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Inertial Mass Separate From Gravitational Mass?
CPerdue writes with this excerpt from the MIT arXiv blog:
"The equivalence principle is one of the more fascinating ideas in modern science. It asserts that gravitational mass and inertial mass are identical. Einstein put it like this: the gravitational force we experience on Earth is identical to the force we would experience were we sitting in a spaceship accelerating at 1g. Newton might have said that the m in F=ma is the same as the ms in F=Gm1m2/r^2. ... All that changes today with the extraordinary work of Endre Kajari at the University of Ulm in Germany and a few buddies. They show how it is possible to create situations in the quantum world in which the effects of inertial and gravitational mass must be different. In fact, they show that these differences can be arbitrarily large."
Because once we have inertial drives, it's only a little while before we can colonize other planets.
The technology lens itself very well to that.
Would this lead to science fictions "Inertial Dampeners"?
I hope this caused some synapses to fire.
I would submit, courteously, that your mother's inertial and gravitic masses are arbitrarily large.
No big surprise here...all kinds of crazy shit is possible at the quantum level. I would like to see this effect at the classical level.
I realize that this all works only at that quantum level but what implications, if any, does this have for Einstein's general theory of relativity?
This ain't rocket surgery.
run the Lithium Engine?
Yours In Ashgabat,
Kilgore Trout, P.E.
The "show" here is a proof, or rather, a calculation. They describe what kind of experiment can be used to test the calculation (on a Bose-Einstein condensate in free-fall).
The experiment isn't trivial, and these theoreticians won't be the ones doing it. They publish the theory, and everybody else looks at it to see if it's worth the time and money to set up an experiment. That's pretty much canonical science going on there, and doesn't merit being dismissed as "just a pretty theory".
They "show how it is possible to create situations", according to the summary. I think the experiment they outline in Appendix D of the paper satisfies that sentence.
Professor Fran De Aquino's Webpage explains in detail what is going on, and how to do it. He even has the paper "Engineering the Simplest Gravity Cell"
What he has discovered is that it is the PLASMA above the properly charged surface that creates a gravity shielding effect, and shielding includes inversion. Yes, -1g is possible.
One of the more awesome things is that when you are at +/-0.159g, you disappear from regular space-time because you are too weakly interacting with it, like a neutrino.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
"But we had purchased a reactionless, inertialess drive from the Outsiders. You may have guessed their price. We are still paying in installments. "
I seem to remember that in one of his other stories, the figure is a trillion stars, which was the worth of an entire, technologically advanced, planet.
Absolute statements are never true
is anything with potential to happen ever not arbitrary in it's potential? it seem like they arbitrarily used the word arbitrarily.
In a gravity well, this explains why we need so much fuel to get out. But that assumes that inertial mass acts like gravitional mass. If we change that, then suddenly we use HIGH inertial mass but low gravitational mass as rocket exhaust, tremendously reducing the mass of the rocket's fuel, which has exponential gains in increasing the potential payload.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Assuming that these guys are right, would the presence of two different effects that we currently group together allow us to generate a model of the universe that doesn't require the vast majority of matter to exist as (currently) undetectable dark matter?
de von Ausfern -schplenden -schlitter -crasscrenbon -fried -digger -dangle -dungle -burstein -von -knacker -thrasher -apple -banger -horowitz -ticolensic -grander -knotty -spelltinkle -grandlich -grumblemeyer -spelterwasser -kürstlich -himbleeisen -bahnwagen -gutenabend -bitte -eine -nürnburger -bratwustle -gerspurten -mit -zweimache -luber -hundsfut -gumberaber -shönendanker -kalbsfleisch -mittler -raucher von Hautkopft auf Ulm would be proud of his fellow citizen.
Consider two giant bouncyballs in space, with the same inertial mass but where ball A has 4 times the gravitational mass of ball B. They start off some distance apart from each other, with velocity 0. As they attract each other, B will be accelerating 4 times faster than A since A has 4 times the gravity, and at one point they will meet. When they meet, A will have velocity -1 and B velocity +4. When they bounce off of each other, A will, naturally, have velocity +4 and B velocity -1. Now, B is still accelerating (or rather, decelerating) toward A 4 times faster than A is toward B, and when their relative velocity reaches 0, A will have velocity +3 and B will have velocity +3. Thus, each bounce accelerates the entire system by +3 with ZERO energy input, thus violating conservation of momentum and conservation of energy.
