🚀 go-pugleaf

On Wed, 26 Mar 1997 04:21:15 GMT, ykhan@achilles.net (Yousuf Khan)
wrote:

>>Hm.. that would create an interesting theoretical possibility. Suppose
>>you could exclude the Higgs field from and area of space. Would this
>>not result in everything in that area becoming massless and therefore
>>instantly achieving light speed? Seems like this could be a basis for
>>something like Larry Niven's "displacement booths".
>
>I'm _almost_ proud of you, you nearly came up with the answer, but you went
>the wrong way. You would not want to get rid of Higgs bosons, you'd want to
>attract more and more of them. 
>
>Think of it this way. We are trying to warp space right?

Not exactly, no. We (at least I) am interested in finding a way of
travelling fast. If it doesn't involve a "warp drive" that won't break
my heart.

> You warp space by
>concentrating particles inside it. If you can attract lots of Higgs bosons
>to a volume just in front of your ship, you have created a gravity well
>there. Manipulating the Higgs field may be the secret to warp travel. 
>

But the _hard_ part, on all the warp or wormhole concepts being played
with to date, is that some part of the field requires negative mass
density to bend space in the opposite to the normal direction.

>>Myself I've long suspected that "rest mass" is actually caused by
>>particles travelling at lightspeed in one of the collapsed dimensions.
>>This allows them to have relativistic mass without actually going
>>anywhere.
>
>What purpose would be served by this? This is based on the assumption that
>nothing can be _not_ moving: if it's not moving in the familiar dimensions,
>then it must be moving the invisible dimensions. It's an interesting
>thought, but why do we need it?
>

It strikes me as a workable notion of why various types of particles
have arbitrary restmasses, something that could use an explanation.
The Higgs theory is one attempt.

We know that massless particles must move all the time. I'm simply
suggesting that _all_ particles might be moving all the time. A
simplifying assumption in my book.

---------------------------------+----------------------------------
I was born weird:  This terrible | Like Pavlov's dogs we are trained
compulsion to behave normally is | to salivate at the sound of the
the result of childhood trauma.  | liberty bell.
---------------------------------+----------------------------------
Malcolm