I had a great chat with Dr. Justin Ball of the Swiss Plasma Center at École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) last weekend. He provided some helpful updates to my speculative science in the previous “The Science of When Morpheus Overslept” installments. The takeaways from our talk were:
1. There are two types of gravitons: push-gravitons and pull-gravitons. Like matter and anti-matter, the universe probably started out with an equal number of each, but over time the push-gravitons became far fewer resulting in gravitational forces that pull. Push-gravitons still exist and the reversal of gravity might work by shunting out pull-gravitons from the graviton field while drawing push-gravitons inside. Originally, I had intuitively arrived at this concept assuming that each graviton had a polarity which could be altered by the field, and this may still be so because a graviton has never been observed (low priority over at CERN), but, for now, this new explanation will act as the new explanation for how graviton field generations work.
2. He described a new proposed fusion fuel cycle (Catalyzed D-D+D) that would produce even more power than the one I had used (Catalyzed D-D). This new cycle was outlined in his paper, “Maximizing Specific Energy by Breeding Deuterium,” and I will be updating the blog when I’ve fully absorbed all the details.
3. Higgs boson injections to increase the plasma’s viscosity were not necessary. My original thinking had been that since Higgs bosons are responsible for mass, i.e. the “stickiness” of matter, increasing their number would make the plasma more “sticky” and thus increase the probability of collisions. This appears to not be necessary, given that I have already solved the problems of magnetic containment by replacing it with a (fictional) graviton field.
4. Interstellar hydrogen can be captured for fuel as the ship travels through space. This leaves helium-3 as the only fuel necessary to carry in sufficient quantities for the journey.
5. He proposed that the passengers could be protected from gravity during acceleration within a shielded space, a graviton field that protects them from inertia. I proposed that this would naturally occur within the hibernation pods.
I want to thank Justin for taking away from his valuable time in order to speak with me and add an air of legitimacy to my writing. I can now say that my speculative future science is “professor-approved!”
Justin is the co-author of the book, The Future of Fusion Energy, with Justin Parisi. If you would like an informative, detailed, but accessible primer on the current state of fusion energy and its future, buy this book.
Yours in print,
Michael