Gravity frequencies?

[Master of Ossus]

In Star Trek: Generations and in the ST Encyclopedia it is stated that ST shields operate using Gravitons. The Science of Star Trek reveals that the shields are, indeed, gravity-based defenses. Shields in Star Trek, however, are enormously frequency-dependent. This made me wonder if gravity can possibly have different effects on different things, based on their frequencies. When I realized the answer was "no," I came to wondering if there was any way to solve this discrepency.

[Illuminatus Primus]

This is Trek scientists redefining gravity, or just being stupid.

[Xon]

Actually..

Gravitons are the theoretical carrier partical for gravity. They, like all subatomic particals, can be considered a partical and/or a wave.

Gravity waves are a theoretical phenomena, caused by the change in a mass's postion(gravity results from mass, gravity waves result from moving mass).

So if you have some defences based on gravitons(which would be moving), you would actually have a defenced based on (mostlikely)coherent gravity waves.

Gravity waves , by their very definition have a frequency!

[Xon]

The biggest problem with this, if barring actually killing their shield generators, their defences would allways render a % of an attack as useless. A gravity wave is more akin to a sound wave than a laser, and there will be sections were the gravitaional shear is considerable less than the average this would be the only time objects with mass could enter. Otherwise the mass would just smear on the shields, like an Honorverse wedge. High energy density lightspeed weapons would be the most effective, and would explain why ptorps are so much more effective than phasers. Phasers are a STL weapon(with the beam having some mass), where the photon torpedo generates high energy gamma rays when it explodes.

[Xon]

More thoughts on this:

To get the Phasers to penertrate the shields(ignoring teknobabble gravity ignoring effects, otherwise why base the shields on gravity), would require the precise nano/milli second resolution timing to insure the Phaser beams hits a point on the shield that is weaker than normal. This would require FTL sensor sensitive enough to detect gravitaional variations, fast enough computers to time it properly & an intelligent targeting computer(to aim at the correct location).

However, we know that Startrek sensors can not just read of the gravitaional frequency of a ship(barring acts of plot or against a really old ship), so the 1st case is probable out.

Alternatively the phasers could act as a carrier for anti-gravitrons to help disrupt the shields. The anti-gravitrons would require a precise frequency to cancel out the garvitrons, to insure maxium amount of the phaser beam gets through.

However, this would just mean that a high frequency for the shields is always better, as it means more of the ship is actually shielded at any one time. But, the Startrek shield generators might be limited in how many gravitrons they can control/generate. Thus a high frequency migh have less gravitrons than a lower frequency shield. Thus there might be a trade of with the shear numbers of gravitrons(how strong the shield is) and the frequency(how much of the ship is covered at any one time).

Personally I feel the 2nd case I outlines is more accurate.

Please Note: Given Startrek's inconsistancy, most of this probable wouldnt fit the facts, any correction would be appreciated.

[Howedar]

Um, you've been thinking on the matter.

[Ender]

If they were gravitons, the ship would be invisible as soon as the shields went up because the light would be warped around it.

[Xon]

If they were gravitons, the ship would be invisible as soon as the shields went up because the light would be warped around it.

Not really, depends on how many gravitrons there are. The earth has mass, and thus would emit gravitrons and you sure as hell can see it from space(unless you arent looking at it, or are on some really powerful drugs).

Basicly it boils down to how powerful the gravitational distortion is. Also remember the gravitaional distortion is directional. It has to be otherwise they would paste the entire crew every time they raise the shields.

Since they are directional there is a question of which way the gravitaional wave is acting in. The most effective way is for it to act perpendicular to the shield face(moving stuff away from the ship), this would cause light being emitted by the ship to pass through(it would gain energy, as it is 'falling' into a gravitaional field), but due to the frequency based nature of the shield only some of the external light would actually reach the ship proper. In fact properly equiped, such a ship would be have a vastly reduced radar/visible light footprint. Because of the frequence-based nature, some light will always enter. Since the ship knows the frequency windows, it can 'see' out the shields. But it would be very difficult to actually see 'in'.

Anyway, having the actual image of the ship we see in the show, really doesnt make any sense. Ie the ships are too bright, 'space' is way bright. Hell you can even see a nebula in the visible light spectrum!

[Master of Ossus]

If there were enough gravitons to affect weapons like phasers and torpedoes to the point where they would be moved away from the ship, we would expect there to be enough to affect light, as well.

[Xon]

If there were enough gravitons to affect weapons like phasers and torpedoes to the point where they would be moved away from the ship, we would expect there to be enough to affect light, as well.

True, you would expect wierd visual effects if you had shields like that.

However if the shields acted to scatter the incoming phaser beam & torpedeos, then it would require less work. Which could be why they used to use bubble shields, as the force was acting a right angles to the shield face.

