Relativity

[tbeard1999]

Not bad, TBeard. But, we need to simplify it for a game.

I think a time multiple based on days spent in J-Space might work. So, the ship spent two week in J-Space (one week on Natoko, for a total of three weeks). We need a multiple x 14 to get our time dilation.

Something like that, something that simple, is what we need. One number, multiplied by the number of days spent in J-Space.

The question is: Which number do we use?

Well, we know that time dilation can become gigantic, the closer you get to lightspeed. So really, you can just pick a multiple that fits your dramatic conception of the universe and run with it.

A multiple of 4 (i.e., 1 week in jump = 4 weeks in the outside world) would allow events to pass, but PCs probably wouldn't "lose themselves in time". A multiple of 26 would mean that 1 jump would consume half a year of time in the real world and that events in the outside world would race by.

And note that adding a time dilation effect should profoundly affect starship economics. For instance, using the 4x multiple above means that 2 jumps would occur in about 10 weeks' time, rather than 4 weeks time per CT. Since starship payments are paid in real space/time, this means that each jump will need to generate considerably more revenue. If starship payments *and* salaries are paid at real rates, travel prices would increase by 2.3-2.4 times.

It could be a very interesting campaign...

Jim Vassilakos wrote a very interesting article on STL travel with time dilation in it. I'll see if he's got it posted anywhere online.

 

[Icosahedron]

S4, you've hit upon what would actually happen there.

To keep Relativity, you need to travel below but near c.

When you do that, your sweetie sees you travel at (near) 1ly per year, but thanks to dilation, you only see a week pass per 3.25 planet-years.

However, the J3 drive would not work the way you describe. If you use the J3 to travel 1ly, your sweetie would, as always, see you take 1 year, but you would make the journey in LESS than a week. If you wanted every jump to take one week, as per canon, you would need to use J1 drives only for 1pc trips, and J3 drives only for 3pc trips, etc.

The time dilation equation is:

Tship = Tplanet/sqrt(1-(v^2/c^2))

Hope that helps.

 

[tbeard1999]

One way to handle the increased travel prices that time dilation causes would be to simply assume that ships cost less. To minimize changes, determine the turnaround in Real Space for jumps. In the CT universe, each jump takes about 2 weeks, allowing for refueling, travel to/from jump points, debarking/embarking passengers and cargo, etc. 1 week in jumpspace, 1 in normal space.

If you (say) decided that 1 week in jumpspace = 4 weeks in real time, then a typical jump would take 5 weeks. Multiply all starship costs by 2/5, and you'll be able to keep ticket and cargo prices about the same. (Crew salaries are interesting...pay them for subjective time or for Real World time?)

 

[Rev Round]

As your relative mass increases with "jumpin" is there not an analogy with orbiting a black hole? o:

(I really don't know any math of what I am talking about here so you can cut and paste me to hell and back )

If relativistically the universe loses mass our ships mass is more likely to distort it? We'd have to navigate by the densest stuff out there maybe because the lighter stuff was just fog on the screen?

The synchronous life time problems that would occur remind me of the book The Forever War.

 

[Ron Gianti]

The synchronous life time problems that would occur remind me of the book The Forever War.

I'm on the last couple chapters of that book, always meant to read it and its pretty good. The main character has only aged around 10 years but almost 500 years have passed. Earth Society and technology changes so much he can't keep up. Interesting social problems... By the time he lands for a while on one outpost, he is a Billionare with backpay and interest. There is a chance on any alien enemy encounter that they may be more or less advanced than your platoon because they will have been subjected to different time dilation. The enemy may be pushovers or they may be so far advanced that they attack with weapons you can't even see.

Good book, interesting subject, but I can't imagine I would want it IMTU as a regular feature. Bad enough to try and keep up with Canon in one time period, imagine keeping track of 500 years of Canon *shudder*

 

[Johnny_BoomBoom]

Ooooh ,the Twin Paradox......I vaguely remember this from the relativity course I did in my Physics degree many years ago!!!

For our Traveller campaigns.....we just kept the week is a week is a week - strictly scientifically wrong to the theories of Relativity! Remember, firstly ,we get a Hypothesis, from experimentation and observation we get a Theory.....bu only through independentaly verifiable data and independent trial and repeatablilty do we get a Law.......

Relativity both general and special are only Theories at present!!!

Anyway, for game purposes we kept the week is a week is a week on ship and in the universe.....Jump theory took care of that....however we did have one adventure with a misjump.....which as well as taking us many many parsecs away......also took us into the future.....never ever finished that one off.......but the possibilities were interesting!!

