A faster light speed wouldn’t make a difference, since she made the universe 96 billion light years wide.
Something tells me this isn’t a bad thing. If there is an edge of the universe, it’s probably going to be a very strange place.
Indeed, but the way the math for expansion works is that there is something called a Hubble horizon and that makes it impossible to ever reach the edge, since it is moving away from us faster than light. (The limit doesn’t apply to the expansion of space-time).
Quite a nifty solution by the Supreme Programmer to avoid us hitting the limits of the simulation. I couldn’t have designed it better.
Well it was a more convincing solution than just having level crossing arms come down and an infinitely long train cross every time you get near the edge.
“Space. It seems to go on and on forever… But then you get to the end and then a giant gorilla starts throwing barrels at you.”
–Fry, “Futurama”
Good thing there isn’t one since we probably live in a donut.
I thought it was technically a three-dimensional donut shape progressing along a sort of 4D torus that we only exist on the “surface” of?
That’s a common misconception. We actually live on the surface of a 3D bear claw progressing along a 4D cruller.
Imagine there being just no stars behind you. Just nothing. On one side you see the universe, like a wall of stars and lights, and next to that just pure nothingness. The void.
A bit off-topic but the voids in the universe (such as Bootes void) are scary af.
KBC Void is scary and cool.
Or the quantum foam, or both, it’d be wild to be able to stare out into that sorta of black, in a metal way.
We don’t know how big is the universe beyond the observable universe.
What is observable is constrained by cause and effect. To see something, information must come from there to us. That cause and effect relationship cannot happen faster than lightspeed.
We therefore have no evidence for anything other than the observable universe. Claims about anything else run into Russell’s teapot issues. We can speculate, but it’s ultimately nothing more than a story.
The observable universe is constantly expanding as the passage of time allows light to reach us from more and more distant parts of the universe. So it’s less “we don’t know what’s outside” and more like (to a certain extent) “we have to wait and see.” And there’s nothing we’ve seen to indicate that these external regions that are being revealed are anything but more of the same kinds of things in our inner region of the observable universe.
Bro doesn’t believe in dark matter because he can’t see it
We can measure its gravitation.
And to add the cherry on top, should you ever reach his arbitrary speed limit, it distorts time itself. Even if you flew through space at c for a little weekend getaway, you’d return to a now foreign world only to find time had skipped forward +2,000 years, your entire family and social circles long dead from old age with societal and technical advancements beyond what you could have ever thought possible, completely isolating you. You’re now doomed to live in an unfamiliar world where not a single human speaks your language nor can they relate to you in any meaning way.
AKA, gods speeding ticket.
I have a solution for this: When you travel somewhere, travel with everyone’s mind at light speed. You see we think about lightspeed wrong. It’s meant for whole species to migrate. Not 1 individual.
Another alternative is just take a snapshop of everyone’s minds at that point, then let them continue living even with your snapshot. When you return you pick back off where you left off. Living in your own dimension. The other dimension is long gone but you miss nothing.
Unless Artificial General Intelligence is developed, then perhaps some pattern could be found and the future humans can decode some of what you’re saying.
Maybe even some brain-neuron scanner type of thing to measure your exact thoughts.
Its probably for the best.
If humans are able to get to another planet with life on it we would probably do horrific unspeakable things to the aliens.
I feel like I would treat my Togruta wife very well ;-;
Real talk tho, humans will eventually reach the stars, being negative/nihilist about it and saying it’s better if it doesn’t happen is dangerous because people like Elon/Donald will definitely do horrible things if people with remorse and morals aren’t involved/ already established there / the one’s initiating
Not saying you’re nihilist, but I go to Uni in SF and everyone is so anti-imperialism that they think any form of colonization (even on a dead planet like Mars) is bad and it’s pretty grating.
Elon should not be the one who decides how the land/living conditions are set up
It’s not nihilist to recognize historical precedent combined with current human conditions and come to a logical prediction.
I wouldn’t have any problem with a completely dead planet being colonized by humanity but I absolutely do not trust humanity as a whole when it comes to a planet with life on it we don’t even respect our own species much less other ones history has shown this over and over again.
even if it is an inevitability doesn’t mean that it is positive just because it was inevitable that nuclear weapons got invented doesn’t mean that It’s a good idea for us to have that technology I would rather nukes not exist.
The fact is that any manned vehicle capable of interplanetary travel is by the nature of the energies involved, also a weapon of mass destruction. A spaceship is a weapon in the same way a car can be a weapon.
So either you massively restrict access to this technology, or you create a system of surveillance and defense that is so pervasive and effective that it makes 1984 look benign, OR you just say fuck everyone else and use that weapon to remove yourself from range of everybody else’s weapons.
Proliferation is an existential problem for anyone in range.
The usefulness of a fusion engine as a weapon is directly correlated to its efficiency.
It doesn’t really matter what kind of engine it is if it’s going fast enough.
Anything with enough mass and acceleration to move a human being from planet to planet in a reasonable timeframe has the kinetic energy required to wipe out a city. Once you start reaching relativistic speeds, you can take out entire planets by simply not slowing down on approach.
Although you are correct, this destroys the engine.
A good, efficient fusion engine just needs to point the exhaust end towards the enemy and the hyper-accelerated particles will punch a hole through the target for you. And then you point at the next target, etc. etc.
