Talk:Orion's Arm
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[edit] not realstic
mentaluploading? CAn we even attempt it?
Myt problem is your 'hard scifi' usuallky is at teh edge oftheortical science. MOst is not based on currently working technologies.
That said, I'm going to get flamed. THere is controversy, despite your ear holding.
GEt a clue. This is not a clear case of hard scifi. THat is 2001.
I'm also logging in and making a deletion request. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 172.197.19.10 (talk • contribs) on 09:34, 1 September 2005.
[edit] Response
Har har har. I do hope you're kidding.
And if you want, add a 'controversy' section. But deleting something because it doesn't appeal to your sensibilities is just plain stupid.
Furthermore, mental uploading, given a mapping of the human brain, is possible. IIRC they transferred a insect's brainstate to computer once in the present. So it's not the hardest of sci-fi. Many sci-fi are considered 'hard' without being absolutely meticulously correct to every current science detail.
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.91.112.190 (talk • contribs) on 05:11, 2 September 2005.
[edit] Response
The OA site defines the difference between what they call "ultra hard" and "hard" SF. The first is based on foreseeable technology, the second on foreseeable science. There's a difference. OA never claims to be ultra-hard.
That said, any degree of "hard" is a subjective term. I'm an optimist regarding technological advancement, and I have issues with some of the science and technology in OA. If "hard" means "designed with the intention of being scientificially plausible", then OA is hard. If "hard" means "correctly predicting future advancement", then your guess is as good as mine.
The real issue, therefore, isn't how scientifically accurate OA is. It's that the article's statements that it is sound like they came from the OA site. We don't want to sound like we're promoting OA as "superior" science fiction. SpaceCaptain 17:06, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Faster-than-light?
The OA creators consider their universe to have no FTL. However, most SF writers (hopefully) admit that wormholes are used for getting to another place faster than you could by sub-light movement, and are FTL by the general definition. Wormholes are no less FTL than the generic "hyperdrives" of science fiction. More plausible, to be sure, but to say OA has absolutely no FTL is just repeating wwhat they claim on their own site. We need to critically analyze whether OA's statements about itself are true. SpaceCaptain 00:35, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
- Hi Space Captain. I try to avoid all but occasional very minor edits to the OA page for obvious POV reasons ;-) However the talk pages are a different matter. Your question here is a very important one, so I'll try to answer it as best i can.
- As any physicist will tell you, navigatible wormholes (themselves still purely in the province of science fiction) would allow instantaneous transit between remote points, whereas of course as you point out light (and any ships etc) not passing through the wormhole still has to crawl from point "a" to "point "b" at relativistic or sub-relativistic speeds. This however does not make wormholes "FTL by the general definition". This is because within that part of the space-time fabric that has been warped by the WH, it is still the case that nothing goes faster than light relative to the immediately surrounding space that makes up the wormhole (relative to the wormhole mouth, for example). This is in keeping with the dictum that you can have any two of the following: special relativity, causality, and/or FTL, but not all three. Therefore, assuming a causal relativistic universe (such as OA assumes) a ship passing through a WH cannot - according to the laws of physics and causality as now understood - go faster than light relative to the surrounding space-time. Don't believe me, check with any physics guys you know, or get in touch with any at any university or institute.
- Of course if we lived in a purely newtonian universe (which we don't, as innumerable observations and experiments confirming special relativity have proven), FTL would certainly be possible. And if, conversely, the universe turns out to be acausal (who knows, maybe it is), and thus allows time travel paradoxes, then there is again no problem with FTL (Apparently also you can get around time travel paradoxes by means of the many worlds interpretation).
- With OA we do try to be consistent re the hard science, so because of the above reasons we unfortunately cannot have FTL as above defined.
- M Alan Kazlev 06:16, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
- Let me try to clarify the view that OA seems to take, as far as I can understand it. The problems with faster than light travel aren't so much with outpacing a photon to a destination, but are with the creation of closed timelike curves (paths that you can travel on that let you arrive at your starting point before you left). Unrestricted FTL lets you create CTCs, which causes serious problems with physics. Orion's Arm chooses to restrict faster-than-light travel only to those cases where CTCs don't form, allowing you to travel from one star system to another between breakfast and lunch time, but avoiding all of the messy problems with causality violations that you get with unrestricted FTL. The mechanism OA relies on is virtual particle-induced collapse of any CTC that starts forming, proposed by physicist Matt Visser (who doesn't seem to have a Wikipedia page at the moment) as a mechanism for preventing wormholes from being used as unrestricted time machines.
- For myself, it's not this assumption that I find unrealistic. Instead, I don't agree with the assumption that negative mass is possible in the first place (it's suggested, depending on how you look at the equations, but nothing like it has been observed, and yes, I know about the Casimir effect; different beast). However, it's a fiction site, so it can make whatever assumptions it likes. The question hasn't been definitively settled either way. --Christopher Thomas 07:43, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
I know the basics of how wormholes work. I learned everything you said before I heard of Orion's Arm. All I'm saying is, from the perspective of what can be done in the fictional universe re: travelling, OA has FTL. Most science-fictional FTL drives are, in some way or another, not "true" FTL. Only a minority of universes, like the Lensman series, have ships that can travel faster than light in non-warped space comprised only of the dimensions we know. My issue isn't with your science. It's with misrepresentaation of the universe. Saying "no FTL" immediately suggests it always takes years, at least, to travel between stars. If you want to be pedantic, OA has no FTL. But in practical terms, you can travel between stars quickly. There's gotta be some way of making this clear immediately. SpaceCaptain 00:25, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
- I understand where you are coming from. Maybe say something like that it is FTL via traversable wormholes, but it also takes into account theories by Matt Visser and thus avoids CTCs and preserves causality M Alan Kazlev 11:06, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Space opera
FYI I changed the bottom tagline from post cyberpunk to space opera. it's closer to space opera than postcyberpunk. Unless we start take postcyberpunk to mean everything after snow crash, it needs to have a near future earthbound setting. It even says it’s a space opera on its own web site Joeyjojo 06:29, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
