Galaxy Size Napkin Math

Jake Hawke

J
Howdy, all,

When I noticed that the stated size of the in-game galaxy was 100 billion star-systems, I ran through some formulas in my head out curiosity and came out with a pretty awesome exploration-figure. It is how my mind works. :p

Let's do some napkin-math:

100,000,000,000 star systems

Let's say that 1,000,000 players play Elite every single day.

Now, let's have each one of those million players visit a brand-new, undiscovered by any other player star system every single day.

It would take those million players 100,000 days to visit every single star system.

Let's call 3 years 1000 days.

100 x 3 = 300 years!

In summary: if there were 1,000,000 players each exploring a previously un-visited by any other player star-system every single day, it would take 300 years for all the systems in the game to be visited.

If Elite: Dangerous had come out in 1700 A.D., those million daily player-explorers would just about now be exploring the last of the in-game star systems.

Holy crap! :eek:

It really gives you a sense of the scale of our galaxy, doesn't it? I just thought that this was kind of neat. :smilie:


Jake

[Edit: I've adjusted the number of systems to 100 billion as compared to the original 400 billion, which is the number of stars. Thanks to Raynmaykr for clarifying.]
 
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Dalkeith

Dalkeith
Quite a few of us have been trying to make those calculations. Fabulous is it not.

If you want to explore there is no limit you can reach unless immortal
 

alexios

alexios
The sense of realistic scale and wonder beats the complaints about griefing, bugs and market crashes hands down. Every time. And always will, for me.
 

Swan

S
It's literally a reflection of reality, and the scale of the cosmos is constantly mindblowing. I started studying astrophysics a couple of years ago via an OU degree and just when I started getting my head around just how big the galaxy is, they introducing extra-galactic astrophysics and observation of distant galaxies etc. That's when your mind starts to get truly blown!!
 

Jake Hawke

J
Fair enough.

I was wondering why I was seeing two sets of numbers floating around. It makes sense, though. Most stars in the galaxy (or at least a sizable percentage) are actually double-stars.

So... 300 years! Still an appropriately awe-inspiring length of time. :p


Jake

P.S. I may edit the original post to reflect this.
 

bujin

B
It's extremely difficult, if not impossible to comprehend the sheer scale of the universe. Elite: Dangerous gives some indication of the scale, but its use of hyperdrive and FTL diminishes it somewhat (albeit necessarily!) because it still only takes minutes to travel between planets.

The best thing I've seen recently that gives an indication of the size of the universe is the full res photo from "The Day The Earth Smiled" taken a year ago this Saturday - the photo of the Earth and Moon taken from behind Saturn. The Earth-Moon system is so far away in this photo it is barely resolved and looks like one single object.

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/figures/PIA17172_fig2.jpg

Yet those couple of pixels encompass the entirety of human existence, and it takes 3-4 days for current human technology to be able to travel between the large blob and the smaller blob sticking out the side!

And even this is, to use Douglas Adams' words, "peanuts compared to (the rest of) space".
 

Jake Hawke

J
What a great picture. :)

When I got my telescope some years ago, I remember that one of the first things that I looked at was Saturn. Even though it's quite small and un-detailed in a little home-telescope, it's still really nice-looking and real-seeming.

I like thinking that when I look at Saturn (or anything) through a telescope, the light that is touching my eye has literally touched Saturn and bounced off, making the trip through the solar system to physically touch me. :p

Jake
 

zenoic

Z
Jake Hawke said:
Howdy, all,

When I noticed that the stated size of the in-game galaxy was 100 billion star-systems, I ran through some formulas in my head out curiosity and came out with a pretty awesome exploration-figure. It is how my mind works. :p

Let's do some napkin-math:

100,000,000,000 star systems

Let's say that 1,000,000 players play Elite every single day.

Now, let's have each one of those million players visit a brand-new, undiscovered by any other player star system every single day.

It would take those million players 100,000 days to visit every single star system.

Let's call 3 years 1000 days.

100 x 3 = 300 years!

In summary: if there were 1,000,000 players each exploring a previously un-visited by any other player star-system every single day, it would take 300 years for all the systems in the game to be visited.

If Elite: Dangerous had come out in 1700 A.D., those million daily player-explorers would just about now be exploring the last of the in-game star systems.

