mooeypoo

Well, first off, the amount of energy and effort it would take to move the entire world, it sounds to me it would be easier to just build a fleet of more maneuverable, better controlled, smaller ships to carry everyone to safety. The word starts from the moment the star is detected, right? I don't think building what you suggest will take any less time, and the fleet of ships is just a lot more practical, for the reasons that were raised in the thread, the least of which is utilizing fuel properly. Second, I am not sure I see how this works without obliterating life on Earth. Our planet doesn't react too well to "movements" -- to forces from the outside. The movement is one thing, but accelerating the Earth out of orbit (plus ability to maneuver, which means applied force again, etc) will, seems to me, shake the mantle and core in a way that will result in HEAVY geological damage. Underground or no, we won't be too happy, to say the least. So, I don't know. I am not sure if it is totally impossible, you don't seem to violate any laws of physics (or at least you seem to have answers to how not to), but I don't see how we would ever actually do such a thing. The drawbacks of taking the ENTIRE planet (the planet is HUGE! controlling it, maneuvering it, making sure we have observations all around it at real-time to avoid collisions, etc... wooh!) seem to me to outweigh the benefits (what, saving our "home"? but it won't look/feel and be our home, really afte what it'll go through). And you can get a better result by building a fleet of ships that are much more maneuverable and predictable, and have no chance of weird unpredictable geologic catastrophes wiping out large portion of the population at a time. I don't think you should take this stir as a bad thing. If anything, you should take it as a sign that people think the idea is interesting. Seriously, you should see the discussions we've had about startrek technology, and that's a show that was clearly successful. Fantasy isn't meant to be 100% realistic, so we give it leeway for imagination. It's a good thing. Again, I'm not too sure it's impossible so much as impractical. Read up for some of the reasons.. You might be able to move the planet, but it will be easier, take less time and prove more useful to build a fleet of ships, instead. So.. why bother? Anyhoo, don't discourage. I think it's a good idea for a show and the fact you care so much about the science behind it gives it even more credibility, even if it won't have perfect realistic science. We all need to step out of the bounds of reality a bit and fantasize ~moo

I do, I just don't think it's completely realistic. That never stopped me from enjoying awesome sci-fi shows before, though. As far as I'm concerned, as long as there's enough true science to make the technobabble plausible/understandable, I am willing to stretch the boundaries of my beliefs for shows. after all, that's why they're science-fiction and not science. I like the idea as a show, I think it can be a great "epic adventure" with some nice twists about technology and how humanity deals with a massive catastrophe. Star Trek, for instance, is not realistic. It has some elements in it that are based on plausible technology, enough to keep people's view of the universe as realistic, relatively. In a science, forum, though, we check the boundaries of actual science. I don't quite see how the idea is realistic. I don't need it to be realistic to enjoy it in a show, though. btw, if you look it up online, you will find that people argue the scientific validity of existing shows like Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate, etc etc. The fact nerds like us try to see the parallels to reality doesn't mean the shows aren't GOOD. And the fact you -- as a writer/producer of a show like that cares enough about science to actually try and make the idea as realistic as possible is absolutely noteworthy and commendable. I hope there's more out there like you. Much better than having all those new agey crap or the new trend about how the world explodes in 2012.

Moved to its appropriate place

that doesn't solve the problem, though. And don't get me wrong, btw, I'd *DEFINITELY* watch such series. It sounds like an AWESOME idea for a tv show, and, quite honestly, I would watch it even if the science was not extremely accurate. That's what stories and TV shows are for -- fantasy. But since we're talking science, it should be mentioned that there *are* realistic problems with actually doing this... If you *want* to solve them artistically, you can try and find a way to maneuver the earth while in transit. I mean.. the entire planet is moving .. what's one more stretch, no?