This is why any universe with a concept of conservation of energy and/or momentum must have the property inertial mass = gravitational mass. Now, if we can somehow break this rule with energy input, those of us interested in interstellar travel might have a completely new type of engine on our hands.
So in practical terms there is a difference, even if the effect is extremely small.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
"Free-fall" so, say, something as relatively trivial as "in orbit"?Y
es, there's some vestigal drag - just use high orbit or circumsolar one, and encase the experiment in "external" spacecraft, without physical contact between the two; the internal one being in as pure free-fall as we can get, the external one shielding the interior from miniscule drag by stationkeeping (that's not my ideas, that's actually a setup of some mission that's in the works already)
One that hath name thou can not otter
Actually, until it's actually been proven, or at least many scientists have failed to disprove it, it -is- "just a pretty theory." THAT is science.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Neutron: Electrically neutral particle. One of the particles out of which atomic nuclei are built.
Interferometry: Measurement of the interference of waves. Remember that according to quantum mechanics, particles also show wave-like properties, especially interference.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
I had a similar idea a while back. I was calculating how much energy it would take to send a ship to Mars if it accelerated at 1G the whole time. There are two sources of energy use: gravity and acceleration. The result is that you basically blow up two nuclear bombs during the trip for a 100 ton ship. Most (>99%) of that energy is wasted accelerating the ship and slowing it down. Gravity is a small fraction of that energy (could easily be overcome by a nuclear reactor). That energy from acceleration is so huge because the Newtonian energy-momentum relationship is e=p^2/2m. However, in solid-state quantum systems (like silicon), the energy-momentum relationship (effective mass) is arbitrary. Sometimes it's just a constant times a Newtonian parabola, even a negative one. Sometimes it's a cubic function, others, a sine wave. The function is determined by the number and arrangement of particles in the system. This can be predicted by using quantum mechanics simulators to solve the Schrödinger equation for the system. If you could come up with a system that made the effective mass small enough, you could send the ship to Mars with a small battery (green spaceship!). Once you get this system (or maybe even before) you could move on to the Dirac equation. Then quantum mechanics and general relativity could fight each other, maybe even cancel each other out, and you could have quantum-based FTL.
Oh, another fun little problem. You're in space. You've got a gun that fires small bullets at really really high velocities - the bullets make up a trivial percent of your mass but have a noticeable effect on your velocity. It's an electric gun and puts the same amount of energy into every bullet. You fire the gun ten times. Do you get the same acceleration every time?
Responsibility is an addiction
Virtue is a temptation
Community is a cartel
Pretty hypothesis. When the data comes along you can have a theory. :p
"One of the more awesome things is that when you are at +/-0.159g, you disappear from regular space-time because you are too weakly interacting with it, like a neutrino."
A lot of grade school kids probably wish they could do that.
Of course, then the ring wraiths and Sauron could see them.
Let me interrupt you, Herr de von Ausfern -schplenden -schlitter -crasscrenbon -fried -digger -dangle -dungle -burstein -von -knacker -thrasher -apple -banger -horowitz -ticolensic -grander -knotty -spelltinkle -grandlich -grumblemeyer -spelterwasser -kürstlich -himbleeisen -bahnwagen -gutenabend -bitte -eine -nürnburger -bratwustle -gerspurten -mit -zweimache -luber -hundsfut -gumberaber -shönendanker -kalbsfleisch -mittler -raucher von Hautkopft auf Ulm, and ask you, just quickly...
The claim is extra-ordinary but unfortunately the proof is not. It is well known for a long time that the equations of quantum mechanics violates equivalence principle. Precisely for this reason, we don't have satisfactory theory of quantum gravity. So there is nothing new in terms of it. If I interpreted the contents of the paper right, the authors are suggesting a way to create an experiment which can show that m_i and m_g are indeed different, but these experiments have not been performed yet.
Does he know Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern- schplenden- schlitter- crasscrenbon- fried- digger- dingle- dangle- dongle- dungle- burstein- von- knacker- thrasher- apple- banger- horowitz- ticolensic- grander- knotty- spelltinkle- grandlich- grumblemeyer- spelterwasser- kurstlich- himbleeisen- bahnwagen- gutenabend- bitte- ein- nürnburger- bratwustle- gerspurten- mitz- weimache- luber- hundsfut- gumberaber- shönedanker- kalbsfleisch- mittler- aucher von Hautkopft of Ulm?
