The Astronomy Thread

Sylas said:

Then i'll ask you to show your work on where the energy comes from. Ignore fueling the ship even, just tell me where the energy comes from to run the robots for 400k years it'll take us to get to the closest habitable planet? Let's say we even get to 30% c (which makes fueling your ship even more impossible, but lets pretend) so it only takes 150k years through mostly empty void with only distant starlight, what powers the robots?

The answer is always fantasy. matter replicators and perpetual motion machines. Just say you put on your robe and wizard hat and cast a spell, it's more realistic.

No, we'll send robots into space that'll be slightly better versions of Voyager who have initial velocity granted by chemical propulsion of the rocket and the occasional assist from planetary gravity that we knew about and calculated in the initial trajectory and it'll hit a speed many many many thousands of a % of c and that's the speed it'll have forever.

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Who says the Robots need to run 400k years? We have mini nuclear Reactors now, in a thousand years they could be the size of a home generator. I'm not staying it's easy, but there are ways.

sylas is such a doomer. Fusion is the obvious technological advance we need to achieve, and there are lots of questions around how light works and the speed of light that are just not proven. It’s our understanding of the universe that is meager and limiting us here, not the other way around.

Chanur said:

androids caring for a massive ship full of fertilized embryos and food could spend a few generations taking us to other worlds to populate.

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I think I have seen this movie.

And fusion runs off of? Oh that's right, fuel. matter. Whether you are taking big atoms and making smaller atoms or taking smaller atoms and making bigger atoms, you need fuel.

Again the answer is always magic.

And the time required is a product of distance and velocity?
You guys truly do not understand the true problem is space is big.

If you think about it, it's kinda funny. We have the universe, we have intelligent races spread out amongst the stars and then we have physics going Hahaha fuck you all, you will never meet each other.

Sylas said:

And fusion runs off of? Oh that's right, fuel. matter. Whether you are taking big atoms and making smaller atoms or taking smaller atoms and making bigger atoms, you need fuel.

Again the answer is always magic.

And the time required is a product of distance and velocity?
You guys truly do not understand the true problem is space is big.

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Does matter not exist? Is space empty.

Also matter exists, therefore can be created. This is a simple logical fact. The only real question is “how”.

You’re assumption that these questions have no answer is objectively false, but you may be correct that humanity is too stupid to ever realize answers.

Furry said:

Does matter not exist? Is space empty.

Also matter exists, therefore can be created. This is a simple logical fact. The only real question is “how”.

You’re assumption that these questions have no answer is objectively false, but you may be correct that humanity is too stupid to ever realize answers.

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At least until we turn ourselves into Greys by fucking with our DNA for intelligence.

Furry said:

Does matter not exist? Is space empty.

Also matter exists, therefore can be created. This is a simple logical fact. The only real question is “how”.

You’re assumption that these questions have no answer is objectively false, but you may be correct that humanity is too stupid to ever realize answers.

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woah i'm not even sure where to start with this one. You think the answer is a perpetual motion machine combined with an infinite energy machine and a matter replicator, so like the trifecta of magic disguised as "science"

I regret to inform you that matter cannot, in fact, be created, nor destroyed. It can theoretically be converted into energy but i'm thinking that conversation is lost on you. I do not assume these "questions" have "no answers" I assume correctly that the answers which we've known for some time is, "No you can't travel FTL, that's not how the physical universe works"

Also i'm not sure why you think I"m a doomer? What's worse:

a) Life is super rare, b) intelligent life is super rare, c) intelligent life destroys itself before it ever reaches the stars via some great filter, or d) intelligent life is hiding from some super predator species that will come and wipe us out if we're ever silly enough to broadcast our location into space for decades on end like we've been and are currently doing. Either way, we're alone in the universe and always will be. The only possibility that we'll ever make contact with alien life is if it's the super predator variety when it shows up, any minute now, to annihilate us as a species.

That's the fermi "paradox"

Or, life is probably super common, intelligent life even, but space is so fucking big we never really have a chance to run in to one another. We're not alone, but it doesn't really matter. Space is too big to be colonized that's why nobody has done it. Everything we know about the universe and physics proves beyond a doubt that this is true.

