What I love about this episode is that it’s almost scene for scene from the books. Even the dialogue is the same, reading about Saul’s character becoming a Wallfacer comes out of left field for the character and the reader.
Ep 8 is more or less opening chapter of Book 2 and the Staircase launch is concluding first few chapters of Book 3. “This Is Where the Fun Begins!” - Anakin Skywalker
I absolutely loved the fact that you two reacted to this show! I really, really love the books and I am very excited for season 2 of this show (being optimistic here) and hope that you react to that one as well.
Very minor spoiler: Da Chi actually told Saul the reason he was picked, it is because Ye Wenjie contacted him and told him the joke before she went back to China with purpose of ending herself. That joke has hidden message of how human can potentially solve the problem, and now Saul is the only person that knows this knowledge.
And presumably the SanTi don’t know what he was told either, but they did realize it was very important. Which is also the real reason they had Wenjie killed, they realized she wasn’t fully on their side anymore, still had ways to hurt their chances, and was using “stories” (“lies”) to tell important secrets.
I still cant imagine how they would film it all in next seasons ... From the books the whole story is too complex. The whole conflict between san ti and humans is just initial skirmish before revealing of much deeper problems about our universe and Earth future.
Yeah I've had dreams of adapting certain series. But 3 Body Problem , hurts to even think about fitting into even a 50 part series. Same with the warhammer40j series they are already ruining because Amazon's DEI policies conflict with an already seemingly DEI safe lore .
I kinda feel bad that I got introduced to those whole thing through the show. Mostly because it appears that the show spoiled parts of all three books, and if I read the books I'll spoil the show and all the cool visuals and stuff they could do.
In the end, when they made him see something that wasn't real, wasn't that contradictary to the fact that they claimed that they could not lie? Or did they learn to lie from us?
The San-Ti have already been manipulating that humans see (stars blinking, countdown in your eyes), what they were confused about is not knowing what the other person is thinking when in direct communication. Their paradigm was that communication means sharing one's thoughts, that's what they can't do, *communicate* a lie.
As a reader of the books, this is an awesome and creative adaptation. The only gripe I think people could have is them extending the capabilities of the sophons. I hope they realize how many potential plot holes they have created and that they dial it down in further seasons. You mentioned the science, if you can I’d recommend at least reading the last chapter of the first book called Sophon as gives some beautifully detailed descriptions of their technology from the perspective of the San-Ti.
I mean in fairness, there’s really no getting around plot holes when you include something that can break causality. They might have let them do even more, but that’s a pretty huge start that cascades out. Not criticizing it the choice by the books either, to be clear, it was based on earlier understanding of a (relatively) newer concept with quantum entanglement, and it’s the nature of speculative fiction like sci-fi to pretty much always have to use some conceits that don’t obey known physics. But yeah there are a lot of plot holes that these extra capable Sophons open up that so far I’m content to file away under suspension of disbelief the same as I do the Epstein drives in Expanse that don’t stop that from being my favorite scifi yet made.
Honestly I expect to have a harder time with the assumptions that will presumably come up next season about fundamental aspects of how cosmic society would function and why. Not because they aren’t interesting concepts to consider, but more because so many people seem to have come away from reading the novels with the feeling that some of those concepts can be taken for granted as actually true. Let’s just say I’m not a big fan of the conjecture that has wound up being called by the name of the second book, haha.
@@ravissary79 They probably aren’t intended to be, unrestricted faster than light travel/passing of information like they allow necessarily breaks causality. The full explanations of exactly why are.. at the edges of what I can stretch my engineering focused physics training to completely understand, but it’s a pretty firm part of our current understanding of how physics works. There are a bunch of videos that go over the reason relativity leads to that limit, and there’s a pretty good/relatively straightforward (as much as that’s possible with relativity anyway) explanation from the Virginia Tech physics department, under “Special Relativity: section 10”. I think there are discussions of edge cases that under certain circumstances might be possible, but if this kind of faster than light information exchange was generally possible it would contradict a lot of fundamental physics.
