Compression of size is getting smaller, your claim/idea.

Ultimately, the ratio of intergalactic distances to atomic ones are changing in an unusual way. We have made the assumption that it is the single factor changing, and not a dozen, in lockstep, that don’t seem able to change that way.

You’re the one who made the suggestion, I’m just pointing out the problems you would need to overcome.

That wouldn’t work. You would need to change the orbital sizes, bonding forces (EM strong and weak, at least), and flow of time exactly in lockstep. Any deviation would show up in quantum mechanical experiments. None of these appear to have simple relationships to each other. It would be a huge new lump of physics to allow this to happen.

The more likely explanation is that space has a very slight tendency to expand. It would need intergalactic (not just interstellar) distances to be detectable. We also know that (very strongly suspect) that space expanded rapidly in the very early universe. Space then collapsed into a cooler, more stable state. It was initially thought the expansion tapered off to zero, but it might be slightly positive still.

Shrinking would require multiple physical constants to change. Even worse, they would have to change in perfect lockstep. Any deviation would radically affect chemistry.

Of course not, that would be immoral. They’ll track trollies and baskets, then tag it to the till and your loyalty card. It would be a lot more consistent, and harder to dodge.

I can see multiple uses for the tech. Unfortunately, many are a but dystopian, but some are legitimately useful.

I don’t know if it’s real or just nostalgia, but reddit is massively worse than I remember. I’ve gone back to nose a few times, and it feels like a ghost town, compared to what it used to be.

HDDs can be made tolerant to it. Constant rotation still puts significant extra strain on the bearings, when spinning however. The drive will likely fail faster than an SSD.

Your best bet might be to use a laptop as the basis. They are already designed with power efficiency in mind, and you won’t need an external screen and keyboard for local problem solving.

I would also consider having a raspberry pi 3 or similar as a companion. Services that must be up all the time run on the pi (e.g. network admin). The main computer only gets kicked out of sleep mode when required. The pi 3 needs less power than the newer pis, while still having enough computing power to not lag unless pushed hard.

I definitely agree with SSDs. HDDs don’t do well when rotated when running. Boats are less than a stable platform.

Screw thanking aliens, it’s an incredible team of engineers that have the skills and dedication to do what seems impossible. This was 100% humanity at its best.

They rebuilt the most critical core code on a near antique spacecraft that has effectively left the solar system over an equally ancient radio link. They had 1 shot, and nailed it.

My phone autocorrect has been ducking annoying recently.

Thanks for the heads up.

The consensus in the trans community is to let a potential partner know earlier, rather than later. It avoids the situation you’ve encountered. Some men also can react violently, when they find out, so it’s quite a critical dilemma to them.

Unfortunately, not all follow that mindset. They also tend to bust out a lot, and so lead a lot of men on.

It’s a bit like the scumbag dilemma women face. Very few men are scumbags, yet women encounter them regularly when dating. Most men try not to annoy the women they find attractive. They are careful in their approach mentality. This means they only make a few approaches (relatively). They also tend to pair off, and so exit the pool. Scumbags cast a wide net, and don’t hang on to women for long. This means they make a LOT of approaches, and so annoy a vastly disproportionate number of women.

Basically most trans people try to be as polite and careful about it as possible. A few, unfortunately, can destroy the reputation of the rest by being scumbags about it, at least locally.

Unfortunately, it’s not a useful one. While we know approximately where it is, we don’t know how deep the gravity well is. That gravity well slows the passage of time, just like the earth does. Without an exact mass, and mass density, we can’t calculate the correction factor.

It’s not too bad. Relativity says that no frame of reference is special.

• On earth, a second looks like a second, but a second on the moon looks too quick.

• On the moon, the second looks like a second, but a second on earth looks too slow.

Both are actually correct. The simplest solution is to declare 1 to be the base reference. In this case, the earth second. Any lunar colonies will just have to accept that their second is slightly longer than they think it should be.

