It should be EXOTIC or NEGATIVE matter, not DARK matter
Mr_Endar
Join Date: 2016-03-05 Member: 213859Members
Join Date: 2016-03-05 Member: 213859Members
It may sound like nitpicking, but it makes me cringe.
Warp drive require EXOTIC (NEGATIVE) matter to operate, not DARK one=)
Exotic matter is the matter with negative mass (and is purely theoretical now).
Dark matter is something we don't understand that appear to exist (we can observe gravitational impact of something that we can't detect). It could be even an evidence that our understanding of space-time is wrong, not some physically existing stuff. But if dark matter is something physical, it have regular mass (for example it could be microscopic primordial black holes - I've read an article with this hypothesis not so long time ago).
Warp drive require EXOTIC (NEGATIVE) matter to operate, not DARK one=)
Exotic matter is the matter with negative mass (and is purely theoretical now).
Dark matter is something we don't understand that appear to exist (we can observe gravitational impact of something that we can't detect). It could be even an evidence that our understanding of space-time is wrong, not some physically existing stuff. But if dark matter is something physical, it have regular mass (for example it could be microscopic primordial black holes - I've read an article with this hypothesis not so long time ago).
Comments
I loved Avatar movie for how realistic human interstellar vessel was (antimatter rocket)
Who knows what you might be able to do with dark matter if you twist its tail the right way?
NO, NO, NOT LIKE THA—
(Taana ok, en cho jith dan breeka cho braa'ka cho Ganni ti ips'aa ta baala dinka-cho fatu jith.)
("The design is clever, but this [expletive] thing could sterilize a sizeable [expletive] chunk of the [expletive] galaxy if you're not [expletive] careful with it.")
You're nitpicking a game that has molten hot lava lakes, rivers and falls exposed thousand meters underwater, that'd have potential life forms down there.
Your argument is invalid.
I can assume that there could be some weird natural phenomena that I don't understand that allows having molten lava lakes at the bottom of the sea.
Actually it's usually a fun thought experiment to explain how something seemingly impossible works. We did a lot of that for Avatar to explain flying rocks (and actually somebody come up with plausible explanation))) ). Just today I read how GoT dragons can fly and breath fire (just denser atmosphere with higher percentage of oxygen; simple, huh?).
Hey I don't have any question to fabricator though I don't know how this thing can work. It doesn't break known laws of physics.
Dark matter is entirely different thing however. Dark matter is something that have mass but don't emit/consume radiation (light) and doesn't interact with ordinary matter. We suspect that it exists because we see gravitational pull from something that we can't detect. It could be that there is no dark matter, but our understanding of gravity is wrong. Dark matter concept was created when astronomers needed something to balance the equations, to make the theory to explain observable phenomena.
If dark matter exists, it is something invisible that have mass just like ordinary matter.
Exotic matter is a pure theoretical concept - the matter that have negative mass (or you can say it is something that have negative energy). We never seen it, but we don't know any law of nature that prohibits its existence.
Ironically exotic matter happens to be a requirement for both warp engine and traversable wormholes.
Now what is more likely to be found on clearly superluminal starship?
Star Trek is about as bad as it gets about this.
Honestly, the whole game fudges science WAYYY to much for my liking.
It takes place probably a good long while in the future. They can fudge as much science as they want, because we have NO idea what technology they might have by then.
And even if there were some magic technology, what this game an so many scifis do is totally distort real, well understood science.
For instance, in Star Trek TNG, in one episode, they were removing "baryons" from their ship. For those that do not know, "baryons" is the collective name for the particles that make up all conventional matter. Removing them from your ship is perhaps not the best idea?
Then, in an episode of Voyager, they escaped a black hole through "a crack in the event horizon". How it is that they think there can be a crack in a place, I do not know.