@@ravissary79 Causality aside, quantum entanglement also just doesn’t work like pop culture uses it, it does exist but consensus is pretty consistent that it doesn’t allow transmitting information (at least not faster than light).
Don't count him out... but I'm saying no more. I don't know how thw show runners will do it, but read the books if you want to know. The character names and narrative timeline is different though.
I desperately want a season 2, but I'm nervous not enough people are watching the show, or that some of the concepts are beyond them. Also, no spoilers, but regarding the books, there are huge chunks that were cut out or changed around in order to help translate the story from book to screen. And the books go more in-depth with the science. Definitely worth a read. Or, at least the first one, since you've finished the season now.
The show did great actually, in terms of viewing numbers. The only issue is going to be the budget for the 2nd second season, this is why it's taking a little longer for them to officially confirm season 2. Same happened with The Sandman. But in terms of completion rates, which is what Netflix looks at to cancel or confirm upcoming seasons, the show did really well.
Some answers to your questions. There's literal hopelessness for humanity in that case that under full surveillance and blocked out any further progress in fundamental physics. You can think about that, is there any way out? So, the staircase , the wallfacer , their main reason for is "doing something" instead of "waiting to die". And from San-Ti's respect, they do have the interest of human's brain that they can't see through before they actually reach the earth. And Wade knows that, but after then, no one knows what will happen. Remember " the pacifist" ? There's a gap in San-Ti's society where lays the play of Will . And the wallfacer is also nonsense , before absolutely supreme civilization and San-Ti thinks too where exists a hiatus mankind can survive only by "doing something" ,an arduous work. There , I leave it to you , for season 2 or books.
Btw someone pointed out how evil Auggie is, her nanofibers are 0.00001micron, water molecules are 0.000275 micron, her nanofibers filtered out water molecules too. 😂
@@Zero_Requiemthe flaw in your math is assuming that because they are that thin(or thick), they’ll also be spaced that same distance apart for a filter, instead of calibrated to what size they need to filter out. They can also be paired in two, or any multiple really for increased thickness , with a single strand being the minimum, not the maximum.
I know this has nothing to do with this. But if you decide to finish the studio ghibli movies, can you consider watching Nausicaa: Valley of the Wind it was Hyao Miyazaki's first movie.
As a bookreader, I'll be lying if I say I love this show, there's so many error with it that I could rant about especially the part based on book 1, which already done way better in the Tencent Chinese series, but still I really like what they did with EP6-8, which largely stayed true to the plot from book 2 and book 3, and it's cool to see those words came alive on screen, and I really hope Netflix don't cancel the show!
Guys, I really enjoy your videos. I will be in Scotland in a week , and is there anyplace should definitely go see while I am there. Also, where is the place you two got married it looked so beautiful I thought I would check it out.
We got married at Mount Stuart on the Isle of Bute, if you're in Glasgow it's a day trip over there. Other than that there are loads of places you can go that are amazing. The country is a lot smaller than most people realise. If you're in the lowlands then you need to see Edinburgh Castle and Loch Lomand is beautiful for a day out. If you're in the Highlands then go seek out Nessie at Loch Ness. - Steejo
You have to remember that acceleration in space is smooth because space is a vacuum with no friction or turbulence to shake and possible destroy the pod. Meteoroids and small particles are more concerning to destroying the pod. If the pod reached 1% of light speed you wouldn't feel it no G force as there's no gravity in space l.
