Request Alien-Shaped UMmu

[ZombiezuRFER]

I don't know about astronomers, but I do know scifi writers typically use parsec over lightyear.

 

[Izack]

Wait don't most astronomers use parsec instead of ly

I don't know about astronomers, but I do know scifi writers typically use parsec over lightyear.

The parsec makes sense to astronomers on Earth, since it's a unit of measurement based on Earth's position in the Solar System, which probably isn't very common knowledge to all those aliens out there. The light year on the other hand is based on one of the few universally constant values we know: the vacuum speed of light. The light year would also make more sense particularly to the interstellar traveller, who likely measures his velocity in fractions of C.

I blame Star Wars for making the parsec popular in sci-fi. "The only ship to make the Kessel Run in less than five parsecs." How the heck do people a long time ago in a galaxy far away know how far away our Earth is from its star, let alone our units of measurement, or our language, or our appearance, or how badass Harrison Ford is, or our very existence...

 

[ZombiezuRFER]

The parsec makes sense to astronomers on Earth, since it's a unit of measurement based on Earth's position in the Solar System, which probably isn't very common knowledge to all those aliens out there. The light year on the other hand is based on one of the few universally constant values we know: the vacuum speed of light. The light year would also make more sense particularly to the interstellar traveller, who likely measures his velocity in fractions of C.

I blame Star Wars for making the parsec popular in sci-fi. "The only ship to make the Kessel Run in less than five parsecs." How the heck do people a long time ago in a galaxy far away know how far away our Earth is from its star, let alone our units of measurement, or our language, or our appearance, or how badass Harrison Ford is, or our very existence...

Star wars may be using a different parsec measurement, maybe based on Coruscant?

 

[T.Neo]

Star wars may be using a different parsec measurement, maybe based on Coruscant?

Corusant being a basis of a measuring system has far more effects than just messing around with measures of distance, but also measures of time... the "standard" Star Wars day is implied to be the same as ours, but Coruscant is said to orbit far out from a small star, which would mean a much longer year.

If Corusant's year is much longer than Earth's the timeline of Star Wars might be pretty oddly skewed.

 

[ZombiezuRFER]

Corusant being a basis of a measuring system has far more effects than just messing around with measures of distance, but also measures of time... the "standard" Star Wars day is implied to be the same as ours, but Coruscant is said to orbit far out from a small star, which would mean a much longer year.

If Corusant's year is much longer than Earth's the timeline of Star Wars might be pretty oddly skewed.

Looking at the wookiepedia page for it, it says that Coruscant days may be 0.75 1 earth day, and they have a 368 day year, which makes the parsec and year equal to Earth's.

 

[T.Neo]

368 of which days? Coruscant days, or Earth days?

0.75 multiplied by 368 is 276, therefore the year would be 276 days...

 

[ZombiezuRFER]

368 of which days? Coruscant days, or Earth days?

0.75 multiplied by 368 is 276, therefore the year would be 276 days...

Just saying what wookiepedia said.

 

[fsci123]

Well in a blunt perspective light years is relativistic... Asuming there was a ETciv on a planet orbiting a M star every 30 days there ly will be 1/12 of ours... Asuming they have an organized universal concept of time...

 

[T.Neo]

I'm having trouble how seeing how an alien could not have an "organised universal concept of time", just like they could not have an "organised universal concept of space". It's pretty simple stuff, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to know X, Y, Z, and... T.

Light years is pretty much just as bad as "parsecs" when you're relating to someone from another star system (though I've mostly seen light-years and only rarely parsecs, in human publications ).

Even the Meter is no universal measurement, as it is originally based on geography of Earth- the distance from Paris to the north pole (though it's now defined by either the speed of light or the spectrum of Krypton, I can't remember which).

The only universal measurements would be those based on the planck constants (and we don't know those with sufficient precision to base a measurement system on). And to get them on any human (or alien) scale, you'd need to shift them by many orders of magnitude.

So, if the planck constants are universal, why don't we use them to replace the metric system? Because the metric system does its job just fine. It has been accepted worldwide for decades, and is a very intuitive system (unlike the un-intuitive, rubbish inter-relations in the Imperial system).

And that would likely apply to an alien civilisation as well- once they adopted an adequate system of measurements- a system, mind you, nevermind the actual measurements, switching over to some wacky planck-constant based measurement system is not only useless, but would undermine decades of implementation of a system that can do its job just fine.

 

[ZombiezuRFER]

I'm having trouble how seeing how an alien could not have an "organised universal concept of time", just like they could not have an "organised universal concept of space". It's pretty simple stuff, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to know X, Y, Z, and... T.

Light years is pretty much just as bad as "parsecs" when you're relating to someone from another star system (though I've mostly seen light-years and only rarely parsecs, in human publications ).

Even the Meter is no universal measurement, as it is originally based on geography of Earth- the distance from Paris to the north pole (though it's now defined by either the speed of light or the spectrum of Krypton, I can't remember which).

The only universal measurements would be those based on the planck constants (and we don't know those with sufficient precision to base a measurement system on). And to get them on any human (or alien) scale, you'd need to shift them by many orders of magnitude.

