StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Note: Split from here. ~Dalton (h/t phongn)

Aranfan wrote:I'm pretty sure that nothing in the Xeelee-verse is physically impossible under our current understanding of physics.

The main problem is that our understanding of physics absolutely sucks.

For example, we know that it takes "infinite" energy to go faster than the speed of light, yet we don't know why it takes infinite energy to go a set amount of space in a set amount of time (something major is not adding up here). We keep finding hints of things moving faster than the speed of light (sometimes in excess of 10,000c), yet that isn't possible according to what we know of physics. We have pictures from the Hubble Telescope showing Galaxies eight time larger than what our understanding of physics would allow, yet they're there and we have proof of them. The way the universe is moving majorly suggests that there are 'zones' outside the observable universe pushing and pulling the galaxies in our universe around due to gravity, yet we have no model currently that can account for those other universes (we're not seeing these other universes so much as we're seeing the effect that they're having on our universe). There are hints that our universe may infact be hundreds of trillions of years old, yet we know that the Big Bang only happened something like fourteen to fifteen billion years ago (*there actually is a logical explanation for this, though it can't really be tested without us either moving a probe into a higher dimensional plane and/or creating another Big Bang to test things out). Suffice it to say, there is a lot we still don't know about the laws of physics.


*The only explanation that would account for this is that our universe is like a big bubble, and every two trillion years or so a big bang happens (two cosmic strings hitting each other), which throws a lot of heat and matter into our universe. This would infact account for the 96% of the universe we can't observe but know is there, as only 4% of the universe was made by the last Big Bang 14+up billion years ago, meaning that some matter in the universe has a different 'age' than the matter around it. Though this would also raise an interesting question of what happens to that matter as it totally breaks down over trillions of years. Is this dead and decayed matter the basis of dark matter, or does it fall apart to such an extent that we can only see the remnants of it when doing experiments with Quantum Physics?

Robo Jesus wrote:The main problem is that our understanding of physics absolutely sucks.

For example, we know that it takes "infinite" energy to go faster than the speed of light, yet we don't know why it takes infinite energy to go a set amount of space in a set amount of time (something major is not adding up here). We keep finding hints of things moving faster than the speed of light (sometimes in excess of 10,000c), yet that isn't possible according to what we know of physics. We have pictures from the Hubble Telescope showing Galaxies eight time larger than what our understanding of physics would allow, yet they're there and we have proof of them. The way the universe is moving majorly suggests that there are 'zones' outside the observable universe pushing and pulling the galaxies in our universe around due to gravity, yet we have no model currently that can account for those other universes (we're not seeing these other universes so much as we're seeing the effect that they're having on our universe). There are hints that our universe may infact be hundreds of trillions of years old, yet we know that the Big Bang only happened something like fourteen to fifteen billion years ago (*there actually is a logical explanation for this, though it can't really be tested without us either moving a probe into a higher dimensional plane and/or creating another Big Bang to test things out). Suffice it to say, there is a lot we still don't know about the laws of physics.

Except for the very last sentence, your post contains no true claims. Well, a minority aren't actually false per se, but rather simply lacking the significance or implicatures you assign them. I'd rather not hijack this thread (especially since the original context was wholly fictional), but if you'd like to discuss any of these issues in the context of non-fictional physics, I'd be happy to oblige either in another thread or over PM.

Kuroneko wrote:Except for the very last sentence, your post contains no true claims. Well, a minority aren't actually false per se, but rather simply lacking the significance or implicatures you assign them.

Uhm, no. The galaxy that's eight times larger than what physics says is possible, here's a link to it (not 56K friendly, and it's near the bottom of the image). The speed of light, 299,792,458 metres per second (a finite speed set at a finite time, yet it requires infinite energy?). The implications that there is something beyond the universe we can see because we're observing the effects of gravity on our universe that make no sense without something beyond the observable universe, a link (with many many others that all say the same thing (I.E. "there has to be something else outside our universe to get the result that we're seeing")). The hints that signals could be moving faster than the speed of light, [url=http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/ ... limit.html]here's a link towards that as well[/u] (I'd provide more links, but I seem to be finding a shitload of spam. =/ Bah, there have been a few other articles unrelated to Quantum Entanglement as well which have hinted at this as well).

