Technology in the 'verse

POSTED BY: zeke023
UPDATED: Friday, October 31, 2003 03:24
VIEWED: 21912
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THEGN

Monday, June 2, 2003 9:05 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:
Wait, lets see if I got this straight. Einstein, Newton, Hawking and the like were all wrong, except where it agrees with you? How convenient. So when they all said that science couldn’t be proven they were wrong, but when Einstein, our pal here, put forth relativity that is correct, despite the fact that it doesn’t always hold true (look at very small and high gravity)?

You explain that one to me.

Wait. I got it. You’re god here so everything you say goes and all of science that came before is flat out wrong if you say so. Hang on, let me bow down before you.

Shall I sacrifice a lamb? How about a goat?

Uh hu. I see. Well do you have those papers yet?

Or I am just supposed to believe that you somehow are above proof? If you say it, it must be true, is that right? ;)

You show me the papers, and then we'll talk. Until then, you and I are really quite done on this topic. Wouldn't you think?

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In the Dark Ages, Romano-Celtic Britannia was over-run by Viking-like cultures collectively called the Anglo-Saxons. They were led by warlords called Drytinns, and the greatest warriors among them were the Thegns.

CHRISTHECYNIC

Monday, June 2, 2003 10:04 PM

I've always believed that someone should be able to stand up to their own arguments. When you say that what I have said flies in the face of one hundred years of science that’s a bad thing, when what you say does that’s no problem. Then you move for a counter argument why? The only reason that I can think of is to take attention away from you lack of explanation.

I also think that one person should not have actively stop any others willful ignorance for the second person to take the seriously. Your supposed knowledge on this subject is laughable. I did a search on faster than light information just those words, nothing more. The experiment that I mentioned was the first one mentioned in the first page that came up [in it information was shown to move at four and seven tenths the speed of light].

As I said these results were experimentally verified, and as I tried to explain to you just because something is experimentally verified, or otherwise verified, does not mean that it is true. An example, the theory that the earth was flat was experimentally verified many times, as was the theory that the sun revolved around the earth. Neither of these are true. Further multiple witnesses verified the belief that the Titanic sunk without breaking up (on the surface), the belief that the Titanic broke up on the surface was also verified by multiple witnesses.

Were you to actually care you could have easily looked this up yourself, and found the information. But you chose not to, implying that you do not care who is right and you simply want to argue. On this assumption I wont show you so much as a link to said papers and I will predict that you will say that I’m just making it up.

As far as I am concerned this conversation ended a while ago and you simply haven’t realized yet. I may continue to humor you by responding, or may not. Whether I or not depends largely on the amount of orange juice I have.

HOTFORKAYLEE

Monday, June 2, 2003 10:10 PM

Wait a second, are you saying the earth isn't flat?
Why am I always the last one to find out about these things?

Quote:
"The universe is run by the complex interweaving of three elements: energy, matter, and enlightened self-interest."

ARCHER

Monday, June 2, 2003 10:23 PM

Here we go again with the whole "Earth isn't flat" thing.

LIES!

Zeke- Think the questions about the nature of the 'verse will have to be anwered before we can really expostulate on the communications issue. If we're talking multiple systems, they'd have to have some sort of FTL communications in order to maintain the Cortex.

But we're hung up on the issue of multiple systems vs. one system. Anybody got Joss' phone number laying around?

There ain't nothin' I can't overcome or come to know. So lay your heavy load down on me, strip everything I have away. I am not your prisoner, I am not afraid.

CHRISTHECYNIC

Monday, June 2, 2003 10:39 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by HotForKaylee:
Wait a second, are you saying the earth isn't flat?
Why am I always the last one to find out about these things?

Quote:
"The universe is run by the complex interweaving of three elements: energy, matter, and enlightened self-interest."

Here we go, this is good conversation.

My father used to be a card-carrying member of the flat earth society. He stopped paying the dues and thus isn’t anymore. Everyone knows the earth is flat, just like everyone knows that at it’s center is a mass of primordial Coca Cola, which makes it go round. This is as obvious as the fact that we really did go to the moon (if it was just a movie it would have had sex and violence.)

CAPTBAGGYTROUSERS

Monday, June 2, 2003 10:50 PM

OOookay, to swing this boat gradually back toward Firefly...

I think there might be something to the idea of ".99% of lightspeed" ships that took Earth to a single solar system, or cluster of nearby solar systems ("...whole new galaxy of Earths..."), then dumped 'em. Sleeper ships which contained frozen passengers from Earth-That-Was might have taken a couple of hundred years to get anywhere, hence the culture represented in the 'Verse might be fairly young.

I have often imagined the strong Old West influence on the characters on Firefly is not accidental, rather a social construction created by displaced people trying to re-affirm their identities. The first American settlers in space all-too-strongly identified themselves as cowboys, as most of the world thinks of us yankees now. After a few generations of ten-gallon hats and half-pretended swagger, it became the accepted norm. It's easy!

I mean, how many of y'all adopt a little drawl when posting to Fireflyfans? Honestly, now?

History repeats the old conceits

THEGN

Monday, June 2, 2003 10:58 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:
Were you to actually care you could have easily looked this up yourself, and found the information. But you chose not to, implying that you do not care who is right and you simply want to argue. On this assumption I wont show you so much as a link to said papers and I will predict that you will say that I’m just making it up.