G forces are based on acceleration regardless of actual gravity, we just measure it in multiples of earth's gravity. g = 9.8m/s/s, 2g = 19.6m/s/s etc. 1% SoL is ~3m m/s, so they'd need to be accelerating for about 17 hours at 5Gs to get to that speed which didn't seem to be how they were doing it in the simulation. - Steejo
@@AmusedGermanShepherd-er5gp No, I get what you are thinking of but that's only true for a _constant_ velocity, no acceleration. That would be the case _after_ the probe reaches its final velocity, but while it's getting there the velocity is changing and change of velocity over a period of time is the definition of acceleration. That would be experienced as a gravity like force by the "passenger" (as well as all the components needing to withstand it). Lack of air for turbulence/friction etc might avoid shaking, sure, but those aren't what G-forces are referring to anyway. Steejo's comment above is correct for trying to get to that speed with only a 5G acceleration, so feeling 5 times the force of gravity. 5Gs would be a rough time for a human to experience over that kind of time scale but very doable, and for just a brain it would be very easy to cushion against a known direction of acceleration. However, using only the force from bombs (so only a very short burst of acceleration per explosion) the force would have to be far, far higher. Depending on how generous you are guessing at how long each blast would accelerate the probe, a VERY optimistic number would still would be more like 300 Gs experienced by the probe. The rate of change of acceleration (how quickly you go from constant speed/no acceleration to 300+ Gs and back to 0) would be even more extreme, and causes its own problems.
@AmusedGermanShepherd-er5gp If interested in a bit more specific, this made me curious so I looked back at the scenes showing the attempt in the show, and some of the expectations around the Orion pulsed nuclear propulsion concept that the Staircase project was inspired by. Still very rough estimates from what they show, but at least gives an idea of the scale we're looking at. And not nitpicking, I just thought it was interesting to know if their version of a very plausible concept (Orion) was still reasonable. It would be nice to just use the force number they give in the show to figure out the acceleration of the probe and be done with it, but they not only don't mention how long they expect the force to be effective each detonation, the 30kN number they give as a goal for force each bomb exerts on the sail is very wrong. 30kN of force acting on a 1 metric ton probe only gives about 3G's of acceleration, so each bomb would have to be able to exert that force for over 5 minutes instead of the fraction of a second a nuclear detonation lasts. Without being given the force we can at least get the average acceleration by using the change in velocity over the time that takes. With an explosion it won't actually be even close to even acceleration even over that short time, because the effect on the sail will decrease the further away it gets (with distance squared) the highest acceleration will be immediate, and much higher than the average, but an average at least gives a rough idea how bad it will be. In the show the first 2 bombs get it from 46.1 km/s to 57 km/s and then 68 km/s, about 11km/s each time which matches evenly splitting the 3,000 km/s goal over 300 detonations which would be the best case for keeping accelerations lower. Then we need to know how long that is spread over. Nuclear detonations happen on time scales of miliseconds, but let's be generous and say each bomb has a full second to meaningfully effect the probe- remember that even at the starting speed the probe will be 46 km from the point of detonation after that 1 second. The math ends up very even that way too! Accelerating the probe 11 km/s in 1 second is an acceleration of 11,000 m/(s^2), so an average of 1,100 Gs/ 1100 times the force of gravity every time. The best comparison I can think of for current technology that is built to survive accelerations like this would be guided artillery shells, their electronics have to work after around 14,000 Gs though they are very simple vs a spacecraft including cryo equipment. Soft tissues of a brain... I'm not so sure. Since the idea was inspired by some real concepts from the past for space propulsion, quick context- The Orion project proposals used much smaller power detonations (more like 0.1 kT each) every second, and a much larger spacecraft, so the acceleration would have been spread out much more evenly but also be far lower overall. Most of the concepts I've seen also had the explosions directly pushing on a separate 'pusher plate' separated from the craft itself by springs/dampers to absorb the force more evenly as well.
Game of Thrones...D&D did the stellar season 1-6. They can write their own check. They also did season 7-8, which should have gotten them blacklisted. This is their potential redemption show, but don't think they have star status after their disaster last 2 seasons.
At least they don’t have to wait on an author to never finish the source material! They were at their best the more of the framework of the world and story they could just build directly from books that had already cemented a story direction vs some off the record notes about what would probably happen.. if ever written.
