Theoretical float systems?

I too would love to see what others think. I found Iaan M Banks' idea of leviathan behemathaurs from A Look To Windward, or his regularly featured Accost species fascinating.
I guess you'd need to start with a more suitable environment, or find an engine/engines with enough specific impulse to support said structure.
Realistically, the most practical and comparable structure would be a space station

>>8190208

I'll give it a read. Also you talk about specific impulse, does that mean a rocket or thrusters would have to be used to achieve constant flotation? Would upgraded small scale systems such as magnetism or high frequency sound waves work?

Small scale systems are fascinating also like the Air Bonsai project
http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2016/01/air-bonsai-levitating-magnetic-bonsai-trees-by-hoshinchu/

In my oponion, you wont need too mutch power, to make it happen. There are more different options to choose from: for example, If you have a large ammout of a magnetic element, then with very advanced tech, maybe you can make a large system levitate, but then the system's shape would be highly limited. An other variation is to opperate with the fabric of space itself. If you would be able somehow, to controll the vector of a gravitational force, then it would be possible to make 'anti-gravity'

>>8190250
An air and space manipulation system is what I had in mind. Anti-gravity is thought to be possible with negative mass but actually making it operational is the issue. Magnetism sounds like one of the few viable options to this current date

>>8190238
All of his 'The Culture' novels are mindblowing; trust me, you will not be disappointed.
Right now those are the most conventional means of going against gravity. Perhaps the EmDrive (RF resonant cavity thruster) coupled with fusion technology in the next few decades is the key - it's interesting stuff, worth looking up.
Maybe you're right, everything starts small scale. It's a matter of seeing these technologies through to their physical limits. How far we can take quantum or acoustic levitation is anyone's guess, I'm sceptical though.

>>8190280
With fusion technology many theoretical devices and systems would be able to be created and adapted into the real world easily as there are vast capabilities such high amounts of energy can do for us besides solving the energy crisis imagine how the energy from fusion can supply devices such as the LHC and the results it would produce could infact lead to the levitation system being developed. Im just a skeptic after having watched Code Geass but all in all small scale systems are the breakthrough and all these small scale applications you can find on google are truely fascinating and rather exciting!! I guess not much more can be said for this topic however as for now.

>>8190280
>All of his 'The Culture' novels are mindblowing;
And most have incredibly depressing plots.
Still worth the read.
Anybody wanting to get into those books should be forewarned.
They're socially realistic, there's nothing but moral ambiguity, and there is no such thing as plot armor.
The author can and will devote multiple chapters to describing the life and events of a character, take you through the emotional ride of how they try to deal with a crisis, then abruptly kill them off and they will have had zero impact on the plot of the book.
It's not pointless, he does it to give you snapshots of what it's like for people living through the major events, and it's actually pretty refreshing.
It's just depressing as hell.

>>8190332
Come on now, The Excession had a happy-ish ending :^)

>>8190346
I don't know how to refute that without spoiling fucking everything that happens.

>>8190195
If you mean float anywhere, like antigravity and stuff, barring new physics, no.

For flight in an atmosphere, you are best off moving air or using buoyancy. Propellers have proven best for moving air.

For levitation above an area one might use superconducting cables on the ground to push against a loop of superconducting cables in the air. Of course, currents in the cables need to be on the order of megaamps and how the fuck you are gonna keep said structure stable is anybody's business. Superconductors do not like changing currents

There has been some work that implies that one can get an arbitrary amount of force from a single photon reflecting between two stationary perfect mirrors, but this will be very difficult to actually make.

>>8190250
Barring new physics, manipulating space time is going to take large amounts of energy/mass or incredibly high densities. This is because spacetime is VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY stiff.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/life-unbounded/just-how-resilient-is-spacetime/

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what about a really large helicopter airship like from pokemon 2?

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>>8190400
If you have fusion power, maybe. But you will need bigger and/or more propellors. Otherwise the disk loading is too fucking high, efficiency goes way the fuck down, and air velocity has to be fuck high.

Huge propellors we can probably do, see wind turbines. NASA once proposed making a giant fucking helicopter to recover Saturn V stages in the air with a gross tonnage similar to that of an antonov an-225

Almost forgot, one great way to lift a huge amount of weight is with a fullair. It's a giant geodesic sphere about a mile in diameter. A relatively small temperature difference, that could be provided via solar heat, would be enough to lift the sphere and more. Like enough to lift a small town.

Issues include not getting sucked into a thunder storm