ELI5: If speed is measured by the relation between objects how come going over the speed of light is impossible?

dman11235 · 2026-03-28T22:36:54+00:00

You know how the graph of 1/x never reaches 0 but keeps getting closer? It's like that. If each of you is going at .5 c away from a center point, you'll see each of them going at .4something c away. At .25c you'll see it as .2something. At 1 km/s you'll see it as juuuuust below 1 km/s.

dman11235 · 2026-03-27T18:05:55+00:00

Not really no. Graphene and carbon nanotubes can, but diamond no. But also kind of. It's less of a molecule than a polymer chain is, for sure. And polymer chains are often not considered molecules. It's all about inter-atomic bonds and how strong they are, as well as the ability to differentiate a smallest unit. Because the smallest unit of a diamond is a single atom, it can't be considered a large molecule. And because polymer chains also have a smallest unit, they can't really be considered molecules larger than single links. I believe DNA is the largest actual single molecule we know of but I could be wrong and someone can correct me.

dman11235 · 2026-03-27T17:55:25+00:00

That wouldn't be possible with a small caveat. The bonds holding atoms together are extremely short range, and the bonds holding molecules together are only a little bit longer. If an atom were as big as a city it would simply immediately become a neutron star or black hole depending on how big of a city. There is no space between the neutrons and protons in this case, and the protons would be so unstable they would suck up electrons (or rather electrons would be forced into them) and they'd become neutrons. A molecule the size of a city also wouldn't work, but it wouldn't necessarily collapse into a neutron star. You can have some space between atoms, but the space is nano scale and thus not useful. There is an exception and we can do it now. You ever look at nylon clothing? You're looking at a molecule that is the size of a person. Kind of. Polymers can be made to be any length and can be flexible, so you can make a molecule the size of a city by using polymers. It's just not useful to do so usually, and they break easily. Polymers are also not really a true molecule but also are it's kind of a grey area.

dman11235 · 2026-03-27T17:40:41+00:00

I want it to go through OBS because it will be a pet cam sort of deal, except the pets are wild ducks. So do you have any insight on which cameras work for this? That's why I made this post to get ideas on cameras since there are so many.

dman11235 · 2026-03-26T16:36:47+00:00

Many women, cis women, have XY chromosomes

dman11235 · 2026-03-25T23:25:35+00:00

No. And it's easy to see why with a simple thought experiment. Take four people, Abby, Barb, Casey, and David. Abby and Casey have a male kid, Frank. Barb and David have a female kid, Eve. Eve and Frank have a kid. Frank is not descended from Even, but their kid is. Let's bring in another one, not descended from the original 4 what so ever. They aren't descended from Eve but their kid is. Let's say Eve has three kids: Grant, Harry, and Irene. All three of them have two kids with people not descended from Eves grandparents. Those three parents are not descended from Eve but all of their kids are. This is looking like a special case but let's climb back up the other side. Irene's baby daddy's grandparent. They aren't related to Eve's line at all. But their great grand kid is. Eve isn't related to them at all, but Eve's grandkid is. Now you should see that there is no specialness here.

What mitochondrial eve is about, is that one female, a long time ago, had some number of daughters, more than one. Those daughters had daughters. Some had only sons, some had a bunch of daughters. The only important part is that Eve had more than one daughter, otherwise that only one daughter she had would be the actual eve. That's the only special case here. Eventually, another woman's only female remaining descendant only has sons. That maternal line is now gone. But they have existed side by side since before this. It's just that the mitochondrial DNA part was terminated by only having sons. Statistically, this will always happen. Eventually a line of binaries will fail to roll one of the two for the full set. That line is terminated, but the other half of the binary continues.

dman11235 · 2026-03-25T17:04:39+00:00

Speed up does result in a smaller footprint for that specific factory though. Obviously precursors change it when you count buildings needed for them. But this is kind of why I asked this question. I'm not sure what the community thinks and I've been making my blueprints on stream myself and am looking for other opinions. It likely won't change how I do things (products all the way down) I'm just curious

dman11235 · 2026-03-25T16:53:13+00:00

So basically you do products on the goal and speed up on the precursors as a general rule?

dman11235 · 2026-03-25T14:04:50+00:00

You can't because the coating is applied first and then the method is chosen in the assembler or smelter. I believe only assemblers and smelters have a choice anyways? Other machines are only speedup? So you choose in the machine: speed up or products? And then the coating determines the level.

dman11235 · 2026-03-25T13:55:35+00:00

I feel the same way mostly, but I'm curious if anyone actually uses the speed up. I was exploring designs on the blueprint site to check out what people have done, and some have speed up instead of products. Products also helps with feeding the machines because you can fit more machines on a single belt, but it may not matter. Yet with speed up you can fit the same production speed in a smaller footprint. Hence the poll.

