i’ve written the following paper. what do you think of it?
full pdf here: https://files.catbox.moe/xaoyto.pdf
please give constructive criticism and don’t just say “muh duh impossible”
Energy travels though a physical medium at the speed of sound so the tug could not actually reach the generator.
I don’t know anything about physics, but the AI that made your image labeled it wrong.
yeah i know 🥲️ i would have made the sketch myself but it would have taken 15 minutes and i wanted to get it done before i lose motivation and put the whole project in the drawer. because that’s what happens, i have ADHD.
This would actually work, though of course you would never get more energy out of it than it took to set it all up. But conservation of energy doesn’t actually apply when expanding space time is involved. The universe doesn’t actually conserve energy in all cases. Or hell, in most cases.
I’m not sure what’s going on with your power calculation there. Edit: It should be the Hubble constant times length times whatever tension you let build up in the wire from the generator’s resistance to movement. Planetary masses are only significant as your contraption gradually starts the endpoints moving.
Even mithril will have to break before it’s moving faster than lightspeed. Otherwise, sure, fill your boots. If you set up in a gravitationally neutral area, it should start noticeably moving at around a light year of extension. You’ll need way more to overcome the escape velocity of the Earth, sun and Milky Way, though.
One problem with your thought experiment is that it is by its definition not generating infinite energy.
The way I understand it is that a remote body will tug on a mithril wire which turns a generator as it unspools. Alright, fair enough for a thought experiment on it’s own, but without any reciprocating action, infinite energy would require an infinitely large spool to unwind.
Another problem is that the laws of cosmic expansion affects the wire itself. There would be no tugging force between the two bodies. Connecting the two bodies imposes a constraint on them, disrupting the Hubble flow.
Another problem is that the laws of cosmic expansion affects the wire itself. There would be no tugging force between the two bodies. Connecting the two bodies imposes a constraint on them, disrupting the Hubble flow.
This was my first thought on the matter. My understanding at least, is that the expansion of the universe is not really galaxies moving away from each other, but rather the space between the galaxies expanding (stretching). So if a mythril wire ran far across that space between galaxies, one of two things would most likely happen. Either the space would not expand almost like it’s pinned in place by the existence of matter in that region, or the space would continue to expand and the mythril wire would appear to stretch with it, though actually it would be remaining entirely still, either way, the wire would not be unspooling at all.
The mithril wire would be put under tension by the expansion of space, the same as if it was laying on a stretching piece of rubber. Space would largely ignore it, because it’s only sensitive to sizeable changes in the stress-energy tensor, and a segment of wire isn’t that heavy.
Ok, let’s use that example. So imagine you had a large square of rubber and you drew a coordinate plane on it. Then you drew a line segment between points (1,1) and (3,1). You can stretch the rubber until it’s significantly longer, but your line is always exactly 2 units long, even if the rubber stretches.
The thing is, space is the geometry of the universe, it’s what all the various particles in the universe are bound to. Matter isn’t fixed to any point relative to other matter, it’s fixed to a point in space. So if space bends, matter bends with it.
This is how/why orbits work. Gravity is mass warping spacetime. Fast objects like photons sail right on by most stars with their courses barely changed. But slower moving objects like planets are experiencing this local warping of spacetime for a longer period, so it affects them more over time. The thing to note though, is that the planets, and photons are both following newtons first law, they’re traveling in a straight line unless acted upon by another object. The reason the planet orbits the star is that the star has warped space such that (given speed the planet is traveling) an orbit is a straight line.
Then you drew a line segment between points (1,1) and (3,1). You can stretch the rubber until it’s significantly longer, but your line is always exactly 2 units long, even if the rubber stretches.
Ah, but then we couldn’t see or experience gravity at all!
In differential geometry there’s a very important distinction between coordinate distance and actual distance. The globe and GPS coordinates give a good example - one degree of longitude is throwing distance at South Pole Station, but ~111km at the equator, even though it’s still one degree. On a curved surface additive coordinates will never describe actual distance exactly. In some cases, like a 2-spherical planet, they’re even guaranteed to break down somewhere (like the exact poles).
It was a blunder mentioning rubber - this isn’t about bowling balls on a trampoline. I just meant that solid matter has a natural spacing between atoms, and if something continuously pulls it away from that - like expanding space or, I don’t know, two conveyor belts going opposite ways - it’s going to respond with a constant tension offsetting the effect. Or break.