It's not about 'comparing the damage', though, pywakit - if a single object big enough hits the surface of the Earth it can do *massive* damage even to underground cities. True, the damage from an exploding sun is bigger, but they will both result in death to humanity, underground or not. There should be either a plan to maneuver the Earth away from passing objects or to protect it from hits. The shuttle example isn't too good of an example for a few reasons: First off, it's relatively small and maneuverable. They are able to move (and indeed *ARE* moving) when objects get too close. The ISS did that a few months ago to avoid some space junk. Second, the shuttles move in the space between the Earth and the moon. These are expanses that are *RELATIVELY* clear from space crap because of the orbits of the moon around the Earth and its gravity. Same, more or less, goes to the solar system -- the orbits of the big planets cleared out the majority of real junk that could potentially hurt us (or shuttles) but those are still being factored in the calculations when new shuttles or probes are sent to the outer planets. Also, it's VERY hard to detect incoming objects because they are rarely visible until it's too late - specially with the lack of a star to supply light to reflect. We have this problem today (depending on angle, we are likely to miss objects until it's VERY late) so I don't quite see how we will be able to spot objects soon enough when we're moving through space with no star light to show us these objects. By the time we spot them, we are in trouble. We will need to either move away or make sure they aren't hitting the surface. This is a problem that will just be worse outside the solar system. Either we need to maneuver or find something to protect the Earth from being hit.

Also, space isn't really empty - there's lots of stuff in it. If we do take the entire Earth for the ride, we need some sort of plan on how to maneuver out of the way of objects that - if hit us - will totally kill off whatever's left alive, even underground. Thinner atmosphere will produce less protection, too... and we will have to go through the astroid ring at some point..

We are having a discussion and we're asking you questions to help you understand how the above is just not true. If you continue insisting putting your hands on your ears and post childish repetitive posts (are you stomping your feet on the ground while you're typing, too?) then you will be treated as a troll, and the discussion will end. Are you interested in actually getting answers or are you just here to make a fuss? I gave you a link explaining your question. If you want, you should relate to it and we can continue from there. Also, there are a few other threads in the forum talking about the shape of the universe. You might want to go over them. Please go over our rules. We are open for discussions, but we won't sit here idle if your sole intention is to yell and scream when you don't get your way. Now. Martin is one of our physics experts. He has posted multiple posts relating to this issue. You can find some of them: http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showpost.php?p=442588&postcount=2 And a discussion about whether or not space ends: http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=6390 And from his signature link, you can leaern a lot too: The shape of the universe: http://www.einstein-online.info/en/spotlights/shape_of_space/index.html Read a bit, see if you still think you should post these repetitive segments. ~moo

Okay.. not sure I understand why that specific unit, but alright. No, meter can be *represented* by speed and time, that is it was defined as: The metre is the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1⁄299 792 458 of a second.[1] (from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metre) What do you mean by "it can be analyzed" with in terms of speed and time? At best, it can be represented by them. It's a bit of a stretch, though. Okay, let's just get a few things clearer on the start so we know what we are talking about, consistently. The units of FORCE is a Newton: [math]N=\frac{kg*m}{s^2}[/math] The units of torque are N*m (Newton*meter). [math]T=\frac{kg*m^2}{s^2}[/math] (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torque#Units) The units of thrust is N (Newton). Thrust is a force. [math]N=\frac{kg*m}{s^2}[/math] (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrust) You need to be careful mixing the two up. One is force-times-distance, and the other is force. They're different. For that matter, you need to pick one. What do you mean distance was there at the first beginning? Why was distance and not time or speed? Not sure I understand you. Momentum is a definition in physics, not in a particular language. I checked this out, and it seems the French word for it is (quite appropriately) "Moment". It should exist in any language, seeing as it's a physical definition with quite clear units and meaning. Kg/s (KG per Second) has a meaning as mass flow rate, like in rocket fuel. Kg*s has no meaning as far as I can tell. I'm not sure what you mean about 'there's no mystery about it'.. it's just undefined. There's no mystery about any of them - they are all defined by you, seemingly arbitrarily (I still don't quite understand where that cube came from) and some incidentally have physical meaning, others don't. They're not really mysterious. BTW, can you please use * for multiplication and / for division? I'm not sure what you mean with the 'dot' (That is, Kg/s and Kg*s are clear, and kg.s is unclear). I am assuming you mean multiplication, but try to be clearer please.

No, I'm trying to show you that the universe can have a shape even if it's infinite. I will not reopen a thread that started with a childish post attempting to get people riled up rather than debate. We are debating the subject here, it seems, you just need to be open minded for a debate rather than for a lecture on your part. Here is a good article summarizing the issue of inifinite/finite debate and the shape of the universe: http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_shape.html ~moo

DH said Language, not speech. You can call Dolphin's communication chirps as a language too, despite the fact we don't understand it.

Right. Oops.

