Explained elsewhere. The graviton emitters that the artificial gravity use keep functioning even without power through the rather massive inertia of the things. They’d probably stop at about the same point that the air became unbreathable after life support shut down.
Would you silly people please stop trying to come up with scientific explanations for what happens on a silly television show where the plots are poorly put together and no one CARES whether they hold up to scientific scrutiny? GEEZE, wouldn’t you think the fact you can HEAR the damn ships in space would tip you off they don’t CARE about realism? <lol>
I stopped hoping TNG would be any better that the original series at this nonsense when, in the pilot episode, the saucer section separates from the rest of the ship (including, of course, the warp drive nacelles) and still proceeds through space in warp speeds. Oh yeah, right. :rolleyes:
Yes, I know that they have artificial gravity on the various Enterprises, and that the tech manuals explain the inertial dampers as being based on the same technology. I didn’t mention that in my previous post, though, because that’s not a scientifically plausible technology. Science fiction writers often assume that in the distant future, we’ll be able to manipulate gravitational fields the same way that we currently manipulate electromagnetic fields. The fact is, though, that we can already manipulate gravity the same way that we do electromagnetism: You manipulate electric fields by moving charges around. You manipulate gravity by moving masses around. The problem is that you have to move a lot more mass to produce a noticeable gravitational effect. Yes, I realize that our knowledge of physics is incomplete, and we may yet discover some shortcut for manipulating various force fields. You have to posit at least some basis on physics as we know it, though, or your science fiction turns into fantasy.
OK, Chronos. I’m not any kind of physisist, but how about collapsed matter from inside white dwarf type stars? IIRC, that stuff has an insane ammount of mass. Maybe they use that somehow?
Problem is, then the vessels themselves would be insanely massive – a bucketful of collapsed matter would be “billyuns and billyuns” of tons. And that means the damn thing would be insanely hard to start and stop moving; you’d get into a vicious circle with the energy requirements.
So instead you make-believe that at some point there was invented a technology that allows you to “magnify” and “focus” gravity and ask the audience to take it on faith.
As DYoung and Chronos mention, the problem is that the applications of this “faith” are not internally consistent. It is one thing to say: “For the sake of expediency, assume a ‘Black Box’ that generates gravity (or teleports matter, or achieves FTL travel) and nevermind how.” The trouble arises when the writers and producers, either seeking the quickest way to create a nifty or cool or “exciting” scenario, or limited by the available budget and SFX technology, come up with something that violates all logical consequences of the existence of said “black box” and then either they, the audience or both attempt to explain their way out of it with pseudoscientific folderol.
If the audience stops paying attention to the story (i.e. plot or character development) and turns instead to deconstructing how that universe could possibly work, that is the writers’ failure.
jrd
Uh, Chronos I guess you’ve not seen the October 2000 issue of Popular Mechanics. There’s an article in there (sorry, don’t have a net based cite and believe me I’ve looked) on page 40 about NASA scientists at UAH who’ve come up with a prototype anti-gravity drive and are supposed to begin testing it sometime soon. The research is (or was) being led by Ning Li and involves the use of a High Tempature Super Conducting Disc and a rotating magnetic field which is supposed to produce an anti-gravity effect. “It does not modify gravity, rather it produces a gravity-like field that may be either attractive or repulsive.” to quote from the article. It sounds like the basis of both artificial gravity systems and a warp drive to me. Now if we could only get NASA to pony up so real $ for them to work with.
“It does not modify gravity, but produces a gravity-like force”. Exactly, and it’s therefore not the technology referred to on the show. Calling a force that can be used to oppose gravity “anti-gravity” is so misleading as to be lying. I can hold a brick in my hand and keep it from falling… Does this mean that I have anti-gravity powers?
The forces they’re dealing with there are magnetic, not gravitational. I’m not exactly sure what they’re really doing with these magnetic effects, though, because everything I’ve read about it is the same sort of oversensationalized garbage that you saw in that article. As I mentioned earlier, magnetic forces can produce effects similar to gravity, but not so similar that they could do what Roddenbury has in mind.
Chronos, You’re a poo! 
Well, Chronos, in every science fiction/fantasy/space opera/etc., one needs to have a certain number of Unknowns for some of the stories to work. Arti-grav is one of them, FTL travel is another, phasers (or energy weapons in general) are another. Heck, stuff like “tritanium” or “dilithium” are so bogus as to be laughable.
It’s called “suspension of disbelief”, old chum. 
With artificial gravity, we simply need to assume “It somehow produces gravity”, and then, if we’re feeling anal enough, we can try to find a way to explain it that matches as closely to known physics as possible, while still maintaining the spirit of the show. That’s why it’s called “fiction”.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with them using unexplained technology on the show. My point was just that a factual GQ discussion can’t really center on unexplained technology.