The reason the planet orbits the star is that the star has warped space such that (given speed the planet is traveling) an orbit is a straight line.
And annoyingly, that’s only possible in more dimensions than we can picture. All a 1+1 dimensional space can do is expand or contract.
Gravity is mass warping spacetime.
Okay, nitpick
but if it’s something relativistic space-like momentum can be just as important as energy. The matter half of the Einstein equation(s) treats every component of 4-momentum equally.
Except matter IS fixed relative to other matter its how geasutres vaguely at all solids/liquids/most gasses works. The space the line is in would stretch, which would stretch the line, and then the line would contract again due to the bonds between its atoms producing tension. Of course since expansion is continuous eventually the line would snap, or if expansion suddenly became linear then the tension would reach an equilibrium and thus you couldn’t extract energy from it.
Matter doesn’t stretch endlessly, though. Think about the individual mithril atoms, there’s the same number but they have more space to cover as time goes on. The wire would gain some tension as space tries to expand it, and relaxing that tension could be used for power generation.
Or it would break. We can fudge something unnaturally strong but at some point the speed of sound in the material starts brushing against lightspeed and it just has to give.
Another problem is that cosmic expansion affects the wire itself.
Not if its mithril :P
Fucking dwarves, man, breaking the laws of physics for fun.
Do you want to piss off a balrog? Because that’s how you piss off a balrog.
That’s why he fought Gandalf: Magic breaks physics.
infinite energy would require an infinitely large spool to unwind.
yeah i thought about that too, thanks for bringing it up! i forgot to write it in the paper
the idea is to generate a matter-antimatter pair out of the energy that you generate with the generator, and then you turn the matter into new Mithril thread. This way, you can add new wire to the spool similar to how one would put additional chain links on a chain link chain (
). You can even see the smithing sections, where the chain elements are smithed together to close them after attaching them to the chain. If you do this, you make the wire longer as you go.
Connecting the two bodies imposes a constraint on them, disrupting the Hubble flow.
I’m not sure if i understand this correctly. In an abstract sense, we’re already mechanically associated to very distant planets (and stars), in the form of electromagnetic radiation. Since electromagnetic radiation carries momentum, one could ask what’s the fundamental difference between electromagnetic radiation and a long wire? Both transport momentum. Why would one disrupt the Hubble law but the other one not? I don’t see a good reason for that.
It’s important to distinguish between interaction and constraints. Electromagnetic radiation is a connection, in a sense, but it is not functioning as a constrain, I. E. it does not mechanically link the two bodies. While they do have an effect on each other, their interaction with spacetime is still separated.
Hubble flow is only disrupted if two bodies in a system have a spatial constraint. Radiation does not provide such a constraint. Gravity can, under some circumstances, but it is not considered a rigid constraint in most cases.
General relativity is weird, I know.
Wire doesn’t actually provide a constraint either, we just tend to pretend it does when we’re sure it won’t break. At hypersonic speeds metal acts like a liquid, and at relativistic speeds matter particles do act like radiation.
Zoom in enough and it’s all just waves. Presumably the mithril too, if it’s at all compatible with relativity.
I get that it’s an infinite energy generator, not an infinite electrical generator. But you might as well finish the job and add the part where the energy heats water into steam for the turbines, just to be thorough.
Or just directly have the wire wrapped around an alternator making electricity.
Way way way easier to use those mithril hooks & amazing wire to just lower an object into a black hole and reap the gravitational energy
yeah but that’s not infinite :)
It is the same concept isn’t it? With infinity long spool you will have infinite energy…
I was gonna say because black holes evaporate but what if you continue to feed the black holes with the energy that you generate from the generator? that might work
The wire itself contains mass-energy (I think? I mean, you make the rules). If it’s a decent-size black hole it’ll more than offset what’s lost to Hawking radiation.
The basic idea could even work in practice, although material strength limitations mean the approach tends to be less about hooks and more about capturing the radiative heat of things colliding on their way in.
Is not also the universe expected to stop expanding?
Why not?
Is the tensile strength approximately infinite and/or the weight of the wire close to zero?
If they are not I’ll play around with something at work tomorrow if I’m not too busy. Eg something 100 times “better” than steel, would it stretch due being anchored by it’s own weight rather than move the other end at astronomical distances.
U WOT M8?