I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.
Actually, no. Once there is
consistent supporting data and no inconsistent data, and it has been shown that there's an experiment to test it, it remains a theory until it is DISPROVEN. (That's why we have the theory of Universal Gravitation and the theory of Evolution.) Nothing is proven; it is simply proven falsifiable - ie testable - and remains under consideration until falsified. Now, THAT'S how science really works.
I can't understand a word of what you are mumbling, but what does this mean for flying cars?
839*929
I would think this means we have a basis for making quantitative measurements of what happens where GR and QM collide.
Not quite. They make no assumptions about GR in the article, what they have done is come up with a way to test one of the assumptions of GR - assuming the article passes peer review, arXiv is just a preprint server. There are too possible outcomes to the test they propose: m_i=m_g or m_i!=m_g. In the first case nothing has changed and in the second case one of GR's core assumptions has been dismantled so GR cannot be a fundamental theory since there is a phenomenon which it cannot explain. Hence QM and GR will never 'collide' because GR will have disappeared to be replaced by something else - possibly something which QM has no problem with.
My personal guess is that any such experiment will show that m_i=m_g but it will be an interesting test to do and potentially result in a far more accurate test of the equivalence principle.
The key part is the null-grav Bose-condensate at the base. When the temperature falls below 91 micro-kelvins, the resulting phase-change decouples inertial mass from equivalent mass and the gravitational force disappears.
There a few bugs to be worked out however. First, the grav-shield must be aligned within ten arc-seconds perpendicular to main gravitational body (Earth) or gravity leaks through. Second, stray cosmic rays have the disturbing habit of energizing the condensate about the phase-change temp and destroying the null-grav effect. I hope to have fixes by next week.
Even if you could negate inertia, your aircraft carrier would still be attracted to the earth.
If he's right, they'll call it that "Kajari Drive". That just doesn't ring for me. We need someone else to refine this and make it go. An Archer maybe, or a Cochrane. Now those are names a real space drive can wear. Hell even inter-compartment conduits get names like Jefferies Tubes. Kajari? No way. He can have an episode of his own when they serialize history (as we know they have, so we can see it but consider it fiction thus avoiding paradox), but not the name of the drive.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Imagine if you could lift an aircraft carrier sized ship in to space with nearly no energy, then accelerate to .999 light speed with no more thrust than a model rocket.
Note that one situation means low/zero gravitic mass, the other means low/zero inertial mass. You might be able to arbitrarily control both
This is just a wild stab in the dark, but I suspect that were you to create a working 'gravity shield', that the energy expenditure to cancel gravity's effects as you accelerated towards the speed of light will be the same as it would be if you were to simply accelerate towards the speed of light. (or possible more)
The laws of physics don't tend to hand out free lunches.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
I haven't read the paper, and I don't really understand the abstract, but it seems to be suggesting a linear and infinite gravity well. Are either of these criteria ever satisfied? Obviously not later, since there can't be an infinite gravity well, but what about the first? Gravity wells in free space are quadratic.
It seems to me that a linear gravity well would require a nonuniform, continuous (or at least much smaller than the QM wave packet in question) distribution of matter. Is that really plausible? You would need a very delocalized particle.
"The equivalence principle is one of the corner stones of general relativity. Now physicists have used quantum mechanics to show how it fails."
Alternatively, they could choose to look at this equivalent assertion: The wave-particle duality of matter is one of the cornerstones of quantum mechanics. Now physicists have used general relativity to show how quantum mechanics fails.
Of course, in actuality, they haven't shown anything yet...
1g is a measurement we made up. Since we define it as being equal to the gravity we normally feel, then yes, the gravity we feel on earth is the same as a spaceship accelerating at 1g.
I'm no Einstein, but, DUH!!
Actually, if one is going to make a SF reference here, I'll suggest going with "Noise Level" by Raymond F. Jones. The story involves tossing out the postulate of equivalence.
"The problem handed them was a nice, simple clear-cut item: They saw that one man had done the impossible-- and they saw, too, that they had to duplicate his feat."
