What's wrong with the inertialess drive?
William George Ferguson
>Has the inertialess drive ever been used anywhere besides the Lensmen
>books? I've never seen it and I'm puzzled. As far as FTL technologies go
>it really doesn't seem all that far fetched. Granted, it needs a
>reactionless drive, but even those aren't all that uncommon in modern SF.
>It also has a number of fun side effects.
The real problem with inertialess drive is, of course, in the 'fun
side effects'. If nothing with the Bergenholm field has inertia then
air doesn't move, except momentarily when jostled. Air circulation
machinery wouldn't work, since drafts, of course, are dependent on
intertia. Your circulatory system is also dependent on inertia for
proper functioning. The blood will just stop where it is between each
contraction or expansion of the heart. Matter of fact, molecular
motion is dependent on inertia. Without inertia, everything would
probably immediately achieve 0 degrees Kelvin.
I really enjoyed, and still enjoy, both the Lensmen and the Skylark
books. I have, however, employed a willing suspension of belief ever
since I thought to do some simple math. Both of Smith's FTL drives
are impractical, without even resorting to relativity.
Ross TenEyck
>On 26 Jun 1996 21:10:15 -0400, je...@watson.ibm.com (Jeff Tang) wrote:
>>Has the inertialess drive ever been used anywhere besides the Lensmen
>>books? I've never seen it and I'm puzzled. As far as FTL technologies go
>>it really doesn't seem all that far fetched. Granted, it needs a
>>reactionless drive, but even those aren't all that uncommon in modern SF.
>>It also has a number of fun side effects.
Actually, if I recall the books correctly, it does NOT involve a
reactionless drive... I think the idea is you convert a large amount of
energy into a small amount of matter, which is somehow or other outside
the "inertialess" field, and then you use that matter as reaction mass.
The details on how the inert matter/inertialess matter interactions work
are hazy; probably because it doesn't stand up under inspection :)
>The real problem with inertialess drive is, of course, in the 'fun
>side effects'. If nothing with the Bergenholm field has inertia then
>air doesn't move, except momentarily when jostled. Air circulation
>machinery wouldn't work, since drafts, of course, are dependent on
>intertia. Your circulatory system is also dependent on inertia for
>proper functioning. The blood will just stop where it is between each
>contraction or expansion of the heart. Matter of fact, molecular
>motion is dependent on inertia. Without inertia, everything would
>probably immediately achieve 0 degrees Kelvin.
Picky, picky, picky... :)
>I really enjoyed, and still enjoy, both the Lensmen and the Skylark
>books. I have, however, employed a willing suspension of belief ever
>since I thought to do some simple math. Both of Smith's FTL drives
>are impractical, without even resorting to relativity.
I don't remember... did they ever actually discuss how they were
breaking the light barrier in the Skylark books, or did they just ignore
the whole problem?
(Personally, I tend to favor the approach taken by several authors --
Schmitz's _Witches of Karres_ springs to mind, but there are many others
-- who just say that the ship has "drives" and are done with it. If you
don't give details, they can't be proven wrong, can they? Ask me not
how my FTL drive works, and I'll tell you no lies...)
--
============== http://weber.u.washington.edu/~teneyck/home.html ==============
Ross TenEyck MS Mech Eng | A crow pecks at the wind-tossed scrap of paper,
ten...@u.washington.edu | scavenging between the lines of an old letter;
Tsuki ni kawatte oshioki yo! | he hoards stories like flecks of quartz.
Gharlane of Eddore
je...@watson.ibm.com (Jeff Tang) writes:
>
> Has the inertialess drive ever been used anywhere besides the Lensmen
> books? I've never seen it and I'm puzzled. As far as FTL technologies
> go it really doesn't seem all that far fetched. Granted, it needs a
> reactionless drive, but even those aren't all that uncommon in modern
> SF. It also has a number of fun side effects.
>
(The Inertialess Drive does *not* need a "reactionless drive."
