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Posted (edited)

Except that Polaris is like 100 times farther than Alpha Centauri, weighing it at 430 ly, giver or take 100 ly.

 

To clarify, that's 4.06802721

Edited by alanschu
Posted (edited)

It would take us a blink of an eye if we ever decided to do some serious research into space travel. Quantum singularities, worms holes, warp travel, etc.

Edited by Dark_Raven

2010spaceships.jpg

Hades was the life of the party. RIP You'll be missed.

Posted

Well then you just need to be concerned with the exceptional gravitational pulls.

 

Quantum singularities are incomprehensibly massive, and will have incomprehensibly huge gravitational forces attached to them. Same goes for those worm holes.

 

As for warp travel, I'm still not convinced that you're going to be able to travel faster than light. While time dilation would let you get to Alpha Centauri in a relative instant (assuming you could travel roughly the speed of light, which would take incomprehensible amounts of energy), if you went there and back, 8.6 years would have elapsed on Earth (this is the foundation of the original Planet of the Apes movie).

 

 

Don't forget that science fiction is still fiction. Stuff like wormholes and whatnot are still entirely theoretical. I'm not sure how it'd actually be possible to bend and maniuplate space-time, and especially to keep things stable.

Posted

Warp space. I was referring to the concept of warping space, bending it not the Star Trek version of faster than light. o:) It's impossible to go faster than light speed. The faster you go, the slower you will go. Something to do with mass.

 

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line or perhaps warping/folding space.

 

It's been a while since I read up on theoretical science, I am trying to recall this from memory.

2010spaceships.jpg

Hades was the life of the party. RIP You'll be missed.

Posted
Don't forget that science fiction is still fiction.  Stuff like wormholes and whatnot are still entirely theoretical.  I'm not sure how it'd actually be possible to bend and maniuplate space-time, and especially to keep things stable.

 

Isn't there a theory someone's playing with about "moving space" from one point to another.. and then everything in that space moves with it... or some such.

Posted

I'm not familiar with it.

 

I have heard of the concept of folding space, which IIRC is a man made wormhole.

 

I'm not sure how one can expect to maniuplate whole chunks of space-time though.

Posted

holy cow. i turn my back for a day and it's turned into a star trek convention! :)

 

taks

comrade taks... just because.

Posted

We could send a ship in a few years and still get there in time, given the five billion year time-limit. :)"

OBSCVRVM PER OBSCVRIVS ET IGNOTVM PER IGNOTIVS

ingsoc.gif

OPVS ARTIFICEM PROBAT

Posted

Actually it isn't. Scientists have theorize that in 70 billion years entropy would have destroyed all matter in the universe and at which point will be the end of time.

Murphy's Law of Computer Gaming: The listed minimum specifications written on the box by the publisher are not the minimum specifications of the game set by the developer.

 

@\NightandtheShape/@ - "Because you're a bizzare strange deranged human?"

Walsingham- "Sand - always rushing around, stirring up apathy."

Joseph Bulock - "Another headache, courtesy of Sand"

Posted

yeah, the so-called "heat death."

 

it's not so much that the matter will be destroyed (since that's not really possible according to conservation of energy principles), it's that it will be spread out over such a large area that the per unit volume energy/matter will be essentially zero. ugly scenario.

 

taks

comrade taks... just because.

Posted (edited)

I believe 2.3 Kelvin or so is the temperature everything will reach. Though, as you say, entropy doesn't destroy matter.

Edited by alanschu
Posted (edited)

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."

 

- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

 

"I have also been slowly coming to the realisation that knowledge and happiness are not necessarily coincident, and quite often mutually exclusive" - meta

Posted

ah yes, those that think humans are a bane to earth. gotta love 'em. they'd probably prefer we just die out so bambi and all her (uh, his?) friends can thrive. i don't think they realize that, eventually, another species of intelligent animal will eventually sprout and, not surprisingly, encounter the same problems.

 

if i'm not mistaken, the delta between birth and death rates in all developed countries is dropping (i think russia is actually negative in this regard, i.e. more deaths than births). soon, this will be true for the planet as a whole. i'd be willing to bet this is a natural progression in which life limits itself to its own ability to support itself. rather, our population, and therefore need for resources, will cap at some point. add this to the fact that we become more efficient with time, i doubt such alarmism should be cause for concern.

 

taks

comrade taks... just because.

Posted

I think that that may be possible, but family planning seems to be correlated with economic security though.

 

THere isn't a huge amount of births in places like the USA and Canada, but Africa is quite high.

Posted

Space ships. They existed in the works of Jules Verne and HG Wells way before we ever actually made them. For one example.

2010spaceships.jpg

Hades was the life of the party. RIP You'll be missed.

Posted
Space ships. They existed in the works of Jules Verne and HG Wells way before we ever actually made them. For one example.

 

And we now have communicators! Now just to get them to badge size.

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."

 

- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

 

"I have also been slowly coming to the realisation that knowledge and happiness are not necessarily coincident, and quite often mutually exclusive" - meta

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