The only part which is pure conjecture is on the possible implications that the Big Bang was created by Cosmic Strings, and that was found a while ago only due to the math on it. They honestly weren't looking for what may have created the universe when they stumbled on it, and quite honestly, the group that did so were working on something else entirely at the time (it's been about a year since it was talked about in some of the pure science magazines and websites, and seeing as how the group wasn't being paid for finding what may have made the big bang, they honestly have little reason to do work for something that they wouldn't be paid for. After all, would you go out of your way to work on something and not get paid for it? I sure know that I wouldn't.). However, considering that what they stumbled on looks sound, that in turn leaves big questions. Of course, that doesn't help if people don't know the details behind what was discussed, and I blindly assumed that others would instantly know what had been said and discussed. I appologize for assuming that.

So, let's see, all the things I talked about seem to be... FACTUAL, with one item of speculation based upon random items of information that only seem unrelated the first few glances at them (hey, the microwave was a completely accidental discovery. Do you think that people would have realized that microwaves would heat up water and in turn be useful for cooking? They were completely unrelated to each other until someone figured out how to use one to compliment the other. I.E. the things I talk about when going into conjecture do have correlation between them, though you usually have to juggle a few different items of information at the same time to see the link(s), though my speculation comments were meant as a way to engage in conversation and not as a means of trying to sell an idea). That said, our understanding of physics, while better than it was, still sucks. And arrogantly assuming that what we know now is all we'll ever know, or that we cannot be totally wrong about something, is an attitude that needs to be kicked in the head with steel toed boots. Repeatedly.

Kuroneko wrote:I'd rather not hijack this thread (especially since the original context was wholly fictional), but if you'd like to discuss any of these issues in the context of non-fictional physics, I'd be happy to oblige either in another thread or over PM.

I think it's a little too late. And btw, fuck you. You call me a liar in public, I'll make my retort and defence in public as well. (Don't take this too seriously, as it's not meant 100% serious).

Gah, I hate the edit limit on this board.>< I mean seriously, what the fuck. When I make posts, I'm going to make mistakes I'll want to clean up and make look good. I'll want to go in, edit out a line, maybe add in another one to make my post flow better. But noooo, there's a god damn motherfucking restriction on the ability to edit. I could understand a restriction on editing really old posts, but a five fucking minute old post being made unable to edit?

Sigh.

Moving on. Academia Nut, I'm going through all your chapters for spelling and editing mistakes right now. It's way too long to post, so you'll be getting an PM with a link to megaupload or the like with a text file filled with editing fixes (grammar and spelling) for your previous chapters.

Wellif your looking for a few low end energy universes for the stilleto to travel through a couple thoughts are:

-As I suggested earlier the HOKA universe.... if only because the idea of uber enthusiastic chaos teddy bears amuse me so...

-Weber's 'FUry' Universe... we know at one point said universe DID have gods (at least greek/Roman) but they died out for some reason... the only evidence of there existence is one surviving Fury out of three (Daemon of some sort?) Bonded to woman and her AI ship...

actually that could be quite interesting from the point of view of Alica Devries... If Tisiphone were able to sense the Daemons onboard hte stilleto as it emerged into htere reality, after so long thinking she was the only survivor of the gods tools...

and what would the Daemons make of Tisiphone nad her unqiue fusion with Alicia and Megaira?

(Read In fury born if that confuses you)

-A part of me also wants to see them enter the Xenosaga/gears universe... althogh whtehr that would be to high on the power scale or not I'm not sure... Still Albedo vs Daemon crew.. who can outcreep the most?

And a few universe I'd Personally like to see Tzinnitch and Co. sending agents or self to for shits and giggles:

-Callahan's bar/the Place... hey if ANY universe setting could accept what Tzintch and co. were doing and why they were doing it would be the Callhan group of drunks. Could be a nice introspective look for the gods of confessing of doing things they don't like or are cruel for the logn term survival of there reality... to a semi-sympathtic audience.

-Eric Flint and Dave Freer's 'Pyramid' unverse- Alien beings planning to ressurect various Myth-universes and take over htere gods, sending humans to suffer for the aliens amusement and attempts to stave ennui?.... oh Tzinitch and co can have FUN with this set up...

Academia Nut wrote:No, any universe home to guys capable of what the Xeelee do is not low energy.

