Relativity and Science Fiction - Freaky Fzx Friday - Birthday Edition

Readers would get seriously bored if science fiction followed the laws of Physics.  Movies would be even boringer.

Imagine if it took months or years to reach the nearest planet.  Imagine if it would take tens of thousands of years to reach the nearest star system.  And remember that you would have to take everything with you.  Your fuel and your food.  Your medical supplies.  Everything.

That's the reality. Some SciFi adventures have taken place entirely in our solar system.

2001: A Space Odyssey

War of the Worlds

Event Horizon - kinda - it seems that they went to hell or hell went to them.

Apollo 13 - definitely fiction

But we know that there is no other intelligent life in this system so we have to venture far away to other solar systems in our galaxy to see other life.  BUT we have to break laws of physics and invent new technologies in order to go so far.

Dr. Who built a time machine inside a police box

You could be aboard a living ship called Moya in Farscape.

You could make the jump to light speed using the hyperdrive on the Millennium Falcon in Star Wars.

You could leap from one place to another in the universe using a pair of Stargates

You could "make it so" aboard the Enterprise D at Warp factor 11.

You could get lost on the other side of the galaxy through a spacetime accident and be assimilated by the Borg in Star Trek Voyager.

You could even park a space station at the edge of a wormhole ala Star Trek Deep Space Nine.

Each of these imaginary situations depends on a warping of spacetime.  They all depend on an understanding of Einstein's General Relativity.  They do, however, warp the universe so hard as to break the laws of physics but it makes the reading and viewing so much more entertaining.

A Star Trek warp bubble

Wormholes and Stargates warp space and time

The DeLorean is real.  I've seen it in Etna.

That which  was future is now the present.

These imaginary fictional travels are great for imagination. They allow us to project our minds to other systems, other times, other  worlds.  And they allow the writers to advocate against the stupidity of racism and other social problems all around us.  Star Trek was written and produced in the mid 1960s during the cold war and civil rights movement in the US.

The Original Series included a black woman, a Russian, an Asian, and a Vulcan as main characters.  It wasn't just a science fiction series.

Whether making social statements or just telling stories of far-flung travel among the stars, science fiction twists real science in such a way that it becomes unrecognizable.  They sometimes use real science terms and turn them in on themselves like a black holes turns spacetime in on itself.  But they're fascinating.  All of them.  Where else can you get beyond cutting edge technology and interspecies collaboration all wrapped up in an adventure story?

And I didn't even include subjects like matter-antimatter drives and transporters.  I'll save that for next time.  More Einstein and the famousest equation in the universe.

General Relativity Part 2 - Freaky Fzx Friday

Albert Einstein introduced his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905

It's called "SPECIAL" because it only applied to objects traveling at constant velocities.  All constant velocities are equivalent.

In it, Einstein showed that measurements of spacetime and mass would be different depending on the observer but that these differences only show up at relative speeds close to that of light.

Everything looks normal from the inside but if measured from a different frame of reference - an observer traveling at a different velocity - those changes are evident.

If you see my time going slowly I see yours going slowly as well.  If you measure my mass to be larger, I measure your mass to be larger also.  Both measurements are correct but essentially unimportant until the two interact.

A decade later, Big Al expanded relativity to include acceleration and gravity fields.

He realized that acceleration and a gravitational field were indistinguishable.

One of the implications of General Theory is that light bends when near an object with large mass.

Not true.  Mass curves spacetime so objects and light just follow curved spacetime.

Time is measured to travel more slowly in spactime that has more curvature.  Bigger gravitational field strength means slower time.

Can spacetime curve enough that it twists inward on itself so much that time stops and nothing moves?

Black Holes:

BREAKING NEWS.  An Einstein of the nineteen teens was just verified earlier this year with a direct measurement of gravity waves.  Big Al really did have an impressive brain.

Einstein's General Theory of Relativity still has a lot for us.

Next time.  Special and General Relativity in Science Fiction.