How do you explain it?

[Jestak]

Greetings,

Indeed, the time distorsion is not linear. I was just simplifying too much.

Concerning other comments:
"Sounds to me like the kind of twaddle a scifi writer would come out with- Asimov or Clarke from the sound of it. "

Nope, it came from a very serious scientific community. First time I read about it, it was in Discovery magazine then I made some more researches on the web. It is a simple classification. There are others, but this one is the most known and it is done in relation with energy consumption. I am not a physicist or futurologist. Just a simple engineer. hehe

"Why would you *want* to harness all the energy of a galaxy, or a solar system, or a planet? If we could harness all of Earth's energy, we would have thousands of times more energy than we had any clue what to do with."

Not really. Our knowledge of the universe and fundamental physic is far beyond our technological knowledge. Only the energy of the earth will be far from suficient in a distant futur. I gave as an example the Star Trek Enterprise. In theory, a ship like that one would deplete the earth energy in a very few time.

I am not offensed at all. Just that I can't put here the whole "Energy classification" thing. It was more to point out to some people to fin some reading. I underestimated the people by simplifying too much. Anyway, next time I'll have more scientific rigor.

Thank you

[DarkHorse]

Sounds to me like the kind of twaddle a scifi writer would come out with- Asimov or Clarke from the sound of it.

Asimov wrote and published over 400 books in his lifetime, including textbooks on mathematics, science and physics. I would hardly describe his life's body of work as "twaddle". There is nothing wrong with inventing hypothetical technology in the context of telling a story.

He also hated the term 'scifi', preferring science fiction, or S.F. for short.

[dogscoff]

Asimov wrote and published over 400 books in his lifetime, including textbooks on mathematics, science and physics. I would hardly describe his life's body of work as "twaddle".

I've nothing against Asimov, I do have criticisms of his work, but on the whole I like his stuff a lot. If you don't believe me, just go to http://www.dogscoff.co.uk/fiction and click "influences".

There is nothing wrong with inventing hypothetical technology in the context of telling a story.

Absolutely. I have been known to do it myself from time to time. I might not be published, and as I clearly state in the "influences" page I directed you to just now* I wouldn't put myself on the same level as Asimov, but I *was* including myself in the the collective term "scifi writers" when I referred to their (and therefore my own) output as "twaddle".

Because let's face it, it is. No matter how much fun it is to write and to read, and how cleverly researched, and how often a writer gets lucky and actually predicts or inspires something, scifi is nothing but telling tall tales with a little fancy guesswork mixed in.

However, I digress. The point I was trying to get across was that the "classification of civilisations" thing posted earlier has nothing to do with "inventing hypothetical technology". It doesn't describe a technology at all, it's just an arbitrary and largely meaningless statement that sounds to me like it was just made up by someone or other because it sounds a bit cool and a bit scientific and a bit like the three laws or robotics and a bit like the Drake equation, despite the fact that it is waaaaaaaaaay too vague to have any basis in actual science.

He also hated the term 'scifi', preferring science fiction, or S.F. for short.

Too bad, I like 'scifi', or better yet, 'sciffy'. Sorry Mr Asimov


*EDIT: The bit in italics is actually stated in a different part of the same site. Click "Courier" to read it, instead of "influences". Read the courier stories while you're there=-)

[dogscoff]

Only the energy of the earth will be far from suficient in a distant futur. I gave as an example the Star Trek Enterprise. In theory, a ship like that one would deplete the earth energy in a very few time.

Exactly, so why would you ever do that? By the time you have that kind of technology, you'd (hopefully) have sources of energy that don't require you to bleed your homeworld completely dry in a matter of years for the sake of delivering a few red-shirts to their grisly deaths around the galaxy.

[Alneyan]

dogscoff said:
Exactly, so why would you ever do that? By the time you have that kind of technology, you'd (hopefully) have sources of energy that don't require you to bleed your homeworld completely dry in a matter of years for the sake of delivering a few red-shirts to their grisly deaths around the galaxy.

I see at least one wonderful use of this sort of "bleeding the homeworld dry" plan: wouldn't that be a powerful incentive to get that colonisation programme up and running? In SEIV, it is so easy to find settlers, but it might be a bit harder to convince the Terrans to travel to the magnificient, frozen planet of Tergiverse IV, especially if they have to stay twenty years in a spaceship to get there.

Therefore, the destruction of the homeworld is the key to a successful expansion to nearby stellar systems, so long as you do focus on spreading all the settlers a lot: if they all went to the same planet, you would have to repeat the whole process from scratch.

Don't you just love being a slightly manipulative Overlord, who *has* to convince those mindless sl... your fellow citizens that you are doing all those things for their good? And the thankless masses try to kill you, as a reward for all your years of benevolent rule. Tsk.

[dogscoff]

Alneyan said:
...the destruction of the homeworld is the key to a successful expansion to nearby stellar systems...

You know, one of the reasons I love this board so much is the fact that you guys never cease outdoing one another with such beautifully machiavellian megalomania. It really makes me proud to be a power-crazed dictator.

Thankyou Alneyan, thankyou.

[Aiken]

Alneyan said:Therefore, the destruction of the homeworld is the key to a successful expansion to nearby stellar systems, so long as you do focus on spreading all the settlers a lot: if they all went to the same planet, you would have to repeat the whole process from scratch.

Hidjra (ar.) - massive exodus of terrans from Earth in XXII century due to a cataclysm caused by a black hole placed into the Earth's core. See: "Hyperion"(Simmons), "Dying Earth" b. I-XXXII (Silen).

Those damn scifi writers stole all our ideas before we even make them up!

[dogscoff]

Alneyan said:
I see at least one wonderful use of this sort of "bleeding the homeworld dry" plan: wouldn't that be a powerful incentive to get that colonisation programme up and running?

The Empire of Enforced Entropy... bleeds every last microjoule out of every last atom before moving on...