Frame Dragging and Space. (Cosmology)

My understanding is that it is dependent on a rotating gravitational source, such as a rotating block hole, but a planet can also produce the effect.

Yes, it has been quantified and if you are interested in the math, for more.

"such as a rotating block hole,"

Is that a spinning cube with a hole in it?

_{Sorry couldn't resist.}

Too funny!!!

I don't use make-up. Can't help you with questions about cosmology.

hello: interesting question. I am not a cosmologist - just a thinker - i think the "soup" of space time and mass and gravity and all the rest of the forces, ie, everything, connects all the existing parts of our universe loosely at lightyear distances but tenuously as distances shrink. A frame of reference implies one motion relative to another motion all within the embedded "soup" surrounding and within everything. Some sort of friction or reaction would be present as these fields and forces undergo relative motion.

This is close to what I am thinking. Black hole discussions are highly interesting and provide us with mounds of data. My curiosity stems from knowing that chemically powered rockets will never propel us to the stars, so, think in terms of an insect swimming in a bowl of soup. The soup has of course, substance, thereby allowing the insect to utilize the friction of the substance to pull itself along by using its appendages. To expand this to space, think of a craft that could latch onto the 'substance' of space/time and pull itself along. A high enough frequency of 'strokes' against this resistance of the space/time 'substance' should result in considerable velocities, and not require mass to be thrown away as thrust.

Implementing such a space/time drive for a spacecraft would/will be quite a feat! (if it's at all possible!)

hello once more: after reading the link provided from standards guy i must confess that i have a hard time putting those equations into a working picture because i don't have much experience like that. i probably never will. however i like the subject and think about it in a much more generalized - even abstract manner that i can fit into my head. I don't think there is much to "latch" onto to move yourself along in the space between black holes and much closer to or inside black holes i think that you would be latched onto without a lot of ability to resist or control your motion. I believe that in the region inside a black hole more dimensions than four are caused to exist to fit all that stuff in there. Another idea i have is that all these phenomena we see and measure and equate don't care much about our doings and are happy to carry on without us. This is definitely not a put down towards people that understand these things better.

Hi vrussham,

"think of a craft that could latch onto the 'substance' of space/time and pull itself along. A high enough frequency of 'strokes' against this resistance of the space/time 'substance' should result in considerable velocities, and not require mass to be thrown away as thrust."

The property of inertia applies anywhere in space. Here is an inertia engine. An engine of this principle would still have to have fuel to run it, but would not have to leave anything behind except maybe exhaust.

-S

Thanks! That was an interesting engine but it's acceleration seems to leave a lot to be desired especially considering spatial distances. Some solar cells or even an atomic power source could run that thing, or the device I envision. Open space, out of gravity wells, swim along using the 'substance' of space/time. Yeah, it's rather flimsy, but pull on it a few million times a second, or faster, once we know how to touch it, and a spacecraft should certainly be able to achieve respectable portions of C.

So, all we need to do is figure out how to latch onto it.

More on frame dragging can be found here.