In space, no one is listening anyway

POSTED BY: SittingDuck
UPDATED: Wednesday, May 12, 2004 14:31
VIEWED: 8045
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RELFEXIVE

Tuesday, May 11, 2004 3:21 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by bikisdad:
I know this is getting off topic, although my original intent was just to compliment Joss on the realism of Firefly, as opposed to all the shows/movies with "Star..." in the title.

Contrary to what seems to be a somewhat popular belief, there ARE absolutes in this universe. There is no sound in space - for reasons explained very well by someone earlier in the thread. FTL travel is also impossible. If you don't believe me, then read "Introduction to Modern Physics" by Richtmeyer, Kennard, and Cooper. It has the best explanation anywhere of Einstein's Special Theory, which, by the way has been proven true over and over and over by many different experiments over many decades. If you are looking for Einstein's wrong theory, that would be the "Unified Field Theory", which has nothing to do with special relativity.

The fact is, the speed of light as a limiting constant is basic to the existence of the universe in the form we observe (in fact, even light can not go faster than the speed of light - when you are in your car going 80 m.p.h. with the headlights on, the light from the headlights doesn't go the speed of light plus 80, it just goes the speed of light, but with a blue shift to the spectrum to account for the extra energy provided by the speed of your car). If it was not so, this universe would be a very different place than it is, and we probably wouldn't even exist.

Of course. And I liked the no-sound too, which I didn't notice till Serenity first blasted away to escape the cruiser. Cool. And, of course, exactly correct.

But... do not assume that our absolutes are, well, absolutes. Things do change, our understanding of the underlying principles of the universe being one of them. FTL travel, that, is, moving a body faster than the speed of light purely by moving really quickly, is impossible, yes. Either it really, truly is impossible (almost certainly the case) or we just don't know how to get around it yet (not completely impossible, just very, very improbable).

It just means we may have to try wormholes or hyperspace instead... if they are possible. Right now, I don't think anyone can really say for sure.

Besides... great show, ain't it? Looks fab! Cool the way they travel around from place to place, huh? Woo!

Mal: "We're not gonna die. We can't die, Bendis. You know why? Because we are so... very... pretty. We are just too pretty for God to let us die."

WEERWOLF

Tuesday, May 11, 2004 3:43 PM

I'm not the technical stuff at all (it's been a couple of years since my physics classes ended), but I always thought these quotes from Arthur C. Clarke where kinda nice:

1."When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."

2."The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible."

3."Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

1d6 degrees of separation - John Kovalic

BIKISDAD

Tuesday, May 11, 2004 3:47 PM

Absolutely (see, there are absolutes) cool show. And the apparent nuclear drive that they use in the show IS theoretically possible and would make our space ships travel at least ten times faster than they currently do (which is still nowhere near light speed). That would make travel to other planets/moons such as Mars and Jupiter (or more likely Jupiter's moons) a snap, but still taking a couple of weeks rather than many months, like it does now. That's really what I was trying to convey in my original post. The Firefly 'verse that Joss has established is very realistic and, therefore, believable. That's different than Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate, Andromeda, etc. that sometimes manage to tell interesting stories, but have a believability factor of zero.

BIKISDAD

Tuesday, May 11, 2004 5:09 PM

Yes, Arthur C. Clarke, an excellent science FICTION writer. I've enjoyed some of his work, too. Still, while our ancestors believed in all kinds of weird things, like for instance, witches; Alyson Hannigan's excellent portrayal of Willow aside, they don't exist. They never did exist, and they never will exist - sort of like space ships that travel faster than light.

In the Middle Ages, hundreds of thousands (maybe millions) of people were hanged/burned at the stake for being witches (see "Safe"). Not a single one actually was a witch, but that didn't stop people from believing that they were. Some of the things that exist in the sci-fi lexicon today, such as FTL travel, are as false as the existence of witches. Unfortunately, people still have some strange need to believe in it. It literally took hundreds of years before our ancestors finally stopped burning "witches". I don't expect this will be any different.