With what? A match? Technically speaking, if we could get rid of the sun altogether without burning ourselves in the process, the Earth will keep moving in a relatively-straight line onwards 'till it reaches another big enough gravitation to get attracted to. Alpha centauri is the closest star, so theoretically, if this is timed properly, the Earth could just go on towards it. Of course, the problems of utter darkness and extreme cold (hence, no life, oops) still exists. Also, that leaves a problem of how do we STOP... Last I checked the Earth has no "park" gear.

This doesn't seem like it's really meant to be a conversation, so in the spirit of the holidays, this thread is closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed closed. Happy holidays.

Not anymore. Seeing as there was interest in discussing the subject, I took the liberty of moving it to its own thread as a new speculation. If pywakit would like to share with us his ideas we could discuss them. If not, we can continue discussing the idea in general, it seems like enough of us are enjoying the mental exercise. (if you didn't noticed: new topic split to its own thread, yay.) ~moo

Sisyphus, stop trying to confuse us with facts.

Sure, it's colorful, it has a meaning as a drawing. Does it have a physics meaning? I don't know -- what is it supposed to be representing? Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedMichel, does this circle have meaning? The fact that I combined well-known variables like Time, Mass and Energy in a graph and arbitrarily drew a circle with colors doesn't mean that there's physical meaning to it. There might be, but that would require testing -- does "Time per Mass" mean anything? how about "Time per Energy"? Without context, it's meaningless. We can't know what you MEANT in that arbitrary picture. You need to tell us why you think it has meaning and we can help you devise a way to test if this meaning is actually meaningful.

I am not too sure there will be an atmosphere at all.

pywakit, this sounds like a very interesting concept, though off the top of my head I have a few reservations about it, in terms of actual physics. Of course, it's a story, so you do have creative leeway there but it can be interesting talking about it, if you want. You should start a new thread about it, it sounds like a great discussion to have.

Really? If you go on the surface of a sphere on and on and on and on, whichever way you go it NEVER ENDS. And yet, it's a sphere, with a clear shape.

Sorry, what's humanistic psychology?

"Mass * Time" is an expression that includes well known variables, but alltogether is meaningless. "Building * height" is also made of two well known instances but is an unknown combination. You can't randomly multiply variables and produce something with meaning, you need to check if the product *HAS* meaning, and if your test (for meaning) begins with a conclusion then it is subjective rather than the objectivity that the scientific method requires. In short, if I reaaaaaally really try, I, too, can probably attach some meaning to the term "Building * Height". Does this mean the term actually has a physical meaning? Not really.

michel, the problem is that you're STARTING from the conclusion and then try to force the evidence/observation/picture to fit into it. That's not how science is done.

Also, "meaningful" is ambiguous. What do you mean "meaningful"? The cube has meaning as a drawing, but not necessarily as a physics question. It can have meaning as a demonstration of 3D representation on a 2D screen, but have no other meaning. The "Meaning" of the cube is already the solution you are looking for, so by defining it in advance, you're jumping to conclusions and confine the question to a specific desired outcome, that doesn't necessarily follow reality. Meaning is ambiguous and you seem to assume a SPECIFIC meaning (hence, a physics meaning). Then, you decide that the rest must have meaning, but you again limit the intention. For that matter, if we speak of physics, the cube can have one meaning if it's stationary, another if it's moving and another if it's accelerating. What is the cube made of? is it matter or does it represent something else? Does it have mass or is it a confined space? Your axes are, too, arbitrary, and imply a predefined meaning. Are you sure that if mass is the y-axis time would be the x-axis? I'm not sure I know why you decided such a thing, and if that's true, I'm not sure why the resulting graph would produce a cube. Under what conditions? Unclear. The cube might have a completely different meaning if we relate to it as Quantum Mechanics demonstration, in which case "MT" might be the door you open to declare Schroedinger's cat dead. Or alive. See my point? This entire exercise is ambiguous, which is why it's really impossible to answer.

Because you're basically saying that if it's meaningful it has meaning.. that's redundant.

Alright, that's quite enough. Nimit/vacuodynamic - in the past 5 pages you were presented with thorough (and patient) explanation of why your theory makes no realistic sense, and you were posed with questions you did not answer. Thread closed. Random visitors are encouraged to read the page prior to this one to see the reasoning behind closing the thread. You, my friend, need to open a blog. Wordpress.com and Blogger.com are good places to start.