>>78669
...which all resolve themselves nicely if it's not possible for retrocausality events to interfere with themselves in such a way as to unlink cause and effect.

The universe already has virtual particles, and the equations for fusion reactions involve temperatures in negative kelvin. Strange behavior is common, and a universe where retrocausality is valid if and only if destructive interference is impossible is quite reasonable.

Counterpoint: Time doesn't necessarily flow backwards and forward. Time can instead be treated as Event to Event, while maintaining causality.

While strange, let's take events A, B, and C. A caused B, B caused C.

However when viewed in a linear time line C appeared to happen first, A "Now" and B in the future. Nevertheless, conservation of energy and causality is still in effect-merely back and forth through time.

>>78672
Yeah that's just some lines, you didn't deal with relativity at all there. Not sure if trolling.

>>78676
That is not what causality means! The cause always comes before the effect if causality is in place.

Guys, guys, I think I just figured out the special set of keywords to use to describe what's going on here:
"Until further notice assume we are using Star Trek-oid physics."

>>/quest/553432
If you need to be at one of the end points then warping a black hole FROM anywhere is impossible, as you would need to have the drive warp from inside the black hole.

You could, however, warp TO a black hole and swap locations with its core up to the volume of the exchanged space. This would result in a massive explosion where the black hole was and a (possibly smaller) black hole were you left.

While this would be an absolutely horrifying means of sabotaging enemy ships when they try to leave a military center, you couldn't use it to put a black hole inside a sun as that would require you BE inside the sun in the first place.

Also remember that this is swapping two locations outright, not making a portal between them. So getting close to a black hole to warp it someplace wouldn't do anything.

>>78682
wouldn't need to put one inside a sun, just NEAR one. gravity will handle the rest.

>>78683
Any ship attempting to swap places with a black hole would almost certainly be destroyed. That's an important detail.

... It is important because we are not going to be sending any friendly intelligences on suicide missions, so these things must be planned out FAR in advance.

>>78685
just have a blink drive with a timer on it. turn the timer on and it will start when the timer activates. and the ship that deployed it can also blink away from the thing. also, how much blinks depends on exactly what a black hole looks like under it's Schwarzschild radius. it could be 1dimensional DOT of impossibly dense material. meaning a swap will swap everything in the black hole that matters.

>>78687
The Schwarzschild radius of the universe is APPROXIMATELY the size of the universe. We are uncertain if the universe is a black hole or not.

Inside a black hole could actually be very sparsely populated.

The drive works by sending a beampair to the halfway point of the jump, with the beampair travelling at 0.0002c the the halfway point. The endpoint then becomes the halfway point for each successive jump, and each jump takes 23 minutes.

Working backwards:
Distance to target is x
The final jump (n) will be from 0.5x to x (0.5x long)
The penultime jump (n-1) will be from 0.25x to 0.5x (0.25x long)
(n-2) will be from 0.125x to 0.25x (0.125x long)
(n-3) will be from 0.0625x to 0.125x (0.0625x long)
...

Or:
length of jump 'm' = l(m) = x/q
q = 2^j
j = n-(m-1)

n = 4

j : m : distance * x : q = 2^j
--------------------------------
1 : 4 : 0.5 = 1/2 : 2 = 2^1
2 : 3 : 0.25 = 1/4 : 4 = 2^2
3 : 2 : 0.125 = 1/8 : 8 = 2^3
4 : 1 : 0.0625 = 1/16 : 16 = 2^4

length of jump 'm' = l(m) = x/(2^(n-(m-1)))

23minutes = 1380s

Jump time = (n * 1380s) + first jump travel time

first jump travel time = 0.0002c * x/(2^n)



Total jump time = (n * 1380s) + 0.0002c * x/(2^n)
or
Total jump time = 1380n + 0.0002 * c * 2^-n * x


Will turn this something useful when less tired.

>>78690
The universe is very definitely not a black hole, because it's EXPANDING(and expanding faster every moment). If anything, it's a white hole, because everything was a singularity in the past, rather than a singularity in the future.