If you'll recall, the Galactic Patrol ships used standard reaction
drives even after the Bergenholms were turned on.)
The "fun side effects" grew out of a discussion with various of
EES' buddies, and with the editor, John W. Campbell, Jr.
Best side effect: conservation of momentum.
......the intrinsic velocity is conserved, and
re-appears when the power is shut off.
In answer to your question, no, EES is not the only person who used
"inertialess." Near the beginning of Heinlein's "METHUSELAH'S CHILDREN,"
you'll find Andy Jackson Libby's version of the Inertialess Drive.
There's a wonderful subliminal reference to this in the M.C. dialog;
Libby starts to unhook the drive, once they're in motion, and someone
(Lazarus Long?) tells him not to, because they'll lose all their
velocity. Libby comments that it's ridiculous, unhooks his drive,
and the ship doesn't slow down.
In other words, the "LENSMAN" universe Bergenholm Generator returns
you to "inert" state with the same velocity (momentum) that you had
when you turned on the generator and went "free."
The "METHUSELAH'S CHILDREN" universe Libby Generator returns you
to "inert" state with the new velocity vector retained.
The Libby Generator *appears* to give you something for nothing.
This was a purposeful joke Heinlein played, because every time someone
brought it up, he'd drag out references that discounted the possibility
of anything like the Bergenholms, and make cracks about, "If *he* gets
to do a fantasy space drive, so do I!" (Remember, Heinlein and EES were
friends, and both had evil senses of humor.)
In one of Larry Niven's "Known Space" stories, Beowulff Schaeffer
and his buddy Elephant buy a velocity boost from an "Outsider"
ship so they can catch up to a very fast-moving destination.
Somehow the Outsiders hook on to Elephant's ship and boost it
to a considerable fraction of the speed of light with no real
discomfort to the passengers. This drive is never explained,
but it *seems* to be getting around inertia somehow....
William George Ferguson
>>I really enjoyed, and still enjoy, both the Lensmen and the Skylark
>>books. I have, however, employed a willing suspension of belief ever
>>since I thought to do some simple math. Both of Smith's FTL drives
>>are impractical, without even resorting to relativity.
ten...@u.washington.edu (Ross TenEyck) wrote:
>I don't remember... did they ever actually discuss how they were
>breaking the light barrier in the Skylark books, or did they just ignore
>the whole problem?
Pretty much ignored it (there was a short exchange between Seaton and
Crane at one point). The real problem with the Skylark drive in SoS
and SIII was the acceleration. Generally they got around by
accelerating constantly at one gravity (with the thought that 9.8
meters per second every second really mounts up over time). Ignoring
relativity, at a constant one gravity acceleration it would take you
over 357 daye to reach the speed of light, at which point you would be
somewhere out in the oort cloud (presuming you started from Earth).
That's a long way away from the Green System. When Duquesne's drive
ran away for a couple of days in SoS, figuring on an accelertion that
wouldn't leave them as greasy blotches on the floor, his ship should
have been somewhere between the orbit of Mars and the orbit of
Jupiter. I don't think there are any collapsed stars in that area,
although astronomy isn't my strong point.
By Skylark of Valeron, they were using acceleration fields, where
everything within the field was accelerated uniformly (making them
effectively weightless in the field, they would then superimpose a 1 g
additional acceleration just to give them weight effect.
>(Personally, I tend to favor the approach taken by several authors --
>Schmitz's _Witches of Karres_ springs to mind, but there are many others
>-- who just say that the ship has "drives" and are done with it. If you
>don't give details, they can't be proven wrong, can they? Ask me not
>how my FTL drive works, and I'll tell you no lies...)
This works especially well when your main character isn't a
super-scientist inventor, sort of like a driver not trying to explain
the internal combustion engine.
Dorothy J Heydt
William George Ferguson <fr...@primenet.com> wrote:
[quoting somebody]
>
>>... just say that the ship has "drives" and are done with it....
