It should be EXOTIC or NEGATIVE matter, not DARK matter

Mr_EndarMr_Endar Join Date: 2016-03-05 Member: 213859Members
It may sound like nitpicking, but it makes me cringe.
Warp drive require EXOTIC (NEGATIVE) matter to operate, not DARK one=)

Exotic matter is the matter with negative mass (and is purely theoretical now).

Dark matter is something we don't understand that appear to exist (we can observe gravitational impact of something that we can't detect). It could be even an evidence that our understanding of space-time is wrong, not some physically existing stuff. But if dark matter is something physical, it have regular mass (for example it could be microscopic primordial black holes - I've read an article with this hypothesis not so long time ago).
«13

Comments

  • Mr_EndarMr_Endar Join Date: 2016-03-05 Member: 213859Members
    WarViper wrote: »
    your nitpicking a game that takes place on an alien planet in the distant future and your biggest problem is with the auroras drive core...
    Exactly. I love sci-fy and have some very basic understanding of physics.

    I loved Avatar movie for how realistic human interstellar vessel was (antimatter rocket)
  • PingonautPingonaut IL, United States Join Date: 2016-03-14 Member: 214214Members
    I agree, I'm not a fan of calling it "Dark Matter." It's only called "dark" because we don't understand it. You wouldn't call it "dark" if you understood it.
  • Alrekr_IronhandAlrekr_Ironhand New Hampshire, US Join Date: 2016-03-22 Member: 214677Members
    edited June 2016
    Who knows? Maybe it really is a dark matter reactor. Dark matter is just a theoretical concept right now, and we don't even know for sure that it really exists, let alone know what it's properties are other than "It's ... uh ... stuff with the right properties to be undetectable to us but explain these observations." (And it's only one of several possible explanations at that.)

    Who knows what you might be able to do with dark matter if you twist its tail the right way?



    NO, NO, NOT LIKE THA—








    (Taana ok, en cho jith dan breeka cho braa'ka cho Ganni ti ips'aa ta baala dinka-cho fatu jith.)




    ("The design is clever, but this [expletive] thing could sterilize a sizeable [expletive] chunk of the [expletive] galaxy if you're not [expletive] careful with it.")
  • LeonDOGELeonDOGE France Join Date: 2016-01-16 Member: 211525Members
    edited June 2016
    Mr_Endar wrote: »
    It may sound like nitpicking, but it makes me cringe.
    Warp drive require EXOTIC matter to operate, not DARK one=)

    Exotic matter is the matter with negative mass (and is purely theoretical now).

    Dark matter is something we don't understand that appear to exist (we can observe gravitational impact of something that we can't detect). It could be even an evidence that our understanding of space-time is wrong, not some physically existing stuff. But if dark matter is something physical, it have regular mass (for example it could be microscopic primordial black holes - I've read an article with this hypothesis not so long time ago).

    You're nitpicking a game that has molten hot lava lakes, rivers and falls exposed thousand meters underwater, that'd have potential life forms down there.

    Your argument is invalid.
  • Mr_EndarMr_Endar Join Date: 2016-03-05 Member: 213859Members
    edited June 2016
    LeonDOGE wrote: »
    Mr_Endar wrote: »
    It may sound like nitpicking, but it makes me cringe.
    Warp drive require EXOTIC matter to operate, not DARK one=)

    Exotic matter is the matter with negative mass (and is purely theoretical now).

    Dark matter is something we don't understand that appear to exist (we can observe gravitational impact of something that we can't detect). It could be even an evidence that our understanding of space-time is wrong, not some physically existing stuff. But if dark matter is something physical, it have regular mass (for example it could be microscopic primordial black holes - I've read an article with this hypothesis not so long time ago).

    You're nitpicking a game that has molten hot lava lakes, rivers and falls exposed thousand meters underwater, that'd have potential life forms down there.

    Your argument is invalid.
    I'm an engineer, not a geologist or biologist.

