From: noah@cad.gatech.edu (Noah White)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv
Subject: Re: DS9 was very BAD
Date: 10 Jan 1993 17:35:58 -0500
Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology
Distribution: usa
NNTP-Posting-Host: cae.cad.gatech.edu

In <1ips6hINNsej@cae.cad.gatech.edu> vincent@cad.gatech.edu (Vincent Fox) writes:

>In <93010.115206MRM122@psuvm.psu.edu> MRM122@psuvm.psu.edu writes:
>>Many people are saying that the "non-linear time" thing was a foolish idea-
>>that it conflicted with physics as we know it.  They say things like "WHy don't
>> the writers talk to some physics students!"

>Some have said exactly this, others criticized it another way...

   Well the way I look at it is this way. I'll let the actuall physics slide
in liew of the entertainment value. However I won't allow the logical
consistancy of it slide, especially when it contradicts it's own plot. Then
it becomes truly obsurd.

>>To that, I have this to say: We
>>as of this point in our history are FAR from understanding all that there is to
>>understand.  Saying such a thing is "impossible" is silly, since as far as we
>>know, breaking the light barrier is impossible, making all these shows
>>completely pointless, true?

>According to my physics (years old) accelerating up to and past light
>speed is impossible since apparent mass increases and your fuel needs would
>grow unbelievably the close to light speed you wanted to get. Fred Pohl's

   Another reason (my on the theory side then the applied side as your
example is) is that the Lorentz factor equation becomes invalid if an 
objects velocity attains the speed of light. Here is an example:

Sally is in a train that is moving with uniform velocity V with respect to
the station. She has an electronic clock, which she uses to measure the 
time dTo (delta T0 - elpased time) between the two events, Sally finds
dTo = 2D/c where D is the distance between the source and the mirror. Note
that for Sally these events occur at the same place and she can time the 
interval between them with a single clock located at that place. A time
interval measured with a single resting clock is called a proper time
interval, identified with the subscript o (dTo <- is a proper time interval)
Consider now how these same two events look to Sam, who is standing on the
station platform as the train goes by. Because of the postulate of the 
speed of light (the speed of light has the same value in all reference
frames) travels at the same speed C for Sam and Sally. It travels a larger
distancefor Sam, however, namely 2L. The time interval  measured by Sam
between these two events is dT = 2L/C (note this is not a proper time
interval becasue the events do not occur at the same place in Sam's
refernece point) where L = Sqrt((.5V dT)^2 + D^2) from Sally's equation
we can rewrite this as L = Sqrt((.5V dT^2) + (.5C dTo)^2). If we elimate 
the L's from this equation and Sam's equation above and solve for dT we
get dT = dTo/Sqrt(1 - (V/C)^2) <- This is the imprtant one. Note that
for Sam the two events occur in different places and to measure dT he must
use two synchonized clocks, C1 and C2, located at different places in his
reference frame (this would be the platform). The interval he measures is
not a proper time interval becasue he does not measure it with a single
resting  clock. For this reason the situations for Sam and Sally are not
symetrical. To make them symetrical you would have to move Sally's flash-
mirror arragement to the platform and give it to Sam. Then same would 
measure a proprer time interval and Sally would measure a dilated interval.
Now back to the equation dT = dTo/Sqrt(1 - (V/C)^2) .. if the volcity of the
object were to reach the speed of light (V/C)^2 becomes (1)^2 which is 1
and the deomonator become Sqrt(1 - 1) which is 0 and we have a division
by 0 which can't happen. Here is a diagram:

Sally:                                          Sam:

      --mirror--                                  --mirror--
     ^  |    |                                         ^     
     |  |    |                                        /|\     
   D |  ^    |                                       / | \
     |  |    |                                      /  D  \
     |  |    |                                   L /   |   \ L
     |  |    |                                    /    |    \
     |  |    |                                   /     |     \
       -train-                               train <- vdT -> train

>You just haven't been paying attention to the *REAL* objection here.

>Clear indications are given that the hypothetical godlings *DO* understand
>linear time. Things such as the fact that they are conversing and learning
>from our linear commander in a linear fashion. Non-linear beings with
>access to the future present an impossible paradox. In at least one sense
>it reduces the universe to a Newtonian clockwork-universe, not the
>chaotic thing it actually is. They also discuss destroying him. How can
>this be reconciled with the later confusion they evidence about
>an end to linear existence? It's like one guy wrote up the framework
>and a few opening lines, and some other hacks came along and shoddily
>tacked on some other stuff. There's no internal consistency. Maybe it
>was rewritten through three different sets of monkeys 30 times or something.

>An idea can be as outlandish as you want in my book, as long as it
>doesn't conflict with *itself*. I object not so much to non-linear
>beings (no matter how silly that is), but to how the idea is developed.
>I visualize a production meeting like in that movie with Tim Robbins, I
>think it was called The Player?

                         **** Exactly my point *****

-- 
Noah White                                       Internet: noah@cad.gatech.edu
CAE/CAD Lab Staff & USENET Administrator
Georgia Institute of Technology
"Wheel in the sky keeps on turin. Oh I don't know where I'll be tomarrow."
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv