A few questions about Anti Gravity .....

From my very limited understanding of anti gravity I am lead to believe that an anti gravity " ship " would create a gravity well in the direction that one would want the ship to travel . As a result of the created gravity well the ship would then " fall " in the direction of the created gravity well , correct ?

If this is the case , just what speeds would one expect to achieve from anti gravity ? Why would this speed be greater then one would achieve by simply falling over ?

If one was traveling by means of anti gravity , would one expect the " ship " to be incased in some type of distortion bubble ? If it were possible to achieve FTL travel by my means of anti gravity would a " distortion bubble " eliminate any time distorted effects that one might expect to experience during FTL travel ?

I was under the impression that the ship you describe would use a "Gravity Drive" not an anti-grav. Anti-Gravity is used to describe a force that counters gravity.

As for speeds. I am not sure if there is a terminal velocity in space, but given a black hole is powerful enough to stop light from escaping, hypothetically it could pull ones ship very fast.

The concept of FTL is problematic in almost every way to look at it.

To accelerate matter to FTL speeds it would basically require more energy than is in the universe.
The dimension folding bubble technique popular in sci-fi (like star trek: the subspace bubble basically puts the ship in another dimension where it is possible to go FTL) is hokey from a realistic perspective as it is dependant on an alternate universe. Frankly: If you have the tech to break into another universe, why would you want to fly to another star? You have a whole lot more to explore in an alt universe, possibility of an endless number of worlds to colonize, potential for endless resources etc. etc.

I think my fav sci-fi FTL method was from a book called Farthest Star, they send a probe out at speeds unsafe for life (due to inertia and radiation), then people are scanned (on earth) and the information sent to the ship via tachyon transmission where they clone the people onto the vessel.

I'm not sure if a gravity drive topic belongs in the science forum, but to specifically answer your question about what would happen if you were able to create a gravity well, the well would be the same as one created by a mass so can look up the equation for gravitational acceleration and calculate the numbers based on how big the apparent mass is or how deep the gravity well is.

But we are pretty clueless about what causes gravity so the science of gravity drives is just beyond our understanding, that's why I'm not sure we can talk about it in a science forum, it's so speculative.

We do know that gravity warps space time, making the "gravity well" you mentioned.

The drive I find most interesting since it was proposed by a physicist which might make it somewhat scientific is the Alcubierre drive, though it's still very speculative. It also warps spacetime for purposes of propulsion but is not really a gravity nor anti-gravity drive though it may have similarities with them since it warps space-time.

Alcubierre drive

The Alcubierre drive, also known as the Alcubierre metric or Warp Drive, is a speculative mathematical model of a spacetime exhibiting features reminiscent of the fictional "warp drive" from Star Trek, which can travel "faster than light" (although not in a local sense - see below).

Also, this method of travel does not actually involve moving faster than light in a local sense, since a light beam within the bubble would still always move faster than the ship; it is only "faster than light" in the sense that, thanks to the contraction of the space in front of it, the ship could reach its destination faster than a light beam restricted to travelling outside the warp bubble.

[edit on 15-12-2009 by Arbitrageur]