Ironicaly you are correct but for the wrong reasons. The universe of the Xeelee has undergone several expansions(at least 3) in the resulting ambient energy levels of the universe dramatically dropped. The Xeelee have aspects which originate from the very after glow of the big bang before the universe had cooled to permit quarks to form.

The proto-Xeelee where formed before the quark soap had cooled into actual matter, this is where a large chunk of the exotic technology of the Xeelee has it's roots in. After that it is a closed time-like loop spanning at least 10 billion years and that technology in Xeelee verse exists which allows for the alteration of the laws of physics in a localized way (established back in the quark-soap era of the universe). This is how thier FTL drive works.

The speed of light, 299,792,458 metres per second (a finite speed set at a finite time, yet it requires infinite energy?)

Errr... you have this completely and utterly wrong. Light itself has no mass (sort of, see later) because it is a set of self-propogating magnetic and electrical fields at right angles to one another, and the speed of light is exactly related to the speed at which these two fields decay and regenerate each other. However, if you mean non-luminous matter and want to know why it requires infinite energy to get it up to light speed, here's the explaination.

E=mc^2 means that there is a relationship between mass and energy, the two of them essentially being different 'phases' of the same thing, in very simple terms. However, when you accelerate something, you add energy to it, and thus mass. If you accelerate enough your mass will increase to the point that you will get less acceleration out of F=ma, and will eventually stop accelerating significantly if you keep your force constant as your mass gets bigger. So you need more force, which translates into more energy, to keep accelerating. But this adds more mass, which means you need more energy to go faster and faster. Thus you need an infinite amount of energy to reach the speed of light if you started lower than the speed of light. This is a somewhat crude explanation but it gets the salient points across.

Despite the fact that light itself has a very small amount of 'mass', it never undergoes acceleration as it starts at c and while its possible to slow it down, that isn't really acceleration when you look at what is really going on.

The problem is that while there is still a lot of physics we don't know about, we have the fundamentals down really well at the moment and we have to go into increasingly esoteric physics with really weird set ups that would be difficult or impossible to replicate on a human-understandable scale to truly get into the areas we don't fully understand.

Anyway, the general rule of thumb is that a universe's place on the energy gradient can be determined by a combination of: peak realized power generation, peak FTL speed, and the effectiveness of artificial force manipulators like artificial gravity, inertial compensation, and the like. This also includes subsidiary technologies. If a civilization has figured out how to harness a black hole as a mobile power supply, that's a massive engineering challenge that may not be possible in our universe. In that example, the size of the singularity also comes into play as while big ones are more sedate they are also harder to get power out of, while small ones give lots of power but have a tendency to explode if they get too small. FTL speed is also a big one, as while some current models of the universe may allow for FTL the power expenditures to even get a little beyond c are huge.

Heh, that would put Babylon 5 pretty high up on the gradient actually.

Bab 5 if I remember correctly is about in the same cosmic neighbourhood as Star Trek, which isn't to say that Star Trek is any slouch, its just that there are some universes so inundated with energy that things start getting weird on a massive scale when you look at them, such as SW, 40k, and even more ridiculously powerful places like saw TTGL. Of course, just because places have similar power levels doesn't mean that they are near each other cosmically as there are several factors. There is Calm Space, Wild Space, and Chaotic Space. Calm Space is Nanoha level throughout. Wild Space includes SG as a higher end example. And Chaotic Space is just a mess with a variety of levels of nearly every conceivable energy level. There is the 'main sequence' of universes which follow a sort of even flow of energy increase and decrease in one dimension of travel, with local perturpations and variances in two other dimensions of travel (think of a hurricane's internal wind speed or the star density in a spiral galaxy). There are the 'wall' universes that interact with the boundary of Chaotic Space and generally have higher energies than the main sequence would suggest. There are the Doldrums, which lie 'above' and 'below' the main sequence and have very, very little energy but allow for travel without a hub universe between them. There are the 'hub' universes that allow travel between main sequence universes but not each other and are generally rather high in energy. There are the 'z-hubs' which lie beyond the Doldrums. There are other structures I haven't really revealed yet. The whole thing is a complex interaction and generally very messy.

A few items on that really big galaxy:

1) Out of curiosity I'd like a link to something that explains why current theory says it shouldn't be.