>
>This works especially well when your main character isn't a
>super-scientist inventor, sort of like a driver not trying to explain
>the internal combustion engine.
Or, as Sturgeon put it, not having the lover run up the steps to
ring his beloved's doorbell and then stopping to explain all the
electrical circuitry and the dry, dry cells.
Dorothy J. Heydt
djh...@uclink.berkeley.edu
University of California
Berkeley
Mark Garrett
(Ross TenEyck) wrote:
>(Personally, I tend to favor the approach taken by several authors --
>Schmitz's _Witches of Karres_ springs to mind, but there are many others
>-- who just say that the ship has "drives" and are done with it. If you
>don't give details, they can't be proven wrong, can they? Ask me not
>how my FTL drive works, and I'll tell you no lies...)
>
Another case of this is in Weber's _Empire_ series (Mutineer's Moon,
Armeggedon Inheritance, Heirs of Empire) in which he uses at teh end a
total of 3(!) different kinds of drives to move his ships (the size of
large moons). 2 are FTL, and one sublight, all inertialess. He also uses
inertialess "transit shafts" to travel through these ships.
Mark
--
-------------------------------------
Mark Garrett mgar...@rice.edu
RiceInfo Multimedia Content Developer
Rice University Houston, TX
Jeff Tang
>On 26 Jun 1996 21:10:15 -0400, je...@watson.ibm.com (Jeff Tang) wrote:
>>Has the inertialess drive ever been used anywhere besides the Lensmen
>>books? I've never seen it and I'm puzzled. As far as FTL technologies go
>>it really doesn't seem all that far fetched. Granted, it needs a
>>reactionless drive, but even those aren't all that uncommon in modern SF.
>>It also has a number of fun side effects.
>
>The real problem with inertialess drive is, of course, in the 'fun
>side effects'. If nothing with the Bergenholm field has inertia then
>air doesn't move, except momentarily when jostled. Air circulation
>machinery wouldn't work, since drafts, of course, are dependent on
Most fanlinke mechanisms for moving air won't work, but some bellows
type thing will. The air that gets circulated will really circulate it
will just tend to radiate from the outlet in a spherical pattern rather
than linearly. It just take a little more push and you're ok.
>intertia. Your circulatory system is also dependent on inertia for
>proper functioning. The blood will just stop where it is between each
>contraction or expansion of the heart. Matter of fact, molecular
Inertia play some role here but not too much. The flexibility of the
vascular system is mostly what accounts for blood movement between heart
beats.
>motion is dependent on inertia. Without inertia, everything would
>probably immediately achieve 0 degrees Kelvin.
Hm. Definitely more of a problem. We'll hand wave this one and say the
bergenholm only affects inertia on a macro and not a micro level :)
Matthew J. McIrvin
(Gharlane of Eddore) wrote:
> In answer to your question, no, EES is not the only person who used
> "inertialess." Near the beginning of Heinlein's "METHUSELAH'S CHILDREN,"
> you'll find Andy Jackson Libby's version of the Inertialess Drive.
> There's a wonderful subliminal reference to this in the M.C. dialog;
> Libby starts to unhook the drive, once they're in motion, and someone
> (Lazarus Long?) tells him not to, because they'll lose all their
> velocity. Libby comments that it's ridiculous, unhooks his drive,
> and the ship doesn't slow down.
I liked Heinlein's version better than Smith's, because it seemed to
me that Smith's would kill all of the occupants of the ship, as soon as
the inertialess air molecules stopped dead at the first bulkhead.
--
Matt McIrvin http://world.std.com/~mmcirvin/
Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey
> (The Inertialess Drive does *not* need a "reactionless drive."
> If you'll recall, the Galactic Patrol ships used standard reaction
> drives even after the Bergenholms were turned on.)
>
>
> The "fun side effects" grew out of a discussion with various of
> EES' buddies, and with the editor, John W. Campbell, Jr.
