Faster Than Light
POSTED BY: AnthonyT
UPDATED: Monday, August 2, 2004 20:22
VIEWED: 19488
PAGE 7 of 7
From watching the show I got the feeling that the human race had become quiet advanced, but was not super advanced like star-treaks beam me up and phasers and all that kind of stuff
I get the feeling that the majority of space ships in firefly do not use anything above light speed but I get the feeling that some of the larger ships such as the Alliance ships might be able to use a type of loop hole by using something that hasn't been seen before like wormholes or dimension jumps. We haven't seen any aliens in the show and the series has a more down to earth feel about other space so I doubt the ships have warp speeds like Startrek. I think the voyages to colonize and set up habitation in other lands could be a little like the voyages of Magellan, the Vikings or Colombus. A very long journey but very possible, the ships in firelfy might go on journeys to other parts of our Galaxy but I'm sure they are more local areas such as the closer stars to our sun like Barnard's Star or Alpha Centauri.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
hey, a poster from another firefly site provided the same map that appears 22 minutes into the "Safe" episode, and 7 min 20 sec into the "OiS" episode... apparently, it's from the Firefly "promotional pack"... enjoy! sure looks like a galaxy, don't it?
~~~
We gotta go to the crappy town where I'm a hero! ~ Wash
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Why are there two sets of circles? I tend to think it's another one of those "looks cool, means nothing" type things. But you can clearly see how some areas are much more remote than others.
Also, when we discuss the possibility of FTL, antigravity, lasers, or the like, we need to be humble. In the next 500 years we'll probably discover a lot in the field of psysics. Before trains became popular people said going more than 30 miles per hour would rip the fabric of time or something. A few months before the Wright brothers flew, everyone thought heavier than air flight was completely impossible. So don't be too skeptical about crazy Sci-fi stuff.
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:
Originally posted by JavidRho:
So, I propose that the science-minded among us try to figure out another way to move between solar systems that does not require warp drives or jump gates.
One possibility for FTL travel I've been thinking about is expanding the waveform function of particles (at least I think what it's called in English). According to quantum physics, a particle isn't located in exactly one point, but rather exists in a certain area. From what I've read on the subject, this means that the particle is sort of 'teleporting' around in the area: it ceases to exist in point A and continues to exist in point B. One of the effects of this is quantum tunneling: if you impact a particle on a very thin obstacle, there's a chance it passes right through it, as it's waveform reaches the other side of the obstacle. I've read about an experiment where light was made to travel faster than light (light also is both particle and wave) by projecting it through several extremely thin gold plates: most of the light was of course reflected back, but a few quantums (light particles) made it through.
Now, my theory of FTL travel relating to this: what if you could somehow uniformly control the waveform of all particles in an object and make them 'move' continuously in the same direction? As I understand the waveform of a particle never reaches zero: you take an electron, and there's an EXTREMELY low possibility that it would wink out of existence here and continue it on the other side of the universe. Other thing is that I don't know if there really is an upper limit to how often the particle changes location like this. You could make the particles of a given object change location at only subatomic distances at time, but they could do it billions of times per second.
But I have absolutely no idea how this could be accomplished.
NOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
ltnowis ~ hmmm, two sets of circles.
my best and only guess is that it represents two hemispheres of the known galaxy. north and south or something like that.
i guess it might be easier to find a system through only 4 layers (in either hemisphere) instead of through all 8 layers at once.
(of course, 4 layers is already pretty dense as it is)
~~~
We gotta go to the crappy town where I'm a hero! ~ Wash
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
In my opinion, I'd say they do NOT have FTL capability on Serenity. I think everyone left Earth in Generational ships that traveled for 100's of years to arrive in another habitable star system. To escape some sort of catastrophe that occured on Earth most likely.
Obviously Serenity has inertial dampening capabilities as well as artificial gravity. I speculate these are built into the ship's structure. I say this do to the fact that much of the mechanical repair work done on the ship seems to be nuts and bolts low tech stuff. When they lost engines in Out Of Gas they still had gravity. Their fuel is probably kept in self-contained, compact power cells. Nonvolatile material that requires a catalyst to enable the reaction to take place.
To this idea of NO FTL, I'd say that Serenity is in a solar system with a great deal of habitable planets and moons. Due to the war for unity of the system, and the ongoing(?) terraforming, I'd say this star system hasn't had human occupants for more than 100 years. It's just my hunch, with little or no facts to back it up.
This is just another thought, but with the "crises" on Earth, more Generational Ships were probably launched to other areas of the universe. Maybe the Reavers were in these ships but something went wrong with their food supply and they had to resort to cannabalism? Kind of far out there, but could happen. (Soylent Green scenario?)
P.S.: Thankfully this show doesn't have all the handy miracle devices to support the flawed or unworkable sciences of Star Drek!! Yeah, I know I'm going to catch Hell for saying this from all the Trekkies. 
NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME