It's not something anyone can get their head around without reading a bunch of books or taking advanced physics courses. There are plenty of good books out there on relativity.
So if i hit a planet on FSD engines. with maths!
- Thread starter RobotMan
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It's not something anyone can get their head around without reading a bunch of books or taking advanced physics courses. There are plenty of good books out there on relativity.
The FSD is not an Alcubierre drive. The Alcubierre is a warp drive, that bends time and space and brings two specific points closer to each other, allowing an object to travel from point A to B through a "tunnel" without normal physical restrictions like speed and gravity. That's why it has side effects like particle retention and radiation gathering, turning it into a potential bomb without the invention of deflector shields.
The FSD -- as described in videos by Braden and in the game's GDD -- is a space compression drive. It works by compressing space around the ship in a bubble, shortening distances between two points while the ship moves at a normal speed. That means that your ship in Elite is *not* moving above relativistic speeds -- it is indeed flying just as fast as you do in normal space -- but the compression bubble pulling space around together makes you move much further than you normally do. The speed indicator in-game represents your current speed, which is a scalar quantity of distance over time and completely relative in regards to observer and observed.
While both theories work by "distorting" space-time instead of circumventing it (like the conventional hyperdrive), they have some pretty substantial differences:
-Warp drives generate an energy field that breaks normal physical limits, which require tremendous amounts of power and require you to pick a direction and go with it. FSD's work by compressing time and space immediately around the ship and only that, allowing the ship to move in real time but making space move faster. There is no "shifting space around while the ship stand still" thingy going on like you can read around here, that is a TARDIS functionality and impractical in any current Earthly scientific theory -- and remember that this game draws almost 100% from real science and just advances it a thousand years.
-The radiation gathering of the Alcubierre drive no longer is an issue, because there is no folding of the space-time compressing celestial particles together and running the ship through them. The FSD simply compresses space around, meaning that you glide through the same amount of energy as you would flying in real time, and shed them out immediately afterwards, since the ship never leaves real-space.
-Last but not least - and addressing the OP - the breaking of the bubble and the reality normalization is what causes the "bang" when you exit supercruise =) It's literally space decompressing and throwing you forward. That's why you don't hit anything with the size of a million atomic bombs -- normal physics-wise, you were moving at 200km/h.
The FSD -- as described in videos by Braden and in the game's GDD -- is a space compression drive. It works by compressing space around the ship in a bubble, shortening distances between two points while the ship moves at a normal speed. That means that your ship in Elite is *not* moving above relativistic speeds -- it is indeed flying just as fast as you do in normal space -- but the compression bubble pulling space around together makes you move much further than you normally do. The speed indicator in-game represents your current speed, which is a scalar quantity of distance over time and completely relative in regards to observer and observed.
While both theories work by "distorting" space-time instead of circumventing it (like the conventional hyperdrive), they have some pretty substantial differences:
-Warp drives generate an energy field that breaks normal physical limits, which require tremendous amounts of power and require you to pick a direction and go with it. FSD's work by compressing time and space immediately around the ship and only that, allowing the ship to move in real time but making space move faster. There is no "shifting space around while the ship stand still" thingy going on like you can read around here, that is a TARDIS functionality and impractical in any current Earthly scientific theory -- and remember that this game draws almost 100% from real science and just advances it a thousand years.
-The radiation gathering of the Alcubierre drive no longer is an issue, because there is no folding of the space-time compressing celestial particles together and running the ship through them. The FSD simply compresses space around, meaning that you glide through the same amount of energy as you would flying in real time, and shed them out immediately afterwards, since the ship never leaves real-space.
-Last but not least - and addressing the OP - the breaking of the bubble and the reality normalization is what causes the "bang" when you exit supercruise =) It's literally space decompressing and throwing you forward. That's why you don't hit anything with the size of a million atomic bombs -- normal physics-wise, you were moving at 200km/h.
Quantum Entanglement - informaiton can, theoretically, cover vast distances with not time component.
Cause and Effect is an illusion.
The FSD never removes the ship from real space. Ever.
Not really. Travelling near relativistic speeds makes time go faster to observers than it does for you. Everything you see looks the same, the difference is that one hour to someone at light speed equals 8 hours to someone at normal speed.
It is actually impossible to travel faster than light according to Einstein's Theory of Relativity, something this game breaks by using a kind of warp drive to create a space distortion bubble and compress time and space around your ship during travel. The compression of time and space is what negates the time travel, because for you inside the ship, you are moving at 200 km/h. For observers, you are moving at 5c per second. But both of you are in real space, below relativistic speeds, running on the same clock -- as far as the universe is concerned, what is moving at 5c ain't you or the ship, it's the bubble. Therefore, no time travel "forwards" =)
(time travel backwards or reaaally forwards is way more complicated and in no way relevant in this discussion)
Quantum entanglement refers to elementary particles and is not applicable to objects larger than molecules. And it ain't a viable method of transport, it is simply a energy link between two existing energetic particles.
And cause and effect are only an illusion on some kinds of religious texts =P
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...Yeah, no. you've gone off into new-agey crank territory.
