54 réponses à ce sujet

[rayrocksweet]

im just curious if there is any theroies on how to stop or interfere with time dilation during FTL speeds.

with current physics laws i believe that as you approach the speed of light time will slow down compared to others at rest at an exponentional rate so extreme, that at the speed of light years will go by to your hours.

It seems like an intergral part of the theroy of special relativity was thrown out the window for me2 and all other space themed universes. 

[Sidac]

yes because games become seriously boring when you start to add physics into games...dont get me started on star wars physics fails

[SPARTAN-860]

This theory has never been proven, since no one has ever traveled faster than light, so games can do whatever they want.

[TuringPoint]

Why don't you read the codex? If you have, apologies, just have to make sure.

The Dark Energy or Mass Effect theory that is made up for this series lowers the effective mass of an object, which yes, does take special relativity out of the window with it. But something similar would be the only way FTL would ever be possible, considering that according that theory of relativity thingy, the speed of light is the absolute limit at which anything can move.

If you can point out a sci-fi that believably breaks the theory of relativity, please tell me! I'm pretty sure it hasn't been done yet, and all things considered Bioware did a respectable attempt at their own idea for FTL.  

The theory of relativity doesn't really account for a way that FTL is possible.  So in order to make it possible - in order to make a story that is intergalactic - you've gotta make up your own rules.

Modifié par Alocormin, 15 février 2010 - 03:53 .

[lRavenl]

Laws of Physics change in different space-time, like in every science fiction or even getting closer to science fact, to travel faster then light, you need to "swift" into a different space, wich alters the laws affecting that object or "point". (Warp bubble (theo.Possible)) // (Mass effect field)..etc. 

[vdeity]

That's why it's called Einstein's Theory of Relativity and not Einstein's Law of Relativity.

[TuringPoint]

Also, it is a theory, not a law. Scientific theories can be usually be disproven or amended in ways we can't imagine, maybe never will. Bioware isn't trying to disprove or amend the theory of relativity in any way by putting FTL speed travel in their games.

[Wolfehunter]

I hate to be the scientist who takes this theory and make into practice. Every Government body will be hunting him down...

Modifié par Wolfehunter, 15 février 2010 - 03:57 .

[Jalisurr]

That is a staple of most Science Fiction, is that they have to break at least one law of physics. The 'hard' science fiction usually only breaks one, with some new material or technology, but even the most hard-core realistic Sci-Fi usually needs to break one law to work. In mass effect's universe, that break is dark energy and the mass effect fields that effectively give a particle negative mass, allowing the ships to move faster than light speed.

Also, in conventional physics, the time does slow, but you can also never get that high because for a massive particle to reach the speed of light, it requires infinite energy, as E^2 = P^2C^2 + (MC^2)^2

Modifié par Jalisurr, 15 février 2010 - 04:00 .

[vashts1985]

mass effect relies heavily on Newtonian physics and ignores many of Einsteins theory's



simply put, time dilation does not exist in mass effect.

[Bob5312]

The lore relies heavily on dark energy, which isn't well understood by current physics. The usual ways of travelling faster than light in fiction are either to warp spacetime so extremely that a 'wormhole' forms (a connection between otherwise separate, distant locations in spacetime) or to move spacetime itself globally while objects within remain locally at rest.

In the second idea, there are no relativistic time-dilation effects because the observer is at rest within their spacetime frame. This is how galaxies can move away from one another faster than the speed of light (which they actually do, presumably, though because they move faster than the light they emit we can never see them). This could presumably be achieved if you could harness dark energy.

In ME the mass effect field works a bit differently. It acts to raise the speed of light within the field while simultaneously lowering inertial mass; this allows a fairly modest force to produce enormous accelerations and raises the speed limit imposed by special relativity. Presumably, there would still be some time-dilation effects, but these would be reduced to the point that they become manageable. Rather than years becoming seconds, days might become hours; a two week trip from the point of view of an observer on a planet might take a couple of hours from the point of view of an observer on the ship.



vashts1985, ME relies heavily on relativistic physics; the concept of a 'field' does not really exist in Newtonian physics. Time dilation does exist in ME (refer to the codex), but its effects are small.



