Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[SirPenguin]

Man, poor Toady has been sick for well over a week now. That shit is rough.

[Kidiri]

Be amusing if legendary throwers could break the speed of sound with their throws.  Or how it currently seems to be, the speed of light.

This could in handy, you could kill dragons that have died before you were born:

Urist McLegendarythrower: "I'm going to kill the Dragon Fiertreasure the Fiery treasure of Fire."
Bomrek McNonbeliever: "Wait, didn't he die last week due to randomly appearing rocks?"
Urist McLegendarythrower: "Exactly."
Bomrek McNonbeliever: "I'm confused."
Bomrek McNonbeliever gets hit by a rock.
Bomrek McNonbeliever: "Hey, that hurt! Who threw that?"
Urist McLegendarythrower: "I will."
Urist McLegendarythrower throws a rock.

I hope that made sense...

[JoshuaFH]

Actually, from the way I understand it, things at/near the speed of light have time slow down relative to everything else around them. So it would be more like you'd be able to throw a rock, and then kill a dragon 1000 years in the future...

[Sean Mirrsen]

A rock thrown at lightspeed would experience less time than a rock thrown normally. That means that relative to the rock, your speed increases as its speed increases. And applied in reverse, it means that relative to you, a rock approaching lightspeed would instead slow down. A rock thrown at above lightspeed, if we extrapolate this non-scientific approach further, will immediately move backwards along its previous trajectory and implant itself in the ground, proceeding back along its timeline until it sufficiently decelerates.

Btw, the above sentence made me realize why a ship on conventional propulsion will never accelerate beyond lightspeed. Acceleration being velocity increase with time, say meters/second^2, there will be no way to accelerate when time stops for you. If you accelerate at meter/eternity^2, you don't accelerate.

[Dohon]

Man, poor Toady has been sick for well over a week now. That shit is rough.

Don't want to dash your hopes, but a flu (especially a "nastier" variant like H1N1) can keep one out of action for quite some time. I once caught the flu and it took me a whole two weeks before I could go about my business in a normal capacity. It took another week to get back to a 100%.

The first week I had intense fever "burns" (at one point coming close to 42° celsius, which is not good. Not good at all). It actually hurt like hell to move any muscle. Not fun going to the toilet, I can assure you! Only in the second week could I do more than just laying there on a bed. Not to mention anything solid that I ate, felt like eating a brick and I felt the need to get rid of that brick ... fast. I only regained my appetite and the capability to actually keep food inside in the third week. Never been so sick in my entire (granted, rather short) life. *knocks on wood*

It all depends on your constitution, genetics and the severity of your flu. That said:

Take care, Toady!

[alway]

Btw, the above sentence made me realize why a ship on conventional propulsion will never accelerate beyond lightspeed. Acceleration being velocity increase with time, say meters/second^2, there will be no way to accelerate when time stops for you. If you accelerate at meter/eternity^2, you don't accelerate.

That depends on your perspective. According to the time on the ship vs distance traveled, you can accelerate indefinately at a constant rate using a constant amount of force. Time dilation is fun! 

Also, it can never accelerate to the speed of light either; it is the asymptote and thus can never be reached by something with mass.

[Nadaka]

Actually, from the way I understand it, things at/near the speed of light have time slow down relative to everything else around them. So it would be more like you'd be able to throw a rock, and then kill a dragon 1000 years in the future...

No. You (an outside observer) would perceive the rock redshift and fly away, though by the time it actually approached the speed of light the photons it leaves in its wake would be very low in energy (like radio waves or worse). It would fly in a strait line at or near the speed of light. The rock would perceive itself to be traveling through the universe at a speed greater than that of light while it appears the outside universe ages at an accelerated rate proportional to the perceived velocity in c. Likewise, an outside observer in or near the rocks path would perceive it moments before impact/passing as an intense high energy gamma ray burst.

An object traveling near the speed of light will not "teleport" into either the past or future.

c is an asymptotic point on a curve expressing certain fundamental aspects of space time, it is not possible to cross that threshold with anything less than infinate energy.

[Sean Mirrsen]

They're only fundamental if you believe they are. Some stuff can apparently breach the speed of light in a vacuum. And we still don't rightly know how gravity works. Without the capability for destroying or creating planets (or at least planetoids) to monitor the motion of their satellites, we never will.

And of course, throwing a rock so hard it becomes a gamma ray burst is something a dwarf might learn to do.

edit:

Spoiler: Heh (click to show/hide)

You, please do not consider the fundamentals of our own. You can violate the speed of light in a vacuum to clear a few points. And I know how gravity works of course. Large order (or at least planetoids), we monitored the movement of the satellite has not been created to destroy the earth. Of course, hard drive, I, γ-ray, gamma ray bursts is possible if the child is locked γ throw.

edit2:

Spoiler: Heh heh (click to show/hide)

If not, consider the fundamentals of their own. You can violate the speed of light in a vacuum to clear a few points. And I know how gravity works of course. Ability to create and destroy the earth (or at least planetoids) to monitor the movement of satellites, we do not. Naturally, the hard gamma-ray burst might have been learning to throw a rock or a dwarf.

[Footkerchief]

I personally am really looking forward to the next five pages of "I'm not a theoretical physicist but..."

[JoshuaFH]

My fault everyone, sorry.

[Aqizzar]

You should be sorry for giving them this kind of ammunition.  Remember folks, within Dwarf Fortress, there is no lightspeed or relativity.  Things can fly as fast as they want.

That said, I do hope it will still be possible to somehow throw mundane objects with such speed as to cause grievous bodily harm, just old time's sake.

[smjjames]

If we are going to add realistic physics, then dwarves should be able to make an atom bomb.....

Edit: What Aqizzar said.

I'm surprised my revival of my question didn't spark any discussion, heh.

[alfie275]

Surely if you threw something that fast it would become lava?

[smjjames]

Surely if you threw something that fast it would become lava?

Actually, you're right in a way. Think meteorites. They come into the atmosphere so fast that they become very hot and melt due to atmospheric friction.

[zwei]

If we are going to add realistic physics, then dwarves should be able to make an atom bomb.....

I am presonally hoping for ballista arrows with depleted uranium arrowheads.