Zan Lynx wrote: > I read a paper somewhere theorizing that gravity and acceleration are the > same thing: a warping of the space-time metric. They have all of the same > effects and the weird bits about "real gravity" are caused by rotation.
There _is_ a difference between gravity and acceleration, in that the effects of gravity warp the spacetime metric in such a way that it is no longer flat, whereas the effects of acceleration warp it in such a way that it remains flat. The technical details involved in explaining this further are very involved, though. Suffice it to say that the difference is that gravity produces tidal forces, while acceleration does not. > In your case, does it make any difference if the acceleration is caused by > gravity or by stressing the atomic forces (ie: reaction drive)? > > It isn't likely, after all, that anyone would want to engage the warp drive > while also using a 1g thrust drive. The ship always remains dead center in the middle of the warp bubble, no matter what it does in terms of its reaction engines. I'll have to think through the implications of that; but I suspect that the answer to this dilemma involves the drive converting the real acceleration provided by the rockets into additional pseudo-acceleration of the bubble (quite possibly with an additional power requirement that has to be met, or else Bad Things Happen). Ditto with things entering and leaving the bubble: if there's a net influx or outflux of material, it stresses the bubble and forces an increased power requirement to maintain it. -- Jonathan "Dataweaver" Lang _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
