Quick, get the giant space mirror!
September 7, 2012 1:07 PM Subscribe
Let's say a catastrophic cosmic event caused a ripple effect in the fabric of space-time, the first wave of which could potentially destroy the Earth. I realize that we have nothing in our current technology that could do anything to stop it, but what about future technology? (For fictional purposes.)
Obviously this scenario requires a fair amount of hand-waving, woo-woo "what if" situations. However that's okay with me.
I'm just having trouble wrapping my mind around how ANYTHING could deflect, neutralize, or slow down a massive gravitational wave. (NOT a gravity wave-- I realize there's a difference.)
Any thoughts on how to stop it, no matter how far-out, are deeply appreciated to help in my brainstorming process. Thanks for your help!
Obviously this scenario requires a fair amount of hand-waving, woo-woo "what if" situations. However that's okay with me.
I'm just having trouble wrapping my mind around how ANYTHING could deflect, neutralize, or slow down a massive gravitational wave. (NOT a gravity wave-- I realize there's a difference.)
Any thoughts on how to stop it, no matter how far-out, are deeply appreciated to help in my brainstorming process. Thanks for your help!
Best answer: What about a stronger gravitational pull to draw it in? A mini black hole?
Or, similar to how noise cancelling headphones work, firing an "opposite" graviational wave back at it? An "antigravity" wave?
Note: I am not a scientist, I just watch a lot of Doctor Who.
posted by smitt at 1:20 PM on September 7, 2012 [3 favorites]
Or, similar to how noise cancelling headphones work, firing an "opposite" graviational wave back at it? An "antigravity" wave?
Note: I am not a scientist, I just watch a lot of Doctor Who.
posted by smitt at 1:20 PM on September 7, 2012 [3 favorites]
The only solution is to get the hell out of the way. You use your super-powerful gizmo to teleport the solar system somewhere safe.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 1:26 PM on September 7, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 1:26 PM on September 7, 2012 [1 favorite]
Note quite the same thing, but relevant anyway: Greg Egan's Schild's Ladder involves an extremely-advanced civilization struggling with a large scale (both space-wise and time-wise) problem of an expanding bubble of true(r) vacuum now expanding through the regular sort of false vacuum that, it turns out, everyone's living in. It has its own twists and turns, but attempts to deal with it come down to handwavey extreme technology that works at rewriting/restructuring the quantum substructure of the universe.
Which is probably what dealing with a gravitational wave would entail, one way or the other. If a big ocean wave was coming at you, if you could alter the properties of the water just ahead of it, you could stop the wave dead or damp it down, for instance. What that would even entail would be all sorts of technobabble, of course.
posted by Drastic at 1:40 PM on September 7, 2012
Which is probably what dealing with a gravitational wave would entail, one way or the other. If a big ocean wave was coming at you, if you could alter the properties of the water just ahead of it, you could stop the wave dead or damp it down, for instance. What that would even entail would be all sorts of technobabble, of course.
posted by Drastic at 1:40 PM on September 7, 2012
Make stuff up. The ripple propagates at the speed of light, you won't know it is coming.
posted by rr at 1:59 PM on September 7, 2012 [6 favorites]
posted by rr at 1:59 PM on September 7, 2012 [6 favorites]
Scifi is replete with invented terminology to refer to another realm of interactions which allows things like faster-than-light travel, instantaneous subatomic engineering, etc.
Right now I'm reading a lot of Iain M. Banks' Culture books, and in his universe there is an "energy grid" that exists in "hyperspace" and everything about our Newtonian and Einsteinian physics is a subset of that. By displacing regular matter and energy into the Grid, or drawing huge amounts of energy from the Grid, such things as FTL travel and strong-AI become routine. Total BS.
So what you need to do is either invent your own meta-relativistic physics, or just do what Banks did and borrow some terminology from existing tropes and get the hand-waving over with as quickly as possible. What rr said above is true; gravitational waves apparently move at light-speed, so you must violate relativity just to detect the problem in the first place.
Hyperspace, subspace, cosmo-grid, trans-timelike quantum interferometry, whatever.
posted by General Tonic at 2:14 PM on September 7, 2012
Right now I'm reading a lot of Iain M. Banks' Culture books, and in his universe there is an "energy grid" that exists in "hyperspace" and everything about our Newtonian and Einsteinian physics is a subset of that. By displacing regular matter and energy into the Grid, or drawing huge amounts of energy from the Grid, such things as FTL travel and strong-AI become routine. Total BS.
So what you need to do is either invent your own meta-relativistic physics, or just do what Banks did and borrow some terminology from existing tropes and get the hand-waving over with as quickly as possible. What rr said above is true; gravitational waves apparently move at light-speed, so you must violate relativity just to detect the problem in the first place.
