Hi, new here...and question about hyperdrives...

[revprez]

...anyone want to take a stab at explaining what causes that neat visual effect where the stars streak back when a ship "jumps to hyperspace?"

[Sarevok]

Dont know. You may want to check Curtis Saxtons Star Wars Technical Commentaries.http://www.theforce.net/swtc/ for information on this.

[revprez]

...tachyons?

Rev Prez

[Wild Karrde]

The short story to it is tachyons can travel FTL. SW somehow found out how to implement this to ships on a macroscopic level to be able to "jump over" the speed of light while not actually traveling at exactly C.

[revprez]

Yeah, but - (c dt)^2 + (v(r) dr)^2 is now greater than zero. So what about the causality issue? I thought this is why classical tachyons are now considered mere artifacts and QFTers try to work them out of solutions.

One other thing. The author seems to be analogizing the hyperdrive to a traversable wormhole when he brings up black holes. Perhaps he should just use that instead of invoking tachyons. After all, that's what I assumed the hyperdrive was, and I imagine as you pass along the geodesic from one mouth to the next you'd see something distort outside, which should give us an idea of the shape of the mouths.

Rev Prez

[Wild Karrde]

Yeah, but - (c dt)^2 + (v(r) dr)^2 is now greater than zero. So what about the causality issue? I thought this is why classical tachyons are now considered mere artifacts and QFTers try to work them out of solutions.

All SW ships has relativistic shielding to protect against things like this so the causality issue doesn't come into affect for SW FTL travel.

One other thing. The author seems to be analogizing the hyperdrive to a traversable wormhole when he brings up black holes. Perhaps he should just use that instead of invoking tachyons. After all, that's what I assumed the hyperdrive was, and I imagine as you pass along the geodesic from one mouth to the next you'd see something distort outside, which should give us an idea of the shape of the mouths.

Rev Prez

The sights of hyperspace are related to the objects of realspace along the flight path, but the vista is distorted by the fact that everything is rushing past at superluminal speed. Relativistic effects are be severe. Observers in realspace watching the ship pass would see it through severe and bizarre relativistic distortions, but for the starship occupants the entire galaxy seems to be rushing past with the same sort of distortion.

Kaleidoscopic splotches appear to sweep past the starship as if they were features outside the walls of a tubular tunnel down which the ship travels. This vista is actually due to the galactic starfield. The splotches are related to local astronomical inhomogeneities like star clusters and emptier spaces. They appear to fly past at different visual distances because of the starfield itself is three-dimensional. The fact that they never appear to pass close to the starship is simply because sane pilots always plot courses which avoid obstacles.

Experienced hyperspace scouts may have a limited skill in interpreting the swirls of hyperspace in terms of realspace star clusters and nebulae. Thus with good reflexes and good luck new jump routes can be safely explored. It was in this way that young sibling scouts Gav and Jori Daragon accidentally discovered a fast route between the known worlds of the Old Republic and the isolated Sith Empire. Manual hyperspace scouting is extremely dangerous and is usually performed by inexpensive probe droids rather than crewed vessels.

[revprez]

n/m

[Sarevok]

n/m

What does that mean ?

[Chardok]

Never mind?

[His Divine Shadow]

Yeah, but - (c dt)^2 + (v(r) dr)^2 is now greater than zero. So what about the causality issue? I thought this is why classical tachyons are now considered mere artifacts and QFTers try to work them out of solutions.

All SW ships has relativistic shielding to protect against things like this so the causality issue doesn't come into affect for SW FTL travel.

I don't quite think you understand causality there, it's not something the people inside the ship needs protection from.

[revprez]

...old habit. N/m means "no message," "never mind" or "na'mean."

I was asking what geometry the mouths of a traversable wormhole would take if we assume starfield motion seen in a typical SW jump.

My next question will be...what do you think would happen to stardestroyers.net if the Star Trek franchise actually got some decent writers? Isn't most of the innovative work on this site driven partially by a disgust for ST's poor storytelling and poor use of science and engineering concepts?

Rev Prez

[His Divine Shadow]

Nothing much should happen, they'd just be more technically consistent and have good stories to boot.

[Ghost Rider]

My next question will be...what do you think would happen to stardestroyers.net if the Star Trek franchise actually got some decent writers? Isn't most of the innovative work on this site driven partially by a disgust for ST's poor storytelling and poor use of science and engineering concepts?

No, the main focus is what a war between the two are....most of which relies upon the diametrically opposite levels of power the series in opposition engage in. Most of the said innovative work comes from that.

Most fans on this site as well many other would love to see compentent work in Trek because then it would be great to keep watching the shows instead of groaning at the mishandling that B&B continue to do to this day.