    I can assume that there could be some weird natural phenomena that I don't understand that allows having molten lava lakes at the bottom of the sea.
    Actually it's usually a fun thought experiment to explain how something seemingly impossible works. We did a lot of that for Avatar to explain flying rocks (and actually somebody come up with plausible explanation))) ). Just today I read how GoT dragons can fly and breath fire (just denser atmosphere with higher percentage of oxygen; simple, huh?).

    Hey I don't have any question to fabricator though I don't know how this thing can work. It doesn't break known laws of physics.

    Dark matter is entirely different thing however. Dark matter is something that have mass but don't emit/consume radiation (light) and doesn't interact with ordinary matter. We suspect that it exists because we see gravitational pull from something that we can't detect. It could be that there is no dark matter, but our understanding of gravity is wrong. Dark matter concept was created when astronomers needed something to balance the equations, to make the theory to explain observable phenomena.
    If dark matter exists, it is something invisible that have mass just like ordinary matter.

    Exotic matter is a pure theoretical concept - the matter that have negative mass (or you can say it is something that have negative energy). We never seen it, but we don't know any law of nature that prohibits its existence.
    Ironically exotic matter happens to be a requirement for both warp engine and traversable wormholes.

    Now what is more likely to be found on clearly superluminal starship?
  • sayerulzsayerulz oregon Join Date: 2015-04-15 Member: 203493Members
    I really do hate it when scifi writers just go "this sounds sciency, lets call it that!" with no consideration to what something actually is or what it means.

    Star Trek is about as bad as it gets about this.

    Honestly, the whole game fudges science WAYYY to much for my liking.
  • dealwithitdogdealwithitdog Texas Join Date: 2016-06-09 Member: 218343Members
    sayerulz wrote: »
    I really do hate it when scifi writers just go "this sounds sciency, lets call it that!" with no consideration to what something actually is or what it means.

    Star Trek is about as bad as it gets about this.

    Honestly, the whole game fudges science WAYYY to much for my liking.

    It takes place probably a good long while in the future. They can fudge as much science as they want, because we have NO idea what technology they might have by then.
  • sayerulzsayerulz oregon Join Date: 2015-04-15 Member: 203493Members
    See, THAT is exactly the kind of thinking that annoys the hell out of me. What so few people seem to understand is that technology cannot change the laws of physics.

    And even if there were some magic technology, what this game an so many scifis do is totally distort real, well understood science.

    For instance, in Star Trek TNG, in one episode, they were removing "baryons" from their ship. For those that do not know, "baryons" is the collective name for the particles that make up all conventional matter. Removing them from your ship is perhaps not the best idea?

    Then, in an episode of Voyager, they escaped a black hole through "a crack in the event horizon". How it is that they think there can be a crack in a place, I do not know.

    This game has many of the same issues. For instance, there is the seamoth solar charger. Even assuming that it is able to convert 100% of the light that strikes it into electricity, (impossible) and even assuming that 100% of the electricity is turned into forward motion (also impossible), the solar charger could NEVER collect enough energy with the seamoths surface area to function continually, unless there was enough light on it to fry a human in minutes. These are know scientific facts, that have been repeatedly tested and proven beyond any reasonable doubt.
  • SmarterThanAllSmarterThanAll Holland Michigan Join Date: 2016-06-24 Member: 219021Members
    LeonDOGE wrote: »
    Mr_Endar wrote: »
    It may sound like nitpicking, but it makes me cringe.
    Warp drive require EXOTIC matter to operate, not DARK one=)

    Exotic matter is the matter with negative mass (and is purely theoretical now).

    Dark matter is something we don't understand that appear to exist (we can observe gravitational impact of something that we can't detect). It could be even an evidence that our understanding of space-time is wrong, not some physically existing stuff. But if dark matter is something physical, it have regular mass (for example it could be microscopic primordial black holes - I've read an article with this hypothesis not so long time ago).

    You're nitpicking a game that has molten hot lava lakes, rivers and falls exposed thousand meters underwater, that'd have potential life forms down there.

    Your argument is invalid.