All they claim is that they have a new way to test the equivalence principle. Indeed, they claim not even that; they just claim their theory might allow an experiment to test the equivalence principle. This is not very extraordinary. Of course the experiment has to be done, but all the paper does is say how to do it.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
The process of science goes back and forth between theory and experiment. The theory step is important, since it helps guide experiment.
So it's not "just" a pretty theory, in the sense of one that sits on the shelf and doesn't do anything. It makes prescriptions; it's participating in the back-and-forth between theoreticians and experimentalists.
Now we can make inertial dampeners! Let's get to work on the warp-engine, please.
This is just another example of quantum trickery. No fundamentally new principles have been derived. The potential applications are probably in material manufacturing, electronics, and perhaps astronomy, as most quantum applications are. As for "implications" for the macroscopic world, there are basically none. From what I understand, they basically used electromagnetic fields to play quantum tricks. In my opinion, nearly everything you can do with QM is basically like playing with shadows. You can make all the bunny rabbit and alligator shadows you want, but the basic physics of light is still the same.
Would this help to explain the Pioneer anomaly?
In my mind there is no difference between acceleration and gravity except gravity has a gradient of course!
I won't accept there is any difference in any context until someone produces a device capable of telling the two apart without cheating. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence and I demand nothing less.
You make a poor pedant. Possessive plurals end using an apostrophe. Not only is there no need for a trailing 's', but adding one is incorrect.
The situation you're thinking of is the singular possessive where the noun normally ends with an 's'. In this case, adding an apostrophe and an 's' is correct, though not typically used. It is appropriate to forgo the trailing 's' because an apostrophe can also signify missing letters, particularly when it alters pronunciation (as you pointed out).
Ambiguity in a language must always be minimized in order to maximize it's ability to function as a language - be it written, spoken, etc... You may have noticed I used "it's" as a possessive pronoun.
Is this meant as satire, or flamebait? "Its" is defined as the singular neuter possessive. It is a word in its own right, divorced from generalized rules of possession. Using "it's" inappropriately would be no better than "hi's" or "he'r". We don't write "him's" or "her's". Your rationalization falls on its face.
Besides, every facet of English was slang at some point. (and german, and old saxon, etc.) To deny the evolution of language is silly.
I think the Arrogant Pedants' Society is howling with laughter over your attempted ban.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
inertia/mass is always fun. just acceleration is fun too. No good physics reason we could not have a 1-g constant acceleration spaceship. It would get around the neighborhood nicely. But think of all the physics you should recheck! And not even just physics. I hear something about biological effects of zero-g not being quite right. Figure that one of the virtues of the universe is that there always be new stuff to discover. And then think about all the eminent talking heads who said there was nothing left to discover, circa 1900.
Well, it depends on just how sensitive the conditions are. They might need Forward mass neutralizers if they really need free-fall conditions (and aren't willing to go into a distant solar orbit). And those things would be HEAVY. And putting heavy things in orbit isn't cheap. And they also require fancy machining to ensure that each weight is precisely spherical and exactly the same weight.
Still, it's do-able, with enough effort.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Has anyone ever come up with a wave equation or quantum equation that predicts that particles bounce off each other?
wake up and hold your nose
Wind tunnel test of original enterprise
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
What I really want to know is ... which makes my ass look bigger? Inertial? Gravitational?
If you look at the actual article, the claim is not that "they show how it is possible to create situations in the quantum world in which the effects of inertial and gravitational mass must be different."
The paper claims that, in a uniform gravitational field, using quantum mechanical experiments it is possible to measure more than just the ratio of inertial to gravitational mass, NOT that quantum mechanics requires them to be different. Apparently, classically, only the ratio can be measured in a uniform gravitational field.
Rocket equation applied to a solar sail gives a maximum theoretical velocity of c.
If gravitational and inertial mass is separate, what mass is represented in that famous equation?
The Orion Project used a pulse nuclear drive, which using modern thermonuclear charges could achieve 1/10th C within 36 days of constant acceleration. This is technology that was pioneered in the sixties, but which became politically impossible due to the partial test ban treaty.
