Mechanics of Firefly
POSTED BY: Hardware
UPDATED: Thursday, December 19, 2002 02:41
VIEWED: 7277
PAGE 2 of 2
Multiple solar systems are at work here. That's what's most consistent with both the on-screen evidence and common sense.
Anyway, I know there's a normal-speed shot of the ship rising away from a planet surface with that part spinning, so it can't just be for faster-than-light movement. And a particle accelerator doesn't need to spin.
But the most sensible answer here is that there isn't an answer. In more ways than one, the show already requires that we assume they have invented technology that we not only don't have, but can't even really imagine, because it's based on stuff we just don't know ANYTHING AT ALL about. Our trying to figure out that technology just by looking at it would be like a medieval person trying to figure out the meaning of the chord that connects my no-fuel-no-smoke-no-flame lamp to my wall just by looking at it. Any guess we can come up with based on our understanding of things would be like that Medieval person guessing that the chord is actually a string of fuel that very slowly gets retracted into the lamp and consumed, or maybe an as-yet-uninvented hose that delivers oil to the combustion point from wherever it's stored (if he or she is spectacularly imaginative). And it gets worse if you figure that the next few centuries stand to bring on more technological development than the last few did, because then a better analogy might be someone from a time and place without even lamps or candles.
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Well i thint this is actually the point of sci-fi its just some utopian thoughts of some writers we would like to belive in. This show aint the really, even if some would like it to be. Its the fun of creating some theories around the ship constructions and the truth is that this ring serves only one purpose, and that is to look fancy, thats it!Exactly like the warp-core of the enterprise, there aint no antimatter (well there is, but you cant use it the way its shown in ST) this whole techno-mumbo-jumbo are just some theories, this time joss didnt add any explanations so we can make them up ourselves.
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I have to remember that this story takes place 500 years into the future... but colliders are not used for propulsion. They are used only to accelerate very tiny amounts of matter to near light speed to 'collide' with a target to be used in imaging. The amount of energy that a collider creates is directly related to its size. A collider that small would produce so little energy, that it would not be significant, even in today's physical research. If you're really feeling the need for a particle physics fix, see http://public.web.cern.ch/public .
That said, the rotating ring probably has something to do with propulsion or gravity, or both. It does, however, turn a little fast, for its size, to create usable gravity along the axis of the ring. At that speed, the experience would be a little like a carnival ride: uncomfortable.
Perhaps in 500 years physicists have developed a method of transforming the rotational energy of the ring into some sort of amplifier that translates to linear thrust to push the freighter through space (maybe that's the rotating device that Kaylee is always working on.) But if faster-than-light travel happens, well, we are in the realm of star trek and other fancies.
To muddy the waters without giving any explanation, River says in "Train Job" that the Firefly-class mid-transport has a "Standard Radeon Accelerator..." It certainly has an intriguing name.
I enjoy this show very much, tape it and re-watch episodes when not working. Great discussion: I don't want to throw water on anyone's enjoyment, but the question about colliders caught my eye and I want to shed light on it.
Yoshi
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Quote:
Our trying to figure out that technology just by looking at it would be like a medieval person trying to figure out the meaning of the chord that connects my no-fuel-no-smoke-no-flame lamp to my wall just by looking at it. Any guess we can come up with based on our understanding of things would be like that Medieval person guessing that the chord is actually a string of fuel that very slowly gets retracted into the lamp and consumed, or maybe an as-yet-uninvented hose that delivers oil to the combustion point from wherever it's stored (if he or she is spectacularly imaginative).
That there was power in lightning was never denied. Said person could take the light bulb out and experience the shock... and may even recognize it if they've felt a large enough static charge before. They certainly already know that hot objects already give off light. Assuming their was no language barrier, and assuming they cared, it would not be hard to explain it to them.
Similarly, though we might not understand how to change the fine structure constant of a localized area, or fold space into higher dimensions, we -DO- understand how doing these things would allow one to move faster than the speed of light (even if all those things are really doing is making the speed of light that much faster).
The future is not necessarily incomprehensible. Amazing, probably, but unless we're talking about an alien invasion, the advent of magic, or something equally out of our perspective (River as a psychic might count, but I get the impression that experiments were building up to her, rather than having her talents pop out of nowhere) - it has to be comprehensible to be a part of our future in the first place.
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Looks like the main drivebelt to me.
Hey I can fix just about anything on my truck with a can of Cherry Coke and duct tape but hell if I know what that ring is.
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Quote:
Perhaps in 500 years physicists have developed a method of transforming the rotational energy of the ring into some sort of amplifier that translates to linear thrust to push the freighter through space (maybe that's the rotating device that Kaylee is always working on.) But if faster-than-light travel happens, well, we are in the realm of star trek and other fancies.
I did a little (obviously innacurate) plot about how fast we were going, and when humanity would be crossing the 'lightspeed barrier'. Around the year 2200. Of course, we might never escape time dilation and be wallowing around .75 (or whatever the lightspeed equivelant is).
But, there are ways to cheat those laws, we know as much, without looking to Star Trek. The question is is it even feasible to do so.
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I don't know what a collider ring is , but maybe it's the "real" engine and the other engine is actually a relay or mother-board-ish thing. The little thing that Mal fixes in "Out of Gas" looks waaaaaaaaaaay too small to propel Serenity at speeds necessary to escape gravity, much less make 18-hour interplanetary flights.
Alternatively, she could run off of electricity, and the ring is magnetic with certain materials in the hull, because, IIRC, spinning a magnet around some special metal creates electricity.
Sensou
Sweet is love when all is sane
Sweet is death to end the pain
Cruel is death when all is well
Cruel is love when all is hell
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