Re: opposite of relativistic time contraction

On 2008-03-17, Ben Crowell <crowell07@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> (1) Matter is essentially transparent to gammas of this energy, so a
> collimator won't collimate.

The point is that if you have a collimator, the photons can have on
the order of 10^-12 of the energy you estimated.


> (2) The small fraction of the beam that does interact with the
> collimator will be plenty to destroy the collimator.

I think we're way beyond the point of objections based on limitations
of any current materials we know of.  You could say the same about
whatever is generating the magnetic field to tow the black hole.


> I think so far the biggest issue is simply the absurd amounts of
> energy required.

More like the absurd energy and power *densities*.  Given your
scenario, the power is available.  Concentrating it enough in a
non-lethal manner is the problem.


> The exhaust beams coming out of the particle accelerators simply
> have to have good enough collimation that the beam halo doesn't kill
> the passengers at a distance of ~100 m.

I still don't know why you're concentrating on massive particles in
the exhaust rather than photons.  Their rest mass is a net detriment,
since it's equivalent to unused energy.  Admittedly at the energies
they need it hardly makes a difference.


- Tim