Hyperspace, subspace, cosmo-grid, trans-timelike quantum interferometry, whatever.
posted by General Tonic at 2:14 PM on September 7, 2012
In one of OSC's Ender books, he talks about transporting people/things "outside" of the universe, then back "inside" to a different location as a way of near-instantanious travel. When "outside" the universe is tiny, almost a geometric point, so there isn't much in the way of distance.
No mention of seeing other universes while "outside" but one traveler accidentally created a caricature-copy of one of the other travelers just by thinking about it.
If the society has the wherewithal to even consider attempting to thwart such a cosmic event, then taking their world someplace else might be feasible.
posted by trinity8-director at 2:35 PM on September 7, 2012
No mention of seeing other universes while "outside" but one traveler accidentally created a caricature-copy of one of the other travelers just by thinking about it.
If the society has the wherewithal to even consider attempting to thwart such a cosmic event, then taking their world someplace else might be feasible.
posted by trinity8-director at 2:35 PM on September 7, 2012
Best answer: If a space-time ripple is coming towards us, the clear solution is to send a ripple of equal strength back towards it.
The ripples would cancel out
I don't think so; to a first approximation the propagation is linear, so the ripples wouldn't cancel out or deflect— they'd pass through each other. You can't deflect sound by aiming other sound at it, either.
You could put some structure in between you and the oncoming wave that would emit an out-of-phase wave towards you as the other wave passes it; this is more like how noise-canceling headphones work.
Or you could try to modify the oncoming wave to leave a calm zone where the Earth is. A gravitational wave strong enough to endanger the Earth is presumably in an (at least partly) nonlinear regime so maybe you could do this by aiming another absurdly strong wave at it. Or by placing a set of stars or galaxies in an appropriate pattern— think a gravitational-lensing diffraction grating.
Of course all of this requires you to have FTL communication and the ability to shuffle enormous masses around fairly easily so it might be easier to just move the solar system out of the way for a few hours while the wave passes and then put it back afterwards.
posted by hattifattener at 2:37 PM on September 7, 2012
The ripples would cancel out
I don't think so; to a first approximation the propagation is linear, so the ripples wouldn't cancel out or deflect— they'd pass through each other. You can't deflect sound by aiming other sound at it, either.
You could put some structure in between you and the oncoming wave that would emit an out-of-phase wave towards you as the other wave passes it; this is more like how noise-canceling headphones work.
Or you could try to modify the oncoming wave to leave a calm zone where the Earth is. A gravitational wave strong enough to endanger the Earth is presumably in an (at least partly) nonlinear regime so maybe you could do this by aiming another absurdly strong wave at it. Or by placing a set of stars or galaxies in an appropriate pattern— think a gravitational-lensing diffraction grating.
Of course all of this requires you to have FTL communication and the ability to shuffle enormous masses around fairly easily so it might be easier to just move the solar system out of the way for a few hours while the wave passes and then put it back afterwards.
posted by hattifattener at 2:37 PM on September 7, 2012
Isn't this sort of like "if the universe and everything in it simultaneously expanded by 100%, would we notice?"
posted by goethean at 2:46 PM on September 7, 2012
posted by goethean at 2:46 PM on September 7, 2012
Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow for whatever created said wave.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 3:01 PM on September 7, 2012
posted by MCMikeNamara at 3:01 PM on September 7, 2012
a ripple effect in the fabric of space-time
By that, you mean a gravity wave? Or something more mundane, like a nearby gamma burst?
If gravity, currently, we know of absolutely nothing that can attenuate gravity. We also know of no reasons preventing such effects; but nature tends to contain examples (at least weakly) of just about anything physically possible. I would thus bet against a solution there.
If something as mundane as a GRB, it would take one pretty close and/or strong to wipe out the entire planet. The "near" side, however... Big-time sterile desert, and we couldn't do a damned thing about it (we could probably get most of the humans to the far side of the planet, given enough warning, but you can't just move the entire biosphere halfway around the globe, so those "temporarily" relocated humans would have little to return to after the event).
And if you mean something even more exotic than gravity waves... I'll second MCMikeNamara - Try reversing the polarity of the neutron flow, because scifi catch-phrases count as about the most meaningful answer we can give. :)
posted by pla at 7:48 PM on September 7, 2012
By that, you mean a gravity wave? Or something more mundane, like a nearby gamma burst?
If gravity, currently, we know of absolutely nothing that can attenuate gravity. We also know of no reasons preventing such effects; but nature tends to contain examples (at least weakly) of just about anything physically possible. I would thus bet against a solution there.
If something as mundane as a GRB, it would take one pretty close and/or strong to wipe out the entire planet. The "near" side, however... Big-time sterile desert, and we couldn't do a damned thing about it (we could probably get most of the humans to the far side of the planet, given enough warning, but you can't just move the entire biosphere halfway around the globe, so those "temporarily" relocated humans would have little to return to after the event).