2) From the image/poster itself, 8x times as many stars as the Milky Way galaxy and larger than theory says it could be does not necessarily equal 8x as large as theory says it could be. That is, I don't think the Milky Way represents the upper limit on theoretical galaxies.

Academia Nut wrote:

The speed of light, 299,792,458 metres per second (a finite speed set at a finite time, yet it requires infinite energy?)

Errr... you have this completely and utterly wrong. Light itself has no mass (sort of, see later) because it is a set of self-propogating magnetic and electrical fields at right angles to one another, and the speed of light is exactly related to the speed at which these two fields decay and regenerate each other. However, if you mean non-luminous matter and want to know why it requires infinite energy to get it up to light speed, here's the explaination.

E=mc^2 means that there is a relationship between mass and energy, the two of them essentially being different 'phases' of the same thing, in very simple terms. However, when you accelerate something, you add energy to it, and thus mass. If you accelerate enough your mass will increase to the point that you will get less acceleration out of F=ma, and will eventually stop accelerating significantly if you keep your force constant as your mass gets bigger. So you need more force, which translates into more energy, to keep accelerating. But this adds more mass, which means you need more energy to go faster and faster. Thus you need an infinite amount of energy to reach the speed of light if you started lower than the speed of light. This is a somewhat crude explanation but it gets the salient points across.

Despite the fact that light itself has a very small amount of 'mass', it never undergoes acceleration as it starts at c and while its possible to slow it down, that isn't really acceleration when you look at what is really going on.

The problem is that while there is still a lot of physics we don't know about, we have the fundamentals down really well at the moment and we have to go into increasingly esoteric physics with really weird set ups that would be difficult or impossible to replicate on a human-understandable scale to truly get into the areas we don't fully understand.

Anyway, the general rule of thumb is that a universe's place on the energy gradient can be determined by a combination of: peak realized power generation, peak FTL speed, and the effectiveness of artificial force manipulators like artificial gravity, inertial compensation, and the like. This also includes subsidiary technologies. If a civilization has figured out how to harness a black hole as a mobile power supply, that's a massive engineering challenge that may not be possible in our universe. In that example, the size of the singularity also comes into play as while big ones are more sedate they are also harder to get power out of, while small ones give lots of power but have a tendency to explode if they get too small. FTL speed is also a big one, as while some current models of the universe may allow for FTL the power expenditures to even get a little beyond c are huge.

An example of this, it's that on several experiments on the last decade, scientists managed to make light go, BEYOND its standard speed. Of course this it's in peculiar situations and experiments, but the fact it's that not even the light's speed it's a invariable, constant factor on this universe.

The beyond the speed of light thing is really just a way of playing around with front velocity and phase velocity of a signal. You can make the phase velocity of sound go faster than light if you set things up properly, but no actual information is carried when you do this so you're not actually 'going faster than the speed of light'.

Now quantum entanglement on the other hand, that's a bit trickier in that some sort of information may be going FTL, but so far there is no way for us to use that in any meaningful way, and we might be wrong in our understanding of what is actually happening.

I would like to congratulate you Academia, for creating coherant meta-universe, with it story bound sets of laws that are more complicated than hey it works and leaving it at that.

Anyway I am always looking forward to the next chapter.
Good day.

Robo Jesus wrote:I think it's a little too late. And btw, fuck you. You call me a liar in public, I'll make my retort and defence in public as well. (Don't take this too seriously, as it's not meant 100% serious).

He's not calling you a liar, and "ha ha, not serious" doesn't really fly on this board.

Academia Nut wrote:

The speed of light, 299,792,458 metres per second (a finite speed set at a finite time, yet it requires infinite energy?)

Errr... you have this completely and utterly wrong. Light itself has no mass (sort of, see later) because it is a set of self-propogating magnetic and electrical fields at right angles to one another, and the speed of light is exactly related to the speed at which these two fields decay and regenerate each other. However, if you mean non-luminous matter and want to know why it requires infinite energy to get it up to light speed, here's the explaination.

E=mc^2 means that there is a relationship between mass and energy, the two of them essentially being different 'phases' of the same thing, in very simple terms. However, when you accelerate something, you add energy to it, and thus mass. If you accelerate enough your mass will increase to the point that you will get less acceleration out of F=ma, and will eventually stop accelerating significantly if you keep your force constant as your mass gets bigger. So you need more force, which translates into more energy, to keep accelerating. But this adds more mass, which means you need more energy to go faster and faster. Thus you need an infinite amount of energy to reach the speed of light if you started lower than the speed of light. This is a somewhat crude explanation but it gets the salient points across.