Alocormin, you've hit the nail on the head. Einstein modified Newton's laws; he showed that they were the 'low-energy' limit of relativity. There's nothing to say relativity is the final word. Indeed, the search for 'post-relativistic' physics is a hot topic in research.



Jalisurr, the mass effect field does not give a particle negative mass. Such particles are called tachyons, they travel backwards in time (they exist until they are created) and their presence in a theory is a good indicator of mathematical instability. Dark energy does exist in real life (probably), but its effects are quite different (it drives the accelerated expansion of the universe).

[TuringPoint]

That is a very clear way of explaining it. Thanks

[redhead1979]

The word "theory" in science has a different meaning than when used in every-day speak. For example, you may have a theory who stole the bagle from the local bakery. You are using theory interchangeably with "guess". In science the term "thoery" refers to a set of consistant observations. If an idea reaches "theory" status it's place is science is stronger than a "law". For example: Gravitational Theory, Electromagnetic Theory, Evolutionary Theory, Germ Theory, Cell Theory, etc. Those are all proven areas of science that have mounds of data backing them up, thus the label "theory".



So yes, Einstiens special theory of relativity is a proven fact. Time dilation happens in real life, not just on paper, and there are experiments you can look up to verify.

The bleeding edge of science is where folks are looking to rectify the special theory of relativity with the quantum world, since at the very very small particles cease to obey newtonian mechanics and start doing thier own crazy things.



Schroedinger killed your cat. Or did he...?

[TuringPoint]

Or on the large level, apparently - with galaxies moving faster than light? Not sure how that works, or how that's proven.

[redhead1979]

The expansion of space causes galaxies to move apart faster than the speed of light.

Think of it this way: you have a baloon and put some dots on it. When you blow up the baloon those dots don't move but are still moving away from each other. If you pick a reference dot the further out you go the faster the dots move away from the reference dot. This is how the expansion works with galaxies. After a certain distance galaxies are traveling faster than light away from you, meaning that we cannot detect any kind of data from them. Its called the information horizon or something like that. The older the universe gets the more it expands, the more it expands the faster galaxies move away. Eventually, in like eleventy billion years or something, the information horizon will be right outside our own galaxy. All we will be able to detect is a black void.

Edwin Hubble noticed this a while ago by detecting the "red shift" of galaxies very, very far away from us. Because of the expansion of space the light is shifted slightly in wavelength, making it appear red. That is how they know the universe is expanding.

[Bob5312]

To clarify redhead's point, a theory is really just a useful model that explains all the data. There are very stringent requirements for a model to reach theory status, but it can never be 'proved'. Relativity, like all theories, is only true so far. This lack of certainty doesn't really bother scientists, many of whom spend long careers trying to disprove a theory like special relativity. That said, we haven't observed anything that disagrees with relativity yet, and it's not for want of trying.

[Sphaerus]

Uh... Little thing about modern physics. Time dilation is a proven fact. Even Relativity's most esoteric predictions have panned out (frame dragging).

Also, the only (currently feasible) way you could "effectively" travel at the speed of light relative to an outside observer would be if you could reduce your mass to zero and then somehow accelerate while having zero mass. Given zero-mass particles (most notably photons) travel at the speed of light and all particles with mass travel slower than the speed of light, mass of zero or greater appears to be the block to FTL travel.

Most current theories of Inflation (especially those involving a specific "inflaton" field) have instances of negative density of energy and mass. If it can happen once, it can happen again, but it's been said (by Alan Guth no less) that a particle accelerator long enough to produce these kinds of reactions would have to run the length of Pluto's orbit.

So... Probably not gonna happen on a dinky little spaceship in real life any time soon.



lol, armchair physics.

[newcomplex]

redhead1979 wrote...