And if you mean something even more exotic than gravity waves... I'll second MCMikeNamara - Try reversing the polarity of the neutron flow, because scifi catch-phrases count as about the most meaningful answer we can give. :)
posted by pla at 7:48 PM on September 7, 2012
I'm just having trouble wrapping my mind around how ANYTHING could deflect, neutralize, or slow down a massive gravitational wave. (NOT a gravity wave-- I realize there's a difference.)
As someone who works with gravitational physics for a living: what's the difference?
posted by Johnny Assay at 8:04 PM on September 7, 2012
As someone who works with gravitational physics for a living: what's the difference?
posted by Johnny Assay at 8:04 PM on September 7, 2012
Best answer: > Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow
Sure, why not? Or just go ahead and bounce a graviton particle beam off the main deflector dish.
That is, if you really don't care how flimsy your woo is.
However, you want your fiction to grow up strong and have good self-esteem instead of an inferiority complex - in other words, you want it to be plausible - you'd better fortify it with a heavy dose of vitamin Real. Your best allies in that event are the known unknowns of gravity, because that allows you to walk the reader up to the very brink of what is known, stare at the great beyond, and wonder.
One of the predominant known unknowns of gravity is why it is so apparently weak compared to all of the other known fundamental physical forces. (A popular illustration of the relative weakness of gravity compared to magnetism, for example, is the fact that hovering a small magnet over a nail or a safety pin or somesuch can cause the item to "leap" to the magnet, and thus overcome the entire planet's gravitational effect on it.)
I suggest reading up on the theory of gravitation, and that aspect in particular. (A quick search suggests to me that a good way to start would simply be, as you might expect, to google the phrase "why is gravity so weak". The first few links looked pretty promising when I clicked over. I particularly like this one.)
It may be nonsensical to ask why the gravitational force is relatively weak in the absence of a good answer to the question, "Well, why shouldn't it be?" (The first-pass answer tends to be a very human-centered one: Because it's weird! It doesn't follow the pattern! However, we are the ones that assume there is a pattern.) Be that as it may, though, some very interesting propositions have been set forth to try to explain the aberration. Among them: that in fact it is not weak, but most of its effects occur at right angles to reality as we perceive it - that is, extra-dimensionally.
Another concept you could invoke is anti-mass, since the strength of the gravitational effect (at least to the best of our actual knowledge) is a function of the mass of the objects involved and the distance between them.
In my opinion, the more "real" the fiction, the more compelling it may be. You don't have to provide a physicist's explanation for the whole phenomenon you wish to invoke, but it should at least pass the sniff test. But the importance of that also depends on your audience.
I'm afraid that's the best I can really do: No real answer from me, but a couple of gizmos to tinker with that might make it easier to come up with your own. Hope it helps.
posted by perspicio at 8:11 PM on September 7, 2012 [1 favorite]
Sure, why not? Or just go ahead and bounce a graviton particle beam off the main deflector dish.
That is, if you really don't care how flimsy your woo is.
However, you want your fiction to grow up strong and have good self-esteem instead of an inferiority complex - in other words, you want it to be plausible - you'd better fortify it with a heavy dose of vitamin Real. Your best allies in that event are the known unknowns of gravity, because that allows you to walk the reader up to the very brink of what is known, stare at the great beyond, and wonder.
One of the predominant known unknowns of gravity is why it is so apparently weak compared to all of the other known fundamental physical forces. (A popular illustration of the relative weakness of gravity compared to magnetism, for example, is the fact that hovering a small magnet over a nail or a safety pin or somesuch can cause the item to "leap" to the magnet, and thus overcome the entire planet's gravitational effect on it.)
I suggest reading up on the theory of gravitation, and that aspect in particular. (A quick search suggests to me that a good way to start would simply be, as you might expect, to google the phrase "why is gravity so weak". The first few links looked pretty promising when I clicked over. I particularly like this one.)
It may be nonsensical to ask why the gravitational force is relatively weak in the absence of a good answer to the question, "Well, why shouldn't it be?" (The first-pass answer tends to be a very human-centered one: Because it's weird! It doesn't follow the pattern! However, we are the ones that assume there is a pattern.) Be that as it may, though, some very interesting propositions have been set forth to try to explain the aberration. Among them: that in fact it is not weak, but most of its effects occur at right angles to reality as we perceive it - that is, extra-dimensionally.
Another concept you could invoke is anti-mass, since the strength of the gravitational effect (at least to the best of our actual knowledge) is a function of the mass of the objects involved and the distance between them.
In my opinion, the more "real" the fiction, the more compelling it may be. You don't have to provide a physicist's explanation for the whole phenomenon you wish to invoke, but it should at least pass the sniff test. But the importance of that also depends on your audience.