OK, turns out most of that was superflous, the only important jump is the first one.
You want the longest jump possible before it becomes more efficient to take two jumps:
1380s + 0.5*x/0.0002c < 2760s + 0.25*x/0.0002c
0.5*x/0.0002c < 1380s + 0.25*x/0.0002c
0.25*x/0.0002c < 1380s
0.25*x < 1380s * 0.0002c
x < 4 * 1380s * 0.0002c
x < 1654854368160m

Or more palatably, 1.66×10^9 kilometers, or 1.53 light-hours. Any further than that, and it's faster to do two jumps.

So the most efficient number of jumps for any distance x, is one where you do as few jumps as possible, but the shortest jump is under 1.53 light-hours.

>>78695
There are a LOT of problems with that statement.
First, the fact that the universe is expanding means nothing as being inside a black hole simply means you can't LEAVE, not that you can't approach the event horizon from the inside.
Second, the universe isn't simply expanding, but it's expanding at an accelerating rate for reasons which are unknown. That 'unknown' is the big deal.
Third, we THINK the Schwarzchild radius of the universe is about 13bly, and the radius of the universe is about 14bly. The margin of error on our estimates of both the mass of the universe and the radius of the universe result in there being a significant margin for potential overlap.

1 lightyear = 9460730472580800 m
Distance to IC 10 ~ 2200000 ly = 20813607039677760000000 m = let's call it D
Distance traveled at .0002 c for 23 minutes ~ 82742718.408 m = let's call it F
Log base 2 (D / F) ~ 47.837816
Can't do fractional jumps, so the total number of jumps J = 48
Most efficient distance for the beam to travel to avoid overshooting = D / 2 ^ J ~ 73944786 m
73944786 / F * 23 minutes ~ 20 minutes, 33 seconds beam travel time
Total time to travel to IC 10 ~ 18 hours, 44 minutes, 33 seconds
Not bad for intergalactic travel.

>>78698
If the universal black hole's schwarzchild radius is less than or equal to the current radius of the observable universe, and that radius is expanding, then you're just plain wrong.

Anyway, the only thing that measurement indicates in practice is that the universe is spacially flat.

>>78700
It's PROBABLY smaller, but not CERTAINLY smaller. This topic - if the universe is a black hole or not - is still debated. And remember that there is still no understood mechanism explaining how the rate of expansion is accelerating.

On the other point, the universe expanding doesn't mean it's not a black hole. If you throw a baseball into the air you can't say it's not stuck in a gravity well.

>>78701
If the baseball keeps going faster, then it's not stuck in a gravity well, is it?

>>78707
That depends if you've let go of it yet or not.

We don't understand why the acceleration is happening, so we don't know what it means.

>>78708
You've thrown it into the air. Against the pull of gravity. It keeps going faster.

Don't muddy the issue and go "oh we don't know what it's caused by" to make it look like I can't say you're wrong.

You're wrong.

>>78712
All he's saying is that if you don't understand the mechanics, you can't make predictions. If you throw a baseball straight up and it starts speeding up something strange is going on. Maybe it accelerates forever, maybe it stops, without knowing why or how it's doing it, its future is ambiguous.

>>78714
If that was what he was saying, he wouldn't have brought it up in response to "it depends on what black holes are like inside"- he's arguing that the universe could be a black hole and thus maybe we don't even know that black holes are weird inside. They definitely are.

At the very least, we know black holes are INCREDIBLY DENSE. It would make no sense for the universe to have a schwarzchild radius bigger than its radius and thus be a black hole, because the universe is INCREDIBLY SPREAD OUT.

>>78717
The Schwarzchild radius of a system is 2Gm/c^2.
G is the gravitational constant, m is the mass of the object, and c is the speed of light.
2, G, and c are all constants, so it works out to m times a constant. THAT constant is 1.48*10^−27 m/kg. Yes, it's meters per kilogram; the radius increases linearly with mass.
For easy reference, it works out to be about 2.95 kilometers per solar mass.
While mass increases linearly, volume increases cubically. As a result density drops very rapidly.

However, in the course of writing this I discovered that my understanding of the universe was based on information available when I was in high school. Based on new information I must concede that the universe is almost certainly not a black hole.

CORE. Stop being an idiot and trying to answer questions people are suggesting the character should ask. You're not the author, you don't know how the quest's science works! That's the point of asking questions!

