Re: Hot ships in cold space

"Tomb" <Kaladorn@fox.nstn.ca> writes:
>
> Assume for a moment we can find a method of converting heat to other
> energy without generating more heat. Is this possible? Dunno. Might it
> be? Possibly. 

	This would require a rewriting of the laws of physics.
Specifically, it
would require rewriting the second law of thermodynamics. In other
words, the idea you suggest is forbidden by entropy (in a closed system,
which the ship is effectively, short of magitech). Getting rid of
entropy would so fundamentally alter physics that I'm not sure we could
reasonably speculate on what the new physics would look like.
Thermodynamics is also one of the best-supported laws in physics, and
it's unlikely to be overturned (not QUITE impossible, but up there).

> Perhaps we could bleed <by methods unknown> into jump drive power
> (stored as potential energy to drive Jump engines). Perhaps we could
> find a way to just bleed it off into some nth dimension or subspace -
> neither creating nor destroying energy, just sending it off to another
> place. Perhaps I can use some sort of small wormhole to squirt my heat
> energy out into faraway space?

	If the other place is locally disconnected, you have violated
conservation of energy. If energy can come back, you probably haven't,
but it's still iffy. I think that either way you've taken out
thermodynamics. The wormhole might work (assuming you have wormholes)
but, in order for that to be the only change, the heat radiation would
be part of the blackbody, or else you'd have to use massive amounts of
power to concentrate the heat into a radiator pointing into the
wormhole.

> We know a lot about the world. We know a little about the stars. Keep
in
> mind where we were, knowledge wise, 180 years ago (1820). Pretty funny
> some of the things they thought would and would not be possible and
how.
>
> Now imagine that the rate of increase in human knowledge has increased
> and is accelerating. Now project 180 years forward. 

	Also keep in mind how many things HAVEN'T changed.
Thermodynamics was
pretty much set by that point (IIRC). So was gravity. Newton's laws were
in place. I believe Leibnitz's Work/energy equations were there too.
These have stood up. They aren't entirely correct, but they are still
correct for the domains which they were designed to address (Newton and
Einstein don't disagree except in exceptional conditions, which is why
it's taking so long to fully test relativity).

> I think we just might solve this conundrum. If you were playing
FT2020,
> I'd have to agree with the thought heat would be the big factor. Even
> FT2050. But we're at 2180+. Seems like this problem might have been
> licked.

	Possibly. But this is one that I definitely wouldn't bet on.
Entropy
has been around for a LONG time. So have proposed ways to defeat it
(they go back a lot farther than 1820, IIRC). If there is one law of
physics that will NEVER be broken, I'd have to go with thermodynamics
and entropy. Yes, it's possible. But I think it's distinctly less likely
than say causality, relativity (special or general), or quantum theory
(being overturned, that is).