Question by lordmysterious12: Please, need a real scientist’s answer to this long & complex question (not for school)?
Thanks for looking at my question. This is very complicated and more than a little unusual, so please, if you’re just guessing or think you might know, don’t answer. Please only answer if you’re actually a qualified scientist with some expertise in these fields. Thank you.
Ok. I am an (amateur/just starting out) fantasy and science fiction writer. However, I probably don’t know as much about very specific snd technical aspects of science as I should. I’m trying right now to write a big sci-fi, space opera-y, kind of epic. I wouldn’t say it’s nevcessarily “hard sci-fi”, but I DO want everything in it to at least be physically possible.
Which leads me to my dilemma, because a huge theme, a central theme in the book in fact, is a race of characters with psionic – telepathic, psychokinetic – powers. What I am trying to figure out is, is there ANY conceivable way to make this physically possible?
Now I know that according to science, telekinesis is impossible. But is there any way to possibly posit how it COULD be possible, without violating physical laws?
Let’s first assume, as Arthur C. Clarke did when he wrote “Contact”, that we are dealing with an arbitrarily advanced civilization. Their technology is so far advanced that they can accomplish anything not specifically prevented by the laws of physics.
With that out of the way, think about an animal such as a strongly electric fish, like an electric ray or electric eel. They use electrocytes in their “electric organ” to blast electromagnetic energy out of their bodies. Theoretically, human brain cells, which already transmit electricity, could be modified to function in this same fashion.
Now we know that electromagnetic energy, aka photons, can move an object. This is demonstrated by the theoretical “solar sail” in space and other phenomena. Light aka photons aka electromagnetic fields, are both a particle and a wave. They have mass and they can push stuff. I suspect, however, that the amount of electromagnetic energy that would be needed to move even a small object inside a planet’s gravitational pull would be gargantuan. I doubt these theoretical cells would be up to the task.
However, assuming again that this race is arbitrarily advanced, they could nano-lathe these cells together from scratch, building them atom by atom. They wouldn’t need to copy nature’s designs, and could build atomic machinery as effecient as physically possible within that confined space.
So basically my question is – and I would imagine that arriving at the answer would require quite a bit of mathematical calculations, which aren’t exactly my strong suit either – would it be physically possible, even with these “arbitrarily perfectly efficient” cells, to physically pack enough of them into the space of a human skull to be able to generate enough electromagnetic energy to move objects around against a gravitational pull?
To mr.c ok that answers much of my question, thank you. So, ok, to theoretically have it make sense I should say that these cells have a wacky combination of atoms that are engineered to be able to build up an electric charge very fast?
I’d rather not go into conceits like subspace fields or quantum non-locality stuff, but just keep it strictly an electromagnetic phenomenon. As far as Newton’s Third Law, think of these theoretical cells as being like little radio antennas. Antennas don’t get blasted apart by reaction force when they transmit huge amounts of energy.
Best answer:
Answer by nealjking
UPDATE 2:
mr.c, one can imagine & speculate about all sorts of sources of energy and power. My specific point here is that, whatever the source might be, how do you handle it without being destroyed? How does your skull channel/handle/manage 6000 MW of power without being destroyed?
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UPDATE:
– To mr.c’s answer: I think the principles of conservation of momentum and energy don’t give much scope for the ideas you are suggesting: There is nothing in modern quantum theories that gives any particular hope for these problems; and putting the solution in subsidiary universes with different rules is just saying, “Break the known rules.”
– To lordmyst’s comment: Building up an electric charge fast won’t help, because you have to get it from somewhere: If you take it from surrounding matter, you will expend enormous amounts of energy and generate huge electric fields. If you take it from somewhere else, you will be violating conservation of electric charge, a big no-no.
Antennas don’t get blasted apart because they are NOT transmitting significant amounts of energy. The radiative reaction force is real: It is what keeps the stars from collapsing immediately. If you are going to channel a macroscopic amount of force through your head, using electromagnetic fields, you have to channel the associated amount of energy. It’s going to have to be an awful lot: Notice that the Sun’s radiative power is blasting away at the Earth, but it doesn’t make much impact on the gravitational pull between them. You will need an enormous amount of radiative power to make a macroscopic effect on a spoon: For example, if you beamed light upwards against an object to hold up 1 kg against gravity, to generate a force of 1 * g = 9.8 (N) from photons of energy E and momentum E/c at a rate of n photons per second, because of the bouncing photons:
2*(E/c)*n = 9.8
Power = E*n = (9.8 * c)/2 = 19.6 * 3 *10^8 = 5.88*10^9 (W)
This is the output of a 6000-MW power plant. Where is this supposed to come from, and how are your cells supposed to handle it?
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You seem to be slightly confusing two separate concepts:
– “Solar sails” which catch light energy (and thus momentum) to ride outward from the Sun
– “cells” that are designed from step one to somehow facilitate transfer of electromagnetic energy against gravitational pull
There are two major problems with your concept:
– Conservation of momentum: If something in a skull is doing something to transmit force to an external object, there has to be something that receives the equal-and-opposite reaction force, according to Newton’s 3rd law. You don’t want to have this something be in your brain: The sensible way to move a spoon is to pick it up, not to dent your brain!
– Using electromagnetic energy: If the something that receives the reaction force is not your brain but an external source (in the solar-sail case, the outgoing radiation field of the Sun), you have to catch enough energy and momentum to do the job. In the solar-sail case, this comes from the large area of the sail, that can capture a large-enough amount of solar energy. If this energy is to be captured in the neighborhood of your head, you can’t capture very much momentum in that relatively small area, without needing an enormous amount of electromagnetic power near your head. Blowing up your head to move a spoon also seems like a cost-ineffective way to do the job.
Of course, I am not even addressing the question of the mechanism to be used: My point is that, even without addressing the specific mechanism, that general conservation principles of momentum and energy impose very difficult conditions to meet.
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