 

[Rev Round]

Theory? mmmmm Did the lunar orbit experiment not prove time dilation or whatever it is called? i.e. an astronaut in the real world is relatively younger than all of us than he would be if he'd just stayed at home? Vague memory of stuff reported years back now.

 

[Supplement Four]

Theory? mmmmm Did the lunar orbit experiment not prove time dilation or whatever it is called? i.e. an astronaut in the real world is relatively younger than all of us than he would be if he'd just stayed at home? Vague memory of stuff reported years back now.

It did.

Just about all of Eienstein's theories have either been proven or are still a theory. None have been proven to be wrong.

 

[aramis]

Even if "proven", they still remain theories, in the most technical sense.

 

[Rev Round]

Does that mean that what you just said is a theory and not fact?

 

[dean]

Does that mean that what you just said is a theory and not fact?

Nah. The fact is that they are still theories. By definition.

 

[Supplement Four]

Even if "proven", they still remain theories, in the most technical sense.

No, not all of them. Time dilation, for example, is proven fact. The experiement in with the shuttle proved that. Atomic clocks have to have their travel speed calculated when transporting them across the globe.

The ones that can't yet be proven, like no light speed, are the ones that are still theories.

 

[aramis]

Scientifically, it is still a theory. Laws and theories are not the same. Theories do not, properly, become scientific laws. Dilation has been proven to occur, but it is still part of the theory of relativity. We can not prove dilation with negative time flow, and can not thus prove all contexts of dilation as the current theory provides.

 

[mike wightman]

Newton's laws of motion - wrong.

Or at least break down in extreme conditions hence the need for relativity.

No scientific theory ever becomes a proven fact - it is just a model that works for now until something comes along that is better.

 

[aramis]

Newton's laws of motion - wrong.

Or at least break down in extreme conditions hence the need for relativity.

No scientific theory ever becomes a proven fact - it is just a model that works for now until something comes along that is better.

More properly, that fits the data more accurately and allows predictions which stand up to trials.

 

[Rev Round]

Everything is theory and there is no such thing as a fact. Is this a fact or not?

Spoiler:

I think the Having Your Cake And Eating It experiment proves my point

 

[veltyen]

Everything is theory and there is no such thing as a fact. Is this a fact or not?

Everything in science is a theory, waiting for a better theory to come along.

I hate to disagree with Aramis, but there is no such thing as a "law" in science. It is all just theories. If it is called a law in science, it is misnamed - and is no different from a theory.

 

[dean]

Everything is theory and there is no such thing as a fact. Is this a fact or not?

Spoiler:

I think the Having Your Cake And Eating It experiment proves my point

It is NOT a fact. Facts are those things that are accepted as always being "true".
A theory uses known facts, plus proposed solutions or ideas, to explain something that is not fully explained, by predicting the outcome of experiement(s), based upon the facts.
A theory is tested by devising experiments that test the proposal to see if the predicted outcome occurs. Repeated application of the experiments determine if the theory is valid or invalid. Failure to ever disprove the theory generally allows the theory to become a "law", which is essentially just a theory that has not been disproven.

Many people mistake these for facts. Laws are taught to us in elementary school as being "unbreakable", for simplicity, but anyone who really has a clue knows that all "laws" are actually conditional theories. They are always true under certain conditions, which are usually fairly broad. Many chemical "laws" break down at very low and very high temperatures, for example, but under the conditions that they do apply to, they can be treated as "fact".

Proven theory <> fact.

Everything that's fact is also truth but not all truths are fact.

 

[Mark Morgan]

sorry guys but specail therory can not answer this q at all stil FTL speed results is time flow with an imaginary relationship any stl event

ANY effectly FTL drive would work within a new and as yet unknown new set of condictions that define how it works

from our PoV we can for our game/fictional purpose difne it any way we choose JD or B% like Hyperspace form or Warp drive use fasthand waving at egdes of the limits to add plausable formulations

if you want some kind of forever warroir effectthen you define your FTL system that way sciince honestly can't help you

remmebr my old lecture from Dr Klienhein at IUPUI MANY moon ago

 

[Rev Round]

It is as I suspected all along: All viewpoints are valid but not all viewpoints are useful all of the time. Some facts are useless while some theories are more useful than the facts. :rofl:

So does the mass of a body increase relative to other masses approaching the speed of light? i.e. does the rest of the universe relatively lose mass?

Or does the mass of a body approaching the speed of light just turn into a small short lived black hole? ... and bang!

Seems to me the jump drive is not a faster than light technique of "moving" according to Travellativity. So what is it?