FTL or not FTL...
POSTED BY: BadgersHat
UPDATED: Friday, May 14, 2004 20:35
VIEWED: 17361
PAGE 2 of 9
Quote:
Originally posted by FourSkys:
Couple things:Quote:
Originally posted by SigmaNunki:
Actually, Relativity only states that we can't accelerate to the speed of light. So, if we could find a way to just jump to a faster speed than light, it wouldn't break this theory.
I coule be misunderstanding this, but... Since acceleration is simply a change in velocity, there is no way to go from traveling less than the speed of light to grater than the speed of light (read: a change in velocity) without accelerating.
It is true that our current understanding of how things move does require acceleration. But, who knows what we'll dream up or realize in the future.
As mentioned prior it would require a discontinuity in velocity. How we go about getting that discontinuity or even if that is possible is for further study.
I'd say that this is unlikely, but, other barriers have been broken in the past, so, who knows.
Isn't science fun
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"Canada being mad at you is like Mr. Rogers throwing a brick through your window." -Jon Stewart, The Daily Show
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As an example from SF, the reactionless drives from the Larry Niven books seemed to allow almost instant deceleration...
Then there are the various inertialess drives, like the ones in the Lensman books...
Of course, both of these fall outside our current understanding of science... again. Doesn't mean they are definitely and absolutely impossible though.
Maybe.
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."
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Quote:
Originally posted by ljosalf:
As for 86 million miles being a far distance, keep in mind that they covered it in something less than 2 days, 3 at the tops. Jayne had to have a chance to contact the Feds, the Feds had to have a chance to contact the Hands of Blue, the HoB had to throw their little killing gadget in an overnight bag and hop a fast ship to Ariel. The planning and execution of the heist took approximately 3 days max; ergo, 86 million miles in about 2 days, or 1 day to accelerate and 1 day to decelerate. Even so not an appreciable percentage of light speed. Serenity kinda lumbers along by comparison.
Ljosalf
I think we are speaking of two different episodes. I was talking about "The Train Job" (no time was referenced in how long it took the blue hands to get there) and you seem to be talking about "Ariel" which we don't know where the blue hands were before they were called. Presumably they were close by as they are tracking River.
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"Canada being mad at you is like Mr. Rogers throwing a brick through your window." -Jon Stewart, The Daily Show
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Quote:
Originally posted by SigmaNunki:Quote:
Originally posted by SergeantX:
Of course this begs the old "one system/many systems" argument - which I can now definitively resolve once and for all.
But, at the end of "The Train Job" one of the blue hands men said "We didn't travel 86 million miles...".
I did a google and the average distance from the sun to the earth is 92,900,000 miles. And since the blue hands man made it seem as though 86 million miles was a great expanse and interstellar travel is (to put it lightly) a touch more I'm going to side with one system.
I would also think that some of the reasons why that spoken intro was taken out was that it sounds corny and makes it seem too star trekish, too Sci-Fi. The one system theory seems more plausible. And I seem to think that being realistic (eg no aliens) was on the to do list for Joss given the way the universe is constructed.
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"Canada being mad at you is like Mr. Rogers throwing a brick through your window." -Jon Stewart, The Daily Show
We all seem to be forgetting, Persephone is here in the Solar system (is it one of the moons of Pluto or something? Can't recall, but it orbits our sun). I don't think there's ANY chance that the planets of Firefly are in the Solar system, they have to be elsewhere, meaning that FTL drive of some sort MUST be in Firefly, whether it's hyperspace, quantum tunneling, etc etc etc.
And it seems that Serenity is not a reactionless drive, so there must be aspects we haven't seen yet... or, Joss just doesn't give a crap about this particular aspect of SF...
--Jefé The Hat
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"I like smackin 'em"--Jayne
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Well, I'm being bad and not tracking back all the (I assume) various threads on Serenity's drives. But speaking from some experience in this area, my personal favorite is that Serenity just has your run-of-the-mill fusion reactor-based propulsion system. The enormous power levels that could be achieved (specific power, if we're getting technical) allow for specific impulses (gas mileage, if you will) that permit relatively reasonable propellant usages for interplanetary trips like you're discussing (earth-to-sun-type distances). And the power levels of fusion reactors would ALSO allow for trip times of only a few days (perhaps not 1-2 days, which is a bit on the fast side).
HOWEVER, it's been stated elsewhere that a) Serenity has "grav" technology of various kinds (for artficial gravity, if nothing else), which would make reaction-based drives like I'm describing possibly obsolete, and b) there is definitely a dichotomy present in the depiction of the 'Verse regarding solar system-vs.-galaxy. My own guess is that Joss and company haven't yet decided themselves (I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming they understand the issues) about FTL.