Anyway, Startrek SFX are notoriously inconsistent and I havent got a clue what the effect would look like when the phaser hit such a shield.

[ClaysGhost]

It is unlikely that gravity waves would be used in a shield generator. Since they propagate away from the ship at the speed of light, they would carry energy away from the ship, and also produce a distortion that moved rather than the static shield "bubble" we actually see. Gravity waves do have observable frequencies; in fact, it's the primary characteristic that modern gravitational wave detectors use to detect the waves in the first place.

The phasers are unlikely to be anti-graviton-based, partly because such a weapon should not emit visible light, partly because they wouldn't be very effective on hulls (the time a gravity-based weapon was discussed in "Best of Both Worlds", it seems to be as a weapon that would take months/years to realise at the outputs required to harm the Borg), and partly because (if I remember correctly) the graviton is a boson, and is its own anti-particle.

If the shield is a static gravitational field, then it is certainly a very odd one - the ship's image is not visibly distorted even when the shield is hit, and it should be (google for "gravitational lensing" and you can see that objects can be multiply-imaged and distorted by gravitational fields). It also has the "sharp edge" characteristic of sci-fi technobabble fields, but ST is not unique in perpetuating this crime; it's quite a popular one. I'm also unclear as to how weapons could weaken such a shield. Either they sit on a geodesic that goes through the shield and hits the ship (and maybe damages the shield generator, maybe not) or they do not, and their world-line is deflected away from the ship, by the shield.

I have a POVRay script somewhere that imitates gravitational shields that bend light, but it's not available to me at the moment. The effects can be quite striking, more interesting than the bubble. You might be interested in:

http://theory2.phys.cwru.edu/~pete/Grav ... lLens.html

which allows you to gravitationally lens arbitrary pictures. The field put out by a shield would not behave identically; these programs assume the bending of light takes place in a single plane, which is fine for astronomy but not for situations where the field, generator and weapon are near each other.

[Isolder74]

ah yes the gravitic lens. This may be how cloaking devises work. this ay explain wy cloaked shp don't have their shields up whle cloaked but does not explain why it can take hits as if it is unsheilded. shouldn't the cloak make the weapon simply pass around the ship?

[Enlightenment]

shouldn't the cloak make the weapon simply pass around the ship?

Yep. A gravitational lens cloak would basically be an inverse event horizon. A ship equipped with such a device would be invulnerable to non-technobabble weapons and could even fly though a star without suffering any damage.

[ClaysGhost]

ah yes the gravitic lens. This may be how cloaking devises work. this ay explain wy cloaked shp don't have their shields up whle cloaked but does not explain why it can take hits as if it is unsheilded. shouldn't the cloak make the weapon simply pass around the ship?

It's not a very good explanation. First, you need a great deal of power to cloak the ship, from which there will be much waste that will have to escape out of the cloak somehow. The main problem, though, is that natural gravitational lenses are not really very good lenses. They have surfaces of focus, rather than points of focus, and looking at a ship using one would not make the ship vanish; it would make areas of the background very much brighter than they would be without the lens, and distort them considerably in a very obvious fashion.

[omegaLancer]

The problem in figuring out the mechanism of gravity shield is the fact is the only working model of gravity is that of Einstein. Gravity according to Einstein is a property of mass/energy and its interaction with space.

Accordingly gravity wave is cause by the either the rapid moment of large mass ( like two neutron stars obriting each other) or the loss of massive potion of mass ( like matter falling into a black hole) and is similar to ocean wave, in where space time it self waves. This could deflect a laser, but it not stationary, and would have all the effect that Gray ghost has mention.

Apparentily the Federation uses Gravitons, which is Quantum gravity, where we really have no workable theory. In most Quantum Gravity theory, gravitons interacts with potion of space ( at a planck length) and with particles ( this includes photons).

Gravitons would interact with all matters and energy equally and according to Mass or energy that each particle possesses.

Maybe they can vary the strenght of the reaction according to relative mass and energy. A higher frequency photon would in theory have more energy than a lower frequency photon, so maybe they can set the gravitons to react with Xray and UV but not with normal light, but if this the case and optical laser would easily be able to hit any federation ship.

Also the force would be attractive so it would draw the mass or beam toward the source of the Gravitons so they need to be able to create concertation of gravitons away from the main hull of the ship ( this could would since gravtion would react with graviton).

So maybe they create a bubble of Graviton around the ship, that interact with matter and specific photons strongly but weakily with normal light and radio frequency.

[ClaysGhost]

...

Accordingly gravity wave is cause by the either the rapid moment of large mass ( like two neutron stars obriting each other) or the loss of massive potion of mass ( like matter falling into a black hole) and is similar to ocean wave, in where space time it self waves. This could deflect a laser, but it not stationary, and would have all the effect that Gray ghost has mention.