This game has many of the same issues. For instance, there is the seamoth solar charger. Even assuming that it is able to convert 100% of the light that strikes it into electricity, (impossible) and even assuming that 100% of the electricity is turned into forward motion (also impossible), the solar charger could NEVER collect enough energy with the seamoths surface area to function continually, unless there was enough light on it to fry a human in minutes. These are know scientific facts, that have been repeatedly tested and proven beyond any reasonable doubt.
There's a planet thats surface is completely ice but the entire surface is also constantly on fire.
The Planet Express uses Dark Matter to function and it warps space-time so that the universe moves around it. Exotic Matter and Dark Matter are both theoretical materials so we don't know what they are capable of until we discover some. Therefore, it doesn't matter if we call it Exotic Matter or Dark Matter.
( I mean, I know we got shot down but there is some sort of wizardry involved)
If we discover some other phenomena that may lead to superluminal travel, we will give it different name, we will not name it after some existing stuff.
You know, there have been a lot of discoveries that have caused us to reevaluate what we consider to be the laws of physics, or create new ones. You're essentially saying, "This is the way it is and will be forever." Except, its not. For instance, Newton's laws caused a lot of rethinking to be done about physics. We can't say something would "break physics" because we don't know all there is to know about physics. And, if we do discover a means to superluminal travel, that utilizes dark matter in warp drive, I think we'd call it a dark matter warp drive.
While it's fun to speculate about future technology, I'd rather enjoy the experience instead of nitpicking apart areas in the game that don't seem to agree with our science today. Like those annoying guys in glasses who I remember sitting next to while watching the first Star Wars film. Instead of enjoying the film for what it was, they loudly explained why lightsabers don't work like that in real life, how the X-Wing fighter shouldn't be able to move in space the way it does in the film, and how the Force was just some deus ex machina mechanic to cover up those things that can't be explained by the science of the day...
Another thing to consider is that dark matter is by now a well established term - inaccurate one, too, I know - but easily recognized for what it is supposed to describe: a way to make giant spaceships move through space and... make cool sounds in the vacuum.
So let games be just games, people. Let science stay in textbooks and laboratories. Entertainment isn't about being 100% accurate to the facts, laws of physics, and what have you... it would be a documentary, then, not entertainment.
If the technobabble does not make enough sense, just add more technobabbble until it makes sense.
@crane476
I could not agree more. Games are not real life and I am thankful for that.
@Fathom LoL - sounds reasonable to me. Like W.C. Fields says "if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull$hit"
Your consolation prize is a full body massage from the reaper leviathan, who from what I understand has been...practicing...
Not for nothing was the word "Treknobabble" coined....
We didn't call field an ether. We call it a field.
If some new Law/Phenomena will be discovered we will give it a new name, not call it by the name of something existing.
Seriously? Isn't it taught in high school?
Okay then:
It should be NEGATIVE matter, not DARK matter.
In many cases Star Trek is more realistic than Interstellar btw
As for star wars, its just a fantasy like Lord of The Rings.
Subnautica on the other hand is in the sci-fi realm, not fantasy.
High school does not cover anything beyond the whole proton-neutron-electron story. But that "negative matter" should do the trick. I was having some doubts on "exotic matter" because to my understanding that is a catch-all term for various theorized and rare forms of matter, which would be peculiarly imprecise. "Negative matter" is precise and communicates to the non-sciency players some idea of what the drive does.
I'm pretty sure I learned few things about that stuff when I was in school... wait a second...
I remembered!
Dark Matter was important part of cartoon serial ExoSquad that I used to watch back them
Dark matter coating was used by pirate ships and later Exofleet vessels for cloaking))) I guess I just read what dark matter and dark energy really are out of curiosity - so it was not taught at school)
I find the nitpicking to be fairly entertaining honestly. I'm trained as a historian so the 'this breaks science' argument is always funny to me, but there is a lot there that I had no idea about. I don't remember anything about exotic matter, for example, so the discussion is always really interesting to me. Thanks for the mini-lessons