Despite the fact that light itself has a very small amount of 'mass', it never undergoes acceleration as it starts at c and while its possible to slow it down, that isn't really acceleration when you look at what is really going on.

The problem is that while there is still a lot of physics we don't know about, we have the fundamentals down really well at the moment and we have to go into increasingly esoteric physics with really weird set ups that would be difficult or impossible to replicate on a human-understandable scale to truly get into the areas we don't fully understand.

Anyway, the general rule of thumb is that a universe's place on the energy gradient can be determined by a combination of: peak realized power generation, peak FTL speed, and the effectiveness of artificial force manipulators like artificial gravity, inertial compensation, and the like. This also includes subsidiary technologies. If a civilization has figured out how to harness a black hole as a mobile power supply, that's a massive engineering challenge that may not be possible in our universe. In that example, the size of the singularity also comes into play as while big ones are more sedate they are also harder to get power out of, while small ones give lots of power but have a tendency to explode if they get too small. FTL speed is also a big one, as while some current models of the universe may allow for FTL the power expenditures to even get a little beyond c are huge.

Bleh, I wanted to stay away from going into specifics. Bah, the problem, as I said, is we DON'T KNOW WHY IT TAKES INFINITE AMOUNT OF ENERGY TO MOVE AN OBJECT WITH MASS A FINITE SPEED IN A FINITE TIMEFRAME. We don't know, let alone understand, the basis behind what causes this. My statement had absolutely nothing to do with the nature of light itself, but of the nature of matter with mass being moved at light speeds.

If I didn't make that point clear and understandable the first time around, I apologize. 5am is not a good time to be getting into the specifics of something when you haven't yet rested. -_-

Robo Jesus wrote:Bleh, I wanted to stay away from going into specifics. Bah, the problem, as I said, is we DON'T KNOW WHY IT TAKES INFINITE AMOUNT OF ENERGY TO MOVE AN OBJECT WITH MASS A FINITE SPEED IN A FINITE TIMEFRAME. We don't know, let alone understand, the basis behind what causes this. My statement had absolutely nothing to do with the nature of light itself, but of the nature of matter with mass being moved at light speeds.

If I didn't make that point clear and understandable the first time around, I apologize. 5am is not a good time to be getting into the specifics of something when you haven't yet rested. -_-

Academia explained it, although he got a little wordy (no offense ). It's not that it takes an infinite amount of energy to move an object at a finite speed, it's that it takes an infinite amount of energy to accelerate to a finite speed.

Since mass and energy are interchangeable, accelerating an object--i.e. increasing its kinetic energy--also increases its mass. So the more you accelerate, the more mass you get, the more energy it requires to accelerate further, the more mass you get, et cetera. Once you're moving at a given speed you can switch off your engines and coast, thanks to Newton's First Law.

Looking at it from this perspective, it isn't so much that lightspeed is a hard limit as it is an asymptote. If your ship exerts a constant amount of force to accelerate, you're not going to accelerate smoothly up to lightspeed and then stop--you're going to accelerate less and less as you approache the limit. You will keep on accelerating forever, never reaching that magical number.

So in order to actually accelerate to and past lightspeed, you would need to alter the fundamental E = mc^2 equation. Or find some way to make an object magically start moving at a specific speed, rather than accelerating up to it.



Also, with regards to the edit limit... try using the Preview button instead of posting. I preview dozens of times before actually posting if I'm trying to get it just right.

Robo Jesus wrote:Uhm, no. The galaxy that's eight times larger than what physics says is possible, here's a link to it ...

So which law or laws of physics does their existence demonstrate to be false? After all, you did claim that it is physically impossible.

Robo Jesus wrote:The speed of light, 299,792,458 metres per second (a finite speed set at a finite time, yet it requires infinite energy?)

For positive-rest-mass objects, yes (locally). What's the problem? If you believe there is some contradiction, as opposed to merely your private incredulity, please elaborate. STR is as internally consistent as the coordinate geometry most people learn in high school and is experimentally the most successful physical theory ever (especially since QED rests on STR). If you want to say that it's critically flawed in some fictional universe, that's quite alright, but if you want to draw such implications for actual physics, don't be surprised if your evidence if vigorously questioned.