Also, it’s a butchered quote from Larry Niven’s Known Space books, referred to as the “Kzinti Lesson” - because the Kzinti thought humanity was unarmed and helpless until they discovered that humans are really good at improvising weapons.
Yup! Totally plausible - just more expensive and less repeatable. And harder to use against moving targets.
alcubierre drives are (theoretically) a thing. wormholes are also a (theoretical) thing.
we could just bend space.
There is idea in the three body problem novels:
Tap for spoiler
That the speed of light was infinity at the birth of the universe but sentient species reduced the speed of light several times as a offence/defense mechanism to protect themselves from others.
The mere though of that is dreadful to me.
Dark Forest Theory is probably wrong. In-universe, the series unknowingly undermines it with communication tech that can transmit instantaneously. That would take away the assumption that civilizations can’t effectively communicate over interstellar distances and build trust.
In reality, it’s something of an extension of the “every individual for themselves” mindset of evolution–something White Supremacists have loved. Kin Selection Theory does away with that. There is a basis for building trust and working together within evolution. The precursor ideas were even done in Peter Kropotkin’s “Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution” over a century ago. Kin Selection Theory put a mathematical foundation on it.
I like the book series as literature, and the Netflix series has been OK so far (not great, but OK). Liu Cixin himself, however, has some really shitty opinions that come through the text.
There is teleportation in the Bible. Humanity just needs to up their game.
I want to hear more about biblical teleportation. I definitely missed that in Sunday school.
“Miraculous Transportation” is a more technically correct term, and it is not clear if it happens instantaneously or not. The boat in John 6:16 is immediately on the shore where they were headed, though this could mean very quickly. Same with Acts 8:26 when Philip is taken from the wilderness between Jerusalem and Gaza to another city.
Ugh. Now I’m going to have to break out the concordance and lexicons to sort through this issue. Thanks for your thoughtful and informed opinion.
Jesus did it after his resurrection too. Appeared in a locked room full of people. Appeared and disappeared more than once. I think there’s at least one additional instance that wasn’t mentioned in the other comment but I don’t keep this top of mind. It’s not like it’s common in the Bible, but apparently it is in the realm of possibility.
Personally - and this goes to crazy theory BS, I wonder if the tower of Babel wasn’t trying to reach the stars not by building tall enough to exit the atmosphere, but rather by teleporting there? There are some crazy theories about the age and purpose of the pyramids (it’s super unlikely they were tombs). Could that have been it? I also wonder if levitation was in the mix. What if ancient man was ridiculously smarter than we are? We dismiss people living to 900+ years old, but if you lived that long and also knew Adam who walked with God, who knows what the fuck you could do? I know it’s crazy as anything but I don’t mind letting my brain go to crazy "what if"s.
You have given me quite the rabbit hole to go down.i may never be the same.
Haha have fun!
Just remember that you’re standing on a planet that’s evolving and revolving at nine hundred miles an hour, that’s orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it’s reckoned a sun that is the source of all our power. The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see are moving at a million miles a day. In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles an hour, of the galaxy we call the Milky Way.
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars. It’s a hundred thousand light years side to side. It bulges in the middle sixteen thousand light years thick but out by us it’s just three thousand light years wide. We’re thirty thousand light years from galactic central point, we go around every two hundred million years and our galaxy is only one of millions of billions in this amazing and expanding universe.
The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding, in all of the directions it can whiz. As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know, twelve million miles a minute and that’s the fastest speed thereis. So remember when you’re feeling very small and insecure, how amazingly unlikely is your birth and pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere up in space because there’s bugger all down here on earth.
You lost me at miles
Edit: /s for brevity
Same. Miles per second? What the hell kinda unit is that? Over here, we use Texases per lamb’s tail shakes.
Score of furlongs per Mississippi
Edit: duck autocorrect
I don’t want to criticize internet absurdity for many reasons, including but not limited to the fact that I depend on it to survive. Having said that, what’s the application of a length to area ratio?
I am referencing the Mississippi, a time unit. One Mississippi is equal to roughly one second.
99% of the universe is nothing. Wouldn’t that really be the dick move?
The universe is basically 100% empty. An atom is more than 99.9999999 empty space.
Light speed is a “you must be this clever to participate” barrier to becoming an interstellar species, that’s all. Even if it’s not breakable, it just means you gotta be able to plan hundreds or thousands of years into the future.
It’s not “just” the speed of light though, light is limited by the speed of information, also known as the speed of causality. If you were to somehow exceed that, then your future light cone becomes very messed up, and effect starts to be possible before cause.
We can hardly plan 5 years into the future, let alone hundreds of thousands… It’d be pretty sad if the answer to the Fermi paradox is that everyone is too stupid to participate.
Let’s say we reset everything today, wipe out everyone’s memory. God will be forgotten, science will still exist. People will figure out science sooner or later.
If I’m being honest, I think people will figure out god too. All it is is a question.
“Did someone do all this?”
It’s a reasonable question. Easy to ask, hard to answer. Attempt to identify this variable “someone”, and people will eventually land on some kind of god.
Yes, but the point is that every time god is “rediscovered”, the form of that god changes as does the scripture surrounding that new religion.
Science, for the most part, wouldn’t diverge from our current understanding of it, because it is ultimately our understanding of the world and its fuctions.
Different form, same essential content.
The universe is actually expanding at a rate faster than the speed of light. There’s only a finite distance we’d technically be able to travel if we were to leave right now.