I'm done arguing about this now, as the proof of my position is "out there", and has been for many decades. The fact that everyone chooses to believe in the fantasy is their choice and they're welcome to it. After all, unlike burning witches, believing in FTL isn't harmful to anyone. Besides, now I'm going to have to answer to all of the people who are going to argue with me about witches....

RELFEXIVE

Tuesday, May 11, 2004 5:38 PM

You have a very grounded, solid, logical and rational view of things.

Lighten up

Just jestin'.

I guess the impossible will just have to remain that way... unless we find out otherwise. Me, I'll stick with having a little unreality in my fiction. After all, that's all it is. That and fun, of course.

Mal: "We're not gonna die. We can't die, Bendis. You know why? Because we are so... very... pretty. We are just too pretty for God to let us die."

GUNHAND

Tuesday, May 11, 2004 5:44 PM

Actually NASA has several theoretical FTL concepts they're investigating. None of which actually break the light barrier the way that the X-planes broke the sound barrier.

So on one hand breaking the speed of light is improbable, nothing is impossible but it's very very very improbable.

However, getting around the light barrier via other means is less improbable. Wormholes, strands, warping, dilation-distortion all are possible ways around that hard barrier. So I guess it wouldn't be faster than light travel but cheating lightspeed travel, which amounts to the same thing really, if you can get to places very far away relatively fastlike then the nomenclature really doesn't matter.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
"Oh hey, I got an idea. Instead of us hanging
around playing art critic till I get pinched by
the Man, how's about we move away from this
eerie-ass piece of work and get on with our
increasingly eerie-ass day, how's that?"

My eerie-ass website:
http://gunhandsfirefly.homestead.com/Index.html

BIKISDAD

Tuesday, May 11, 2004 6:06 PM

OK, I'll agree to that, as long as no one gets on me about the "witches" thing.

Who knows, maybe River is a witch, in some futuristic, technified way. Maybe we'll find out in the Big Damn Movie!

Yay!

GUNHAND

Tuesday, May 11, 2004 6:13 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by bikisdad:
OK, I'll agree to that, as long as no one gets on me about the "witches" thing.

Who knows, maybe River is a witch, in some futuristic, technified way. Maybe we'll find out in the Big Damn Movie!

Yay!

She may be a witch, but she's our damn witch!

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-
"Oh hey, I got an idea. Instead of us hanging
around playing art critic till I get pinched by
the Man, how's about we move away from this
eerie-ass piece of work and get on with our
increasingly eerie-ass day, how's that?"

My eerie-ass website:
http://gunhandsfirefly.homestead.com/Index.html

GUNRUNNER

Tuesday, May 11, 2004 6:54 PM

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mystery_monday_030922.html

There is sound in space however we can’t hear it…

The Firefly CCG Web Site:
http://mywebpage.netscape.com/Bllm119/firefly_ccg_web_site.htm

34CYGNI

Tuesday, May 11, 2004 8:01 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by bikisdad:
...the exceeding the speed of light crap (warp drive or hyperspace, whatever) that other shows and movies all use. Hey, people: Einstein proved 100 years ago that it can't be done, period.

For the record, what Einstein proved is that you can't accelerate to the speed of light, not that it can't be exceeded. Of course, this still requires a sci-fi widget that allows ships to instantaneously achieve FTL velocities (at least it does in my interstellar reading of the show's setting) but I, too, appreciate the 'verse's apparent lack of "hyperspace" and other hoary old traditions of the genre.

As for the silence of space in "Firefly", I think it was a fine decision -- the absence of sound tends to focus my attention on the outstanding visual effects. Serenity's such a pretty little ship...

Plus, the silence actually seems to make space seem, well, bigger. I tend to associate silence with wide-open natural places, such as a desert or mountainside, which are big on a scale that I can understand. Intellectually, I know space is a pretty big place, too, but it's hard to appreciate that when the entire 'verse is being crammed into a box in my living room.

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