    There's a planet thats surface is completely ice but the entire surface is also constantly on fire.
  • starkaosstarkaos Join Date: 2016-03-31 Member: 215139Members
    You are assuming that all warp drives run on Exotic Matter. The Alcubierre Warp Drive supposedly requires Exotic Matter to work, but since we don't have Exotic Matter, then it is just a theoretical concept at the moment. Since we don't have other Warp Drives, then we don't know if Exotic Matter is a prerequisite for Warp Drives. Maybe in 30 years, someone will develop a Warp Drive that is powered by Blue Cheese.

    The Planet Express uses Dark Matter to function and it warps space-time so that the universe moves around it. Exotic Matter and Dark Matter are both theoretical materials so we don't know what they are capable of until we discover some. Therefore, it doesn't matter if we call it Exotic Matter or Dark Matter.
  • WaviestBow6WaviestBow6 Join Date: 2016-06-05 Member: 218131Members
    Are we sure we got shot down? I mean, looking at the bottom of the Aurora. There is nothing to hold it above the water. Heck, we could have just got sucked in by the gravity. ;)

    ( I mean, I know we got shot down but there is some sort of wizardry involved)
  • DrownedOutDrownedOut Habitat Join Date: 2016-05-26 Member: 217559Members
    I'm not entirely sure why it would matter if OP is nitpicking or not. A change from "dark matter" to "exotic matter" would not be a huge one - give or take the two times the AI speaks of them as that'd require new recording - so if it's more accurate, why not bring it up?
  • Mr_EndarMr_Endar Join Date: 2016-03-05 Member: 213859Members
    starkaos wrote: »
    You are assuming that all warp drives run on Exotic Matter. The Alcubierre Warp Drive supposedly requires Exotic Matter to work, but since we don't have Exotic Matter, then it is just a theoretical concept at the moment. Since we don't have other Warp Drives, then we don't know if Exotic Matter is a prerequisite for Warp Drives. Maybe in 30 years, someone will develop a Warp Drive that is powered by Blue Cheese.

    The Planet Express uses Dark Matter to function and it warps space-time so that the universe moves around it. Exotic Matter and Dark Matter are both theoretical materials so we don't know what they are capable of until we discover some. Therefore, it doesn't matter if we call it Exotic Matter or Dark Matter.
    No we wouldn't - that would break known laws of physics.

    If we discover some other phenomena that may lead to superluminal travel, we will give it different name, we will not name it after some existing stuff.
  • dealwithitdogdealwithitdog Texas Join Date: 2016-06-09 Member: 218343Members
    Mr_Endar wrote: »
    starkaos wrote: »
    You are assuming that all warp drives run on Exotic Matter. The Alcubierre Warp Drive supposedly requires Exotic Matter to work, but since we don't have Exotic Matter, then it is just a theoretical concept at the moment. Since we don't have other Warp Drives, then we don't know if Exotic Matter is a prerequisite for Warp Drives. Maybe in 30 years, someone will develop a Warp Drive that is powered by Blue Cheese.

    The Planet Express uses Dark Matter to function and it warps space-time so that the universe moves around it. Exotic Matter and Dark Matter are both theoretical materials so we don't know what they are capable of until we discover some. Therefore, it doesn't matter if we call it Exotic Matter or Dark Matter.
    No we wouldn't - that would break known laws of physics.

    If we discover some other phenomena that may lead to superluminal travel, we will give it different name, we will not name it after some existing stuff.

    You know, there have been a lot of discoveries that have caused us to reevaluate what we consider to be the laws of physics, or create new ones. You're essentially saying, "This is the way it is and will be forever." Except, its not. For instance, Newton's laws caused a lot of rethinking to be done about physics. We can't say something would "break physics" because we don't know all there is to know about physics. And, if we do discover a means to superluminal travel, that utilizes dark matter in warp drive, I think we'd call it a dark matter warp drive.
  • LonnehartLonnehart Guam Join Date: 2016-06-20 Member: 218816Members
    I prefer not to think too much on little things when playing a sci fi game. I like to enjoy the game as it is. Besides, who can predict what changes technology will bring about in the far far future? In the past, we were told we'd have flying cars and that everyone would be moving around in the air in these things. It's 2016 and we don't have these.

