The Factory Floor

11:10 AM

The Halo Drive

►

Need to make new scifi based on this

11:32 AM

Hole hopping highway

2 hours later…

Mephistopheles

1:35 PM

Oh man, you'd be dumbfounded by the sheer variety and amount of data contained in my trash pile.

2:02 PM

@Secret Saw that a few days ago, thought it was pretty interesting, but one thing confused me. So light (in a vacuum) is already going at the speed of light, so why would bending it around a black hole help? Then I got to thinking. if you have a light sail and a laser, mount the laser on your ship, and then shoot it at the sail, nothing happens because the light pressure from the laser cancels out the light pressure on the sail. Also why you can't mount a fan on a sail boat to get speed.

But, if you were to aim the laser out the back, bend it around a really small black hole, and then have it hit your sail, then you'd have the light pressure from the laser and the light pressure on the sail both pushing you forward. But it only gets useful if you can drag the black hole along behind you. But does that violate physics? (aside from having to drag all that mass, even for a really small black hole.)

Also, unless you bring it with you, how the heck do you slow down, unless your destination also has a black hole to bend light around?

The idea is that as the light bends around the black hole pair, it steals some orbital energy thus blueshifting the laser. Hence the light pressure before and after do not cancel out

And the author in that video also mentioned, you need to find another black hole pair to slow down by basically doing the laser thing in reverse direction

So the light would be going faster than light?

Or just be more energetic I guess...

Q: Why *wasn't* my question closed?

nope, it will be shifted to higher frequency (since the speed of light cannot change)

hence more energetic

Worldbuilding Meta

-1

Annoyed by some of my questions and those of other people being closed for spurious reasons, I decided to set up two test questions. The first question This was deliberately designed to be popular but to be thoroughly story-based. The answers were predictable and were nothing I couldn't have th...

discussion

Q: Defining an "Earliest-Time" tag

@Secret "steals some orbital energy" queue a period far in the future where millions of ships have used a black hole pair in a popular location, and the orbital energy loss actually destabilizes the system

Also, if you have laser failure, you're suddenly plunging toward a black hole at superluminal speeds without brakes... sounds exciting

Hosch250

2:28 PM

@Feeds WT*???

Some of those maps seem close to the opposite of what I'd have guessed.

Including the Donald Trump one...

Unless the uber-liberal states didn't even know he was running until after he won, which makes sense, in a way, LOL :P

And were busy looking up who the heck he was, while the rest were going "oh no, he won".

Worldbuilding Meta

3:26 PM

From time to time we encounter questions of the form: What is the earliest time X could be discovered or built? Examples include: What is the earliest time a pulsejet could be built? How early can transparent glass windows be easily available? How early can nuclear reactors be built? Earl...

discussion specific-tag

3:45 PM

@Hosch250 Looking at that map that doesn't make sense... but we also don't know what time period was used, the exact trends looks up, lots of other stuff

I think the main point is that google trends can be used to generate mostly meaningless noise without too much trouble, hence the "least informative" label.

4:02 PM

@AndyD273 Hey guess what other dad in chat!?!

My wife took the kids to the in-laws and I have the house to myself. Be very jealous.

Q: The Elementary Evil vs You /Wights/ Rooting Henry's troops out

4:12 PM

@James Oh I am jealous. How long?

Mephistopheles

I edited my question, de szart sem érek vele, if feedback isn't provided

-1

Several hundred years after Simon, the Sudoer, Anon and two gold dragons managed to seal him away, Heinrich, the First, formerly Henry, is back, this time with an M249, ready to give world domination another shot. Henry's army The guy has soulless written all over his face but isn't our main co...

science-based military-defense zombies strategy

Next week is the kids spring break, and they are going to the mother in laws for at least half the week, and most of those days the wife is also working until very late, so it's almost as good.

@AndyD273 They'll be back sometime friday.

nice

and I talked my boss into letting me work from home today.

Sweatpants and coffee make me happy.

4:19 PM

heh, well with such a quiet house I'm sure you'll be extra productive