GUT Drives and Other Advanced Propulsion Systems

Hello Again Gang,
If you ever wondered how GUT Drives, made famous by British
Science Fiction Author Stephen A. Baxter, and other futuristic
propulsion systems, may just possibly work check out the follow website:
http://spectech.bravepages.com/interstellar%20flight/IF_Article_GUT%20DRIVES.htm

from http://spectech.bravepages.com/

Enjoy,

Alex Michael Bonnici

GUT stands for Grand Unification Theory. GUT drives have had many
different incarnations and names, including vacuum energy engines,
casimir drives, zero-point propulsion, and
more. GUT drives of one form or another have appeared in a variety of
science fiction sources, such as the novel The Songs of Distant Earth by
Arthur C. Clarke, many "Xeelee"
stories by Stephen Baxter, many "Known Space" stories by Larry Niven,
and in driving the ships of the ancient, alien Vorlon and Shadow races
in the Babylon 5 TV series.

The search for a Grand Unification Theory has been the holy grail of
physics for nearly a century now, a single, eloquent series of equations
that would tie together quantum
physics and the theories of relativity. It would explain once and for
all the origin and behavior of the four fundamental forces of nature
(gravity, electrmagnetism, the
strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force) as well as a number of
loose quantum phenomena, most significantly virtual particles and
zero-point energy. GUT is also assumed to be a precursor for some other
speculative propulsion technologies, such as gravitic propulsion schemes
and FTL drives, but those will be discussed in their own sections.

The real life physics that form the basis for the speculation about
these propulsion schemes is very involved and not for the uninitiated.
The summaries below are very
simplified versions. See the "Related Information" section below for
references that can much more fully explain the quantum physics
involved.

GUT drives rest on the startling fact that a vacuum is not empty--it is
actually seething with virtual particles and quantum fluctuations. The
particles "borrow" energy from the vacuum via Heisenbergs Uncertainty
Principle and pop into existence in particle/antiparticle pairs. They
survive for a few brief microseconds or less, and then annihilate each
other again, returning the energy they "borrowed" to the fabric of
spacetime. Because the energy is always returned, the net energy of a
vacuum is zero, and thus to us appears empty.

The existence of this virtual particle soup and zero-point energy has
been confirmed by experimental evidence, as the amount of attraction
registered on two closely-suspended
electrically charged metal plates, when all other factors were
neutralized or accounted for. This force is called the
Casimir Effect.