That said, quantum information can be transferred faster than light. But quantum information is not classical information. And it does not interfere with cause/effect pairs.
Hm, and you just described it as it'd be with Alcubierre. Make up your mind.
The Alcubierre is a 94 theory for a Warp Drive based on Star Trek. A FSD is not. Please understand what is written before being an wisecrack.
Well put and you are correct.
But then again we are all talking about a device, in a spaceship, from 1000 years in the future, in a video game...gawd I love this game and this community.
This is just so depressing. All the things I'm going to miss :/
Amuse me, where you see them differ? And frankly, I don't see any connection between Alcubierre and Star Trek warp drive.
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There are experiments with diamonds now as well. Plus I was talking about informaiton not physcial movement of the ship or some kind of transporter or what not.
LOL...I made that little quip to try and lighten the mood a little....folks are getting pretty serious talking about soaceships in our PewPew game...
Okay, Anikaful. DCello. I want you both to sit, and think for a moment.
You are arguing over the properties of a device that does not exist, and doesn't have a shred of evidence that it ever could exist.
This is literally the equivalent of arguing how much wood a woodchuck could chuck, if it a woodchuck could chuck wood. Please don't.
You are arguing over the properties of a device that does not exist, and doesn't have a shred of evidence that it ever could exist.
This is literally the equivalent of arguing how much wood a woodchuck could chuck, if it a woodchuck could chuck wood. Please don't.
I think I'ma crash to bed instead, it's about 8 in the morning...
The Alcubierre drive -- which I can talk about because it has real world theories -- works by creating a little "energy wave" or "tunnel" and propelling that ship along such tunnel. The space inside the warp bubble remains flat and plane, and the ship accelerates that space forwards while the bubble creates a gap between two points. I trust you saw those little BBC animations of it, and you may have noticed it creates a little crevice in front of the ship and mountain behind it -- the gap in front is what the "tunnel" travels through, and the mountain behind is what brings the energy particles along for the ride and obliterates planets according to an old 2012 paper on the subject of matter inside the warp bubble. The Alcubierre needs negative mass and exotic particles just to create the warp field, and it's displacement and bending of time and space bends celestial bodies along with it -- it actually circumvents them in some cases.
The FSD, on the other hand, does not move space along with the ship, nor it creates a gap in front by shifting that specific portion of reality backwards. The bubble only affects the ship, and the ship accelerates forward as usual. But like a dog running on ice moves faster, the compression of all space around it makes it "move" faster. That's why gravitational pulls affect your speed and that's why you hear the engine responding to throttle input.
Well, I've not seen BBC (youtube says that BBC is not available for this or that reason here). The second paragraph of yours make sense though.
I've already tested this theory, here's the video, as you can see it didn't work out so good for me.
[video=youtube;dBvotWfR3j4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBvotWfR3j4[/video]
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Ok let's say this is correct.
So there is an algorithm aboard your ship's computer that defines what constitutes a full "frame", and then calculates how much energy to "shift" this frame so that you appear to travel some distance faster than light could travel that same distance.
So the computer sets up a "series of frames" and shifts along it until the last frame, where it presumably is your target destination.
Q. Why does gravity affect the FSD?
A. Perhaps real objects within this "frame" needs to be accounted for, and the more massive it is, the more the FSD needs to work to maintain frame-shifting "velocity". This is apparent in the way I hear the engines strain each time I'm near a stellar body in Supercruise... then when I go away, the screeching eases off back into a quieter hum - We've shifted past that troublesome frame!
Q. If we're going faster than light we shouldn't see anything outside of the FSD bubble
A. My take is - light travels using space as a medium. Assuming we "fold" or "bend" space as a method to shift the frames, whatever light that was present in that frame before the fold would still be there. It's only the light that hasn't travelled to that frame yet that you can't see (the future state of the object you're looking at, not the current state). Besides, if it's was space being "folded", light would similarly follow the fabric of space and fold along with it, but to our perception, nothing is bent nor folded. Light still travels "in straight lines". Maybe at best, we'd get blue and red shifting depending on whether we're moving toward or away from that said object.
Ok that's my attempt at explaining FSD (which may or may not be correct). I'm pretty sure you guys have other explanations
Until FD comes and tells us how FSD works, all we can do is just speculate.
Smart arses. I jest.
For anyone interested in the general topic (as a Layman), there's a huge amount of physics on YouTube.
When it comes to current theory, I see pretty much everything 20th physics/cosmology relies in the universe being isotropic/homogenous. Maybe the physics forums will experience an uptick of membership from E : D enquiry (though there does seem to be a few people around here in the cosmology/physics field)
For anyone interested in the general topic (as a Layman), there's a huge amount of physics on YouTube.
When it comes to current theory, I see pretty much everything 20th physics/cosmology relies in the universe being isotropic/homogenous. Maybe the physics forums will experience an uptick of membership from E : D enquiry
(though there does seem to be a few people around here in the cosmology/physics field)A bit off-topic, but if anyone wants to read about amazing physics that is experimentally verified, look up the double slit experiment. Or the guy who made a wind powered vehicle that travels dead downwind faster than the wind that powers it. Both are rock-solid proven, and both will give your mind a spin.
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