    While it's fun to speculate about future technology, I'd rather enjoy the experience instead of nitpicking apart areas in the game that don't seem to agree with our science today. Like those annoying guys in glasses who I remember sitting next to while watching the first Star Wars film. Instead of enjoying the film for what it was, they loudly explained why lightsabers don't work like that in real life, how the X-Wing fighter shouldn't be able to move in space the way it does in the film, and how the Force was just some deus ex machina mechanic to cover up those things that can't be explained by the science of the day...
  • yomamayomama On the freeway Join Date: 2016-04-17 Member: 215861Members
    Ok, so I'm going to solve this topic right now. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING in the game runs on MAGIC. FAIRY. FARTGAS.
  • joni65joni65 Kansas Join Date: 2016-06-19 Member: 218763Members
    yomama wrote: »
    Ok, so I'm going to solve this topic right now. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING in the game runs on MAGIC. FAIRY. FARTGAS.
    Is this similar to unicorn rainbow fart?
  • Calarand77Calarand77 lurking in general forums Join Date: 2016-01-22 Member: 211786Members
    I completely understand that - being a knowledgeable science enthusiast - you get a different perspective on the game than most of the players do. That technical inaccuracies become annoying for you. Do take under consideration the majority of the potential player base, though. I can assure you that, if the devs took your suggestion and renamed dark matter to exotic matter, most people would associate it with paradise birds and tasty fruits, not with something straight out of Einstein's notebook.

    Another thing to consider is that dark matter is by now a well established term - inaccurate one, too, I know - but easily recognized for what it is supposed to describe: a way to make giant spaceships move through space and... make cool sounds in the vacuum.

    So let games be just games, people. Let science stay in textbooks and laboratories. Entertainment isn't about being 100% accurate to the facts, laws of physics, and what have you... it would be a documentary, then, not entertainment.
  • crane476crane476 United States, Tx Join Date: 2015-08-07 Member: 206850Members
    Wow... I like science and technology too, but the nitpicking is ridiculous. Its just a game about surviving on an alien planet in the far future. There's different kinds of science fiction you know. There's realistic sci-fi like Interstellar and fantasy sci-fi like star trek. I think this game firmly falls in the latter and that's okay. The point of the game was never to be super realistic.
  • FathomFathom Earth Join Date: 2016-07-01 Member: 219405Members
    Why not both? The Dark Matter Core is used to generate proto particles which the warp drive turns into exotic matter on demand as exotic matter is too volatile to keep around in large quantities. So you only have an explotion and radiation hazard with incidents like the Aurora instead of exotic matter spreading everywhere, turning all it touches into more exotic matter until it dissipates, possibly disrupting laws of physics on a planetary scale.

    If the technobabble does not make enough sense, just add more technobabbble until it makes sense.
  • joni65joni65 Kansas Join Date: 2016-06-19 Member: 218763Members
    @Calarand77
    @crane476
    I could not agree more. Games are not real life and I am thankful for that.
    @Fathom LoL - sounds reasonable to me. Like W.C. Fields says "if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull$hit"
  • yomamayomama On the freeway Join Date: 2016-04-17 Member: 215861Members
    edited July 2016
    Exotic matter is found in the windowless base with the pink and purple lights, but to get in you have to craft something called a "cover charge" which is unfortunately made from many ingots of Unobtainium.

    Your consolation prize is a full body massage from the reaper leviathan, who from what I understand has been...practicing...
  • Alrekr_IronhandAlrekr_Ironhand New Hampshire, US Join Date: 2016-03-22 Member: 214677Members
    sayerulz wrote: »
    See, THAT is exactly the kind of thinking that annoys the hell out of me. What so few people seem to understand is that technology cannot change the laws of physics.

    And even if there were some magic technology, what this game an so many scifis do is totally distort real, well understood science.

