Glossary
Glossary
Military terminology
AN/RBM-1: For the RBM part, please see Restricted Boltzmann Machine in Science Stuff. The AN is a designation for a part of the horribly complex overlapping system of radars and computers and stuff that makes up an AEGIS detection and shoot-everything-up protection system. I'm not using the nomenclature properly. The letters after AN are supposed to designate where the equipment is used (surface ship, aircraft etc), what type of equipment it is and for what purpose it is.
ECCM: What they use to unfool themselves, when the enemy uses Electronic Counter Measures to fool them.
Juliet: Local time.
SPS: A radar that looks at what's happening on the surface. Part of the AEGIS detection and destruction protective rig.
Science stuff
Calabi-Yau manifold: A horrible, Cyclopean distortion of shape beyond the walls of sanity. Physicists use these to make all those pesky extra dimensions string theory requires to go away. The Equestrians probably use them to describe hammer space.
CCD: Charge-coupled device. A type of image sensor with high quality and capture properties. Allows for extreme slow-motion capture and very high definition, though other devices are catching up to it.
Conservation of probability: Everybody knows conservation of mass-energy, right? Stuff doesn't just appear and disappear randomly into and out of existence, universe-wise. Well, conservation of probability says stuff doesn't pop around the universe either. Rather, it tends to stay local. More specifically, the probability of finding stuff in a given volume of space is a function of time, and the probability doesn't pop around the place willy-nilly. The particle, however, might.
Einstein-Rosen bridge: Your classic wormhole. Using such possibly non-existent things like negative mass, space-time, that is, the actual fabric of reality is made to bend in an unholy manner connecting two unimaginably distant points into a walking distance. The question with a gateway like this, along with all other faster-than-light travel is, how does one avoid temporal paradoxes? Oh, and the amount of negative mass required to form a traversable wormhole? Estimates go from 10 billion stars' worth to 10 billion universes.
EM: Short for electro-magnetic (radiation). From radio waves to high energy gamma, the rainbow is bigger and more magnificent than the eye can see.
Enthalpy: Equals the internal energy of a system, that is kinetic and potential energy including chemical bonds and temperature and stuff like that, plus pressure times volume of the system. Which probably doesn't say much. Basically, you measure the enthalpic change of a system; say, after hydrogen and oxygen react, how much does the volume change in the same pressure and how much heat was released.
Kardashev Scale: A nice little scale to determine how far along the path to omnipotence a civilization is. Kardashev I would be using the entire energy of their home planet, while Kardashev III would use the energy of their entire home galaxy and Kardashev V would control several universes. Humanity is at Kardashev 0,7 and a bit on a logarithmic scale. A Kardashev I civilization would be using about thousand times more energy than us. And surviving.
lambda calculus: A formal logic system, which reduces mathematics into computable functions. The kind of stuff you need to use when proving 1+1=2, or when you need to establish what a number is. Funny thing: as per Gödel's little bitch slap against mathematicians' hubris, unless you restrict lambda calculus severely, it's logically inconsistent.
Lincos: An artificial language designed for communication with extra-terrestrial intelligence. Starts with natural numbers and basic arithmetic expressed in binary, proceeds to propositional logic, and eventually to everything. It's like a tiny encyclopedia, dictionary, grammar, and the algorithm for unpacking all the information in it wrapped up in a single, sweet packet of pulses.
Logic Gate Matrices: Describe points in space that has as many spatial dimensions as you like. Describe simple logic operations that connect those points. Ta-dah: you have just made a universal computer. In my story, they use this system to describe an actual, specific computer.
Probability Current: Please see conservation of probability.
Restricted Boltzmann Machine: Is not a machine per se, but a description of a multi-layered neural network that can use a clever little learning algorithm to learn stuff, because it uses a probability function to establish networking between its neurons. In my story, the algorithm is some kind of evolutionary fast-learning general purpose algorithm that doesn't exist (as far as I know). The existing RBMs can do all kinds of uncannily clever stuff, though, like put new points of data into classes that they belong to without having to bother the lazy human behind the screen.
Magic thingies
SOON
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3890154
, but enjoyable.
