/sci/ - Science & Math

a few mitigating factors that result in the realization that space travel will be incredibly, unbelievably fascinating, far more so than any seinfeld-tier star trek episode:
1. time dilation near c means that subjective travel times to anywhere can be within a human lifetime. go enjoy reading tau zero
2. cryosleep
3. burning around the solar system with even near future ~1k ISP nuclear drives would still be VERY interesting. months to mars, years to jupiter, there's nothing dull about that at all.

>>15176174
You should read this.

>>15176191
> this guy deduced the speed of light within 26% of its true value in the 1600s
how have I not heard about this until today. wow, what a smartie!

>>15176174
We're not even going to go 50% of the speed of light, it is physically impossible to accelerate to such speeds without ripping anything larger than atoms apart

>>15176221
what are you even talking about?

>>15176248
Einsteinians believe that the universe has a speed limit.

>>15176221
>>15176248
>>15176252

> without ripping anything larger than atoms apart
what do you mean by this?
you can accelerate to .5c very gradually and barely feel it. you can do that to a single hydrogen or to a huge spaceship. it will require a lot of energy, but I don't understand why you think it would "rip things apart"

>>15176261
He doesn't understand it either. He's just parroting dogma.

>>15176174
1. there are legitimate ideas that could be used for ftl travel, i.e. alcubierre drive. They might be impossible, but there are plenty of historical examples where apparent hard limits are broken, and our understanding of general relativity is almost certainly incomplete as is.
2. with "only" 1 g of constant acceleration, just about anywhere in the universe can be reached within a human lifetime due to time dilation. It would of course require absurdly efficient engine designs and a fuckton of energy, but it's still possible to have viable interstellar travel even without exceeding the speed of light. In that sense, the speed of light cap is actually quite misleading since as you accelerate close to the speed of light the distances in front of you end up compressing even when you aren't actually gaining significant velocity from an observer's perspective. And who's to say that even 500 years from now such an engine couldn't be possible?

>>15176174
we get the star wars future instead, and it's already here
>hyperdimensional mind over matter consciousness field
>hyperspace ufo vehicles
>jedi and sith jesus christ physics manipulations
>force ghost interdimensional machine elves
>extraterrestrials galore
>evil mechanical military industrial complex empire
>supercomputer with AI hooked up to synthetic telepathy antennas to torture and control people
>mechanical reality-domination systems based on tesla and gateway physics
>death star ufos and deep underground military bases
>jabba the hut black cartels using ufos to run cocaine in the middle of the night
>boba fett wetworks hitmen
>dr. steven greer yoda master
>luke skywalker kyle odom heroics
>a laughable emperor-controlled mass media, academia, and government that constantly denies it exists
>rebels getting picked off one by one as targeted individuals

>>15176174
Flyby Anomaly indicates that our understanding of spacetime is incomplete. Might be linked to those odd results from spinning superconductors that came up in the 90s, but no one went to the trouble of replicating the experiment accurately (the reasons are a little unclear)

>>15176174
You didn't take time dilation into account dumbass

>>15176313
you're too disconnected from reality to distinguish hollywood movies from irl life

>>15176359
Star Wars is not hollywood. It's an independent production by George Lucas, who was famously independent for the hollywood system.

>>15176474
Star Wars was funded by 20th Century Fox.

>>15176174
Good news for you, "warp drive" could be theoretically possible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive

>>15176474
you filled up your head with jewish nonsense from hollywood instead of legitimate information about science and now you can't tell the two apart.

>>15176174
It's not impossible to leave the solar system at all. Accept that an individual human will be confined to a particular area of space their entire life. They simply cannot move fast enough to go beyond their perimeter. But snails and slugs also move hella slow and they cover the entire Earth. Eventually, the paths between stars and planets will be crowded with thousand of nomad empires traveling and expanding outwards and circulating inwards, speciating into myriad alien forms and civilizations. Eventually, we will encounter truly alien life that originated in their own distant spiral arm, who will probably be less bizarre to humanity than its own ultra-primitive ancestors.

>>15176679
Yes. I think people need to dial down their expectations. Living and dying on a generation ship will not be a bad life.

>>15176174
https://archive.macleans.ca/article/2005/5/30/the-star-trek-connection
>THE STAR TREK CONNECTION
>A surprising number of child sex abusers appear to be Trekkies. Trying to figure out what that means, however, shows how little we really know about pedophiles

>>15176252
Has nothing to do with einstein. He just noticed it first. It has to do with the fact that the physical world is a VR.

>>15176174
>Anyone who understands science knows we will never go faster than the speed of light. So we are bassically fucked. Contained to the solar system and even trying to colonize our system will be vastly impossible. So that's very depressing how do you guys deal with that? What is the future of space faring?
We are contained in the solar system that's probably right, we can still send multi generational missions, or machines to do the exploring and exploitation of resources for us, we don't have to go ourselves, Earth is our home and we should take very good care of it, eventually mining and processing should be done offworld, not on earth.

Honestly we're probably not even going to manage fusion. Stars, despite the extreme conditions in their cores, are pretty low energy from a power per unit of volume standpoint. The most we can hope for is bunch of solar habitats knocking around the inner solar system.