    For instance, in Star Trek TNG, in one episode, they were removing "baryons" from their ship. For those that do not know, "baryons" is the collective name for the particles that make up all conventional matter. Removing them from your ship is perhaps not the best idea?

    Then, in an episode of Voyager, they escaped a black hole through "a crack in the event horizon". How it is that they think there can be a crack in a place, I do not know.

    Not for nothing was the word "Treknobabble" coined....
  • Kouji_SanKouji_San Sr. Hινε Uρкεερεг - EUPT Deputy The Netherlands Join Date: 2003-05-13 Member: 16271Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
    Alterra explains everything by "nanites", I'm calling the nanite card here as well!
  • Mr_EndarMr_Endar Join Date: 2016-03-05 Member: 213859Members
    edited July 2016
    You know, there have been a lot of discoveries that have caused us to reevaluate what we consider to be the laws of physics, or create new ones. For instance, Newton's laws caused a lot of rethinking to be done about physics
    We didn't call general relativity the Newton's law of universal gravitation. We call it relativity.
    We didn't call field an ether. We call it a field.
    If some new Law/Phenomena will be discovered we will give it a new name, not call it by the name of something existing.
    I can assure you that, if the devs took your suggestion and renamed dark matter to exotic matter, most people would associate it with paradise birds and tasty fruits, not with something straight out of Einstein's notebook
    Seriously? Isn't it taught in high school?

    Okay then:
    It should be NEGATIVE matter, not DARK matter.

    There's realistic sci-fi like Interstellar and fantasy sci-fi like star trek
    In many cases Star Trek is more realistic than Interstellar btw =)
    As for star wars, its just a fantasy like Lord of The Rings.

    Subnautica on the other hand is in the sci-fi realm, not fantasy.
  • DrownedOutDrownedOut Habitat Join Date: 2016-05-26 Member: 217559Members
    Mr_Endar wrote: »
    I can assure you that, if the devs took your suggestion and renamed dark matter to exotic matter, most people would associate it with paradise birds and tasty fruits, not with something straight out of Einstein's notebook
    Seriously? Isn't it taught in high school?

    Okay then:
    It should be NEGATIVE matter, not DARK matter.

    High school does not cover anything beyond the whole proton-neutron-electron story. But that "negative matter" should do the trick. I was having some doubts on "exotic matter" because to my understanding that is a catch-all term for various theorized and rare forms of matter, which would be peculiarly imprecise. "Negative matter" is precise and communicates to the non-sciency players some idea of what the drive does.
  • WaviestBow6WaviestBow6 Join Date: 2016-06-05 Member: 218131Members
    edited July 2016
    Snip? Man, I don't know how to delete comments. :(
  • Mr_EndarMr_Endar Join Date: 2016-03-05 Member: 213859Members
    was having some doubts on "exotic matter" because to my understanding that is a catch-all term for various theorized and rare forms of matter, which would be peculiarly imprecise
    Yes, I agree.
    High school does not cover anything beyond the whole proton-neutron-electron story
    I'm pretty sure I learned few things about that stuff when I was in school... wait a second...
    I remembered!
    Dark Matter was important part of cartoon serial ExoSquad that I used to watch back them =)
    Dark matter coating was used by pirate ships and later Exofleet vessels for cloaking))) I guess I just read what dark matter and dark energy really are out of curiosity - so it was not taught at school)
  • RalijRalij US Join Date: 2016-05-20 Member: 217092Members
    I don't think we got to dark matter until we attempted to 'cover' it in astronomy 101 in college with the professor that worked with NASA. Of course, covering was more of a 'this doesn't really work like we think it should....' followed by students curious questions which mostly gained a 'If I knew that I'd have a nobel prize' sort of answer.

    I find the nitpicking to be fairly entertaining honestly. I'm trained as a historian so the 'this breaks science' argument is always funny to me, but there is a lot there that I had no idea about. I don't remember anything about exotic matter, for example, so the discussion is always really interesting to me. Thanks for the mini-lessons :)
Sign In or Register to comment.