Honestly, time travel is theoretically more probable than FTL travel, yet we never talk about it in any serious matter? In fact for FTL to even be able to exist in theory, time travel also exists.

Assumption 1: people make mistakes and/or have regrets, things they wish they could change. <--true, yes?
Assumption 2: People will continue to make technological advancements, leaps and bounds beyond what we currently see <-most likely true, yes?
Assumption 3: People will eventually create time travel, so why the hell isn't anyone popping up from the future to warn me about dating my ex? or giving me the winning powerball numbers? or killing hitler? Where the fuck is everyone??

What a paradox! This is the exact same "assumption" built in to the fermi paradox. Not only will we magically overcome the physics of the universe to travel FTL, but it's a foregone conclusion, every alien species will be able to do this, so where the fuck is everyone then? they must have died first or got killed by other aliens, because OBVIOUSLY everyone should be able to do the one thing we know for a fact can't be fucking done.

So since i'm not visited daily by terminators trying to revert the time line, where is everyone??

Well maybe every time people travel back in time, it creates a new multiverse and you're always in the one where they didn't go back in time to tell you that thing? Or maybe someone else travels back in time to stop that person from traveling so they don't break the space/time continuum and we end up with terminators and shit? Or maybe time travel requires some device to portal back to, so you can only travel back in time until the day time travel was invented and no further, so we'll never see them?

It's generous to call it a "thought experiment" but truly the fermi paradox is no different than the above about time travel, in fact the time travel question has more scientific rigor.

it's slightly better than a facebook quiz about which backstreet boy you are but to waste a moments thought to seriously consider the fermi paradox or FTL travel is fucking retarded.

Sylas said:

woah i'm not even sure where to start with this one. You think the answer is a perpetual motion machine combined with an infinite energy machine and a matter replicator, so like the trifecta of magic disguised as "science"

I regret to inform you that matter cannot, in fact, be created, nor destroyed. It can theoretically be converted into energy but i'm thinking that conversation is lost on you. I do not assume these "questions" have "no answers" I assume correctly that the answers which we've known for some time is, "No you can't travel FTL, that's not how the physical universe works"

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Where did I say any of your claims? I demonstrated that space is not empty. There is light, there is matter and there is gravity -everywhere-. Harnessing these forms of extant and potential energy is not magic, but science.

As for the fact that matter can be created, this is a simple indisputable truth. Things that can’t be created don’t exist. Matter however does exist. The conditions for its creation are what we don’t know, rather than if it can happen.

And the fact that you think time travel could be possible, I’m just not going to touch that. Past and future exist only theoretically. Could it be possible? Maybe, but I doubt the universe keeps a recording of itself more complete than the propagation of energy or inference gained from the effects of time observed in the present. I find the subject to be worthless speculation.

As for the Fermi paradox, I think human life has experienced an extraordinary level of luck that allowed it to develop to this point. I mean the most basic examination of how intelligent species fail to ever get to the stars could simply be they come to be on a planet where this is impossible. What of an intelligent species on a water world where resources simply don’t exist, or they don’t have the physiology to make or use complex tools. Never mind that most intelligent species will probably kill themselves off or be eradicated by nature.

I strongly believe highly intelligent life is inevitable on any planet that can support it, but most planets will only support moderately intelligent life. I’ve said before that I wouldn’t be shocked at all if we are the first and only species in our galaxy that is space capable.

Furry said:

Where did I say any of your claims? I demonstrated that space is not empty. There is light, there is matter and there is gravity -everywhere-. Harnessing these forms of extant and potential energy is not magic, but science.

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Here. Right here is where you did. Are you confused? Do you not understand you are basically saying you'd use an infinite energy generator to power your matter replicator to make fuel out of nothing so you can power your perpetual motion machine? Because that is exactly what you are stating, even if you don't realize it.

To travel the void between stars there is actually not any matter, or light, or gravity, not that gravity even matters? it's the fold of spacetime, not a form of energy so no you aren't harvesting it for energy. Sure you'll pick up a few photons of distant starlight, not enough to power a light bulb much less a space ship, and sure, space is never actually a vacuum, there will be a random hydrogen atom or electron floating around every few light years, but yeah, no. You are describing magic.

