MS Paint Adventures 4: 13

[memnarch]

Lorentz contraction.

But the time it should take to cross the yard from John and Jade's point of view should be very short - much shorter than the three nano-seconds it takes from Hussbot's POV. It seems like they have all the time in the world to chat.

Well, I don't think it'd be shorter than three nano-seconds, since time slows down for them as well. But! Gotta remember this is a comic! And Talking is a Free Action!

[Lateral]

Lorentz contraction.

But the time it should take to cross the yard from John and Jade's point of view should be very short - much shorter than the three nano-seconds it takes from Hussbot's POV. It seems like they have all the time in the world to chat.

From their point of view, it would appear to take longer, unless I seriously misunderstand relativistic time dilation. The three nanosecond figure that Hussie used is a decent approximation of the time it would take for an outside observer. (It's actually closer to 10/3 nanoseconds, but whatever.)

[RebelRogue]

From their point of view, it would appear to take longer, unless I seriously misunderstand relativistic time dilation.

It takes shorter. Think of it this way: everything around them Lorentz contracts (from their POV). Since velocity is unchanged, it takes a shorter time to move the distance.

Hussbot should be moving slowly from their POV, though.

[memnarch]

It takes shorter. Think of it this way: everything around them Lorentz contracts (from their POV). Since velocity is unchanged, it takes a shorter time to move the distance.

I think you mean that the ship appears to undergo Lorentz Contraction to hus-bot. From the kids on the ship's point of view, everything else has expanded, so it would take longer for them to travel the distance, but only from their perspective.

[BRC]

Lorentz contraction.

But the time it should take to cross the yard from John and Jade's point of view should be very short - much shorter than the three nano-seconds it takes from Hussbot's POV. It seems like they have all the time in the world to chat.

Yeah, that's what I thought, if I recall the Traveling Twin thing correctly (One twin stays on earth, the other flies around at near-light speeds for a couple years, comes back and finds their twin is now much older than they are. This was a big deal in the later Enders Game books where it was how people were still alive after hundreds of years (they had spent most of that time traveling between star systems at relativistic speeds) ), John and Jade should have Less time than the Hussiebot.
Of course, its a kid who became a god of wind and his friend/genetic slime sister who became a half god-dog god of space moving between fourth walls with planets in their pockets. I'm not sure that a realistic depiction of relativistic physics is what what we should be worried about here.

[memnarch]

Yeah, that's what I thought, if I recall the Traveling Twin thing correctly (One twin stays on earth, the other flies around at near-light speeds for a couple years, comes back and finds their twin is now much older than they are. This was a big deal in the later Enders Game books where it was how people were still alive after hundreds of years (they had spent most of that time traveling between star systems at relativistic speeds) ), John and Jade should have Less time than the Hussiebot.
...

Oh right, the Twin Paradox. Forgot about that; sort of makes sense that the kids would have less time to do stuff. Too bad the last time I looked into relativity was in highschool 3 years ago; it's fascinating stuff!

[RebelRogue]

I think you mean that the ship appears to undergo Lorentz Contraction to hus-bot. From the kids on the ship's point of view, everything else has expanded, so it would take longer for them to travel the distance, but only from their perspective.

No! You're missing the point of relativity completely. Yes, the ship should look contracted to Hussbot. But the reverse is also true: the environment looks contracted from the ship! That's the entire point of relativity: none of the systems are better than the other - both are inertial frames. The rules of nature should be the same in any inertial frame. That's one of the two basic assumptions special relativity is built on. It may seem paradoxical, but in fact it's all consistent (but you have to give up on the idea of simultaneity).

The reason the twin paradox is still true, is that in order to return to Earth, the twin in the spaceship will have to accelerate - his system is no longer an inertial frame; you can distinguish between the two systems.

[Draconi Redfir]

How about we just say weird physics shinannigans and call it a day?

[Androgeus]

Someone on the mspa forums calculated all the weird physics shinannigans if anyone wanted to read it.

[Bad Situation]

Someone on the mspa forums calculated all the weird physics shinannigans if anyone wanted to read it.

Sure. I'm pretty sure it's spelled 'shenanigans' though.

[RebelRogue]

Someone on the mspa forums calculated all the weird physics shinannigans if anyone wanted to read it.

In his example, where the ship flies at 81% of light speed:

Time dilation! Jade will experience no more than 1.76 nanoseconds between hitting both walls, while Hussie experiences 3.

[Gez]

The Gift of Gab sure allows for speedy communication.

[AgentPaper]

You also have to take into account that Jade huge-ified the window, so to them the ship is still however many meters long, and the gap is however many times larger than that. So depending on exactly how large the ship is, the distance could be as long as a few kilometers for Jade and John. Thus, relativity would mean that time moves much slower for them than it does for Hussiebot, for whom the distance is still the normal 1 meter long.

[Tectonic Robot]

In regards to physics:

Dave's planet is literally lava and metal gears! How the heck is he not burned?

How is Beat Mesa flying?

The kids planets are too tiny to have gravity! Why don't they just fly away?

Why haven't the trolls asphyxiated in the veil?

Don't actually answer any of this, they're joke questions. Also, yes, the dialoglog is the best log.

[irenicObserver]

We are talking about an AR resembling an RPG, I believe we should cut it some slack physics-wise.

[RebelRogue]

I agree that trying to apply physics to fiction is often a silly idea. However, here I get the feeling that the scene is supposed to be correct, relativistically speaking (Hussie has used relativity before as a plot device in PS). And some of the comments here show how the effects like space contraction and time dilation are often misunderstood, so I just wanted to point that out.