If it helps, the difference is tiny. A second is 6.5x10^-10 seconds longer. This works out to 56 microseconds per 24 hours. It won’t affect much for a long time. About the only thing affected would be a lunar GPS.

Depressingly, that’s around 2x the cost/Tb.

It seems to allow it, in a sense. The errors are also left on the transmission end. By transmitting them normally, the 2 signals can be combined to recreate the data. Something is shared, at some point.

It’s definitely a “we’re not sure what’s actually going on” type situation though. Either both ends are drawing on some (otherwise) hidden data layer, or FTL transmission is allowed, so long as no information flows (information as defined by quantum mechanics). It just turns out that weird entanglement based systems are the only ones (we’ve found so far) able to send infomationless transmissions.

Both solutions would give deeper insights into reality, and its underpinnings. Unfortunately, we’ve not actually teased out which is happening.

My gut feeling is that the speed of light is a side effect of a fixed/stable causality across all rest frames. Hidden information seems to be a lot more cumbersome.

The universe seems to be keyed to disallow time travel. The speed of light limit, in relativity, is sat exactly at the limit where time travel would become possible. Conversely, quantum mechanics does allow for FTP transmission. What it doesn’t allow is information to flow along those links. It’s hit with a 0.5 error rate, which completely blocks FTP communication.

General relativity does allow for a few time travel options. However, these are sat well off in the sticks, where quantum relativity would dominate. Since we don’t have such a theory yet, our predictions are likely wrong. Even within these theories, a time machine would require a “closed timelike curve”. These can, in theory be made using several rapidly rotating black holes. Any ship traversing it, would never be able to leave before the time machine was built.

Basically, time travel is almost certainly blocked by our laws of physics. Any loopholes would be limited to the lifetime of the “machine” and would require stellar level engineering for even a few seconds of travel.

Not got anything to particularly hand. It’s mostly offhand articles and pub discussions (drunken freeform thinking is remarkably common and useful in physicists, let alone with undergrads). By its nature, it is into the realm of philosophy, rather than science. It is untestable, since there couldn’t be any communication with other bubbles.

As for the time flow, it’s fairly arbitrary. We perceive ourselves moving through time via indirect means. Those are potentially an illusion, even in our bubble. The rate of entropy, or the speed of light could be vastly different. That would change the perceived “speed of time” (whatever that means!) compared to some arbitrary communal rest frame.

The big issue is that we don’t currently understand our own space-time. Speculating on over variances is very much “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin”.

If you want something a little more scientific, cosmic bubble theory is the current version of the theory.

Oh, and the same base assumptions basically preclude FTL. In a relativistic universe, FTL is time travel, with all the resultant problems (tachyonic anti-telephone being just the most obvious)

Interestingly it’s possible the universe could be older elsewhere. One of the theories regarding the big bang is that space-time underwent a phase change. The higher level phase had sufficiently different physics to let the energy level equalise despite the speed of light limits.

There is no reason the entire thing collapsed back into its current state at once. 1 theory has it happening as energy density dropped below a critical limit. Others have “bubbles” of “normal” space time forming, and expanding through the unshifted medium. There is no reason bubbles couldn’t be massively apart, temporally. The catch is, the bubbles will likely never have any communication, rendering the point abstract at best.

There’s also no reason the bubbles collapsed the same way. Other bubbles could have a vastly different flow rate of time, or a different number of spacial dimensions.

This is all head-of-a-pin physics however. As it stands, we couldn’t detect even a type 3 civilization out near the edge of our observable universe. That is also before light cone issues.

That relies on the “tired light” hypothesis being correct. It solves a number of problems, in a more elegant way. However, it also requires explanations for some new mismatches. E.g. why the cosmic background radiation doesn’t seem to have aged the same way.

It’s a theory that can’t be immediately dismissed, which makes it interesting, but it’s far from proven. Scientists can now look for details that would differ between the 2 models, and so help clarify what is happening.