Also you're still using the main thread for discussion! Exclamation points!!!

>>78722
That just means a black hole can have a lot of empty space before you reach the singularity. It's still a dense object.

>>78723
hello, glad to see you here. now a suggestion is fine and dandy, but you are asking things that everyone can simply infer as impossible.

here, do it yourself experiment. take a piece of paper, fold it in half. cut a hole in it. that is how the drive works. you are asking to cut a hole in one side. cut another hole closer to the center. and then after folding it. try to make something go through one hole, and out the other. it just does NOT work that way. and asking is simply a waste of time.

Just reading these arguments is making my day.

Liking the quest.

>>78726
I've been posting here the entire time you gigantic dumbass.

You think we HAVE TO cut a hole at the start, but that has not been made clear in the quest. Dumbass.

>>78732
Of course not. The quest made it abundantly clear you cut the hole at the END just before you swap places.

>>78732
>>78734
yes, which is exactly what i said. fold the paper, cut the hole.

>>78734
No, that's how they CURRENTLY do it. It was not stated that it's the ONLY way to do it.

To fully exploit a system you shouldn't just try to use the given tools in better ways. You should try to change the tools themselves. Find ways to eliminate their limitations or work around them. Find ways to broaden their scope or power. Don't just assume that the given way the tools are presented is all there is to them. That's NOT thinking outside the box.

I shouldn't have to fight with you dumbasses about this. If what I'm suggesting is impossible, then the author will tell us. Arguing against asking questions like this is self-sabotage!

>>/quest/553807
0.04% of light speed is 119916.983m/s. That's 119km/s. I wouldn't call that slow. I think you're disregarding the fact that the sun is very very far away, and light moves very very very fast. Keep in mind we're trying to turn this thing into a weapon, not a faster method of travel. Distances at which we would use such a weapon would generally be shorter than the distance between the sun and the earth.

Anonymous 2013/12/27(Fri)11:46 No. 78740 ID: 2f4b71
File 138817360039.png - (47.46KB , 1440x400 , jump.png )

Mount two fold drives on a ship, facing opposite directions. Move your ship backward through one fold and fire the beampair forward through the other (so it passes through two folds, rather than one). Your baseline for the second fold is now twice the distance it would be. Continue to do this for each jump, and you will always be a jump faster than any other ship.

>>78739

I used 1 AU to demonstrate an inherent flaw with your design.
In order for your idea to work the end point needs to pass from the absolute limit of the detection range to danger close faster than the enemy's systems can negate the jump. 1AU is about 8.3 light-minutes and a conservative estimate for the limit of fold detection.
In truth the detection radius around a planet is likely more in the range of 12 light minutes, as it would be a tactical blunder to allow somebody to warp into your system behind the sun. This is assuming they haven't deployed multiple countermeasure systems throughout their more important systems.

Actually breaking the system would be more like, say, creating an Ansible powerful enough and a beacon small enough that the Ansible could instantly send the beacon anywhere, thus rendering detection and countermeasures ineffective by means of fait accompli.

Anonymous 2013/12/27(Fri)12:19 No. 78742 ID: 2f4b71
File 138817554193.png - (201.11KB , 2892x500 , jump2.png )

>>78740
It's actually more than just 1 jump ahead.
If you can jump through folds created by drives not on the ship (i.e. a 'jump drone'), then you could send a drone in the opposite direction to the ship using the same technique, then for the 'final' jump the ship would hop back to the drone's last jump point before 'doubling back' to fire it's beampair through it;s own 'forwardmost' jump point, doubling the final jump length.

What happens if you cross two sets of fold-beams at the same intersect point?

>>78741
You assume enemies can move near lightspeed, but as far as we know, this 4d warp drive is the fastest way to travel distances comparable to 1AU. Always with the assumptions...

Oh and even if we could send a beacon via ansible it wouldn't be able to create a fold in less than 23 minutes.

>>78740
This doesn't work because you can't jump backwards and then send a beam forwards through the tear you just used. The tear in space isn't a portal, it's a SWAP. You can't reuse a tear- beams are sent through by "catching" the particles involved. You would have to set up a beacon to stay put and keep the network active, like the ones on Earth's surface.

