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Jan. 30th, 2011 07:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethso far today I have been trying to learn enough physics to bluff a science fiction universe. not the sort like Star Wars, the sort where Newton and Einstein would not *facepalm*
... physics is mind boggling. This is totally rabbit hole stuff. Alice don't know the half of it.
I been trying to understand relativity, time dilation, and how far humans can get at 1g acceleration.
Pretty far, apparently. Like, in one passenger lifetime, other galaxies. And back. But only if you assume superscience to keep pushing us that hard that long.
I glanced at wormholes, which are open in another tab for when I feel like twisting my brain more. And now I'm reading up on string theory for dummies (really, there's lots of pages on dummies.com).
I have concluded: Even for dummies versions of physics is hard.
My science fiction will have a lot of *facepalm* involved unless I go get a whole different degree.
I like stargates. step in, step out, all done. Put a bunch in a row and make a ladder, all sorted. But someone has to go out first and drop off a gate. Hence the trying to figure out real physics.
And the physics will have impact on behaviour. Just the interaction of travel time, communication speed, and relative lifespans shapes whole SF universes.
Throw that together with the speed of tech development and the kind of basically fantasy/horror transformations of 'human' that perfectly plausible tech can lead to and boom, huge conflicts, lasting ages. So it's interesting. If I can get my head around it.
... physics is mind boggling. This is totally rabbit hole stuff. Alice don't know the half of it.
I been trying to understand relativity, time dilation, and how far humans can get at 1g acceleration.
Pretty far, apparently. Like, in one passenger lifetime, other galaxies. And back. But only if you assume superscience to keep pushing us that hard that long.
I glanced at wormholes, which are open in another tab for when I feel like twisting my brain more. And now I'm reading up on string theory for dummies (really, there's lots of pages on dummies.com).
I have concluded: Even for dummies versions of physics is hard.
My science fiction will have a lot of *facepalm* involved unless I go get a whole different degree.
I like stargates. step in, step out, all done. Put a bunch in a row and make a ladder, all sorted. But someone has to go out first and drop off a gate. Hence the trying to figure out real physics.
And the physics will have impact on behaviour. Just the interaction of travel time, communication speed, and relative lifespans shapes whole SF universes.
Throw that together with the speed of tech development and the kind of basically fantasy/horror transformations of 'human' that perfectly plausible tech can lead to and boom, huge conflicts, lasting ages. So it's interesting. If I can get my head around it.