Great reaction, guys. I've relived the emotions of watching this series by watching your reaction. The rise in gun violence in America is linked to the rise in gun regulation here. In the 50s and 60s, high schoolers could drive to school with a gun in their car to go hunting after school. Often, teachers and principals (headmasters) who saw these students took time after school to show them a gun they had in their own car, exchanging hunting and target shooting stories. No one ever shot up these places back then because guns were everywhere, and mass shooters prefer unarmed victims. One comment. Since the rise of gun free zones, there has been a proportional rise in mass shootings in America simply because there are now more opportunities. An armed population is safer than a declawed one. You see less gun violence in Europe because there are fewer guns among the population, but people armed with clubs, knives, and cars are still able to cause more damage because no one is able to shoot them down, and the cops are always minutes away when seconds count.
I think correlation does not equal causation here. I would hazard that 99% of mass shootings/stabbings etc are down to mental health issues. For that I would blame social media and society not "gun free zones". The last thing I would want in an active shooter scenario is a bunch of people thinking they are John Wick. If you have an active shooter then someone else pulls out a gun to stop them, newcomers lack the neccesarry experience or information to do valid threat assessment and it would just be carnage. We have both hunting and target shooting here in the UK, the difference is that if you want to target shoot then your guns stay at the range in secure lockers. If you want to hunt then you have something suitable for hunting, not semi automatic weapons with high capacity. Clubs/knives/cars causing more damage than a gun is just false and provable. For the record, I'm not against gun ownership at all, I love target shooting and hubting is neccessary for population control and food. I just believe that if you own a gun for "self defence" then you've already accepted that you will kill another human with it. I don't know how we go onto this topic but I'm not looking for a back and forth, I understand that our positions are opposite and that we will probably not agree. Cheers. - Steejo
@SuzySteejo thanks for your response. No back and forth necessary. I do want to say, though, that yours has been the most insightful response I've seen from someone across the pond. Thanks for that. I was, perhaps, unclear by what I said about melee weapons and vehicles. What I was trying to say was that, in a society where virtually no one is armed for self-defense, melee weapons and vehicles have the potential to take more lives than they would if an armed witness were to put a stop to it a few seconds after the attack starts. There are countless cases in the US where this has been what happened, and rarely, if ever, does someone act like John Wick or accidentally shoot another good guy with a gun. That argument is popular among the Second Amendment opponents over here, but it happens so rarely that the point should be shelved. I'll concede that there are definitely people who should not have access to firearms, and we have laws about people with mental illness and histories of violence not having access to guns. The problem is enforcement. I'm definitely with you on mental illness being a large part of the problem. Sadly, those who could pass laws over here to improve the lives of the mentally ill usually prefer to blame the gun than the shooter. We're also seeing more cases of repeat violent law breakers being released by soft-on-crime district attorneys who want to appease the mob on the left that claims you're racist or heartless or (enter social crime here) if you put abusers and offenders of color behind bars. We've even seen many murderers be released from jail several times in recent years, only to go back to killing once they're out. Anyway, I appreciate your insight, and I understand we may not agree on things, but I wish you well, and I really hope there's a second season to this show, despite the trouble they've had so far with attacks on producers.
What I love about this episode is that it’s almost scene for scene from the books. Even the dialogue is the same, reading about Saul’s character becoming a Wallfacer comes out of left field for the character and the reader.
Ep 8 is more or less opening chapter of Book 2 and the Staircase launch is concluding first few chapters of Book 3. “This Is Where the Fun Begins!” - Anakin Skywalker
_Master Skywalker....there are too many of them...what are we going to do_
I absolutely loved the fact that you two reacted to this show! I really, really love the books and I am very excited for season 2 of this show (being optimistic here) and hope that you react to that one as well.
Very minor spoiler: Da Chi actually told Saul the reason he was picked, it is because Ye Wenjie contacted him and told him the joke before she went back to China with purpose of ending herself. That joke has hidden message of how human can potentially solve the problem, and now Saul is the only person that knows this knowledge.
She really was absolutely brilliant. Lost spiritually, and morally, but brilliant.
And presumably the SanTi don’t know what he was told either, but they did realize it was very important. Which is also the real reason they had Wenjie killed, they realized she wasn’t fully on their side anymore, still had ways to hurt their chances, and was using “stories” (“lies”) to tell important secrets.