Also, that diagram and this
>>78742
diagram are both wrong. For each jump, the new fold point is X distance away from the last endpoint. The beam travels the same distance each time, it's just skipping progressively further ahead with each fold. With the way the diagrams are set up, the beam isn't moving at all after the first fold. That's less efficient than how it actually works.

The image attached is the correct way it works. Well, the upper half is, anyway. Oh, but I made a small error. "tear begins" and "tear ends" are misleading. They are equally valid as end points and start points, because everything is swapped in the area of the tear.

Anonymous 2013/12/31(Tue)20:02 No. 78819 ID: 9b57d3
File 138854895276.png - (117.90KB , 1440x400 , 138817360039.png )

>>78817
Shit I forgot the image. Sorry about the shitty lines, I'm not used to Paint.

>>78817
>>78819
nope. the hole BECOMES the new mid point for the next jump.

>>78824
You are mistaken. Reread the explanation.

Anonymous 2014/01/05(Sun)00:55 No. 78904 ID: 761017
File 138891214194.png - (14.73KB , 521x534 , Capture.png )

I think i understand it now.

Distance to travel is pre-calculated, and the quantity+angle of the beam-pairs is determined.

All beam-pairs are fired at the same time.

BP1 intersects first, folding BP2 and BP3 forward.
BP2 intersects second, folding BP3 forward.
BP3 intersects third, forming the final transit space.

Is it wrong to think in terms of portals?

>>78904
That doesn't look right. It's similar to how it works, though.

Each time the beams intersect they swap space between where they started and an equal distance away from their endpoint, which is how the beams jump ahead for each cycle. Those lines you drew appear to be the fold lines, not the beams.

Anonymous 2014/01/05(Sun)22:09 No. 78917 ID: 761017
File 138898856358.png - (6.49KB , 384x315 , Capture.png )

>>78909
Like this then?

Th beams should still need to have the angles pre-calculated, then fired all at once, for a multi-fold jump.

no, the beams do not fire all at once. it was descibed earlier, BY THE AUTHOR. that one pair fires, makes a hole second pair fires THROUGH the hole to make the next jump, third pair fires through the new hole and the first pair shuts off, once the third pair makes a hole the first pair cycles back on and fires through it. the hole is formed... basically on top of the ship. the intersect point is midway between the two holes. if you fired them all at once they would all form at different spots. not go through the hole.

Core 2014/01/05(Sun)22:52 No. 78920 ID: 53ba34
File 138899112365.png - (28.97KB , 1607x894 , portals.png )

made a diagram of my own. black spots are the ship/emitter.
top is single fold. fires single pair. beams hit midpoint. ship folds to other side.
middle is double fold. fires a beam pair. beams hit. fires another beam pair through the hole made by the first. ship then folds around where the second beam intersected.
finally a three times fold. fires beams, fires beams through that fold. then fires beams through the second fold. then the ship folds all the way around the third point.

Anonymous 2014/01/06(Mon)08:44 No. 78923 ID: 7bbaae
File 138902666333.png - (6.85KB , 948x422 , folding.png )

>>78920
That's... really not how the tears happen. It's like this (image) but the tear points at the start should all be in the same spot, and the ship has to move forwards to get into the final tear point. I just can't really draw it that way.

I'm not sure why you're having trouble understanding this, it's really simple.

>>78917
The beams don't travel instantly, so there's a delay between each fold. If you fired all the beams at the same time it wouldn't work.

>>78923
yes yes, erase my extra lines and you get yours. i left them in so you can visualize the folding better.

>>78924
Uh no you don't. You have 12 tear points when there are actually 6.

Core 2014/01/06(Mon)09:14 No. 78926 ID: 53ba34
File 138902845804.png - (26.17KB , 1607x894 , portals2.png )

here it is again, with extra lines erased. ta-dah

>>78926
Well okay I guess you were talking about the circles too. What did all that represent?

>>78928
same thing yours did. but with everything visible so you could see how the folds interacted with each other.

>>78929
They don't though? I mean, when space is folded it's only actually affecting anything at the tear points. It's not like you're duplicating space.