As far as I know, all quantum mechanics-related theories operate with the assumption that classical mechanics sufficiently correctly describes behavior of the particles involved (so all relativistic effects are swept under the carpet), and all applications of general relativity assume lack of quantum nature of anything involved (so quantum mechanics is swept under the carpet). Obviously, a theoretician operating in one of those fields can easily "discover" something that contradicts a theory from the other area when he wanders out of the area where those assumptions are applicable. In fact, this is inevitable because such boundaries exist for foreheads to be bumped at them.
If one made such "discovery" after he developed a consistent way to describe matter based on both quantum mechanics and general relativity (or suitable replacements of either if necessary), or after confirming such result in an experiment, this would make sense. Otherwise it's at most something that provides a direction toward experimental verification, or an idea where to look for a way to develop such theory. But treating such mental construct as a valid reflection of reality? -- No.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Two bouncyballs with equal inertial masses, but different charges. (and insulated). Same thing, but can be easily accomplished, and does not result a perpetual motion machine.
Also, I see why you said "bouncyballs". I started typing this with just the word "balls" and yeah, it does not read as intended...
Ok, this question has been bugging me for a short while, and this seems like the ideal place to bring it up, since it's somewhat on topic:
(1) We're always told how inertial mass and gravitational mass, while two distinct things, are always the same (up until today, anyway).
(2) We also know that mass increases with speed, which we use to explain why objects can't accelerate to the speed of light (infinite force required to overcome inertia, etc.)
(3) This would logically imply that gravitational mass increases with speed as well, and would further mean that gravitational attraction between two objects depends not only on their separation, but also on their relative velocities.
Are my conclusions correct? 'Cause that's kinda counterintuitive (although that's what tends to happen at the frontier of physics).
Of course I didn't RTFA.
Why go up when you can come back down? A Relativistic Kill Vehicle (RKV) might be in the works at that point. You think the H-Bomb was nasty? How about heaping dose of KE slammed into a continent of your choice.
Ahh Humans. We love to create as much as we love to destroy.
Life is not for the lazy.
http://xkcd.com/89/ It doesn't make sense now...
Seriously! This reminds me of those really fun goof-off days in physics class.
And in the next thread over, everybody could be bitching about politics and one more from that, D&D. This is like taking the best parts of school and dumping the rest.
Cheers, all!
-FL
First it's the birthplace of Einstein. And now this.
It's a bit strange that a hundred years ago EP was created by a hungarian, Lorand Eotvos, with his empirical experiments using the torsion balance he invented and now EP is dismantled by the results of another hungarian, Endre Kajari.
This is the First evidence that mass equations have to be written using complex numbers just like the 3 other elementary forces.
Maybe ou total mass is equal to something like: gravitational mass + i * inertial mass (or something similar)
If we're speaking of such a thing, the impact would be awesome:
1) elementary forces unification becomes possible. (all 4 elementary forces are managed by equations, all using complex numbers) no more need for null imaginary part for inertia/gravitation
2) having an imaginary part means that i=-1, thus speed faster than light is possible.(maybe a mater state change and properties change), but it becomes possible.
I can potentially see (via thought experiment) a difference between gravity and inertial mass...
Picture two identical hypothetical objects, each a mile long with identical large masses at the end of a thin support rod.
Place one on the Earth with the mass resting on the thin support rod, one mile from the surface.
Place the other similarly on the nose of a 'space ship' accelerating at exactly one gravity.
The mass leading the spaceship by a mile will experience exactly one gravity while the one spaced a mile above the Earth (a one gravity reference) will experience LESS than one gravity due to it's distance from the gravity source.
Don't like the small difference? Make the rods 10 miles or 100 miles long. At each increase the gravity effects on the Earth reference device will be reduced more due to distance from the source, while the apparent gravity experienced by the space ship based device will still be the exact same 1G.
Now step back from this and realize that it means that the effect of gravity, such as from the Earth's mass, is different for each part of ANY other mass, depending on its distance from the source, while the effect is IDENTICAL for each part of any mass experiencing "pseudo" gravity due to constant acceleration, no matter where located.
It would make more sense in pictures, and even more in mathematical terms, but I am not even going to try. I quit doing that sort of stuff 30 or 40 years ago.
Maybe someone can bother to rough it out and see what shows up?
--
Tomas
There's no maximum theoretical speed for a rocket. As soon as you hit limits with mass ratios for fuel/payload you just add another booster stage. If you want arbitrarily large deltaV, you just keep adding more and more, bigger and bigger stages.