"For the bugs."
can’t wait for season 2 announcement!
I've loved your reactions for this show. I hope we get a season two.
I still cant imagine how they would film it all in next seasons ... From the books the whole story is too complex. The whole conflict between san ti and humans is just initial skirmish before revealing of much deeper problems about our universe and Earth future.
Yeah I've had dreams of adapting certain series. But 3 Body Problem , hurts to even think about fitting into even a 50 part series. Same with the warhammer40j series they are already ruining because Amazon's DEI policies conflict with an already seemingly DEI safe lore .
I kinda feel bad that I got introduced to those whole thing through the show. Mostly because it appears that the show spoiled parts of all three books, and if I read the books I'll spoil the show and all the cool visuals and stuff they could do.
In the end, when they made him see something that wasn't real, wasn't that contradictary to the fact that they claimed that they could not lie? Or did they learn to lie from us?
The San-Ti have already been manipulating that humans see (stars blinking, countdown in your eyes), what they were confused about is not knowing what the other person is thinking when in direct communication. Their paradigm was that communication means sharing one's thoughts, that's what they can't do, *communicate* a lie.
As a reader of the books, this is an awesome and creative adaptation. The only gripe I think people could have is them extending the capabilities of the sophons. I hope they realize how many potential plot holes they have created and that they dial it down in further seasons.
You mentioned the science, if you can I’d recommend at least reading the last chapter of the first book called Sophon as gives some beautifully detailed descriptions of their technology from the perspective of the San-Ti.
I mean in fairness, there’s really no getting around plot holes when you include something that can break causality. They might have let them do even more, but that’s a pretty huge start that cascades out. Not criticizing it the choice by the books either, to be clear, it was based on earlier understanding of a (relatively) newer concept with quantum entanglement, and it’s the nature of speculative fiction like sci-fi to pretty much always have to use some conceits that don’t obey known physics.
But yeah there are a lot of plot holes that these extra capable Sophons open up that so far I’m content to file away under suspension of disbelief the same as I do the Epstein drives in Expanse that don’t stop that from being my favorite scifi yet made.
Honestly I expect to have a harder time with the assumptions that will presumably come up next season about fundamental aspects of how cosmic society would function and why. Not because they aren’t interesting concepts to consider, but more because so many people seem to have come away from reading the novels with the feeling that some of those concepts can be taken for granted as actually true. Let’s just say I’m not a big fan of the conjecture that has wound up being called by the name of the second book, haha.
@@RocketSurgn_I don't think th sophons are conceived of as breaking causality.
@@ravissary79 They probably aren’t intended to be, unrestricted faster than light travel/passing of information like they allow necessarily breaks causality. The full explanations of exactly why are.. at the edges of what I can stretch my engineering focused physics training to completely understand, but it’s a pretty firm part of our current understanding of how physics works. There are a bunch of videos that go over the reason relativity leads to that limit, and there’s a pretty good/relatively straightforward (as much as that’s possible with relativity anyway) explanation from the Virginia Tech physics department, under “Special Relativity: section 10”.
I think there are discussions of edge cases that under certain circumstances might be possible, but if this kind of faster than light information exchange was generally possible it would contradict a lot of fundamental physics.
@@ravissary79 Causality aside, quantum entanglement also just doesn’t work like pop culture uses it, it does exist but consensus is pretty consistent that it doesn’t allow transmitting information (at least not faster than light).
Season 2 confirmed!
YUP!!
@@SuzySteejo 3 confirmed seasons
With all the stuff from the 2nd and 3rd book they have set up in episodes 6-8, it would be downright insulting if there won't be a 2nd season.
I haven't given up on Will! If the aliens want him... I'm sure they'll find a way to get him.
Don't count him out... but I'm saying no more.
I don't know how thw show runners will do it, but read the books if you want to know.
The character names and narrative timeline is different though.
auggie designed the sail dudes. this is a good show, cause the books are good.