Robo Jesus wrote:The implications that there is something beyond the universe we can see because we're observing the effects of gravity on our universe that make no sense without something beyond the observable universe, ...

The position that the universe is much larger than what we can see has been accepted in astrophysics for at more than half a century. It's also been proven in the sense that all observations fit the standard general-relativistic ΛCDM family of models (which have been around in various forms since about 1930s), the models in turn predicting that our universe is much larger than what is seen. I've no idea why you treat this as some sort of physics-busting revelation.

Robo Jesus wrote:... a link (with many many others that all say the same thing (I.E. "there has to be something else outside our universe to get the result that we're seeing")).

If that's what you think your link implies, then you've not understood the issue. The bubble proposal does not advance the "our understanding sucks" thesis at all. First, it requires some very extraordinary coincidences and completely lacks empirical support, so it's never going to pass Ockham's razor (specifically, it requires the universe to be isotropic about some point (the center) but not homogeneous (hence, the central point is unique), and us to be at almost the exact center of this universe). Second, it doesn't actually overturn any laws of physics; in fact, it's just a data fit to near and far supernovae on a completely ordinary and well-known solution of general relativity (but not the middle-range SNes, which is why it doesn't have supporting evidence).

Robo Jesus wrote:The hints that signals could be moving faster than the speed of light, here's a link towards that as well ...

Which doesn't even say anything of that sort, much less demonstrate it. Bell proved that quantum mechanics cannot be both causal and local back in mid-1960s; this is just one more test of that (some variation on this is reported several times a year, or its close cousin, the superluminal phase velocity of light). If you think any of it implies superluminal "signal", i.e., a transfer of information, you're simply wrong.

Robo Jesus wrote:The only part which is pure conjecture is on the possible implications that the Big Bang was created by Cosmic Strings, ... .

Assuming that alternative model is correct (and that's actually a significant supposition), what are the implications to our understanding about anything at all past a tiny fraction of a femtosecond after the Big Bang (and before some trillions of years in the future), particularly the fundamental laws of physics? Because if those implications are of the same type as the failure of a engineer of considering the ultimately quantum-mechanical nature of the steel he'll be working with, the conclusion that the engineer's understanding of bridge-building "absolutely sucks" is less than impressive. If they're more significant, explain why.

Robo Jesus wrote:Of course, that doesn't help if people don't know the details behind what was discussed, and I blindly assumed that others would instantly know what had been said and discussed. I appologize for assuming that.

I know what you've been referring to; it's one of several alternative models based on string theory or its derivatives. This is one of the statements that were not false per se but lacking the meaning or significance you've assigned it.

Robo Jesus wrote:So, let's see, all the things I talked about seem to be... FACTUAL, ...

A majority are non-factual; the rest have been distorted past the point of having any relevance.

Robo Jesus wrote:And arrogantly assuming that what we know now is all we'll ever know, or that we cannot be totally wrong about something, is an attitude that needs to be kicked in the head with steel toed boots. Repeatedly.

I'm torn between being in awe of your strawman or the irony of being lectured on arrogance by someone who either doesn't read or doesn't understand his own sources. I explicitly admitted that our knowledge is far from complete, so don't pretend otherwise--it being the only statement in your first post between us that I agreed with. On the other hand, going from that from that to "our understanding of physics absolutely sucks" involves no rational basis, an ignorance of just how well our fundamental laws do work, and, as your next post demonstrated, an ignorance of what our theories are even talking about. As far as I'm concerned, that's the sort of arrogant attitude "that needs to be kicked in the head with steel toed boots."

Robo Jesus wrote: And btw, fuck you.:) You call me a liar in public, I'll make my retort and defence in public as well. (Don't take this too seriously, as it's not meant 100% serious). :D :P

Hence my invitation to make another thread to call me out on it if you wished (although for the record, I did not call you a liar).

Robo Jesus wrote:Bah, the problem, as I said, is we DON'T KNOW WHY IT TAKES INFINITE AMOUNT OF ENERGY TO MOVE AN OBJECT WITH MASS A FINITE SPEED IN A FINITE TIMEFRAME. We don't know, let alone understand, the basis behind what causes this.