Impractical to carry on going down that route, but theoretically valid.
Also, the limits on antimatter rockets as currently described are mostly a matter of being unable to properly contain the exhaust with anything but a magnetic field and a lot of wasted energy. That's an engineering limit, not a theoretical one. I'm going to guess that making a gamma-reflective mirror is a hell of a lot easier than applying quantum trickery to an entire vehicle.
I don't have a lot of gravitational mass ... it's my bones that have a lot of inertia.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
So does this mean that G-forces in fighter planes would be something else? As I've understood the G in g-force stands for gravitational, but maneuvering F-16 should produce inertial forces?
No, you still need displacement. And the displacement force is the compression waves. And those compression waves go at the speed of the phonons. And that, my friend, is the speed of sound.
It's quite a bit faster in an iron rod than in air, mind.
The electrical force may be felt at the speed of light in that medium, but the energy transfer of the bulk product is the energy transfer at the speed of sound.
Going faster than that requires a section of the medium to move at supersonic speeds through the rest of the medium and that would break the rest of the product in the same way as a bullet through a brick breaks the brick.
NOTE: the "supersonic" jets that cause planetary nebula are compressions for the medium at greater than the speed of sound IN THAT JET, not in the interstellar medium that it is pushing through, where sonic speeds are ~8mph.
Knowing the difference between Relativity and Quantum Mechanics fail.
er if you Nearly Miss something don't you hit it?
I could be wrong, but it seems to me that if you feel an acceleration due to inertia, the effect would be the same at all points (your feet, your head), while if this acceleration is due to gravity, the effect would be stronger (however vanishingly so) closer to the origin of the gravitational field. Does this alone not mean that the effects aren't exactly equivalent?
Sorry, not a physicist, and not a particularly well educated layman either. :-/
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
Ahh Humans. We love to create as much as we love to destroy.
Speak for yourself; only some of them love to destroy. And the sooner we can euthanize them, the better off we'll all be.
I cannea take it no more cap'tin
To damp - to reduce
To dampen - to make moist
So unless you got some quantum sponge or something, yer getting it wrong! Please use "inertia dampers" instead.
You're going to need to back up your assertion with a dictionary of some kind, because the resources I have handy say either word can take either meaning.
dictionary.com "dampen"
dictionary.com "damp"
Bow-ties are cool.
I think the ratio is stacked heavily in favor of destroyers. When's the last time you relocated a fly instead of swatting it? Consumption is destructive, though necessary to survive. In fact, the very process of creating necessarily involves the destruction of something else.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Well well well,
Looks like I'm on the wrong end of a common misconception of a perceived misconception...
Well well well,
Looks like I'm on the wrong end of a common misconception of a perceived misconception...
Careful, you could take out Norman with a sentence like that... :) As it is, I'm slightly lost.
I wouldn't trust reference.com to the ends of the Earth or anything, but I was curious to see if you were right, and I tried the resources I had handy...
Bow-ties are cool.
True, but only in the gravity well. That's a problem that can be solved by (admittedly inefficient) multistage systems. Once outside it's still the inertial mass that matters, so unless you can somehow trade one for the other, the problem with the rocket equation is still there.
The maximum velocity for any spacecraft is not 0.1 C, it's dependent on the velocity of the exhaust (specific impulse) and more.
Here's a fairly good article for laymen.
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
Not trying to be pedantic, but the word is "predictions" and not "prescriptions" ;-)
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
In this particular case, I did mean "prescriptions". They are recommending a course of action, an experiment that can be performed. It's more than just a prediction about an experiment that couldn't be performed in practice.
But yes, that prescription includes a prediction about what will happen when you do the experiment.
What you have to realize though is that if the experiment yields m_i=m_g then QM fails.
NO! I understand why you say that because the article was written in a very confusing way and that was my first impression when I read it - which is why I downloaded the paper to get a proper explanation because such a conclusion could not be correct!
What the paper shows is that the energy states of the system they describe depend differently on the inertial and gravitational mass. Hence by studying the energy levels of the system you can figure out whether m_i=m_g or not. It is entirely possibly to put m_i=m_g into all their equations and have a perfectly valid QM system...the interesting thing is that if this is not the system you physically observe then you can probably conclude that m_i!=m_g.
"Forward mass neutralizers"?...
One that hath name thou can not otter