I desperately want a season 2, but I'm nervous not enough people are watching the show, or that some of the concepts are beyond them. Also, no spoilers, but regarding the books, there are huge chunks that were cut out or changed around in order to help translate the story from book to screen. And the books go more in-depth with the science. Definitely worth a read. Or, at least the first one, since you've finished the season now.
The show did great actually, in terms of viewing numbers. The only issue is going to be the budget for the 2nd second season, this is why it's taking a little longer for them to officially confirm season 2. Same happened with The Sandman. But in terms of completion rates, which is what Netflix looks at to cancel or confirm upcoming seasons, the show did really well.
There's probably a lot more science in the books than the show.
Yes indeed
Loved your reactions. You guys are a hoot!
that explanation at the beginning on why there doing the staircase project was rlly funny 🤣🤣
Some answers to your questions.
There's literal hopelessness for humanity in that case that under full surveillance and blocked out any further progress in fundamental physics.
You can think about that, is there any way out?
So, the staircase , the wallfacer , their main reason for is "doing something" instead of "waiting to die".
And from San-Ti's respect, they do have the interest of human's brain that they can't see through before they actually reach the earth.
And Wade knows that, but after then, no one knows what will happen.
Remember " the pacifist" ? There's a gap in San-Ti's society where lays the play of Will .
And the wallfacer is also nonsense , before absolutely supreme civilization and San-Ti thinks too where exists a hiatus mankind can survive only by "doing something" ,an arduous work.
There , I leave it to you , for season 2 or books.
Actually it is not the aliens ruining his life. Ye ruined his life by arranging to talk to him. But if she doesn't, roll credits, no more season 2.
I bet he said, "Get back to work. We need to try again"
Imagine if Wade has the countdown the whole time, probably started while he was talking to Auggie.
Btw someone pointed out how evil Auggie is, her nanofibers are 0.00001micron, water molecules are 0.000275 micron, her nanofibers filtered out water molecules too. 😂
not defending the character but, she probably knows that and adjusted some things
@@DPM_Portraits it was a joke. Probably the one who came up with her lines thought it be more impressive to add more zeroes.
@@Zero_Requiemthe flaw in your math is assuming that because they are that thin(or thick), they’ll also be spaced that same distance apart for a filter, instead of calibrated to what size they need to filter out. They can also be paired in two, or any multiple really for increased thickness , with a single strand being the minimum, not the maximum.
@@coffeeveins yes I do agree with what you are saying. That is why it is a joke.
☮
Hey Suzy you look pretty as always ❤❤❤❤ love love the content ❤❤
I know this has nothing to do with this. But if you decide to finish the studio ghibli movies, can you consider watching Nausicaa: Valley of the Wind it was Hyao Miyazaki's first movie.
A pretty good show. Slow at parts and some things that don’t make sense but interested to see what happens next
As a bookreader, I'll be lying if I say I love this show, there's so many error with it that I could rant about especially the part based on book 1, which already done way better in the Tencent Chinese series, but still I really like what they did with EP6-8, which largely stayed true to the plot from book 2 and book 3, and it's cool to see those words came alive on screen, and I really hope Netflix don't cancel the show!
So funny how people get mad at Auggie when she’s literally right. Wade’s philosophy leads to the great ravine.
Not really. Wade is an unstoppable fighter. His philosophy is never stop, ever. The Great Ravine was because people grew soft and overconfident.
I also love this show. Hope we get a second season.
Guys, I really enjoy your videos. I will be in Scotland in a week , and is there anyplace should definitely go see while I am there. Also, where is the place you two got married it looked so beautiful I thought I would check it out.
We got married at Mount Stuart on the Isle of Bute, if you're in Glasgow it's a day trip over there. Other than that there are loads of places you can go that are amazing. The country is a lot smaller than most people realise. If you're in the lowlands then you need to see Edinburgh Castle and Loch Lomand is beautiful for a day out. If you're in the Highlands then go seek out Nessie at Loch Ness. - Steejo
Typo in the video description; it says ep 6 instead of 8.
Thanks for the reaction!
