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Re: 3D Viewport for Stars!

Wed, 25 October 2006 13:59

Marduk

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Messages: 345
Registered: January 2003
Location: Dayton, OH

Kotk wrote on Tue, 24 October 2006 14:23

Marduk wrote on Tue, 24 October 2006 20:52

Who says it has to be hyperspace for the map representation?

Laws of nature. On other cases you can not travel 100ly with a single year.

This is mostly off-topic, but physics is fun.

Firstly, just because the ships are traveling faster than light doesn't mean you have to change the map. What about Star Trek warp, where they generate a warp bubble and travel in that, but remain analagous to a position in normal space? Space compression drives, tachyon drives (if tachyons in fact exist and could be used for propulsion of sub-light masses to supra-light speeds), the list goes on.

You could also posit some form of teleporting drive - perhaps each year of travel is made up of hundreds or thousands of 'short' jumps, with a recharge time required before being able to teleport again. That would allow interception for combat; and once the recharge is complete (after seven squares of movement) the ships can leave the battlefield. If there were some sort of FTL disturbance produced (a gravity fluctuation, or some such), that would account for being able to scan a ship at ranges greater than one light-year in a year's time. (Don't ask how pen scans can estimate the number of people on a planet... if you have a planet with a million people who generate gravity detectable hundreds of light years away, you have bigger problems then other people shooting lasers at you.)

Or if they simply travel faster than light - there is no prohibition against it. Too many people don't understand the "infinite mass at light speed" thing. Your mass doesn't change at all. Your *apparent* mass changes due to the time dilation effect, since force is applied over time. Your own motivating force, however, is also subject to the time dilation effect - as your apparent mass increases, so too does your apparent engine output. Some have claimed that the added mass is caused by the extra energy imparted by high-speed travel, but experiments at the other end (trying to reach absolute zero) show that this is ridiculous.

Conservation of mass/energy, the usual argument people bring up against FTL travel, is evidently not valid for this universe (quantum effects ruined a lot of very neatly arranged theories). It seems likely to apply to whatever larger system our universe is a part of, but that of course remains unclear.

The biggest questions remaining about traveling at light-speed and beyond involve the nature of time and gravity, and what happens to masses that approach and reach light speed. It's possible that the mass simply converts to energy at that point, likely with unpleasant implications for the vessel.

By the way, there was a recent demonstration of the ability to remotely assemble and modify a molecule through quantum entanglement. So we have broken, in principle, the FTL barrier for communication and energy transfer. A more impressive test over distances of meters instead of micrometers is supposed to be forthcoming. If that works, presumably they'll try it for opposite sides of the globe.

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[Message index]

		3D Viewport for Stars! By: sirgwain on Fri, 20 October 2006 12:41
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: craebild on Sat, 21 October 2006 02:58
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: gible on Sat, 21 October 2006 03:46
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: Kotk on Sat, 21 October 2006 04:23
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: Coyote on Sat, 21 October 2006 22:11
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: mlaub on Sat, 21 October 2006 23:36
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: Kotk on Sun, 22 October 2006 08:26
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: Coyote on Sun, 22 October 2006 17:27
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: Coyote on Sun, 22 October 2006 17:30
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: Kotk on Mon, 23 October 2006 04:51
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: Marduk on Mon, 23 October 2006 18:07
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: Kotk on Tue, 24 October 2006 07:36
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: Marduk on Tue, 24 October 2006 13:52
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: Kotk on Tue, 24 October 2006 14:23
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: Marduk on Wed, 25 October 2006 13:59
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: Kotk on Wed, 25 October 2006 14:36
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: m.a@stars on Mon, 23 October 2006 04:28
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: iztok on Wed, 25 October 2006 03:07
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: Kotk on Wed, 25 October 2006 09:04
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: Altruist on Mon, 13 November 2006 10:39
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: sirgwain on Tue, 24 October 2006 01:37
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: sirgwain on Tue, 14 November 2006 00:25
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: Coyote on Sat, 18 November 2006 18:27
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: Neo the White on Sat, 30 December 2006 12:51
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: jabbawocky on Fri, 08 June 2007 09:07
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: goober on Sat, 09 June 2007 10:37
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: jabbawocky on Sun, 10 June 2007 05:29
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: goober on Sun, 10 June 2007 09:03
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: jabbawocky on Sun, 10 June 2007 09:58
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: m.a@stars on Sun, 10 June 2007 13:42
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: goober on Sun, 10 June 2007 20:07
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: jabbawocky on Sun, 10 June 2007 21:27
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: goober on Sun, 10 June 2007 23:00
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: jabbawocky on Mon, 11 June 2007 00:26
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: goober on Mon, 11 June 2007 07:36
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: jabbawocky on Mon, 11 June 2007 20:21
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: goober on Wed, 13 June 2007 10:13
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: jabbawocky on Wed, 13 June 2007 11:31
		Re: 3D Viewport for Stars! By: goober on Sat, 09 June 2007 10:25

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