Holy crap! :eek:

It really gives you a sense of the scale of our galaxy, doesn't it? I just thought that this was kind of neat. :smilie:


Jake

[Edit: I've adjusted the number of systems to 100 billion as compared to the original 400 billion, which is the number of stars. Thanks to Raynmaykr for clarifying.]
Click to expand...

Every time I play this game I'm awed by the size of the universe and the size of FDs vision. Douglas Adams wrote : 'Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.' Well now its play Elite dangerous then you may begin to understand just how big space is.
 

Jackie Silver

Jackie Silver
It's hard to say until we know more about the exploration mechanics, but at present a Cobra is several times faster than the Sleeper Service. ;)
 

Gwyvern

Gwyvern
I just hope that ships are customizable enough for me to take a non dedicated exploration ship exploring...like an imperial cutter, nothing feels more cozy out in the wondrous blackness of the unknown void than tugging along a hefty set of teeth.
 

Vandaahl

Vandaahl
Its massive...

I spend last couple of days just browsing the galaxy map, and its jaw dropping. It simply goes on and on. Zooming in on the galaxy center shorts your brain. Just gimme a tin can with a fuel scoop, and I'll be on my way.
 

Rhaedas

Rhaedas
Brings to mind Neil Degrasse Tyson's thing about wanting to go shake someone on the street and ask, have you heard about this? It's great when a game can be used for both entertainment and educational enlightenment. Makes me think of how SimCity was, when you really got into the statistics underneath it all, realizing how one thing would impact others.
 

Jake Hawke

J
Well, vonDutch, let's do another quick napkin math for your galaxy-map explorin'. :p

Let's say it takes you 5 seconds to visit each system.

5 seconds x 100 billion systems = 500 billion seconds.

(Quick Google-calculator check...)

If you were to continue your in-game galaxy-map exploration at the rate of 1 system every 5 seconds, it'd take you around 16,000 years to see them all!

0.0

Wowzers.
 

MarktJones

MarktJones
We need to push for more government research into health science so we have a chance to live that long. Forget trident, this is important!
 

Sloma

Sloma
bujin said:
It's extremely difficult, if not impossible to comprehend the sheer scale of the universe. Elite: Dangerous gives some indication of the scale, but its use of hyperdrive and FTL diminishes it somewhat (albeit necessarily!) because it still only takes minutes to travel between planets.

The best thing I've seen recently that gives an indication of the size of the universe is the full res photo from "The Day The Earth Smiled" taken a year ago this Saturday - the photo of the Earth and Moon taken from behind Saturn. The Earth-Moon system is so far away in this photo it is barely resolved and looks like one single object.

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/figures/PIA17172_fig2.jpg

Yet those couple of pixels encompass the entirety of human existence, and it takes 3-4 days for current human technology to be able to travel between the large blob and the smaller blob sticking out the side!

And even this is, to use Douglas Adams' words, "peanuts compared to (the rest of) space".
Click to expand...

Thank you for linking to this photo, it really gives you a perspective. It makes me smile about people who think and act like they are the centre of the whole universe. We are so tiny and insignificant...
 

andygood

A
Jake Hawke said:
Howdy, all,

When I noticed that the stated size of the in-game galaxy was 100 billion star-systems, I ran through some formulas in my head out curiosity and came out with a pretty awesome exploration-figure. It is how my mind works. :p

Holy crap! :eek:

It really gives you a sense of the scale of our galaxy, doesn't it? I just thought that this was kind of neat. :smilie:


Jake
Click to expand...

Heheh, it was the Hubble ultra deep field image that did it for me. When it sank in that each of those smudgy dots was not a star, but an entire galaxy, my brain just gave up... ;)

hs-2014-27-a-large_web.jpg
 

bujin

B
Sloma said:
Thank you for linking to this photo, it really gives you a perspective. It makes me smile about people who think and act like they are the centre of the whole universe. We are so tiny and insignificant...
Click to expand...

Yep, indeed. And think of all those people currently fighting in places like Gaza and Ukraine, and for what? A tiny speck of land barely visible from the moon, let alone from as far out as Saturn or further!

Carl Sagan said:
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.
Click to expand...

Doesn't so much make me smile as weep for the future of humanity!!! :D
 
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