Yeah really looking forward to season 2 as well. Glad you enjoyed it. :)
You have to remember that acceleration in space is smooth because space is a vacuum with no friction or turbulence to shake and possible destroy the pod. Meteoroids and small particles are more concerning to destroying the pod. If the pod reached 1% of light speed you wouldn't feel it no G force as there's no gravity in space l.
G forces are based on acceleration regardless of actual gravity, we just measure it in multiples of earth's gravity. g = 9.8m/s/s, 2g = 19.6m/s/s etc. 1% SoL is ~3m m/s, so they'd need to be accelerating for about 17 hours at 5Gs to get to that speed which didn't seem to be how they were doing it in the simulation. - Steejo
@@SuzySteejo If you're spinning in space then you'd have G-force but going in a straight line in space there is no effect.
@@AmusedGermanShepherd-er5gp No, I get what you are thinking of but that's only true for a _constant_ velocity, no acceleration. That would be the case _after_ the probe reaches its final velocity, but while it's getting there the velocity is changing and change of velocity over a period of time is the definition of acceleration. That would be experienced as a gravity like force by the "passenger" (as well as all the components needing to withstand it). Lack of air for turbulence/friction etc might avoid shaking, sure, but those aren't what G-forces are referring to anyway.
Steejo's comment above is correct for trying to get to that speed with only a 5G acceleration, so feeling 5 times the force of gravity. 5Gs would be a rough time for a human to experience over that kind of time scale but very doable, and for just a brain it would be very easy to cushion against a known direction of acceleration. However, using only the force from bombs (so only a very short burst of acceleration per explosion) the force would have to be far, far higher. Depending on how generous you are guessing at how long each blast would accelerate the probe, a VERY optimistic number would still would be more like 300 Gs experienced by the probe. The rate of change of acceleration (how quickly you go from constant speed/no acceleration to 300+ Gs and back to 0) would be even more extreme, and causes its own problems.
@AmusedGermanShepherd-er5gp If interested in a bit more specific, this made me curious so I looked back at the scenes showing the attempt in the show, and some of the expectations around the Orion pulsed nuclear propulsion concept that the Staircase project was inspired by. Still very rough estimates from what they show, but at least gives an idea of the scale we're looking at. And not nitpicking, I just thought it was interesting to know if their version of a very plausible concept (Orion) was still reasonable.
It would be nice to just use the force number they give in the show to figure out the acceleration of the probe and be done with it, but they not only don't mention how long they expect the force to be effective each detonation, the 30kN number they give as a goal for force each bomb exerts on the sail is very wrong. 30kN of force acting on a 1 metric ton probe only gives about 3G's of acceleration, so each bomb would have to be able to exert that force for over 5 minutes instead of the fraction of a second a nuclear detonation lasts.
Without being given the force we can at least get the average acceleration by using the change in velocity over the time that takes. With an explosion it won't actually be even close to even acceleration even over that short time, because the effect on the sail will decrease the further away it gets (with distance squared) the highest acceleration will be immediate, and much higher than the average, but an average at least gives a rough idea how bad it will be. In the show the first 2 bombs get it from 46.1 km/s to 57 km/s and then 68 km/s, about 11km/s each time which matches evenly splitting the 3,000 km/s goal over 300 detonations which would be the best case for keeping accelerations lower. Then we need to know how long that is spread over. Nuclear detonations happen on time scales of miliseconds, but let's be generous and say each bomb has a full second to meaningfully effect the probe- remember that even at the starting speed the probe will be 46 km from the point of detonation after that 1 second. The math ends up very even that way too!
Accelerating the probe 11 km/s in 1 second is an acceleration of 11,000 m/(s^2), so an average of 1,100 Gs/ 1100 times the force of gravity every time. The best comparison I can think of for current technology that is built to survive accelerations like this would be guided artillery shells, their electronics have to work after around 14,000 Gs though they are very simple vs a spacecraft including cryo equipment. Soft tissues of a brain... I'm not so sure.
