Starquake
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The same thing happens in gravity. The basic source of all the forces is the mass of whatever particles you are using. The mass generates a gravity field. If you move the particles to form a mass current, the current generates a new field that is the gravitational equivalent of the magnetic field. In Figure 10 we show a torus wrapped with tubing carrying a mass current T and generating the new field P called the protational or Lense-Thirring field. If you increase or decrease the protational field, it will generate a gravity field G at the center of the catapult that will push any object at the center of the ring in an upward direction. The cheela gravity catapults must work in somewhat the same manner, but it is also obvious that new physics must be involved. The Einstein theory would predict that a machine using neutron star density material could not make a strong enough gravity field to catapult a spacecraft off Egg.
The most amazing ultra-dense machine the cheela constructed was a miniature space-warp. The Einstein General Theory of Relativity can give us a clue to its formation, but only a clue, since the size of the space-warp that they made was much larger than what the Einstein theory would have predicted. There is a relatively simple exact solution to the full Einstein field equations that describes the exterior field of a dense spinning mass. It is called the Kerr metric solution.
If you assume that the spinning mass is in the form of an ultra-dense ring as is shown in Figure 11, with mass M and electric or magnetic charge Q, then using the Kerr metric, it can be shown9-10 that if the spinning ring is dense enough and spinning rapidly enough, it acts like a space-warp and a time machine combined. When a small object is sent through the center of the ring, it does not come out the other side!
Instead, the mathematics predicts that the object enters a hy-perspace where time and space have been interchanged. If the object is moved with or against the spin of the ring, it is moved backward or forward in time. To return to our universe,
the object is merely moved back through the hole in the ring once again. Such a rapidly rotating ultra-dense ring is obviously unstable and it took all the advanced technology
NORMAL SPACE
HVPERSPACE
Figure 11. Kerr Metric Space Warp
of the cheela to keep the ring stable long enough to attempt a
rescue.
REFERENCES
1. S. K. Takahashi, J. K. Thomas, and P. C. Niven, Neutron Star Dynamics, McGraw-Hill (2053).
2. R. Ramaty et al., "Origin of the 5 March 1979 Gamma-Ray Transient: A Vibrating Neutron Star," Nature 287, 122 (11 Sept 1980).
3. E. P. T. Liang, "Inverse Comptonization and the Nature of
the March 1979 Gamma-Ray Burst Event," Nature 292, 319 (23 July 1981).
4. V. Trimble, "A Successful Glitch-Hunt," Nature 353, 666 (31 Oct 1991).
5. R. L. Forward, "Flattening Spacetime near the Earth," Phys. Rev. D26, 735 (1982).
6. F. J. Tipler, "Rotating Cylinders and the Possibility of Global Causality Violation," Phys. Rev. D9, 2203 (1974).
7. R. L. Forward, "General Relativity for the Experimentalist," Proc. IRE (now Proc. IEEE) 49, 1442 (1961).
8. R. L. Forward, "Guidelines to Antigravity," Am. J. Physics 31, 166 (1963).
9. B. Carter, "Complete Analytic Extension of the Symmetry Axis of Kerr's Solution of Einstein's Equations," Phys. Rev. 141, 1242 (1966).
10. B. Carter, "Global Structure of the Kerr Family of Gravitational Fields," Phys. Rev. 174, 1559 (1968).
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Prelude
Leaving
Danger
Rescue
Quiet
Quake!
Marooned
Sacrifice
Barbarian
Landing
Emperor
Escape
Technical Appendix