Yeah, that's pretty accurate. Austin, believe it or not, is one of the most liberal/democratic cities I've ever seen, right up there with Denver. It's...... quite strange
3890126 Well, I guess that's what I get for starting the chapter and then leaving for twenty minutes
Electronic Counter Counter Measures... I know it's an accurate description and all but it never ceases to get a smile out of me.
Come for the adorkable Twilight, stay for the advanced scientific principles.
Bullshit. We can't use anywhere near 70% of the energy available for the Earth. We use almost none of the geothermal alone.
I would think it great if it turned out one of our best authors was an actual physicist
3890222 It's on a logarithmic scale. Like between Kardashev II and III the difference is one star and a hundred billion stars. Guess I should mention that.
3890227 Yeah but a "?.?" expression requires the second '?' to be a 1/10th integer of the first '?'. This isn't actually addressing the amount of energy since it would vary from planet to planet for I and star to star for II, using a decimal is an absolute fraction of an unspecified whole and as such has no definite joule value. Which is why I didn't assign it a value beyond its relation to the whole.
Are you sure you're not a physicist sir?
Because this is BRILLIANT
3890231 It's more of a general guideline. The Kardashev scale uses set values of energy consumption to give the approximate level of the kind of 'oomph' a civilization has at its disposal. The intermediate values are not that important. 0,7 K puts humanity at the Terawatt level of energy consumption, where a Kardashev I would be expected to be at the Petawatts, i.e. thousand times more.
3890237 3890224 At some point an actual physicist or a mathematician or expert of any kind will read my story and berate me for bad science. I do my best for verisimilitude, but beyond that, the story is the important thing. All this stuff is just setting the stage.
3890252 So far it seems that you're putting in as much effort as we could ask for - I haven't yet spotted anything that horribly clashes with my (admittedly nascent) science and programming studies, or quick online research/verification. Any mistakes that might exist are subtle enough that they don't really jar a layman reader from the story, and we can't exactly blame you for ones that require years of education in a field you haven't studied in depth to catch.
Of course, if you do get berated by an expert in some field, please make them give you the appropriate corrections. Even though justifiable errors are acceptable, I'd still rather have the story be as good as possible.
Also, would you be able to add something to either chapter five or the glossary showing the basic way Equestrian mathematical notation works? I've always been curious about other types I've heard of, such as the ancient Greek geometric style that it was compared with, but since I've never had anyone to teach me about them I haven't had much luck really getting how they work. Labelled pictures would be awesome, or maybe links to somewhere that has a tutorial? If it wouldn't be too much trouble, of course.
3890245 I know. I studied up on it while reading Ringo's 'Troy Rising' series, I just completely disagree with the "official" rating for humanity and the general execution of Type I. My 'Bullshit.' comment was directed at the source of that number not you, I am aware you were quoting the 'expert' opinion.
3890424 It's not so much an "'official' rating for humanity" as "plug our current power use into the Kardashev formula and that's the value you get for human civilization". (Feel free to look up the info if you want to double-check - a quick search for average world energy consumption and a couple seconds of computation is all it takes). Doesn't keep the scale's execution from being a bit... less than entirely optimal, but whether or not it's particularly useful isn't really relevant in the context of simply stating how the scale describes a given civilization.
3890412 Well, even the very basics of Equestrian notation may be a bit of a stretch to match what I described, but I'll think about it and see if I can manage.
For Greek geometry, most 'history of mathematics' lectures are good. For me, Carl Boyer's A History of Mathematics worked pretty well. I think the relevant bit was in chapter X. I really enjoyed the whole book though.
Edit: actually, make that chapters IV-X
3890477 Don't worry about it if it's too much trouble - it'd be awesome if you managed, but I don't want to impose. The link you gave looks fascinating enough, and it alone is much better than I've managed to find on my own. (For some reason I cannot seem to figure out, I'm only even remotely competent at finding good sources for things I have absolutely no interest in actually reading up on. It works out alright for those classes I don't really care for, but makes it a pain to study the subjects I actually like.
)
4,999 views.
Damn.
I was almost number 5k
This:
Because Equestria exists
3890231
Only if you're using a linear scale in decimal notation.
This is possibly the most realistic first contact scenario I've read (or seen for that matter) in a good long while. The technical info drops are top notch, I love when science and rationality are brought into the mix as not only is the story entertaining, but also educational. The characterization is spot on and the humans reactions are rather believable. I rate this as the new #2 spot on my list of all time favorite Sci-fi stories. Keep up the excellent work. You have earned a favorite and an up-vote.
