From: johan@blade.stack.urc.tue.nl (Johan Wevers)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.startrek.tech
Subject: Re: GUTs in Star Trek
Keywords: Unified field theories
Date: 19 Aug 92 08:54:07 GMT
Organization: MCGV Stack, Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands.

ph111-bx@violet.berkeley.edu (;;;;7202) writes:
>
>But the Van der Waals interaction *is* an electromagnetical force.  One end
>of a weak electric dipole of a molecule is electrically attracted to the
>oppositely charged end of another molecule.  So then, are you saying the
>color force binding quarks in a nucleon is the *same* force binding nucleons
>in a nucleus?

Yes.

> If that's true, then is it theoretically possible to break a
>nucleon into individual quarks as you can a nucleus into nucleons, instead
>of quark pairs, that I heard were indivisible?

This is not possible because the gluons also have color charge. This
causes ``confinement'' of colored particles as quarks: is you try to
separate two colored particles, the potential between the two doesn't
approach a constant value, such as in  the EM case, but grows as the
distance increases. One could also say that the color force doesn't
approach zero is the distance grows, but stays constant. To understand
this, you need to know how vacuum polarisation works. 

The effect will be, that, if you try to separate two colored particles,
the growing potential energy between them will be used for pair creation.
You get two white particles instead of two colored particles.

>I thought only matter/gravity can curve space

Remember E=mc^2. You can't distinguish between energy and mass. What is
mass for one observer, can be energy for another. In the case of EM 
fields, the Einstein equations are (the formulas are in LaTeX format):

G^{ab}={{8\pi\kappa}\over{c^2}} T^{ab}, and

T^{mn}=(\rho+p) u^a u^b + {1\over c^2}(F_a^m F^{an} + 
         {1\over4}g^{mn}F_{ab}F^{ab})

Here F_{mn} is the EM field tensor. With the 4-dimensional EM potential
A=(A_x,A_y,A_z,\phi/c), in which A_n are the components of the vector
potential and \phi is the scalar potential, we have: 

F_{mn}=\partial_m A_n - \partial_n A_m

>What do I have wrong or which is the EM energy term?  Please explain
>how the presence of an EM field results in spacial curvature for an
>uncharged mass?

The product F_{mn} F^{mn} contains terms quadratic in the E and B fields,
which are proportional to the EM energy, up to some \epsilon_0 and \mu_0
factors. 

> The effect is to imply a *classical* unity
>between EM and GR, which may be what Einstein was working on.

There exists a classical (i.e. no quantum) theory which unifies
GR and EM: it is called the Kaluza-Klein theory. The EM force is
brought into GR througha 5th dimension, which is curved that much
that we don't notice it (the same idea as in superstring theory
with 10 or 26 dimensions).

>meant was that warp technology is perhaps a manifestation of unity
>between quantum electrodynamics and a quantum GR.

If man can find such a unity, we are much further than what is now
called `GUT'. GUT means an unification between EM, weak and color
forces. I've read here (I didn't see the movie till now) that they
didn't have a GUT in the 24th century, so I don't think warp
technology is a result of such a combination.
 ____________________________________________________________________ 
 | J.C.A. Wevers                |         u\  _\       /e+        2 |
 | johan@blade.stack.urc.tue.nl |     1 |   \ u \  X  /         |   |
 |------------------------------| P = - |    >   >---<     + ...|   |
 |     The only nature of       |     N |   /   /     \         |   |
 |     reality is physics       |         u/   /d     u\            |
 +------------------------------+-----------------------------------+