You're just throwing things out there randomly without investigating or understanding. That's not good science. For example, the expansion or contraction of spacetime that may allow us to build a warp field has nothing to do with creating artificial gravity, although it could be an application of that technology. And you just said we could use artificial gravity to control dark matter to make artificial gravity. Huh?
note
Again, I want to point out that I'm not trying to squash anyone's dreams for an epic sci-fi story. Write what interests you and don't sweat the realism as long as you're consistent about what you do put in.
edited 21st May '18 7:24:50 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I believe it's obsessed over because it's a really convenient way to avoid having to show actors in freefall on the sets of sci-fi shows.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Well, speaking extremely hypothetically, if you could alter the local force of gravity around a vehicle or structure, you could ignore some, but not all, of the factors associated with the square-cube law, such as the material strength required for the object to support its own weight, the force applied to the ground when it moves, and the energy required to move it. You couldn't do much about heat dissipation, though... you could try using an artificial black hole as a heat sink, perhaps, if you could somehow fix the Hawking radiation problem.
It's also worth pointing out that, if you have the technology to create localized gravitational fields to help a giant mech move around, you can do so many other, more efficient/effective things that it's kind of absurd. It'd be like installing a terabit fiber optic trunk line and using it to transmit the sound of someone tapping out a message in Morse code.
You could recreate the Unicron transformation scene from Transformers: The Movie, I suppose.
edited 21st May '18 11:16:30 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Sure, but that'd go into the "making gravity by pumping a bunch of energy into a small space" thing I mentioned several times earlier, which is inefficient to say the least.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"What gravity is exactly is one of the great mysteries of the universe. We have very precise mathematical models that describe how it behaves, but not much of a clue as to what causes it to behave that way. Bits of matter are attracted to each other—it's lucky for us, because that is what allows structure to exist, but we don't know why it does that.
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.The new Lost in Space (2018) series has an interesting use of artificial gravity (in a rather spoilerrific part of the show, but I'll skip the details), and one that my scientific mind found slightly inconsistent. It's not clear where the gravity field begins and ends, because a character walking in apparent full gravity on the deck of a ship seems to instantly transition to weightlessness when they step outside it. Or maybe the transition is gradual, but it's not clearly shown.
I can accept that with suspension of disbelief, but I'm a little surprised that they don't immediately lose their lunch, other than that the plot has no time for it. Come to think of it, none of the characters display space- or motion-sickness, so that's probably in the qualification regimen.
edited 22nd May '18 8:40:33 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
and ![]()
Let's put it in a slightly different way. The science fiction concept of artificial gravity violates conservation laws as we currently understand them, but there may be a mechanism for it that does not, which we have yet to discover.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"There's no experimental evidence to support that claim, obviously, but if you consider our current models of the universe, artificial gravity would probably require tapping into some source of energy that we can't currently see or access, such as whatever's wrapped up in the extra dimensions of string theory, or in the vacuum energy of quantum fields, or some such.
The thing is that, by our current understanding, successfully tapping such an energy source might be catastrophic, as there'd be no way to turn it off. A vacuum energy collapse would literally destroy everything that exists, reformatting the universe like a hard drive. The wave would expand at the speed of light in a sphere from the origin point with a corresponding release of energy that would be so unimaginable that it might as well be a second Big Bang.
Now, the whole universe wouldn't be destroyed by this, only the parts that are causally bound to the point of origin. The parts that are or will be beyond the cosmic event horizon would continue rushing away, never knowing that someone accidentally pushed the Big Red Button... not that it'd be any comfort to the now-annihilated civilization that did it.
edited 29th May '18 7:04:51 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Frankly, any mucking around with the fundamental rules of the universe could case a similar disaster. I mean, there were some theories that the LHC could create a black hole that would destroy us all. Completely unfounded hypothesis, it turns out, but mucking with the fabric of reality isn't something you should do casually.
The concern over the LHC was rather clumsily reported by the media. Scientists weren't worried that they'd accidentally cause a vacuum energy collapse, but rather that the concentration of energy from particle collisions in such a tiny space might be enough to cross the Schwartzchild radius and generate nanoscopic black holes. At least, that's how I remember it.
Such a black hole would evaporate almost instantaneously, so consuming the Earth is right out.
Edit: Honestly, I feel that the anthropic principle rules out vacuum energy collapse as a thing that can happen in our universe, or at least happen easily. If it is possible at all without a googol years passing, and it's something that a sufficiently advanced species can potentially trigger with their fumblings, then it ought to have happened in our universe. If it happened, then there'd be a wave of absolute destruction hurtling towards us at the speed of light — or more than one, probably.
If even one such event happened in the causal past of our observable universe going back to the Big Bang, we'd be gone: erased like a DRAM chip when the power turns off.
edited 29th May '18 12:29:04 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Wouldn't be coilguns. Coilgun refers to a specific configuration of the electromagnetic induction system, in this case wrapped around the barrel in a coiled spiral configuration as opposed to a linear configuration as in a railgun.
And while if you could control/manipulate gravity, you could use it to accelerate a projectile, depending on the exact tech you wouldn't need to have it in the same configuration as an electromagnetic induction system. Though it would have the advantage of not relying on ferro-magnetic materials.
If you can control gravity, why use it to accelerate projectiles when you could use it to accelerate your target... like, say, into a star or planet? Or rip them apart with gravitational gradients, or form an event horizon around them, etc...
Think about dissuading unfriendly visitors by flinging them out of your star system at half the speed of light...
edited 4th Jun '18 9:44:55 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Of course, the law of conservation of mass - in the context of general relativity it implies among others that spacetime is continuous and cannot "rip", for example - would still apply.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman![]()
All the possible uses of gravity manipulation won't necessarily be equally easy or practical in every situation though. We have a pretty good grasp on electromagnetism, but that doesn't mean that modern armies fry their enemies with artificial lightning storms, for example.

As far as dark matter goes, it may allow us to control gravity, we don't know enough about it. And containing it isn't a problem, artificial gravity fields can be used.