The word "theory" in science has a different meaning than when used in every-day speak. For example, you may have a theory who stole the bagle from the local bakery. You are using theory interchangeably with "guess". In science the term "thoery" refers to a set of consistant observations. If an idea reaches "theory" status it's place is science is stronger than a "law". For example: Gravitational Theory, Electromagnetic Theory, Evolutionary Theory, Germ Theory, Cell Theory, etc. Those are all proven areas of science that have mounds of data backing them up, thus the label "theory".

So yes, Einstiens special theory of relativity is a proven fact. Time dilation happens in real life, not just on paper, and there are experiments you can look up to verify.
The bleeding edge of science is where folks are looking to rectify the special theory of relativity with the quantum world, since at the very very small particles cease to obey newtonian mechanics and start doing thier own crazy things.

Schroedinger killed your cat. Or did he...?

Theory is a very strong fact in science, but it stilll not a law.   Laws are proven fact through experimentation and observation, theories are things that are mathematically proven, yet insufficient experimentary data is available.   

[Jigero]

Who cares about FTL anyways and who cares if it's impossible to achieve? On a universal scale FTL is freaking slow and on top of that time is relative, so 55 hours of FTL travel is 55 years back on earth, by time you get back, you might not even have a home to get back to. Spacial Folds is the way to go.

[CatatonicMan]

As a point of fact, the theory of relativity doesn't actually say that things cannot move faster than the speed of light; the big limit is that things cannot cross the speed-of-light barrier.

Traveling faster than light would require some weirdness to do so (for example, you would need to have a complex mass), but it is in no way forbidden as long as you could find a way to make a transition from bradyon to tachyon without actually going at the speed of light.

Modifié par CatatonicMan, 15 février 2010 - 05:48 .

[Bob5312]

Sphaerus: all very true, except that a particle with zero mass must by definition travel at exactly the speed of light in every reference frame; they require no acceleration.

While many of relativity theory's predictions have been verified (time dilation, frame dragging, gravitational lensing, redshifting, etc., though the jury is still out on gravitational waves) this only imposes limits on whatever theory will eventually replace relativity: it needs to make all the same predictions as well as hopefully explaining dark energy and inflation, which general relativity cannot do without adding in an ad hoc cosmological constant or a hypothetical inflaton field, neither of which is very satisfying.



If you want to read my view of FTL travel in the ME universe, scroll up to read my first (longer) post.



Jigero, I think you have missed the point of the discussion; time dilation is exactly what we're trying to address.



CatatonicMan, as I said earlier, all current theories with tachyons have very serious mathematical instability problems.

[CatatonicMan]

Bob5312 wrote...

CatatonicMan, as I said earlier, all current theories with tachyons have very serious mathematical instability problems.

Sure, tachyons are generally considered to be too unstable to exist  (what with causality needing to be preserved and all). Still there are other weird theoretical particles, like superbradyons, that could fit the bill well enough.

Ultimately, of course, everything here is speculation. 

[SidNitzerglobin]

redhead1979 wrote...

So yes, Einstiens special theory of relativity is a proven fact.

Until it's disproven...

Schroedinger killed your cat. Or did he...?

You killed your cat (or didn't) when you looked in the box.

Modifié par SidNitzerglobin, 15 février 2010 - 06:08 .

[Bob5312]

Sorry, CatatonicMan, I didn't mean to imply that you didn't understand that point. I was just pointing out that tachyons are generally assumed not to exist, and theories that include them try to find ways around them. Never mind what a particle with complex mass would actually look like!

[Sphaerus]

CatatonicMan wrote...

Bob5312 wrote...

CatatonicMan, as I said earlier, all current theories with tachyons have very serious mathematical instability problems.

Sure, tachyons are generally considered to be too unstable to exist  (what with causality needing to be preserved and all). Still there are other weird theoretical particles, like superbradyons, that could fit the bill well enough.

Ultimately, of course, everything here is speculation. 

Tachyons defy the anthropic principle.  Any universe rife with time-travelling particles that can actually act on "normal" particles would create a spacetime far too unstable and with far too much chaos in terms of its entropy for us to exist, hence, a universe with tachyons isn't our universe.