How can we 'see' in supercruise? Any hints or official explanations whatsoever?

[Rhywden]

X-rays and Gamma Rays have clear distiction between them, LIke how we seperate Microwaves and radio waves or red and green light, They are still different and are used in many different applications.

You don't die from an X-ray when checking for broken bones, You would die if it was a 2.5 MeV gamma that blasted through your body.

Um, you're confusing "amount of particles" with "energy of one particle".

And of course you can die from X-rays. Why do you think the nurses wear those heavy lead aprons when they have to be in the same room as you when taking an x-ray picture? For fun? (Usually they step outside, though.)

There's a reason why we try to limit our exposure to x-rays - it's called cancer risk. And the Therac 25 incident should show that you can indeed kill with "mere" x-rays.

I'm not particularly nervous about a 2.5 MeV gamma ray, by the way. You described it just fine: Most of the time, it will blast clear _through_ the body without hitting anything. Beta radiators are much more dangerous and Alpha radiation is the most dangerous if the source is inside your body. You seem to think that gamma rays are some kind of Kilowatt UV laser.

Edit: The Therac 25 created x-rays with about 25 MeV. So, your 2.5 MeV gamma ray is positively puny in comparison.

 

[Kalearne]

Here's my take for what it's worth.

When you enter SC a bubble forms around the ship, inside this bubble is normal space. The space ahead of the ship is compressed and the space behind is correspondingly uncompressed.

The speed of light changes depending on the medium it's passing through. It's only constant if the medium it's travelling through is.

As your travelling light will impact the bubble and be compressed just like space. It slows down in this compression. As soon as it traverses the bubble and enters the normal space pocket it returns to its expected speed and is interpreted by the pilot normally.

The light travelling slower in the compression threshold won't create a white out as that light hasn't hit the eyes yet and given it leaks out of the compression threshold at the same rate it enters we never notice.

I just get a bit lost when it comes to acceleration and deceleration as I expect to see redshift (or is it blueshift?) as at times I'm accelerating by multiples of C and my assumptions fall apart here.

 

[reese015]

Good explanations, although... I believe there's an unfortunate huge flaw in most of these explanations: alright so let's say the light does come through the bubble/tunnel or however you wanna theorize it... Wouldn't that mean you see your destination 'age' like crazy? Since... When you're at your starting point, the light you see paints a very outdated picture of what things at your destination are like. Cause that light that hits your eyes is often many many years old. Well I guess it would only make a very noticeable difference with 100LY-type distances but yeah in those very long distance cases, you'd indeed see planets orbit super-fast etc etc.

 

[BigBadB]

A wizard did it.

 

[TriumphANT]

(Definitive Mickeypedia entry) Supercruise is approximately the same as moving faster through "frames" of quantified space/time. The person moving still moves within the normal confines of light-speed-limited space/time, but they move faster in "frames" of time, akin to jumping forwards in space/time at a faster rate that subluminal travel would traditionally allow. As the users speed does not increase beyond light-speed (it is actually limited to around 0.001c) they do not perceive:
- Time dilation at any dramatic level (a few microseconds a day won't matter. Clock sync is achieved by geostationary satellites. Even with no geo to be stationary around)
- Red/blue shift at any appreciable level due to forward motion
- Quantum effects due to superluminal speed (e.g. cats in multiple states of existence superimposed upon themselves)
- Any improvement in space/time quality due to "Peter Jackson" 48fps SuperCruise. 24fps appears to provide the optimal SuperCruise travel experience.

 

[Monk]

A wizard did it.

Right, thats it folks, nothing more to see here
[/THREAD]

 

[reese015]

(Definitive Mickeypedia entry) Supercruise is approximately the same as moving faster through "frames" of quantified space/time. The person moving still moves within the normal confines of light-speed-limited space/time, but they move faster in "frames" of time, akin to jumping forwards in space/time at a faster rate that subluminal travel would traditionally allow. As the users speed does not increase beyond light-speed (it is actually limited to around 0.001c) they do not perceive:
- Time dilation at any dramatic level (a few microseconds a day won't matter. Clock sync is achieved by geostationary satellites. Even with no geo to be stationary around)
- Red/blue shift at any appreciable level due to forward motion
- Quantum effects due to superluminal speed (e.g. cats in multiple states of existence superimposed upon themselves)
- Any improvement in space/time quality due to "Peter Jackson" 48fps SuperCruise. 24fps appears to provide the optimal SuperCruise travel experience.

That last line was such a brilliant stab at so many things at the same time, Peter Jackson's ridiculous pursuit of smoother cinema, supercruise framerate issues, gaming framerate debates... Bravo, sir.