Back in East Lansing, Mike Brandl came up with a sign to hang over his
toilet that read:
DO NOT FLUSH
WHILE THE SHIP IS INERTIALESS
This gag has since popped up in fan art and other contexts...
O~~* /_) ' / / /_/ ' , , ' ,_ _ \|/
- ~ -~~~~~~~~~~~/_) / / / / / / (_) (_) / / / _\~~~~~~~~~~~zap!
/ \ (_) (_) / | \
| | Bill Higgins Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory
\ / Bitnet: HIG...@FNAL.BITNET
- - Internet: HIG...@FNAL.FNAL.GOV
~ SPAN/Hepnet: 43009::HIGGINS
Arnold Bailey
>>(Personally, I tend to favor the approach taken by several authors --
>>Schmitz's _Witches of Karres_ springs to mind, but there are many others
>>-- who just say that the ship has "drives" and are done with it. If you
>>don't give details, they can't be proven wrong, can they? Ask me not
>>how my FTL drive works, and I'll tell you no lies...)
>>
>Another case of this is in Weber's _Empire_ series (Mutineer's Moon,
>Armeggedon Inheritance, Heirs of Empire) in which he uses at teh end a
>total of 3(!) different kinds of drives to move his ships (the size of
>large moons). 2 are FTL, and one sublight, all inertialess. He also uses
>inertialess "transit shafts" to travel through these ships.
>
Or James Blish's spindizzy that makes a bubble that ignores the rest of the
universe. Things inside the bubble act normally.
--
Arnold Bailey - aba...@bix.com - aba...@webwrights.com
WebWrights - Web Services, Web Pages and Web Site Management
http://www.webwrights.com/
Robert Sneddon
On 26 Jun 1996 21:10:15 -0400, je...@watson.ibm.com (Jeff Tang) wrote:
>Has the inertialess drive ever been used anywhere besides the Lensmen
>books? I've never seen it and I'm puzzled. As far as FTL technologies go
>it really doesn't seem all that far fetched. Granted, it needs a
>reactionless drive, but even those aren't all that uncommon in modern SF.
>It also has a number of fun side effects.
>
That information will cost you one trillion stars. (Visa/MasterCard?)
--
"We've got a kilo of grass, a case of Scotch and a crate full of Uzis -
"Let's go to Disneyworld !!!!!"
Robert (nojay) Sneddon
James Pasham
djh...@uclink.berkeley.edu (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
Larry Niven has been known to shunt aside certian key aspects for a
good story (Has there been any mention of religion in the Known Space
series?? the closes't thing to a God is Niven himself) So I think
that Niven's Inertialess drive falls into the "It's really neat,
so...IT WORKS" category.
The Cycles that are used by Louis Wu and Teela and the others on the
Ringworld seemed to me to be both reactionless and Intertialess. But
it was Pupeteer tech. and there could be any number of things that the
humans aren't supposed to know untill Niven Wants them to.
RSmith177
>Has the inertialess drive ever been used anywhere besides the Lensmen
>books? I've never seen it and I'm puzzled. As far as FTL technologies
go
>it really doesn't seem all that far fetched. Granted, it needs a
>reactionless drive, but even those aren't all that uncommon in modern SF.
>It also has a number of fun side effects.
>
Robert Heinlein used one in Methuselah's Children, but that one wasn't
FTL IIRC.
aRJay
Mark Barltrop
> rsmi...@aol.com (RSmith177) wrote in article
<4sk8m1$8...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>...
horizon etc- although its nature is not known in the first book)
In Lensman, the Inertialess drive does not require a
reactionless drive-unless you mean it itself is reactionless-the drives
that actually propel the intertialess ship are reaction drives- photon
drives for the most part, although I seem to remember a diesel being used
at one stage!
--
Mark Barltrop (tac...@mistral.co.uk)
"He's not even drawn his sword!"
"He doesn't need to,he's got a loaded wolf"
(Terry Pratchett,"Feet of Clay")