What else can I say? You made that bed, not me. You're the one that said that you were basing your opinion on "recent" information. What are you twelve? Clearly, there can't be much of a discussion here, can there?

Just for the record, I am a physicist. I don't rely on the internet for what I know about physics, because I went to school for 10 years to learn that. I'm currently employed with the DoD and doing research in Theoretical Polarimetry. So I know a thing or two about electromagnetic and quantum theory. What can I say, sometimes I'm a little weary of amateur know-it-alls looking something up on the internet and then trying to tell me my business.

Quote:
Originally posted by christhecynic:
As far as I am concerned this conversation ended a while ago and you simply haven’t realized yet. I may continue to humor you by responding, or may not. Whether I or not depends largely on the amount of orange juice I have.

You've got to be kidding me.

Anyway I'll be waiting for those papers.

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In the Dark Ages, Romano-Celtic Britannia was over-run by Viking-like cultures collectively called the Anglo-Saxons. They were led by warlords called Drytinns, and the greatest warriors among them were the Thegns.

THEGN

Monday, June 2, 2003 11:14 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by CaptBaggytrousers:
I think there might be something to the idea of ".99% of lightspeed" ships that took Earth to a single solar system, or cluster of nearby solar systems ("...whole new galaxy of Earths..."), then dumped 'em. Sleeper ships which contained frozen passengers from Earth-That-Was might have taken a couple of hundred years to get anywhere, hence the culture represented in the 'Verse might be fairly young.

Excellent. This is what I like to hear. Scifi fans who aren't afraid to think inside the box.

There is a whole wealth of untapped scifi out there that could bring to light some great stories, that don't involve hokey physics. One of the things that I liked about Firefly was that Joss seemed to be trying move away from the whole issue of Star Trek science and develop a more 'real' space opera. Perhaps he could have consulted with some professionals before jumping into the mechanics of the setting, but at least he tried.

Quote:
Originally posted by CaptBaggytrousers:
I have often imagined the strong Old West influence on the characters on Firefly is not accidental, rather a social construction created by displaced people trying to re-affirm their identities. The first American settlers in space all-too-strongly identified themselves as cowboys, as most of the world thinks of us yankees now. After a few generations of ten-gallon hats and half-pretended swagger, it became the accepted norm. It's easy!

I'm not so sure this really need be true however. People seem to be associating this whole cowboy thing with the American West, but in reality, the American West developed the way it did, not because it was American, but because it was primitive. Almost the exact same culture developed in Canada, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Mexico. And similar cultures had already been in existence on the plains of Hungary and the Ukraine and in other parts of the world. The "Old West" was simply an example of a post-modern primitive society, and it existed in one form or another all over the world, where the geography and cultural influences were similar. So I don't think that it would be unusual to expect that a similar post-modern primitive society would develop in the future, given similar circumstances.

Quote:
Originally posted by CaptBaggytrousers:
I mean, how many of y'all adopt a little drawl when posting to Fireflyfans? Honestly, now?

I'm from Alabama, so I might already have the drawl. ;)

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In the Dark Ages, Romano-Celtic Britannia was over-run by Viking-like cultures collectively called the Anglo-Saxons. They were led by warlords called Drytinns, and the greatest warriors among them were the Thegns.

CHRISTHECYNIC

Tuesday, June 3, 2003 12:11 AM

You know you are right, I am horrible at relaying information, it was 1995. To me that’s recent, but I’m sure that to someone as immature as you it was ages ago.

So lets see where this is going now, you went to school for ten years to learn physics, wow amazing ten years (can anyone else say short amount of time?) To recap, ten years at school and you still make the high school mistake of thinking that relativity and quantum physics are both correct. Where did you go to school? If you don’t believe me, believe Hawking, hell you can be the layman you’ve demonstrated yourself to be and read it in A Brief History of Time, the updated version of said book, or The Universe in a Nut Shell. There you wont have any of the hard physics stuff, so your lack of understanding wont hinder you.

I love the twelve year old comment, that is only one of the things that I base my belief in your immaturity on. Next you’re going to call me a meanie right? Or is it poopy head? Come on, if you went to school for ten years I hope you are at least capable of pretending you’ve put that kind of thing behind you.

You should have also learned in your time in school that any source is good if it can point you to information that you can check the credentials on yourself. The Internet is a very good place to do this as you can look something up, either on a reliable site, or go to the library and look into it on your own. Also if you don’t know about something, as you obviously don’t know about this subject the Internet would be a good thing to check before you assume other people are wrong.

Further if the only education into physics you got was at school then I have definitively wasted my time reading what you had to say as you either just got out of school, or there is a good chance that the parts of what you were taught concerning this area are already out of date. The ability to measure in increments small enough to find out if something in laboratory conditions exceeded the speed of light have only existed since 1993.

THEGN

Tuesday, June 3, 2003 12:29 AM

You got those papers yet?

That's what I thought.

Incidentally, what is your background in physics, Einstein? Internet Physics? Theoretical Googling for Physics topics?

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In the Dark Ages, Romano-Celtic Britannia was over-run by Viking-like cultures collectively called the Anglo-Saxons. They were led by warlords called Drytinns, and the greatest warriors among them were the Thegns.

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