As for the fact that matter can be created, this is a simple indisputable truth. Things that can’t be created don’t exist. Matter however does exist. The conditions for its creation are what we don’t know, rather than if it can happen.

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We can "create" matter by converting energy. hardly a solution to your problem of how to fuel a space ship? Use energy to create matter to turn that matter back in to energy extremely inefficiently. Still doesn't answer the question of where you get the initial energy to make the matter?

And the fact that you think time travel could be possible, I’m just not going to touch that. Past and future exist only theoretically. Could it be possible? Maybe, but I doubt the universe keeps a recording of itself more complete than the propagation of energy or inference gained from the effects of time observed in the present. I find the subject to be worthless speculation.

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on the contrary, i'm pointing out how ridiculous your argument is. As retarded as time travel is, it's a fucking pre-requisite to FTL travel, meaning you'd have to invent time travel on the tech tree to inventing FTL. if you don't instantly share the same disgust of someone talking about time travel that you do to someone legitimately discussing FTL travel then you are dumb.

As for the Fermi paradox, I think human life has experienced an extraordinary level of luck that allowed it to develop to this point. I mean the most basic examination of how intelligent species fail to ever get to the stars could simply be they come to be on a planet where this is impossible. What of an intelligent species on a water world where resources simply don’t exist, or they don’t have the physiology to make or use complex tools. Never mind that most intelligent species will probably kill themselves off or be eradicated by nature.

I strongly believe highly intelligent life is inevitable on any planet that can support it, but most planets will only support moderately intelligent life. I’ve said before that I wouldn’t be shocked at all if we are the first and only species in our galaxy that is space capable.

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Interesting that you believe a water world is any different than one in which we live in atmospheric gases. Their technology would evolve to manipulate the same laws of physics that we do it would just be expressed differently.

They'd rely on Buoyancy and lighter elements floating to drive turbines to generate electricity in the same way that we rely on heat to evaporate water and rely on steam being lighter than air to drive turbines. Doesn't matter if it's cavemen with fire or steam engines or nuclear fission or even fusion once we unlock it, it's all just a more efficient way to heat water and everything we do is built on the fact that steam rises in our atmosphere.

Their ship would be filled with water the same way that ours is filled with air, not so much for comfort, but because all their technology would require it.

Sylas said:

Here. Right here is where you did. Are you confused? Do you not understand you are basically saying you'd use an infinite energy generator to power your matter replicator to make fuel out of nothing so you can power your perpetual motion machine? Because that is exactly what you are stating, even if you don't realize it.

To travel the void between stars there is actually not any matter, or light, or gravity, not that gravity even matters? it's the fold of spacetime, not a form of energy so no you aren't harvesting it for energy. Sure you'll pick up a few photons of distant starlight, not enough to power a light bulb much less a space ship, and sure, space is never actually a vacuum, there will be a random hydrogen atom or electron floating around every few light years, but yeah, no. You are describing magic.


We can "create" matter by converting energy. hardly a solution to your problem of how to fuel a space ship? Use energy to create matter to turn that matter back in to energy extremely inefficiently. Still doesn't answer the question of where you get the initial energy to make the matter?

on the contrary, i'm pointing out how ridiculous your argument is. As retarded as time travel is, it's a fucking pre-requisite to FTL travel, meaning you'd have to invent time travel on the tech tree to inventing FTL. if you don't instantly share the same disgust of someone talking about time travel that you do to someone legitimately discussing FTL travel then you are dumb.



Interesting that you believe a water world is any different than one in which we live in atmospheric gases. Their technology would evolve to manipulate the same laws of physics that we do it would just be expressed differently.

They'd rely on Buoyancy and lighter elements floating to drive turbines to generate electricity in the same way that we rely on heat to evaporate water and rely on steam being lighter than air to drive turbines. Doesn't matter if it's cavemen with fire or steam engines or nuclear fission or even fusion once we unlock it, it's all just a more efficient way to heat water and everything we do is built on the fact that steam rises in our atmosphere.