Stop it! Soon I'll be acting like I'm smart!
Awesome!
3890882
.
......Huh
Well, alright then.
3891055
If you enjoy realistic first-contact scenarios, then I suggest you read Celestia Sleeps In by Admiral Biscuit. It's quite different from this story, but in a good way... not to say that this story isn't good, because it is. Good, I mean... you know what, I'll just shut up now.
Wow this is really awesome. How could you have even considered keeping this a one shot. I love how you have handled the military as well. None of the stupid dissection labs and guns a blazing BS.
The science and math is all great to read. Please don't stop including it.
I was happy to recognize some of this science from my satellite imagery analysis classes.
While I believe others have already said this; Impressive job on portraying a first contact scenario complete with staying on the hard end of sci-fi in a story about magical technicolor ponies.
See you again next update.
3891792 Yeah okay, I suppose I lost track of how young the situation was. Letting the cat out of the bag at the wrong moment would just cause chaos. At the same time holding out too long... well the USA is a powerful nation but something like this has the potential to seriously piss off every other country in the world.
Honestly though? I was far more disgruntled that she so casually dismissed three of the worlds potentially most powerful people each leading their own extremely successful countries that are all fairly strong allies of the US. I understand that it was a stressful situation but still...
If our current theory of the multiverse is true in this story, then the universe that Equestria is in must contain Dark Energy. I wonder if the ponies have discovered the dark energy of their universe yet
3892361 Hey, thanks!
Fixed now.
3892012 Yes, yes I am.
3891034 No wonder she recognized it on sight...
3892343 As long as it makes you happy, regardless.
3891207 Modesty demands me to point out I'm merely describing something that I believe could work. But glad to hear you enjoy!
3891220 3891243 Thank you for taking time to comment and speculate in detail. Love seeing that!
3891856 Hey, thanks for liking! But don't be too impressed; the knowledge is largely a product of sleight-of-hand writing. I'm sure you can do it too!
As for constructing the math system, no. I have a pretty good idea on how it works on an operational level, but the actual notation needs quite a bit of work. What I do know about it though, is that general equations become very large, fast, using it.
3892344
Would be kind of neat if the Dark Energy we've only recently discovered was magic. We can't detect it by any means directly but we think it's there and affecting things. Not sure how Dark Matter would translate, that stuff we've actually managed to observe by proxy (seeing light bent through gravitational distortion as it passes by the Dark Matter out there). Dark Matter is the stuff keeping galaxies from flying apart as a kind of galactic scaffolding for the visible matter to be corralled into and make pretty shapes.
I always get a chuckle when people think FTL travel or wormholes have anything to do with temporal paradoxes. That's like saying radio creates a temporal paradox because you get the message faster than USPS.
3892547 Please read this: Tachyon pistol duel thought experiment
24.media.tumblr.com/e0011fd532f1abe1a96f7db08e0cc4ba/tumblr_mk73nfEQ2E1qig11fo1_500.png
Ok, two major things wrong with that example: first, time dilation is only witnessed by the traveler, not the observer. So while one travels closer to the speed of light, things seem to slow down, making the speed of light appear to be an absolute limit.
Second, with both travelers accelerating at the same rate they would experience the same dilation, making 8 seconds to one the same 8 seconds the other experiences.
That example just hand waves everything with the phrase "due to time dilation" with no reguard to the mechanics if it.
3894610 I'm sorry, but you are laboring under misconception. Relativity describes the geometry of equal metrics. That means that there is no separation of 'traveler' and 'observer'; they are simply names we can give to two interchangeable metrics.
From this it follows that the duelists experience same amount of dilation; not the same dilation. The latter would be to assume that there is a universal clock measuring time, that one can measure events against some form of simultaneity, and that velocity or gravity merely makes it appear as if time was distorted.
In fact, space-time actually is distorted. From which the paradox. The idea that from the point of view of each of the duelists the other has moved more slowly seems paradoxical only if there exists a simultaneous point of time independent of the limitations speed of light sets.
Because humanity has observed, measured and tested the effects of time dilation, we know relativity holds at scales above quantum mechanics and below cosmic. And it just doesn't make sense, if one discards the speed of light as a limit.