So, if the planck constants are universal, why don't we use them to replace the metric system? Because the metric system does its job just fine. It has been accepted worldwide for decades, and is a very intuitive system (unlike the un-intuitive, rubbish inter-relations in the Imperial system).

And that would likely apply to an alien civilisation as well- once they adopted an adequate system of measurements- a system, mind you, nevermind the actual measurements, switching over to some wacky planck-constant based measurement system is not only useless, but would undermine decades of implementation of a system that can do its job just fine.

How are planck measurements constant? What if 2/3rds a plank time was the smallest measured time for these aliens?

 

[Izack]

I seem to have forgotten the 'year' half of light-year... :facepalm:

 

[fsci123]

I'm having trouble how seeing how an alien could
not have an "organised universal concept of time", just like they
could not have an "organised universal concept of space". It's pretty
simple stuff, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to know X, Y, Z,
and... T.

Light years is pretty much just as bad as "parsecs" when you're
relating to someone from another star system (though I've mostly seen
light-years and only rarely parsecs, in human publications
).

Even the Meter is no universal measurement, as it is originally based
on geography of Earth- the distance from Paris to the north pole
(though it's now defined by either the speed of light or the spectrum
of Krypton, I can't remember which).

The only universal measurements would be those based on the planck
constants (and we don't know those with sufficient precision to base a
measurement system on). And to get them on any human (or alien) scale,
you'd need to shift them by many orders of magnitude.

So, if the planck constants are universal, why don't we use them to
replace the metric system? Because the metric system does its job just
fine. It has been accepted worldwide for decades, and is a very
intuitive system (unlike the un-intuitive, rubbish inter-relations in
the Imperial system).

And that would likely apply to an alien civilisation as well- once
they adopted an adequate system of measurements- a system, mind
you, nevermind the actual measurements, switching over to some wacky
planck-constant based measurement system is not only useless, but
would undermine decades of implementation of a system that can do its
job just fine.

Years measure the orbit of the earth around the sun.
Months measure the orbit of the moon around the sun.
Weeks vary by culture 10 for the Egyptians, 8 for the Celts, 7 for the
Babylonians, 6 for the Africans and, 5 for the Javanese but their
basic purpose is to group days...
Days measure the complete rotation of the earth...
Hours subdivide days...
And so on...



Now how do you expect a civialization living on a tidally locked planet if there are no noticable days or years would keep time...

 

[ZombiezuRFER]

Years measure the orbit of the earth around the sun.
Months measure the orbit of the moon around the sun.
Weeks vary by culture 10 for the Egyptians, 8 for the Celts, 7 for the
Babylonians, 6 for the Africans and, 5 for the Javanese but their
basic purpose is to group days...
Days measure the complete rotation of the earth...
Hours subdivide days...
And so on...



Now how do you expect a civialization living on a tidally locked planet if there are no noticable days or years would keep time...

There could be seasons if the planet were on an axial tilt similar to Earth's, like a Northern Winter, and etc.

 

[fsci123]

There could be seasons if the planet were on an axial tilt similar to Earth's, like a Northern Winter, and etc.

It's tidaly locked it has no seasons...

 

[ZombiezuRFER]

It's tidaly locked it has no seasons...

Tidal lock means one side of it is always facing its star, similar to how the moon always faces the earth with only one side. It means there can still be seasons.

 

[fsci123]

Tidal lock means one side of it is always facing its star, similar to how the moon always faces the earth with only one side. It means there can still be seasons.

Explain to me how is that possible and ill contradict...

Zhaboi

 

[Izack]

Explain to me how is that possible and ill contradict...

Zhaboi

Take an easy example: the Moon. Its axis of rotation is slightly inclined its orbit around Earth despite being tidally locked. It becomes very apparent when looking at animations of its [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libration"]libration[/ame].

The effects of seasons on a planet tidally locked to its star would likely be overshadowed by the effects of constant sunlight on one hemisphere and constant darkness in the other, though.

 

[fsci123]

Take an easy example: the Moon. Its axis of rotation is slightly inclined its orbit around Earth despite being tidally locked. It becomes very apparent when looking at animations of its libration.

Yeah but its not enough to cause large seasonal changes...

 

[Izack]

Yeah but its not enough to cause large seasonal changes...

(See edit above.)

No, not drastic changes like on Earth. (In a few weeks the amount of snow in my yard went down from 3.5m thick to 2m...hooray spring! It'll be shortsleeve weather soon enough. )

 

[T.Neo]

Yeah, you won't get major axial tilt with a tidally locked world, it'll also become... tidally locked.

Now how do you expect a civialization living on a tidally locked planet if there are no noticable days or years would keep time...

There's a difference between keeping time and knowing that time exists.

If they're building interstellar spacecraft, they undoubtedly know both that time exists and how to keep track of it.

There are still ways to monitor time on a tidally locked world... for example, the movement of the parent star by libration, or measuring the size of the parent star due to an eccentric orbit (even relatively minor eccentricity could cause a cyclic change in weather patterns, which would be known from prehistory).

So... the passage of time wouldn't be as obvious as it is on Earth, and maybe that could negatively affect their technological/societal development, but it would exist, and there would be natural ways to observe it...

Who knows, they might even invent something like a water clock, which they could use to measure the length of certain events... in that case, they could use an entirely arbitrary means of measuring time, just like our means of measuring mass or length...