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: 18 Aug 92 08:46:36 GMT
Organization: MCGV Stack, Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands.

ph111-bx@violet.berkeley.edu (;;;;7202) writes:

>Color-interaction? Is that what they're calling the strong nuclear force now?

That is not exactly the same, but they are linked. The hadrons, where
the proton and neutron belong to, consist of quarks. These quarks have
something which is called ``color charge''. There are 3 kinds of color
charge  and anti-charges. Quarks interact with each other by the exchange 
of virtual gluons. This is comparable with the EM interaction, which
is explained by exchange of virtual photons. But because there are 3
kinds of color charge vs. one kind of electrical charge, and because
the gluons also have color charge, the color interaction is much more
difficult to comprehend than the EM interaction.

Now, the nucleons in a nucleus consist of quarks with color interaction.
But, although they are color-neutral (usually called ``white''), the
nucleons also have color-interaction because the color charges are
separated in space. This is comparable with EM dipoles.

Summarizing, one could say that the relation of the strong nuclear force 
compared to the color force is the same as the Van der Waals interaction
between molecules related to the electromagnetical force.

>The current status, last I heard, was something called the "standard model"
>which is able to unify the electric, magnetic, and weak nuclear forces into
>the "electro-weak" force.

That is called the standard model. Attemts to go further have not been
verified yet.

>Attempts at quantization have been made, though, hense the graviton.  I've
>also heard that because of its still classical quality, in part, gravity
>would probably be the last force to be unified with the others.

That's correct.

>One point of my original post, though, was that since warp technology involves
>generation of gravity to curve space in such a way to propel a ship, and
>since this is done, according to the tech manual I think, by manipulating
>appropriate EM fields,

This is new for me. EM fields do have an influence on the gravitation
however (the EM energy appears in the Einstein equations who describe
the space-time geometrie in GR), so I wouldn't exclude this option.

>then I thought they are able to "induce" a gravity
>field by action on an EM field.  And that this is similar, and perhaps
>equivalent, to inducing an electric current by passing a magnet through a
>wire loop.

No, the relation between EM and gravity consists because the EM-energy
also curves space (see above).


[good information over Einstein removed]

>Bohr was always successful in resolving every paradox Einstein thought of
>to try to show QM to be inconsistant.

Well, about the inconsistancy you're right. But later, Einstein tried
to prove that QM was incomplete. The discussions over this topic (especially
the EPR experiment) are not yet completed.

Personally, I not a fan of Bohrs ideas. His instrumentalism is, IMHO, just
a way to ``solve'' problems by ignoring them. And w.r.t. some things,
Bohr was wrong. For example, it can be proved that the uncertancy principle
does *not* find it's fundings in a disturbance of the object by the
measurement, but has to do with the mathematical formalism of QM.
Look for a derivation of the Robertson equation.

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Xref: sparky rec.arts.startrek.tech:4511 rec.arts.startrek.misc:8187