A massive quantity of energy.

Before talking about coordinate systems, tensors, and other cool stuff I need to know better, let's have an engineering look at the equations, specially at energy numbers.

I said before that G thing stands for describing curvature through several mathematical tools we'll see later. Let's focus, for the moment, in the T thing.

The T summarizes something called stress-energy tensor and can be descomposed as:

 

An interesting video from MIT: EFE, introductory level.

Next post was intended to be an estimation of energy needed for warping spacetime, but its going to take a little more of time since I have to do some checkup on math -and procedure.

So, in the mean time... :)

... I've already said I'm not very fond of hearing classes. In general it is quite truth, but in my quest for understanding spacetime, several internet searches have leaded me to actual videos of classes. Which is a little ironic, I guess...

Geodesics: a way to grasp curvature.

I'll go deeper with time in several concepts I'm starting to relate here, please be patient. I'm reading Misner, Thorne and Wheeler's "Gravitation" with the objective in mind of making a summary in the first "Books" post, but for now, the content of this post is an interpretation about I've already read and understood regarding geodesics.

Allow me to start with Einstein field equation -the "easy" one.

Sorry about using an image. I've tryed to use third parties LaTEX renderers, but no results. I'll improve my blogging skills in the future.

So, the equation states -for the moment-, there's a G thing, which corresponds to a T thing multiplied by a fancy constant. Well, these things are tensors, and they're pretty serious stuff because this simple equation gives us a partial diferential equation system, with 10 coupled equations. Too fast, too soon. You have to believe for the moment the G thing is were we are watching the curvature, while the T thing is a way to tell how energy is distributed. Energy distribution in space, by the way, is the responsible for that curvature.

But this post is about geodesics. Why I'm giving you all this crap?

So... Why did you say spacetime, again?

Too many post about intentions, not enough about the subject. Sorry.

It's important to fix things in order to stablish a shitty order worth of changing in the future.

As an engineer, I said previously physics -and math models about physics involved in a phenomena- were the key to design and construct cool stuff. For instance, we want to have water from a tap. We know water moves easily -as a fluid- by differences in pressure, so it seems a good idea to pressurize water in order to move it along tubes and conductions. You can fill bottles of water and transport them from a place to another but, is that practical? 

Sometimes it is, but when you want to carry a lot of water from a place to another... Man, you better attack the problem in its Achilles heel, which usually is the fundamental physical principle which gives Nature its "nature". In water, it is differences of pressure -there are actually more ways if you look closely to NS conservation of momentum equation for a fluid, but difference of pressure is quite a good choice.

The same applies to rockets and satellites. 

Let's get it on... A strategy.

As far as I learn how to working out a blog, I expect to expand and improve all subjetcs aborded. For now, the initial strategy for dealing with spacetime problem will be divided in 4 branches:

1. Real old-fashioned-book-hitting research.
2. Real physics and online paper research.
3. General views about what I'm learning along the way.
4. Dealing with dead ends.

Tired of waiting.

So, this blog goes about knowing a little more about spacetime and studying possibilities to warp it. Quite a task. Quite a pretentious big-head-smart-ass blogger, right?

When I told a classmate I was writting a blog, he was pretty impressed about my ability to talk about my exciting experiences in our university's computer center.

As an engineering student with no special fonding in hearing classes, and no classes to attend to neither, computer center is the place I've been into for a couple of months since the beginning of semester. And a lot of things happen here, yeah, but none of them worth of being described in a blog in my opinion.

In my defense I must say I'm working in a couple of projects -studying spacetime is one of them- and an internet conection has been proved to be a better tool than a library chair. And I'm hooked on reddit -first step is to admit it.

There was something, nevertheless, my classmate was right about when we talk seriously about the blog: I'm an engineer, not a physicist.

First Post: What is this all about?

Space, the final frontier... You know the rest, no reason to go on.

I like space. That's the reason I started studying aerospace engineering. Five years -that's a degree and a master, I guess- for finding and answer I already knew when I started: space I would like to be in, simply doesn't exist. There's no a StarFleet. There are no chances of pumping the Falcon into hyperspace. Space travel and exploration today is about probes, rovers, satellites and ISS.

Expectations... (source: Wikipedia)