Wow! Information!

[aww yea]

(snip)We cannot produce the forces needed to get near light speed on anything much bigger than a few atoms. (snip)

Actually, I saw a documentary once that stated that we are capable of closing on the speed of light, but the closer we go, the slower time moves to compensate, it showed that time travel would be possible by building a train around the world, which would speed up to near lightspeed, and run for 10 years or so. By the time it stops only a week or so would have passed for the people inside, even though they were right there all the time.

The same idea applied to black holes; by using a spaceship to circle around the hole in a stable orbit for long enough, time would slow down and the crew would move to the future.

Sadly I can't remember the name, but I think it was on National Geographic.

I wouldn't want to be in the country the train passes through when something goes wrong and it crashes though, an object crashing into the ground at near-lightspeed would blow up the entire continent, or worse I guess.

The closer to the speed of light we go the slower your clock would move to a stationay observer, from your point of view time remains the same and stationary clocks move faster.

The main problem with speed of light travel is as I said as speed increases you need a greater force to accelerate you, and the real kicker is acceleration and velocity are nolonger in the exact same direction. you apply an accceleration that then produces a velocity in a different direction.

you see F=dp/dt (F is force, p is momentum, t is time) this is simply Newton's second law.

This equation is invarient. it does not change in different frames.

which is more commonly stated as F=m(dv/dt) (m is mass, v is velocity)

However this only exists in classical mechanics, in relativistic mechanics you need to introduce gamma (calling it g here). giving:

F=m(d(gv)/dt)

which expands to

F=m(v*(dg/dt)+g(dv/dt))

Now g raises very rapidly as you get close to the speed of light, this means the closer you go to this speed the faster and faster g raises which means you need much greater forec to produce any acceleration.

At the speed of light g is infinate meaning that to get anything with mass to the speed of light an infinate accelerating force is required.

You seem very knowledgable in physics, I once heard the amount of energy required to accelerate any mass to the speed of light is equal to all the energy (including mass) available in the universe uncluding whatever you are accelerating. This has been in the back of my head for a while, but now that i think of it how would anyone come to that conclusion at all.

Am i entirely wrong there? Maybe im confused and it just the energy required just tends to infinity?

 

[rutger5000]

(snip)We cannot produce the forces needed to get near light speed on anything much bigger than a few atoms. (snip)

Actually, I saw a documentary once that stated that we are capable of closing on the speed of light, but the closer we go, the slower time moves to compensate, it showed that time travel would be possible by building a train around the world, which would speed up to near lightspeed, and run for 10 years or so. By the time it stops only a week or so would have passed for the people inside, even though they were right there all the time.

The same idea applied to black holes; by using a spaceship to circle around the hole in a stable orbit for long enough, time would slow down and the crew would move to the future.

Sadly I can't remember the name, but I think it was on National Geographic.

I wouldn't want to be in the country the train passes through when something goes wrong and it crashes though, an object crashing into the ground at near-lightspeed would blow up the entire continent, or worse I guess.

The closer to the speed of light we go the slower your clock would move to a stationay observer, from your point of view time remains the same and stationary clocks move faster.

The main problem with speed of light travel is as I said as speed increases you need a greater force to accelerate you, and the real kicker is acceleration and velocity are nolonger in the exact same direction. you apply an accceleration that then produces a velocity in a different direction.

you see F=dp/dt (F is force, p is momentum, t is time) this is simply Newton's second law.

This equation is invarient. it does not change in different frames.

which is more commonly stated as F=m(dv/dt) (m is mass, v is velocity)

However this only exists in classical mechanics, in relativistic mechanics you need to introduce gamma (calling it g here). giving:

F=m(d(gv)/dt)

which expands to

F=m(v*(dg/dt)+g(dv/dt))

Now g raises very rapidly as you get close to the speed of light, this means the closer you go to this speed the faster and faster g raises which means you need much greater forec to produce any acceleration.

At the speed of light g is infinate meaning that to get anything with mass to the speed of light an infinate accelerating force is required.

You seem to know your stuff rather well. Quick question for you. Indeed it takes an infinite ammount of energy to get a particle with mass to light speed. But do you think there is a possibility to have a discontinuety in the speed around c? After c we would get imaginairy energies, so we need other theories for that. But the absolute in energy difference would not be infinite. Basically it would take infite energy to reach light speed. But a finite complex energy to skip light speed and travel at higher speeds. Or am I just sprouting nonsense now?

 

[cookyy2k]

snip

They found two stars about with a temperature of a cup of tea.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/03/23/astronomers-coldest-star-universe/

Brown dwarfs, to which this is refaring, are stellar reminants not really stars as such, the cooling leftovers after a star below the Chandrasekhar limit dies. They no longer sustain any fusion and are just radiating the last of their heat left over from their star phaze before they cool to the background (2.7k) and dissapear from view. Infact their is even debate if these things were ever stars or existed similar to Jupiter and became heated in some other way.

 

[w00tage]

"The Far Look" by Theodore L Thomas pretty much predicted the current "wake up and realize our own insignificance" awareness back in 1956. Hopefully the side effects will be as predicted too

 

[Harveypot]

Cool. To quote Cobra from Stitch the Movie: Information is power. I like power.