There are so many ways of answering that question that one would first need to know your criteria for what constitutes an explanation (e.g., it's trivial to keep asking 'why' no matter how many explanatory layers are given). If I were to use my own sense of what's fundamental, I would say that this is because time has a different metric signature from space, or else time would be just another spatial direction. The signature can't be zero because gravity is attractive [1], so it must have opposite sign. This in turn directly implies that spacetime is locally that of STR (it's mathematically impossible for it to be otherwise), and therefore there is a local speed limit.

Note that all of this is independent of how gravity behaves quantitatively, and also independent of the claim that the speed limit is that of light (in the sense that the speed limit can logically be something other than that of light in vacuum). There are also some loopholes: (1) the degree to which our universe can be modeled as a spacetime manifold in the first place (which is extreme, according to experiments), and (2) the fact that the speed limit is only enforced locally. But superluminal "global" velocities aren't anything new in GTR, where the very notion of relative velocity is often ambiguous except on a purely local scale.

[1] Hence mass must contribute negatively to gravitational field energy; if time signature was zero (a Galilean type of spacetime), gravitational field strength would have to be imaginary for this to come out right.

...Oh shit, it's Kuroneko, check your facts everyone!

While I always appreciate the Throwdown of Science, does anyone else find it hilarious that it's happening in a thread that involves, among other things, Odin?

This is SDN, we'll bring real science into anything, and considering that I'm using the relationships between the 'hardness' of sci-fi and fantasy to position it in an over all meta-universe, the discussion was bound to pop up sooner or later.

Besides, this version of Odin has an entire celestial bureaucracy set up to run the universe off a computer.

It doesn't matter if the original thread was about Odin. Robo Jesus made some incredibly ignorant comments about real science. Worse yet, he can't legitimately claim his own ignorance as an excuse, because he was making claims about the limits of humanity's collective scientific knowledge.

He doesn't even understand the concept of an asymptote, for fuck's sake.

Aranfan wrote:Heh, that would put Babylon 5 pretty high up on the gradient actually.

B5 is pretty low. Star Trek regular powers are on par or surpass the First Ones if that helps. http://www.babtech-onthe.net/ is very good.

Darth Wong wrote:It doesn't matter if the original thread was about Odin. Robo Jesus made some incredibly ignorant comments about real science. Worse yet, he can't legitimately claim his own ignorance as an excuse, because he was making claims about the limits of humanity's collective scientific knowledge.

He doesn't even understand the concept of an asymptote, for fuck's sake.

Asymptote? Isn't that the description of f(x) of a curve as x or y approaces inifinty or something been a while since I've done math.

As for energy levels of various universe, what about variations within a set universe. Which might explain while in places like ST there are so many different races about the same tech level even though some are thousands of years older than the others, yet on the other side of the galaxy are a few very advanced races. Such as the makers of that smart, warp capable missile of very high yield.

The makers of the smart, massive warp missile... uh, that was either the Cardassians or I guess that other group who were one shot characters. The way I'm ruling it, the Star Trek universe is basically stuck in a lower energy version of 40k what with all the near omnipotent beings running about and the funky problems with their space time continuum always trying to blow itself up in some manner or another.

And us, the energy requirements for velocity do have an asymptote around c, which is to say that the requirements go to infinity on both sides of c while being finite everywhere else.

Which has the interesting effect that if you could somehow "skip over" the lightspeed barrier and go straight to superluminal velocity, it would require less energy to accelerate further. I think this is why some FTL drives in sci-fi are tachyon-based, because tachyons are theoretically already on the other side of the lightspeed barrier.

Academia Nut wrote:The makers of the smart, massive warp missile... uh, that was either the Cardassians or I guess that other group who were one shot characters. The way I'm ruling it, the Star Trek universe is basically stuck in a lower energy version of 40k what with all the near omnipotent beings running about and the funky problems with their space time continuum always trying to blow itself up in some manner or another.

And us, the energy requirements for velocity do have an asymptote around c, which is to say that the requirements go to infinity on both sides of c while being finite everywhere else.

Thats the dreadnaught missile, I was refering to the other one shot, which ST is full of. It's full of other stuff but thats besides the point

This one which is one of the familly that put a massive crater in the side of a planet


Pic of the crater here, small missile big ass hole.
big hole