I'm not sure that a travelling gravitational wave could deflect a laser. It might spread or focus the beam, but I don't bet on it deflecting.

[quantum gravity could be chromatic]

Then why does (even) strong gravity cause achromatic effects? A gravitational lens in radio is a lens in optical, and is also a lens in X-ray (if you can be bothered to wait for enough photons to arrive to see it). The free-fall path of a photon through spacetime does not depend on the energy of that photon.

Shield frequencies are meaningless outside the show that generates them, like other props in ST and SW.

[omegaLancer]

Not that I really think that the frequency of shield make sense, but this is just a theory.

Even in Einstein's appoarch to explaining Gravity, mass and energy is responsible to warp space. More Mass ( and even energy) equal to more warpage..

In Quantum Gravity the strength of coupling of a graviton to another particle ( whether is a photon or any other) would be also a factor of the mass/energy of the particle. In this Case the energy of a Photon is E=FreqX Planck constant. I was just proposing that the Feddie have come up with a way to have Gravitons selectivitly interact with particles of a specific enegry level, this would also translate to a specific frequency limit to electromagnetic energy.

How would this be done? I have no idea.

As for Gravity wave deflecting Light, since Gravity wave actually cause space to be warp, light could be deflected. Just look at the varies experiments that uses lasers and Crystal to detect gravity wave by measuring the distortion created by the gravity wave passage. Unfortuntily any physical effects of gravity wave are so small that it almost impossible to measure the effect, so using gravity wave to deflect a laser, would require generating gravity waves with energy beyond any that would be seen in nature.

[ClaysGhost]

...
As for Gravity wave deflecting Light, since Gravity wave actually cause space to be warp, light could be deflected. Just look at the varies experiments that uses lasers and Crystal to detect gravity wave by measuring the distortion created by the gravity wave passage. Unfortuntily any physical effects of gravity wave are so small that it almost impossible to measure the effect, so using gravity wave to deflect a laser, would require generating gravity waves with energy beyond any that would be seen in nature.

Those experiments do not measure deflection, but alterations in lengths. Gravitational waves are travelling expansions, contractions or rotations of spacetime. How can one of those motions cause a deflection, i.e. leave a light ray's world-line permanently changed even *after* passing it?

[omegaLancer]

change in length, that is change in spatial dimension? A gravity wave is actual an the oscillation of Space time it self. The fact that the mirror of cystral is actually displace means that light is self can be dispalce, in either direction.

The fact that gravity actually causes warpage of space time, means that the light cone is tilled toward the center of gravity, in the case of a gravity wave the cone is till constantly toward the greatest curvage.

Gravity wave do not have to be simple sinual waveform, it can assume different wave form, and according to the shape a light beam can be deflect accordingly.

[ClaysGhost]

change in length, that is change in spatial dimension? A gravity wave is actual an the oscillation of Space time it self. The fact that the mirror of cystral is actually displace means that light is self can be dispalce, in either direction.

To bend a light ray, there needs to be a significant gravitational shear across it. I don't know that gravitational waves produce that, and even if they did it's not going to be particularly effective because the wave is busy rushing off to infinity. A static field would be far more effective.

Sinusoidal distortions are irrelevant; what matters is the way in which spacetime is distorted by the wave, i.e. compression, expansion, rotation.

[The Yosemite Bear]

So in short they are like a watered down version of the TOG Leviathon Shields...

[omegaLancer]

sorry I donot know what TOG is? I am assuming it a RPG. How does shields work in this system?

[omegaLancer]

I agree Gravtiy wave just waste alot of energy for little results. A static field with rapidly changing values of field strenght would work better. Like creating massive tidal forces over cm, in this way object are torn apart before they can reach the ship.

I not how sure how this would effect Light.

[ClaysGhost]

I agree Gravtiy wave just waste alot of energy for little results. A static field with rapidly changing values of field strenght would work better. Like creating massive tidal forces over cm, in this way object are torn apart before they can reach the ship.

I not how sure how this would effect Light.

A static field would be more likely to divert objects around the shield, rather than shred things, but it still has the problems of huge power requirements and a very odd arrangement of fields. I'm not actually sure that you could expect to shred an incoming missile without the field also having a bad effect on the ship that generates it as well. Plus the missile debris would be going at a fair speed towards the hull.

Light would be affected to an extent, but its speed reduces the effect. You might expect static fields to focus or defocus the light along some directions as well, but the field would have to be very powerful.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Terran Overlord Government

Gravity Shields are rated from 1 to 14, that' the measure of the diffucukty and tre frequency of the the shield pulses. Yes, EW allows you to figure out the frequency and get a shieldless hit on a target. Otherwise it's like trying to claw through the inpenetrable wedge bands of the Honor-verse shields.