Their ship would be filled with water the same way that ours is filled with air, not so much for comfort, but because all their technology would require it.

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There is energy in space. Do you really think there is nothing?



As for FTL, there are things where FTL is the only plausible explanation. So called “gravity waves” exist because gravity’s effect is observably infinite in propagation, so they made some long winded theory about how planets know where the sun will be in the future so that only changes to the arrangement agreed upon in advance by two objects with mass need to propagate at the speed of light. This theory is inane garbage at a conceptual level.

Plus there are other effects not adequately explained in a reality where everything is bound to the speed of light, though none of the others are so clearly and locally provable to exist, at least that I can recall off the top of my head.

ok now you are just trolling, what's next brazillian power crystals?

the only thing even suspected to be faster than light is the expansion of the universe itself, spacetime. Nothing in all of science in the heavens or earth requires FTL to be a thing in order to explain it.

Sylas said:

ok now you are just trolling, what's next brazillian power crystals?

the only thing even suspected to be faster than light is the expansion of the universe itself, spacetime. Nothing in all of science in the heavens or earth requires FTL to be a thing in order to explain it.

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Someone hasn’t ever bothered to read or look at the math of the theories they believe I see. No, gravity doesn’t work unless its speed is effectively infinite. They knew this hundreds of years ago. Bound by the speed of light the solar system would fall apart fast. One of the basic ideas behind the modern understanding of gravity is that all objects with mass know where other objects will be in the future. That’s why if you read an explanation of “what would happen if the sun disappeared”, they will say the earth will continue to orbit the sun for 7 minutes, until it finds out the sun disappeared, and only then will stop orbiting it. This net of premonition is called a “gravitational field”.

That’s the theory you believe, and you don’t even know it, or why it has to be that way to make the current model ‘work’. I love arguing with people who don’t even know the theories they support.

so, so wrong.

Gravitational affects propagate at the speed of light, they are not infinite speed. We wouldn't feel the sudden loss of gravitational pull or shift in orbit until 8 minutes, because gravity's speed propagates at the speed of light.

If gravity was this super fortune teller with infinite speed as you seem to believe, the effect would be immediate, we would be flung off towards jupiter while it would take 8 minutes for the last of the sun's light to hit us and for us to even understand why.

Way to prove yourself wrong there buckaroo

Sylas said:

so, so wrong.

Gravitational affects propagate at the speed of light, they are not infinite speed. We wouldn't feel the sudden loss of gravitational pull or shift in orbit until 8 minutes, because gravity's speed propagates at the speed of light.

If gravity was this super fortune teller with infinite speed as you seem to believe, the effect would be immediate, we would be flung off towards jupiter while it would take 8 minutes for the last of the sun's light to hit us and for us to even understand why.

Way to prove yourself wrong there buckaroo

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They say this, yet every single mathematical calculation on gravitational pull in any real world setting requires the speed of gravity to be infinite as to where two objects are located. If you calculate based on where objects were, solar systems fall apart. So earth is not falling towards the sun that we see, but towards where we will see the sun being 8 minutes from now.

If you understood this you wouldn’t be confused right now. You believe in the magical premonitional gravity field that predicts where everything will be in order to explain how a force of clearly infinite speed can on paper be limited by the speed of light. You believe your magic space memory web all you want, no judgement, lots of people believe it. But it’s kinda weird you believe that and then immediately discount any other theory as impossible.

Captain Suave said:

Objects experience gravity, as propagated a the the speed of light. We saw this with the LIGO experiment. That's the entire point of the "relative" part of relativity. There's just what each observer experiences from the universe at their particular point in spacetime. There isn't even a universal definition of "now" when you get down to the nuts and bolts.



What? No. Everything in this statement is wrong.

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This is a categorically false statement in every regard. At least put effort into being wrong like sylas. Only changes in gravity propagate at the speed of light in relativity. As a force it is infinite in speed generally speaking.

Go ahead and link an equation where gravity itself propagates at the speed of light. I’ll be shocked if you can find one. If you just google formula none of those will be so limited.