Start a conversation about any given piece of science fiction mentioning how you like the science and eventually you’ll get some troll who comes along with the comment “Oh, it’s great if you consider warp drives, psionics, and artificial gravity ‘science.’”
I can go along with the troll as far as warp drives and psionics, but is artificial gravity really that farfetched? Did I miss the class where the professor stated that tests had conclusively shown that gravity cannot be manipulated like light? I know a couple people personally that dismiss anything with artificial gravity as soft sci-fi, but I don’t see how manipulating gravity is beyond the established laws of physics.
It’s not impossible, but more like impractical, at best. Consider this: we know from special relativity that mass and energy are equivalent and are related via e=mc[sup]2[/sup]. It takes the mass of the earth to hold on to us with one g of pull. Convert the mass of the earth to it’s energy equivalent using the formula and you’ll see that it would take an astounding amount of energy to benerate true artificial gravity. Much easier to just rotate a spaceship or accelerate at one g to simulate gravity.
It depends on what you mean by aritificial gravity. You can create gravitational effects by spinning a ship or by accelerating. No problem with that.
However, a “gravity field” is more problematic. Unfortunately, general relativity states that gravity is a warping of space by mass; to create artificial gravity, you’d need a mass (maybe a quantum black hole, if you could find one).
At the same time, physics is looking for gravity waves. If they exist, and if we can manipulate them, it may be possible to create artificial gravity. But those are two very big “if’s.”
Of course, the real question is “what makes you think science fiction has anything to do with science?”
Some people imagine a thin layer of neutronium or ultradense material beneath the deck will keep you in place-
infact it will make your feet heavy, but your head will be light- and no doubt attracted to the neutronium layer in the ceiling above.
It seems difficult for me to imagine the shape of the field required so that everybody on a ship (say the Enterprise or the Millennium Falcon is going to experience a downwards pull, exactly the same at their feet and their heads, which is always perpedicular to the floor of that ship.
It seems to imply that there is an equal field extending in the opposite direction, and in a distorted fashion around the edges of the craft in question- my god, the field would actually attract missiles…
Gravity isn’t like atmosphere, you know, it doesnt stay indoors when you close the airlock.
Anyway, there are better alternatives on offer in ‘hard’ science fiction these days.
Accelerate your spaceship continually to provide gravity- like weight. You can adjust the acceleration to suit your destination planet, and apart from a brief period of weightlessness at turn-around, you won’t know the difference.
Spin your ship- not recommended- too much coriolis and nausea.
Adjust the crew to weightlessness, using as-yet undiscovered medicine, or by genetic engineering.
Convert the crew into virtual images, little Neos and Trinities, who can experience any environmental conditions without inconvenience.
Convert the crew to microgravity-adjusted robots. (Remember the emotion chip).
Immerse the crew in Utility fog, a general purpose nanoenvironment which can simulate gravity or any other required environment as required (also not yet invented yet).