Anyway, in MY mind, Serenity uses a relatively "fuel-efficient" drive that probably expels something like its own mass in propellant between worlds, which is why it needs to refuel and why fuel IS an important issue. Also, in my mind, we're dealing with one solar system (I'm hoping for FTL and Alcubierre's warp drive and wormhole transport someday, but I like Joss's realistic feel to Firefly). But again, while I prefer those two answers, I think Joss has left enough ambiguity and outright contradictions in the show that we'll all be delightfully in the dark until he decides to enlighten us :)
If anyone wants to talk specific impulse, electric propulsion, fusion propulsion, or even spacetime metric modification in regards to Firefly, just let me know...I'll go on for far too long :)
- Forrestwolf the rocket scientist (no, really!)
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Quote:
Originally posted by BadgersHat:
...I don't think there's ANY chance that the planets of Firefly are in the Solar system, they have to be elsewhere,...
What are you basing this on?
Quote:
Originally posted by BadgersHat:
...or, Joss just doesn't give a crap about this particular aspect of SF...
I think it has been said that Joss is a non-Techie, so, I would think that that is the most likely reason for the lack of detail in such areas.
----
"Canada being mad at you is like Mr. Rogers throwing a brick through your window." -Jon Stewart, The Daily Show
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Here's a way to effectively travel faster than light: time travel. If one travels forward or back in time without moving in space, one will travel to worlds that will be/were in or near the spot you are "now". More to the point, those worlds will travel to you. Ultimately it would be a very limited way to travel, as you would only encounter those things that will/have travelled through the general area you are "now".
Of course, this theory means that Marty McFly would have travelled back to 1955... and suffocated in the vacuum of space, with Earth some 30 years away. Oh well...
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Quote:
Originally posted by Wangenstein:
Of course, this theory means that Marty McFly would have travelled back to 1955... and suffocated in the vacuum of space, with Earth some 30 years away. Oh well...
Well maybe the flux capacitor in the Delorian accounted for the shift.
How far from Earth is the nearest system, that we know of, with planets? Joss says that FF is set 500 years in the future. Considering the time it would take to travel to the new system(s), establish the core planets, and terrafrom rim planets and moons, it seems FTL travel is likely.
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Quote:
But, at the end of "The Train Job" one of the blue hands men said "We didn't travel 86 million miles...".
I did a google and the average distance from the sun to the earth is 92,900,000 miles. And since the blue hands man made it seem as though 86 million miles was a great expanse and interstellar travel is (to put it lightly) a touch more I'm going to side with one system.
This is what I call "Rod Serling Science"; Rod would think nothing of putting in a line like "Look, two suns; we must be more than a million miles from Earth!" -- and he'd be serious about it! As good a writer as he was, he never understood that (for example) asteroids are way too small to have a natural atmosphere of any sort, let alone one that's breathable.
It didn't matter, because the stories were the thing.
Now, Joss is a bit more science-literate that the late, great Rod S. (as evidenced by the realism of Firefly's EVA scenes), but he's a lot more interested in advancing the plot than in plotting things on a warp-drive scale. It's a flaw, but a minor one, in the firefly context.
That aside, the line quoted doesn't convince me of the one system argument.
Think of it this way; suppose an FBI man had business in (say) Sacramento, but then a hot lead pops up in San Jose, so he spends three hours commuting; he'd be understandably peeved at the waste of time if the lead doesn't pan out; and might very well say "I didn't drive a hundred and ten miles to investigate a robbery..." or somesuch. That doesn't mean he's limited to travel in a single state, now does it?
86 million miles might seem a far piece to go in one context, but be a light commute in another, just as a 110 mile trip is a far piece to travel in a car, but about ten minutes transit time on a commuter jet.
But hey, the "One System/Many Systems" argument can't be settled without more data anyway; what evidence exists in the series as it stands now is contractictory at best. The argument can't be settled until (a) Joss makes a definative statement, or (b), new evidence come to light via the BDM or a new series (please, please, PLEASE...)
"You can't enslave a free man. The most you can do is kill him." -- Robert A. Heinlein
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Quote:
Originally posted by SigmaNunki:
I think we are speaking of two different episodes. I was talking about "The Train Job" (no time was referenced in how long it took the blue hands to get there) and you seem to be talking about "Ariel" which we don't know where the blue hands were before they were called. Presumably they were close by as they are tracking River.
----
"Canada being mad at you is like Mr. Rogers throwing a brick through your window." -Jon Stewart, The Daily Show
Yup! My bad! no distances mentioned in Arial. Hangs head in shame. I'll be off in my corner now trying to recover my composure.
Ljosalf
The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.
Marcel Proust (1871 - 1922)
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