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What makes up energy?

Started by Inkidu, February 14, 2014, 10:11:33 AM

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IStateYourName

Quote from: Vekseid on February 14, 2014, 01:51:20 PM
Why the need for 100% conversion?

Something that's easy to overlook is the fact that entropy is also information. Entropy is why we are able to perceive the flow of time in the first place. A perfect energy conversion process means that, should it happen, we wouldn't know how it got to its current state.

Even in science fiction, we have to waste a tiny bit of energy along the way.  Otherwise, there's none to generate the PEW PEW PEW every time a laser or other ray is fired or discharged or beamed.   ;D

Inkidu

Quote from: IStateYourName on February 15, 2014, 05:04:16 PM
Even in science fiction, we have to waste a tiny bit of energy along the way.  Otherwise, there's none to generate the PEW PEW PEW every time a laser or other ray is fired or discharged or beamed.   ;D
I've been reading this for days and am trying to find something maybe I'm missing, but both Veks and I are in agreement that I just need a fairly high rate of retention, not a flawless one.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Kythia

Quote from: Inkidu on February 19, 2014, 07:11:10 AM
I've been reading this for days and am trying to find something maybe I'm missing, but both Veks and I are in agreement that I just need a fairly high rate of retention, not a flawless one.

It was a joke.  ISYN is referring to the noise lasers make in space battles, and hence the energy needed to create that.
242037

Inkidu

Quote from: Kythia on February 20, 2014, 11:40:28 AM
It was a joke.  ISYN is referring to the noise lasers make in space battles, and hence the energy needed to create that.
Oh, I got that, I was trying to figure out why it needed zero entropy.

That's what happens when you're on analytic mode. :P

If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Oniya

Quote from: Inkidu on February 20, 2014, 12:23:39 PM
Oh, I got that, I was trying to figure out why it needed zero entropy.

That's what happens when you're on analytic mode. :P



It doesn't (analytically speaking).  The energy wasted goes into the vibrations that make the sound.

(I'll just leave the 'sound doesn't travel in a vacuum' box over there.) ---------------------->
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Inkidu

Quote from: Oniya on February 20, 2014, 01:03:28 PM
It doesn't (analytically speaking).  The energy wasted goes into the vibrations that make the sound.

(I'll just leave the 'sound doesn't travel in a vacuum' box over there.) ---------------------->
That did actually make me think of something. When tactical teams use thermal or night vision (because remember mine is basically today with FTL) why don't they use colorless lasers (visible spectrum) for laser sights. That way they could see it and the enemy can't. :\
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Kythia

Assuming I've understood your question correctly, they do.  I'm not quite sure what you mean though by "colourless lasers (visible spectrum)" 
242037

Inkidu

Quote from: Kythia on February 20, 2014, 03:13:42 PM
Assuming I've understood your question correctly, they do.  I'm not quite sure what you mean though by "colourless lasers (visible spectrum)"
Well, there's no such thing a colorless laser technically speaking. It's just we can't see it because it's not on the visible spectrum.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Kythia

Quote from: Inkidu on February 20, 2014, 03:16:12 PM
Well, there's no such thing a colorless laser technically speaking. It's just we can't see it because it's not on the visible spectrum.

LOL, it's just we can't see it because it has no colour.

But yeah, looks like I did understand you right.  They do.
242037

Oniya

It's really the color out of space...
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

Inkidu

If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

gaggedLouise

Speaking of lasers and scopes, I've been wondering a long time about something Frederick Forsyth said in an interview a few years ago: he claimed the JFK assassination (which clearly served as the model for what the Jackal came within an inch of doing in Forsythe's book) was the only time there had been a successful assassination of a political figure using a telescope sight rifle. Is this really true, and are there reasons why people who know how to shoot professionally wouldn't want to use a scope? I mean, it's the obvious way to get around heavy security cordons and make a "sneak shot" on someone, from such a distance that the sniper has a good chance of getting in and out without being observed!

He may have been thinking only of attempts in the erm, highly developed world, and not in places like Lebanon or India, it still sounds very strange - but he clearly knows about how professional hitmen and undercover guys work, so I don't think he would just have tossed it up.

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Sometimes bound and cuntrolled, sometimes free and easy 

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Inkidu

Quote from: gaggedLouise on February 21, 2014, 01:05:20 PM
Speaking of lasers and scopes, I've been wondering a long time about something Frederick Forsyth said in an interview a few years ago: he claimed the JFK assassination (which clearly served as the model for what the Jackal came within an inch of doing in Forsythe's book) was the only time there had been a successful assassination of a political figure using a telescope sight rifle. Is this really true, and are there reasons why people who know how to shoot professionally wouldn't want to use a scope? I mean, it's the obvious way to get around heavy security cordons and make a "sneak shot" on someone, from such a distance that the sniper has a good chance of getting in and out without being observed!

He may have been thinking only of attempts in the erm, highly developed world, and not in places like Lebanon or India, it still sounds very strange - but he clearly knows about how professional hitmen and undercover guys work, so I don't think he would just have tossed it up.
What's more impressive was that it was the crappiest rifle in the 20th Century that made the shot (well supposedly). :P

Anyway, yeah that sounds about right. Castro was shot at with a scoped rifle but it wasn't successful, naturally.

In general, sharpshooting requires practice, so for most assassins it's superfluous. Even the best scopes are temperamental. They have to be sighted in, and it takes a professional to know the cues on the other side of the optics to zero in the one-shot one-kill. Remember that snipers are highly trained and usually pulled from the pools of troops who show firearms aptitude.

Even then bullets don't fly in straight lines. There's a lot of issues. Most don't succeed I imagine because of anti-assassination measures taken by protection details. :\

If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

gaggedLouise

#38
Thanks for the headsup, Inkidu. I remember reading in Lee Child's Without Fail  (a superb book) that no professional killer would ever try to take sniper shots between buildings in Manhattan*, because the skyscrapers are going to make the local wind gusts so unpredictable and a bullet might fly anywhere. Didn't realize that individual scopes are so likely to bring their own driftiness into the picture though.

In 1963, the area close to Dealey Plaza didn't have any real skyscrapers; since then, the plaza itself and the houses around it have been kept mostly the way they were, but there are towering skyscrapers a bit behind there in the business district.



*Ian Fleming claimed to have done just that, when he was with the spooks in the forties and visited New York  - standing at the window of a skyscraper and shooting down another man in another tower sixty meters away. A tall tale, I guess.

Good girl but bad  -- Proud sister of the amazing, blackberry-sweet Violet Girl

Sometimes bound and cuntrolled, sometimes free and easy 

"I'm a pretty good cook, I'm sitting on my groceries.
Come up to my kitchen, I'll show you my best recipes"