I'm afraid that's the best I can really do: No real answer from me, but a couple of gizmos to tinker with that might make it easier to come up with your own. Hope it helps.
posted by perspicio at 8:11 PM on September 7, 2012 [1 favorite]
You can't deflect sound by aiming other sound at it, either.
You absolutely can cancel out sound by aiming other sound at it. That's how noise-cancelling works.
posted by Jairus at 8:32 PM on September 7, 2012
You absolutely can cancel out sound by aiming other sound at it. That's how noise-cancelling works.
posted by Jairus at 8:32 PM on September 7, 2012
No, it isn't. (Read the rest of my comment.) Noise-canceling equipment emits the canceling sound in the same direction as the sound being canceled. Otherwise you just end up with some standing waves.
posted by hattifattener at 12:29 AM on September 8, 2012
posted by hattifattener at 12:29 AM on September 8, 2012
It would require rerouting power through the secondary conduits.
Teleporting the planet somewhere else for the duration?
Perhaps we could alter the dimension the earth occupied?
Could we phase the planet to the same frequency of the ripple and surf it?
Evacuate the planet
If we have enough advance warning about the ripple, time a giant
anti matter explosion in its path to stop its progress. But the boom
might be worse than the ripple. (Need a shaped space time ripple)
Decide that we dont believe in space time ripples, produce scientific
reports stating that space time ripples dont exists, but if they do
they have always been there so its nothing to worry about. Enact
laws against space time ripples. Tell everyone to stop monitoring
for ripples and sit back and relax. (Mind over matter).
posted by digividal at 3:28 AM on September 8, 2012
Teleporting the planet somewhere else for the duration?
Perhaps we could alter the dimension the earth occupied?
Could we phase the planet to the same frequency of the ripple and surf it?
Evacuate the planet
If we have enough advance warning about the ripple, time a giant
anti matter explosion in its path to stop its progress. But the boom
might be worse than the ripple. (Need a shaped space time ripple)
Decide that we dont believe in space time ripples, produce scientific
reports stating that space time ripples dont exists, but if they do
they have always been there so its nothing to worry about. Enact
laws against space time ripples. Tell everyone to stop monitoring
for ripples and sit back and relax. (Mind over matter).
posted by digividal at 3:28 AM on September 8, 2012
Send/teleport/whatever a line of incredibly massive objects to "surf" just behind the wave, diminishing it over time. it'll let you set up tension about whether the mass can be moved in time and whether it will dampen the wave enough by the time it hits Earth.
posted by cmoj at 8:49 AM on September 8, 2012
posted by cmoj at 8:49 AM on September 8, 2012
Best answer: Hmm...how about:
1. Evacuating the mass of earth and everything in it, so the wave just goes by and then earth gets reinflated with mass afterward (no big deal, clearly, we could ALREADY do this one)
2. creating a device that converts gravitational energy into orthogonal EM radiation
3. creating a device that generates a universe in which you've already found a solution to the problem
4. creating a device that "corrals" the gravitational wave -- like a big swimming pool!
5. creating a device that acts like a giant bicycle pump -- the more gravitational energy that hits it, the bigger it pumps up the surrounding space-time and thus blocks the energy, like an overinflated tire wedged into a water hose! Eventually, the wave just diverts around it! Make it so!
6. somehow engendering a gravity lens that causes the wave front to converge right in front of earth, creating a corridor of wave-free spacetime
7. creating a gravitational energy frequency regulator that smoothes out the peaks and troughs, so earth just experiences a sudden but uniform gravitational pulse
posted by clockzero at 10:46 AM on September 8, 2012
1. Evacuating the mass of earth and everything in it, so the wave just goes by and then earth gets reinflated with mass afterward (no big deal, clearly, we could ALREADY do this one)
2. creating a device that converts gravitational energy into orthogonal EM radiation
3. creating a device that generates a universe in which you've already found a solution to the problem
4. creating a device that "corrals" the gravitational wave -- like a big swimming pool!
5. creating a device that acts like a giant bicycle pump -- the more gravitational energy that hits it, the bigger it pumps up the surrounding space-time and thus blocks the energy, like an overinflated tire wedged into a water hose! Eventually, the wave just diverts around it! Make it so!
6. somehow engendering a gravity lens that causes the wave front to converge right in front of earth, creating a corridor of wave-free spacetime
7. creating a gravitational energy frequency regulator that smoothes out the peaks and troughs, so earth just experiences a sudden but uniform gravitational pulse
posted by clockzero at 10:46 AM on September 8, 2012
This thread is closed to new comments.
The ripples would cancel out (and be deflected towards the sides instead.)
posted by cmcmcm at 1:19 PM on September 7, 2012 [1 favorite]