- anton1792
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- Noble Legendary Member
"Find where the liar hides, so that I may place my boot between his gums!" - Rtas 'Vadum
Posted by: tsassi2
UNSC uses fusion. It's very hard to produce and hasn't been very efficient this far. Why not antimatter? Only problems with it are actually production and containment. If we solve those we can transfer 100% of energy to another form. There sure are no effiency problems.
Fusion is, as far as I am aware, at the very top of the alternative, large scale, long term energy sources. It is far more efficient than fission, is cleaner, safer (No radioactive waste) and is only, at the most, a decade away from being demonstrated as practical.
Antimatter as a power source is awful. It takes more energy to manufacture it than what you will get in return from annihilating it, not just from the simple inefficiencies in whatever power generation system you use but also in the fact that a large amount of the energy from the reaction is lost in the form of neutrinos. These particles cannot be stopped and carry their energy away to infinity.
Posted by: tsassi2
For me existence of slipspace sounds as possible or even normal as mass-energy equivalence. If you say that slipspace can't exist why don't you say the mass of an object isn't dependent on it's speed?
Because there is evidence for mass-energy equivalence and it is a part of a very broad scientific theory, that covers a lot of phenomenon, that is almost certainly true. There is no evidence for slipspace. Also, it is not that people are saying slipspace cannot exist, it is just that there is nothing to suggest that it does exist.
"Cheating" the laws of physics for FTL is all good until you hear about causality. With Relativity, FTL implies time travel. Most sci-fi writers have not heard of it and those that have tend to ignore it because it is a pain in the ass.
Relativity, FTL, Causality; Pick two.
Nothing as of yet suggests that Relativity is wrong, so it looks like it is here to stay.
Causality is basically "cause, then effects". Throw it out and you throw that order out. The idea of effects preceding causes makes no sense, and many physicists think that the universe will prohibit any action that leads to time travel. Others think that causality is merely a guideline, not a law, so could be violated. In that case FTL would be possible, but it would be a double whammy. You could get to the right place, but at the wrong time. (Arriving at a colony before it even exists, etc)
So if you want to keep the laws of physics (And any measure of common sense), FTL goes.
[Edited on 04.18.2011 3:31 PM PDT]