If you can accelerate a particle close enough to lightspeed then it collapses into a Planck blackhole and that blackhole will almost instantly evaporate into gamma rays.
A paper looks at the ultimate limits of a photon propulsion rocket. The maximum velocity for a photon propulsion rocket is just below the speed of light and is a function of the reduced Compton wavelength of the heaviest subatomic particles in the rocket. We are basically combining the relativistic rocket equation with Haug’s new insight in the maximum velocity for anything with rest mass. An interesting new finding is that in order to accelerate any sub-atomic “fundamental” particle to its maximum velocity, the particle rocket basically needs two Planck masses of initial load. This might sound illogical until one understands that subatomic particles with different masses have different maximum velocities. This can be generalized to large rockets and gives us the maximum theoretical velocity of a fully efficient and ideal rocket. Further, no additional fuel is needed to accelerate a Planck mass particle to its maximum velocity; this also might sound absurd, but it has a very simple and logical solution that is explained in this paper.
The maximum amount of fuel needed for any fully-efficient particle rocket is equal to two Planck masses. This amount of fuel will bring any subatomic particle up to its maximum velocity. At this maximum velocity the subatomic particle will itself turn into a Planck mass particle and likely will explode into energy. Interestingly, we need no fuel to accelerate a fundamental particle that has a rest-mass equal to Planck mass up to its maximum velocity. This is because the maximum velocity of a Planck mass particle is zero as observed from any reference frame. However, the Planck mass particle can only be at rest for an instant. The Planck mass particle can be seen as the very turning point of two light particles; it exists when two light particles collide. Haug’s newly-introduced maximum mass velocity equation seems to be fully consistent with application to the relativistic rocket equation and it gives an important new insight into the ultimate limit of fully-efficient particle rockets.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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