but I
wouldn't want to see the differential equations for *that*); they'd be
as lost as our string-theorists are in math too high for their own
good

I'm sure I'm underestimating the implications of ignorance of
relativity and quantum theory, though. Anyone can fill me in?
If you're going into the idea of science being conducted by magical
means, then you must respect Schroedinger's Cat.

Could you explain that?

picture this setup. A sealed box, in which are placed a cat, and a container which is opened or not depending on the decay of a radioactive isotope (I think he named u239, but for gossake, don't quote me on that one). The experimenter cannot in any way affect whether or not the lethal dose is administered, cannot affect in any way whether it does kill the cat if it is administered. Question: without looking into the box, is the cat alive or dead?

It's sort of a layman's way of explaining the gross effect of quantum probability and mechanics.
.

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