3894663
Unfortunately, the tests humanity has been able to perform on this subject are INCREDIBLY limited.
We have observed extremely minute differences which have been extrapolated into absurdity. Also, the relation of ANYTHING to something other than an outside reference is PURE speculation.
Using the framework you (and a great many theoretical physicists) ascribe to I am actually existing in an infinite set of times as we speak, for there are an infinite number of points of reference from which I am traveling a different relative speed from.
3894735 Yes, that is what I said: no privileged frame of reference.
I wouldn't call the evidence sparse however: GPS wouldn't work at all without relativistic corrections to synchronicity, astronomers have witnessed the effects of gravitational lenses, and our own sun's gravity well during eclipses, and both atmospheric and accelerator experiments on particle half-time have confirmed relativistic time dilation.
I believe only parts of quantum mechanics have theories that defy Lorentz covariance, and even those are not meant to apply generally.
3894735 Apologies for being blunt, but... that's simply not true. Every credible source I've read on the subject, including the textbook I have open in front of me as I type this, says you're in error. I need to spend some time thinking about how I'd go about explaining things in the way least likely to cause confusion, so in the meantime, I'd like to leave you with a question. Which source is more credible? The scientists and engineers whose job is to study and utilize relativity, and whose creations simply wouldn't work if they didn't understand the subject well, all of whom say that FTL and causality as we currently understand it are incompatible? Or the guy online who disagrees with them but who has yet to provide any mathematical or physical proof that the devices those guys made, which we use daily because they function just fine, don't actually follow the laws of physics.
Incidentally, if you do come up with a way to show that things like GPS break the laws of physics, please send it in to as many reputable scientific journals as you can. We'd all love to know what everyone's been doing wrong all this time.
3891890
Its possible that the reader was supposed to be taken aback by the President's words and the scene was revealing a character flaw. She may have a Friendship Lesson in her future.
3894791 ahh the joys of limited communication!
I did not mean to imply that the spread of information was limited, but rather the measurable dilation. The evidence is in the realm of a millionth of a percent of difference. And while GPS uses "relativistic" corrections, this is not actually related to our conversation. GPS simply accounts for the difference in time between signal transit time and the relative motion of the satellite and the earth, nothing related to temporal anomalies is involved.
3894852 one of the things you need to take into consideration is that everything involving this subject is theoretical. There is prescious little evidance one way or another.
And GPS using relativity like that is a myth. I have worked with the sensors and know exactly how they work.
What they do is take the signal transit time and relative motion of the satalite into consideration when calculating position. Hence temporal relativity.
It has exactly nothing to do with the subject at hand.
3894888 Well, no, I was talking about synchronicity. The satellites' clocks run just a bit faster than the ones on Earth. GPS has to correct both for the speed of the satellite as per special relativity and for the difference in gravitational effect as per general relativity. And while the percentage of error is admittedly small, the effect is cumulative.
On the other hand, with particle half-time tests, the amount of dilation is much larger, since the speeds are so close to c. At 98% of light-speed, muon particles' half-time increases by 400%.
3894923
I will admit I take subatomic tests with a bit more than a grain of salt. There is far to much room for interpretation and unobservable factors for my comfort.
But this is a personal cynicism that I fully understand that many do not share.
3894907 3894888
You might want to do some basic searches on the evidence for relativistic effects. The only reason Einsteinian relativity was actually accepted in the first place is because so much evidence supporting it accumulated that people had to admit it was right, rather than the more comfortable theories they wanted desperately to cling to.
While it's true that we can't yet accelerate macro-scale objects to high enough relative velocities to create differences that a human could notice directly, subatomic- and molecular-scale objects are a different story. High energy particles like those produced in cosmic ray impacts or accelerated in colliders can have their apparent lifespans from our perspective increased drastically; in some cases, the only reason we can even study them is because time dilation slows their decay enough to let us get a look at them before they disintegrate.
And yes, the GPS system does rely on relativistic corrections, not just transit-time ones. If you want, this page (the very first hit I got for a search on GPS relativistic effects) has some basic details, which are in line with what I recall reading about the system from other sources. Perhaps the most useful summary quote:
Finally, remember that the theory that describes both of these sets of effects is the same one that says FTL implies time travel, which is what set this whole debate off. The only way to get around that is by throwing the whole thing out, and considering that relativity has so far proven more accurate than every testable alternative which allows both FTL and causality, that's probably not a very good idea.