 

[rutger5000]

(snip)We cannot produce the forces needed to get near light speed on anything much bigger than a few atoms. (snip)

Actually, I saw a documentary once that stated that we are capable of closing on the speed of light, but the closer we go, the slower time moves to compensate, it showed that time travel would be possible by building a train around the world, which would speed up to near lightspeed, and run for 10 years or so. By the time it stops only a week or so would have passed for the people inside, even though they were right there all the time.

The same idea applied to black holes; by using a spaceship to circle around the hole in a stable orbit for long enough, time would slow down and the crew would move to the future.

Sadly I can't remember the name, but I think it was on National Geographic.

I wouldn't want to be in the country the train passes through when something goes wrong and it crashes though, an object crashing into the ground at near-lightspeed would blow up the entire continent, or worse I guess.

The closer to the speed of light we go the slower your clock would move to a stationay observer, from your point of view time remains the same and stationary clocks move faster.

The main problem with speed of light travel is as I said as speed increases you need a greater force to accelerate you, and the real kicker is acceleration and velocity are nolonger in the exact same direction. you apply an accceleration that then produces a velocity in a different direction.

you see F=dp/dt (F is force, p is momentum, t is time) this is simply Newton's second law.

This equation is invarient. it does not change in different frames.

which is more commonly stated as F=m(dv/dt) (m is mass, v is velocity)

However this only exists in classical mechanics, in relativistic mechanics you need to introduce gamma (calling it g here). giving:

F=m(d(gv)/dt)

which expands to

F=m(v*(dg/dt)+g(dv/dt))

Now g raises very rapidly as you get close to the speed of light, this means the closer you go to this speed the faster and faster g raises which means you need much greater forec to produce any acceleration.

At the speed of light g is infinate meaning that to get anything with mass to the speed of light an infinate accelerating force is required.

You seem very knowledgable in physics, I once heard the amount of energy required to accelerate any mass to the speed of light is equal to all the energy (including mass) available in the universe uncluding whatever you are accelerating. This has been in the back of my head for a while, but now that i think of it how would anyone come to that conclusion at all.

Am i entirely wrong there? Maybe im confused and it just the energy required just tends to infinity?

The energy required to accelerate any mass to the speed of light is infinite. Wether the energy in the universe is finite or not is hard to tell. I would say that it is. So basically even if you could focus all the energy available in the universe you still wouldn't have enough.

 

[JWRosser]

I fucking love space. It's amazing. It's breathtaking. It's scary. I mean, just thinking about it is a bit of a mind fuck. I mean, I loved it in Mass Effect 2 when I could drive around the galaxy exploring planets and solar systems. It's amazing. It would be unbelievable to be around when even the most minuscule fraction of the universe is discovered...

I'm not a sciencey person, but I do love all of this stuff.

 

[cookyy2k]

snip. You seem to know your stuff rather well. Quick question for you. Indeed it takes an infinite ammount of energy to get a particle with mass to light speed. But do you think there is a possibility to have a discontinuety in the speed around c? After c we would get imaginairy energies, so we need other theories for that. But the absolute in energy difference would not be infinite. Basically it would take infite energy to reach light speed. But a finite complex energy to skip light speed and travel at higher speeds. Or am I just sprouting nonsense now?

Whilst this is technically ture I would point out that complex energy is not a well defined concept aswell as at above the speed of light you would experiece comple time sine gamma is also related to time dilation. I don't think this is within our comprehention and I doubt the theory would hold up long since it's main postulate/assumption is you can't travel faster than light, though their are some fun EPR paradoxes that break relativity and can be done in labs so read into this what you will.

 

[cookyy2k]

You seem very knowledgable in physics, I once heard the amount of energy required to accelerate any mass to the speed of light is equal to all the energy (including mass) available in the universe uncluding whatever you are accelerating. This has been in the back of my head for a while, but now that i think of it how would anyone come to that conclusion at all.

Am i entirely wrong there? Maybe im confused and it just the energy required just tends to infinity?

Well gamma=1/sqrt(1-(v[sup]2[/sup]/c[sup]2[/sup])) meaning at c g=1/0 which would mean that the dg/dt term is infinate so the force required to do this has to also be infinate.

 

[aww yea]

You seem very knowledgable in physics, I once heard the amount of energy required to accelerate any mass to the speed of light is equal to all the energy (including mass) available in the universe uncluding whatever you are accelerating. This has been in the back of my head for a while, but now that i think of it how would anyone come to that conclusion at all.

Am i entirely wrong there? Maybe im confused and it just the energy required just tends to infinity?

Well gamma=1/sqrt(1-(v[sup]2[/sup]/c[sup]2[/sup])) meaning at c g=1/0 which would mean that the dg/dt term is infinate so the force required to do this has to also be infinate.

Oh that makes sense, I should've had a look at the equation. Thanks, but isn't 1/0 "undefined" - does that mean something in practicality or is that my math teacher being picky?

 

[cookyy2k]

snip.

Thanks, but isn't 1/0 "undefined" - does that mean something in practicality or is that my math teacher being picky?

1/0 is infinate, not undefined. 0/0 or infinate/infinate are undefined but 1/0 is taken to be infinate.

EDIT: OK in algebra and other fields 1/0 is technically undefined, however in physics and other places it is taken as infinate (see wiki on 1/0 for why this should be). However it really isn't that important since when a 1/0 occurs the calculation doesn't tend to carry on.

 

[Connor Lonske]

People may sometimes be born with the body of a male, yet have the minds of females. Most of them try to get plastic surgery to become male, however, they may have pansexal partners who accept them for being female with male parts, so they instead have the surgery only to their external body and leave their penis and the rest of their sexual organs intact for intercourse, other times they just have laser surgery to remove all their body hairs and have them cross dress.

This also happens when they don't have a partner, and then try to have sex with men in bars back at their place. How cruel.

 

[rayen020]

I'm going to make you guys hate me, by showing a video of a game that failed miserably at doing what is in the said video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8dvMDFOFnA

Yeah, but in this vid it was still awesome and epic and such, at least more so than now....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8dvMDFOFnA

They so need to upload this version with the source code; a competent group of community members would be able to turn that into a decent game in a month. Or a day. Something like that.

Seriously. Spore sucks because of missed potential. And a bunch of EA/Maxis employees dicking around all day screwing it up.

seriously i think that game would've been a 100x better if the space part was Galciv II with progressively generated new civilizations rising up every now and then. instead of sim-interstellar trader. also the civilization stage could've been done better and needy to be more lengthy and tie in better with the tribal stage. however the Cell and Animal stage were quite fun. I think if they had honestly put in as much work on the other stages as the animal stage it would've been a great game.

OT;planck's length is 1.6 x 10 the -35 power meters. and is the smallest amount of distance there can be in our current model of physics.

 

[the_honey_badger]

Do you know that honey badgers are the most batshit insane and dangerous creatures on planet Earth?

It's true. O_O

Its true.

Also, did you know that it took 300 years to give the Giant Tortoise a Latin species designation?

Because Giant Tortoise meat is supposedly the tastiest meat on earth, and whenever they were shipped back to England to be classified, they were eaten by those on board before they could be classified?

Maybe that's why it's illegal to eat them..?

 

[John the Gamer]

You sound like you would like a game called Shores of Hazeron;


It's spore, but then just the civilization/space parts, mixed with minecraft, in first person.
You can design your own starships, part by part, fly around, make war, trade or just dick around colonizing stuff, it's fun in its own way.

 

[rutger5000]

snip. You seem to know your stuff rather well. Quick question for you. Indeed it takes an infinite ammount of energy to get a particle with mass to light speed. But do you think there is a possibility to have a discontinuety in the speed around c? After c we would get imaginairy energies, so we need other theories for that. But the absolute in energy difference would not be infinite. Basically it would take infite energy to reach light speed. But a finite complex energy to skip light speed and travel at higher speeds. Or am I just sprouting nonsense now?

Whilst this is technically ture I would point out that complex energy is not a well defined concept aswell as at above the speed of light you would experiece comple time sine gamma is also related to time dilation. I don't think this is within our comprehention and I doubt the theory would hold up long since it's main postulate/assumption is you can't travel faster than light, though their are some fun EPR paradoxes that break relativity and can be done in labs so read into this what you will.

Figured as much. We simpely can't comprehend a particle moving faster then light. If it's possible, we won't be able to grasp it for a long time to come. On the other hand, there used to be a time in which we couldn't comprehend a particle with no mass. And look how far we've come since!

 

[Spectral Dragon]

The largest known star, if placed in our solar system would stretch past Saturn. Saturn almost doubles the distance from the sun to Jupiter. :0

This is my current favorite astronomical fact.

That's a big damn ball of gas. But then again, so's my wife! Cha ching!

Ahem


http://www.tealdragon.net/humor/facts/facts.htm

There are too many to post

Well... While most of them are true, some are not. For example, supposedly goldfish can only remember things for 3 seconds, when they've actually been able to recognize human faces for months.

OT: Crows can also remember your face. And distribute this to other crows - they have a language. If you ever mess with one, count with that any other will hear of it...
Oh, and they can find out where you live too. NOWHERE IS SAFE!

 

[Captain Underbeard]

Reminds me a bit of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B2xOvKFFz4

What it, it's well interesting (not porn!)

LIAR!

I just love the idea of sailing the stars in solar-sailed star-ships

 

[cookyy2k]

Figured as much. We simpely can't comprehend a particle moving faster then light. If it's possible, we won't be able to grasp it for a long time to come. On the other hand, there used to be a time in which we couldn't comprehend a particle with no mass. And look how far we've come since!

well we can't comprehend what complex time would mean, epecially since this would be required to even work out where the thing is or where it would be going. As I say though there are holes shall we say in relitivity, EPR paradoxes have been carried out experimentally and break the laws of relitivity and the predicted gravity waves of general relativity are proving elusive at best.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

I had to wipe away drewl for that one. The music and the pictures were so professionally combined.

Love that song, love that group.

Song reminded me of this song, by the same guy. Knowledgable but pretty disturbing.