[AgentPaper]

Trying to use physics to seriously bash the comic is a bit silly, yes. However, discussing the physics of the comic in a light-hearted manner for the fun of it, however, is fine I think. The absurdity of applying physics to a game with green suns and captchalogs and such only makes it more fun.

[Kizor]

Andrew was asked about the kids breathing in space as they travel the incipisphere.

He answered "They're in space?"

We should go with that attitude, and keep in mind that the place is built to let the players keep their homes' power on even after being teleported into a dark monster dimension.

[Draconi Redfir]

Relevent to recent update.

[Anarion]

You also have to take into account that Jade huge-ified the window, so to them the ship is still however many meters long, and the gap is however many times larger than that. So depending on exactly how large the ship is, the distance could be as long as a few kilometers for Jade and John. Thus, relativity would mean that time moves much slower for them than it does for Hussiebot, for whom the distance is still the normal 1 meter long.

The most recent update suggests that they'll take three years to cross the distance. I haven't done any relativity math in a few years myself, but I suspect that means that Hussie is using the kids' scale. So they're traveling near lightspeed on a very large battleship and the passage of time for them will seem pretty short, but they'll come out on the other side to find that three years have passed.

[Draconi Redfir]

seesh three years on that thing... Three years of puberty with no one but your ectobiological sibling, your ectobiological clown-mother, a tenta-cat, and an unrelated bird-boy who probably doesn't age with you. I can see the tension rising now.

Though Jade might be able to unshrink some things from their homes like computers and games and the like.

It's not like Dave and rose are even in the same boat, assuming the Trolls get their in less time then three years then they at least have them to fool around with. Might have less in the games and entertainment department however.

[maximus25]

Why can't Jade just make the ship bigger? Seems like it would take less time then.

[Anarion]

Why can't Jade just make the ship bigger? Seems like it would take less time then.

She's apparently limited by relativistic physics while in Hussie's study, and she can't even get the ship to the actual speed of light. Making the ship bigger would increase its mass, which would slow it down further (requires more energy to get up to the same speed).

[maximus25]

She's apparently limited by relativistic physics while in Hussie's study, and she can't even get the ship to the actual speed of light. Making the ship bigger would increase its mass, which would slow it down further (requires more energy to get up to the same speed).

It also has less distance to travel, negating the need to go at the speed of light to cross the yard of distance.

[AgentPaper]

Hm, perhaps the reason for that slowdown is because of the planets? They're shrunk even more than the ship itself, so perhaps they're forcing the ship to move at the speed of light relative to them?

That doesn't make too much sense though, that should just make time seem slower on the planets themselves, not on the ship around them.

Well, how much smaller than normal would the battleship need to be to turn three nanoseconds into three years? It would have to be small enough to turn 1 yard into 3 lightyears, or 1 foot to 1 lightyear. According to google, that would imply a scale of 31,038,479,000,000,000 to 1, or ~31 quadrillion to 1. Which assuming the ship is about a kilometer long, would mean the ship is now ~31 femtometers long. Which for reference, puts you about at a scale to use electrons as beachballs.

[Draconi Redfir]

... we don't really need to get into a physics lesson about this.

[Anarion]

The problem here is that special relativity (at least in the basic cases) really doesn't contemplate rescaling things under your own power. If you go really fast, it can cause things to appear different sizes (indeed even be different sizes, there's a cool problem where a 1 meter stick shaped like a T can push a switch inside a 2 meter hole shaped like a U). It can't compare when different frames are also using different units, however.

Basically, all reference frames must agree on the meaning of units. Although Frame A might observe the stick and say "that is 1 yard" where frame B does not, they both understand the words "1 yard" to mean the same thing.

Jade's scaling abilties throw this out of whack. 1 yard on one of the planets is NOT the same thing as 1 yard on the battleship, which is NOT the same thing as 1 yard to Hussiebot. This difference would exist even if all items on screen were standing perfectly still in the same reference frame.

This difference makes comparison between the planets, the battleship, and Hussiebot impossible as presented. You have to select one frame's units and apply them to every frame to have a meaningful comparison. For example, if you use the kid's frame then the battleship is a maybe a few hundred yards long, Hussiebot is the more than 1000 yards tall, and the planets are a few inches. That allows for meaningful comparison.

@Draconi: but...but I spent two years of undergrad studying this stuff.

[AgentPaper]

I'm assuming that the differences in distance can be taken in similarly to the differences in time that special relativity describes. So the yellow yard is 1 yard for the hussiebot, but 3 lightyears for the kids.

Following this reasoning, the distance is even longer for the planets, which are shrunk who knows how many times smaller than even the kids are. Assuming the planets are 100,000,000 times smaller than normal (which if they're similar in size to the moon, would put them at ~1 inch wide), that means that the distance to the other window is instead three hundred million lightyears relative to them, plus another few thousand years from the time they were shrunk before entering the window (they were going very fast then, too) and however long it takes them to decelerate after leaving the second window. (Unless Jade was/will be using her green sun powers to negate that)

So um, what's happened on those planets in those three hundred million years, do you guys think?

[some guy]

Keep on talking about physics. I like that.

But one of the other things I like is translating Serenity. Her

Spoiler

Show

you suck

made me laugh. Mainly because there was a delay in seeing the page and translating it. I did not know things could work like that.

But at who was it directed?

Also, there is some white streak coming from the Green Sun.

[Androgeus]

Also, there is some white streak coming from the Green Sun.

Isn't it the troll's asteroid going towards the Green Sun?