Re: A maximum acceleration

[LUDWIK KOWALSKI <KOWALSKIL@alpha.montclair.edu>]

On Sun, 30 Nov 1997  brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net> wrote:

> You are indeed wrong to think that electric breakdown does not occur in 
> the vacuum. It is intuitively plausible but in fact, the breakdown voltage
> is smaller for a given vacuum gap than for an air gap.

I know that the dependence of the breakdown voltage on the pressure, for
a given gap, is a curve which has a minimum. Both very high pressure and 
very low pressure are used by engineers to prevent sparking. But once you
are on the low p side of the curve the breakdown voltage grows rapidly as
the vacuum becomes better and better. In the limit of an idealization
(where rigid objects and point-like masses are allowed) any gap can hold
any difference of potential without sparking. Please correct me if this
is wrong.

> The idea of massive black-holes is now so fashionable and pervasive, 
> that I can hardly cite one reference among so many! They seem to agree 
> that the M/r ratio may be arbitrarily high - even though it may be 
> unobservable - and hence a metaphysical rather than physical question 
> at that point.

What is the evidence for the mutual agreement? I suspect that there may
be a limit on how much mass (in any form) can be squized into a finite 
volume. But that does not mean anything unless a reason is provided to
support the claim (or a demonstratable consequence is derived from it). 
Nobody was thinking about c being an ultimate limit of v. That idea was 
formulated long before v of electrons could be measured in vacuum diods
and accelerators. 
                                                Ludwik Kowalski