Since the idea was inspired by some real concepts from the past for space propulsion, quick context- The Orion project proposals used much smaller power detonations (more like 0.1 kT each) every second, and a much larger spacecraft, so the acceleration would have been spread out much more evenly but also be far lower overall. Most of the concepts I've seen also had the explosions directly pushing on a separate 'pusher plate' separated from the craft itself by springs/dampers to absorb the force more evenly as well.
Brilliant post breaking everything down. Super interesting, thank you. - Steejo
Game of Thrones...D&D did the stellar season 1-6. They can write their own check. They also did season 7-8, which should have gotten them blacklisted. This is their potential redemption show, but don't think they have star status after their disaster last 2 seasons.
At least they don’t have to wait on an author to never finish the source material! They were at their best the more of the framework of the world and story they could just build directly from books that had already cemented a story direction vs some off the record notes about what would probably happen.. if ever written.
Great reaction, guys. I've relived the emotions of watching this series by watching your reaction.
The rise in gun violence in America is linked to the rise in gun regulation here. In the 50s and 60s, high schoolers could drive to school with a gun in their car to go hunting after school. Often, teachers and principals (headmasters) who saw these students took time after school to show them a gun they had in their own car, exchanging hunting and target shooting stories. No one ever shot up these places back then because guns were everywhere, and mass shooters prefer unarmed victims.
One comment. Since the rise of gun free zones, there has been a proportional rise in mass shootings in America simply because there are now more opportunities. An armed population is safer than a declawed one.
You see less gun violence in Europe because there are fewer guns among the population, but people armed with clubs, knives, and cars are still able to cause more damage because no one is able to shoot them down, and the cops are always minutes away when seconds count.
I think correlation does not equal causation here. I would hazard that 99% of mass shootings/stabbings etc are down to mental health issues. For that I would blame social media and society not "gun free zones". The last thing I would want in an active shooter scenario is a bunch of people thinking they are John Wick. If you have an active shooter then someone else pulls out a gun to stop them, newcomers lack the neccesarry experience or information to do valid threat assessment and it would just be carnage.
We have both hunting and target shooting here in the UK, the difference is that if you want to target shoot then your guns stay at the range in secure lockers. If you want to hunt then you have something suitable for hunting, not semi automatic weapons with high capacity.
Clubs/knives/cars causing more damage than a gun is just false and provable.
For the record, I'm not against gun ownership at all, I love target shooting and hubting is neccessary for population control and food. I just believe that if you own a gun for "self defence" then you've already accepted that you will kill another human with it.
I don't know how we go onto this topic but I'm not looking for a back and forth, I understand that our positions are opposite and that we will probably not agree. Cheers. - Steejo
@SuzySteejo thanks for your response. No back and forth necessary. I do want to say, though, that yours has been the most insightful response I've seen from someone across the pond. Thanks for that.
I was, perhaps, unclear by what I said about melee weapons and vehicles. What I was trying to say was that, in a society where virtually no one is armed for self-defense, melee weapons and vehicles have the potential to take more lives than they would if an armed witness were to put a stop to it a few seconds after the attack starts. There are countless cases in the US where this has been what happened, and rarely, if ever, does someone act like John Wick or accidentally shoot another good guy with a gun. That argument is popular among the Second Amendment opponents over here, but it happens so rarely that the point should be shelved.
I'll concede that there are definitely people who should not have access to firearms, and we have laws about people with mental illness and histories of violence not having access to guns. The problem is enforcement.
I'm definitely with you on mental illness being a large part of the problem. Sadly, those who could pass laws over here to improve the lives of the mentally ill usually prefer to blame the gun than the shooter. We're also seeing more cases of repeat violent law breakers being released by soft-on-crime district attorneys who want to appease the mob on the left that claims you're racist or heartless or (enter social crime here) if you put abusers and offenders of color behind bars. We've even seen many murderers be released from jail several times in recent years, only to go back to killing once they're out.
Anyway, I appreciate your insight, and I understand we may not agree on things, but I wish you well, and I really hope there's a second season to this show, despite the trouble they've had so far with attacks on producers.