Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: A maximum acceleration ?



Date: Sat, 29 Nov 1997 19:23:39 -0600
From: brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>
Subject: Re: A maximum possible acceleration?

It is easy to discount the kinds of electric field which motivate
mechanical force, because at some point a macroscopic object will be
squashed if the acceleration is too great; the force needing to spread
over a wider area of application until a rather thin layer, perhaps
a monatomic layer is the limit.

You are referring to contact forces in real materials. In my mind the
ULTIMATE limit is something which is valid even in the idealized world.
A perfectly rigid object will never be squashed. The same comment on your
second observation, Brian. Please correct me if it is wrong to think that
in a perfect vacuum electric breaking down is not possible. [By the way,
what is the mean free path of hydrogen atoms between galaxies?]

So then I consider the force that impels particles in an accelerator.
In a one-pass arrangement, there is some limiting value of electric
field which can be arranged; the vacuum breaking down (or permitting
ionization or plasma production ) in the limit.

Your next comment refers to an ideal rigid object (or an elementary
particle which has a finite mass). I am assuming the term "hole" is used
as a reference to a region where the V=-G*M/r potential is extremely large.
Do we think that the M/r ratio can be as large as we want? This would
mean that any acceleration is possible. Or should we think that M/r can
never exceed a certain maximum value? What evidence do we have to say
that the first alternative "appears" to be correct?

And so I am finally left with the force of gravity, which it appears
may be multiplied without limit and which would provide an arbitrarily
large acceleration to a particle approaching a hole of sufficient mass.

Ludwik Kowalski