3894978 Well, I don't know what to tell you then. The muon wouldn't exist at all for as long as it does, unless because time dilation, and GPS satellites are launched with their frequency standard set at about 5 nanohertz lower than what Earth receives to correct for the relativity error (which in distance otherwise would be something like ten klicks a day).
3894879 I hope so.
3895010
3895007
I had forgotten about the clock on the satellites. However, this and several other similar examples can actually be used to disprove some accepted aspects of special relativity.
I hope you'll forgive what appears to be me flip-flopping, I'm trying to be coherent on very little sleep...
Going back a step or three, the phrase "no privileged frame of reference" was mentioned. Tell me if I am misinterpreting your intent, but this goes back to Einstein's theory that everything is equally relative to everything else and that no frame of reference has priority over any other. He liked to use a moving object on a train vs the train and a point outside as an example. This has been shown to have merit by a simple east vs west high speed test. Objects going east have the same measurable reduction in subatomic activity as those going west. Therefore the speed of the earths rotation has no effect, implying that Einstein is right and the point of observation determines the effect of the travel speed. However, when attempting to apply that in any other frame of reference the test fails. For example: by this theory the relative speed of any two particles cannot exceed the speed of light. But particle accelerators are easily capable of colliding particles at greater than half the speed of light each. This act in and of itself cuts away almost the entirety of applicable relativity. Einstein would argue that this proves nothing, as a particle is incapable of observing anything(yes, he was a firm believer that something that was not directly observed was literally not real)... but that is a bit too new age for my taste.
Now - pulling this back to the discussion at hand. Kindly note that every single observation of what we are referring to as "temporal dilation" was taken with the same point of reference. Namely the Earth. The ENTIRE POINT of relativity is that there is NO single true frame of reference. So how can anyone use an argument with a common reference point?
Now, going back even further, to the theoretical gun fight. Mr. A and Mr. B travel away from each other each going .8C. First, stop and consider the rate they are traveling away from each other. According to Einstein, they are moving apart at 1C. And traveling at .8C relative to the ground. At the same time. But let's ignore that, because it's inconvenient. We will do like the example does and use the ground as a reference point. 8 seconds in, by Mr. A's reckoning, he fires. From an outside perspective, this appears to be 6 seconds. The question is how long is that 6 seconds to Mr. B? This is the second fault in the gunfight. 6 seconds of time by the outside perspective is 8 seconds to Mr. B, not 6.
This is because the traveler is what is slowed, regardless of the observer. If this was not the case, then those clocks would have to be simultaneously sped up and slowed down at the same time, because the Earth is traveling fast relative to the satellites and vice versa.
All the same evidence that supports time anomalies disproves time travel and temporal paradoxes.
3895264 It seems there's another confusion at play here. Colliding particles at higher than 0,5c each or having duelists moving away from each other at 0,8c each does not in any way challenge relativity.
Let's name our observer C, and let C be at the center of collision (or point of departure), and the speed of the objects A and B be 0,8c. Now the rate at which the distance between A and B decreases or increases depending on whether we are talking about a collision or the duel is, in fact, 1,6c. But that doesn't matter, because none of A,B or C is moving at this speed. From C's point of view both A and B are moving at 0,8c still, and from either of the moving object's point of view, the other is moving at 1,6/(1+0,8^2/1^2)c=0,9756097...c.
Which is possible only if time dilates. No new age, or spurious claims of Einstein's views needed.
For more see How to add relativist speeds.
That there is no privileged frame of reference simply means that there is no absolute viewpoint in the universe. This in fact necessitates that one always chooses a point of reference for any observation, and keeps in mind and in equations the fact that this point is interchangeable with any other point, which then would give different results (and also disabuse the observer of the notion of absolute simultaneity).
Keeping that in mind, what you are saying about Mr. A's and Mr. B's 8 seconds doesn't actually make sense.
3891055
I completely agree, but which is first?
It would be nice if there was some note under magic saing that it will be filled in later due to spoilers. As it stands it looks like you forgot to add that part
.