>>15176191
That's beautiful

>>15176740
There's still so much to learn. Fusion is only one stepping stone to cross the river. We don't know anything about the island of stability, the cores of planets and so many other things. To get to a point where we can manufacture something like crystal lattices formed of matter in exotic states or whatever is required for greater energy density will take time.

>>15176174
im not a scientist or brain person
but its obvious what happens if we never figure out how to travel beyond our solar system.
we run out of stuff. then we slowly starve to death
we should be deciding as a species how we wanna do that, long-term. should we limit our population to a level that will survive until our sun dies? or should we just do whatever until whatever happens and we die way sooner.

>>15176191
why

>>15176764
The Science and God both say the same thing. Stay on Earth and praise Him for to leave and do otherwise is impossible.

>>15176174
Nothing limits a human civilization limited to a radius of 20 light years, you dumb cunt. Yeah, with 0.8c ships, it will take half your life to get from end one to another, but this would be quest completely pointless for the actual realities of this civilization. You can have a similar culture and communications lag with other members of the civilization if the lag is just a few years. Been there, done that: hunter tribal bands that often don't manage to randomly meet up/reunite.
You can even have still treaties with your basic everyday diplomacy and economics with your immediate neighbours. Yeah a shipment to Alpha Centauri would take like 6 years, but we have such enterprises measured in years here as well.

Thinking we need the Galaxy is childish maximalism.

>>15176191
>light leaving Io would reach the Earth sooner in the first case, since the Earth-Jupiter system was moving toward the light during its period of transit, and would reach the Earth later in the second case

Huh? Isn't the speed of light the same in all reference frames? No matter how fast you're travelling with respect to the light source, the measured speed of light will be the same.

>>15176248
nta, but you'll whack into small dust grains and even molecules with such force, it will turn your spacecraft into swiss cheese

https://www.pbs.org/video/is-interstellar-travel-impossible-duyluw/

>>15176261
https://www.pbs.org/video/is-interstellar-travel-impossible-duyluw/
Even though the interstellar medium is very sparse, it will rip you to shreds at relativistic speeds.

>>15176562
All you need is some, um, "negative energy."

>>15176174
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2069_Alpha_Centauri_mission

For a Star Trek universe we would need:
>FTL travel
Not possible until or unless we prove stable wormholes that living beings can cross through. And the to be able to make them.
>Post-Scarcity society
Not possible until industrial machinery, robotics, AI, GM crops develop to the point they can make anything and everything for all people and work becomes obsolete except for those who want to
>Communism
Post-Scarcity would make daily commodities valueless, so they would be distributed to all as needed or wanted. Basically Communism achieved. Limits on private wealth and corporations to prevent an upset to the system (this will never happen without massive changes to the global economic system from the ground up).
>Peace
Humans to stop bombing each other over nationalist land-grabbing and iron age mythological texts (this also, will never happen as humans are too retarded and violent).

>>15176174
>Anyone who understands science knows we will never go faster than the speed of light.
Bullshit. You dont know science, you just know enough to be a doomer

>>15176999
It dispels some myths about the speed of light.
>>15177365
>Huh? Isn't the speed of light the same in all reference frames?
Is that a conclusion you reached on your own, or a fact that you accepted from authority?

>>15177453
I've been convinced through gedankenexperiment and logic. It's the only thing that makes sense. GPS doesn't work without time dilation. Time dilation makes no sense without special relativity.

>>15176261
>you can accelerate to .5c very gradually and barely feel it.
No you can't, it is physically impossible

>>15177534
>GPS doesn't work without time dilation.
>he fell for the GPS meme

>>15177534
>one specific thing works according to this theory
>therefore it describes every possible thing in reality
Low quality bait, come back when you've got something better to share.

>>15177635
He's even wrong about that. GPS doesn't involve relativity at all. It's a pop-soience myth that's been busted for decades, like carrots making your eyesight better.

>>15176191
>@gmail.com

>>15177690
What's weird about that? I've read a lot of papers where people link their personal email instead of their work email.

The real first proof of relativity was not a theoretical explanation for the M-M experiment (in fact, there are many such theoretical explanations-- like the Aeather) but the explanation of the apsidal precession of Mercury as well as the correct predicted distortion of the apparent position of stars when behind the sun. It was these two proofs that actually convinced people relatively was real.

>>15177725
The real first disproof of relativity was the discovery of Hubble's law, but everyone ignored that and just went along pretending relativity hadn't been disproved by observational reality. Following that, the cosmic background radiation was discovered, contradicting the predictions of relativity, but that was also ignored. Quarks? Ignored. Galactic rotation curves? Ignored.
So in that context, any proof of relativity isn't relevant.

>>15176756
We may never even solve fusion. It's always joked about for being always 20 years away. For a good reason. Best home for energy is renewable energy.

>>15177391
Post scarcity is never going to happen. Things can become very cheap. But there is always a limited supply to a degree on everything. Only enough land or corn or cupcakes or doctors or coal and Yada Yada the list goes on. Really wish people would give up on this idea. Although seeing it in fiction is cool I guess.