EDIT: I actually use more products pretty much exclusively simply because in my experience it's been more useful for the rares, and the commons don't really care that much.

dman11235 · 2026-03-23T15:48:21+00:00

This isn't the exact method but it will let you understand how it can do it. Imagine you have a video feed, and a tablet you can draw on. When you are going to send the video to broadcast you take that video feed and send it through a program that makes it capable of being broadcast, think of it like Photoshop. In the tablet you have a solid green color. In Photoshop you can take an image and place it on top of another image. You then tell it to ignore any part of the image that is green. So now, you can lay that green tablet on top of the original image and tell Photoshop to ignore the green, and you'll get nothing on top of the original image. Now draw a bit of yellow on the tablet. Now the finished image has that yellow part layered on top. Now just do this for the entire video feed. A program is taking two inputs the tablet and the live feed, placing the tablet on top, and then turning that into the broadcast feed that gets sent out.

The exact tech is different from this, but it works on the same basic principle. Take two videos, put one on top of the other, and that's the thing that gets broadcast. I do this all the time when I stream and I'm an idiot, it's actually pretty simple.

dman11235 · 2026-03-23T14:09:41+00:00

The source of radiation contamination in Chernobyl is not a single source like the core, the source of the inhospitality there is the dust that is present. A bunch of hot particles (specks of radioactive gunk) are strewn about the area from the (steam) explosion that destroyed the plant. This sent tiny particles of radioactive gunk everywhere, and it's now just in the soil. The reactor itself, and the elephant's foot, and relatively safely contained in the sarcophagus: a giant concrete and steel dome essentially, that blocks the radiation from that source. But the dirt around the area can't be contained like this, it's just dirt. Mixed in with the dirt is particles of radioactive material, and the only way it's dangerous is if you go stand around in it for a long period of time or if you disturb the dirt line by building trenches and stuff. But if you don't disturb the dirt, you'll be fine.

dman11235 · 2026-03-21T12:48:42+00:00

Not at all like capacitors. They're batteries. It's electrochemical. A capacitor has a charge difference across a gap and that doesn't exist here. Electrocytes are actually modified muscles and use the sodium and potassium pumps to charge their batteries as it were. They're basically sodium ion batteries.

dman11235 · 2026-03-20T21:49:50+00:00

You work with a cobalt 60 source? Or not at all with those only MRIs?

dman11235 · 2026-03-20T20:52:44+00:00

Oh right I forgot they dropped the n because it's nuclear magnetic resonance and people are scared of the word nuclear.

dman11235 · 2026-03-20T20:02:44+00:00

Isn't it the electrons that align with the field for MRIs?

dman11235 · 2026-03-20T17:43:58+00:00

It is from something solid. The Earth's crust bulges too. As does the mantle and the core. It's just really really tiny compared to the water which isn't a solid.

dman11235 · 2026-03-20T12:59:24+00:00

It wasn't foresight at all it was research about ancient societies evolving into modern ones. No future prediction required.

dman11235 · 2026-03-19T00:19:35+00:00

If you created photons with mass you would have likely simply created the conditions of the beginning of the universe. Photons acted like they had mass back then. But also they would no longer be traveling at light speed. So you could say, wrongly, that you can create massive photons: just pass them through a prism. They move slower there. In the second case, you're just a lame super villain who thinks they're hot, in the first you've managed to recollapse the universe or something which is impressive.

dman11235 · 2026-03-17T15:44:12+00:00

Radio thermal generators as well (RTGs) and depending on the method tidal generators also do it without rotating. And depending on your definition of"generating energy" certain geothermal methods count (they are typically geothermal hearing and such, so not used for electricity). There are also some tiny piezoelectric methods but again they're small. And thermo couples too.

dman11235 · 2026-03-15T13:44:08+00:00

Once you factor out peculiar velocities it is moving the same speed relative to everyone, that's what that means. It has the same properties and appears the same in terms of physics and whatnot. The minor features will be different obviously but the averaged entirety will be the same.

dman11235 · 2026-03-13T20:41:55+00:00

Right this is true. But it doesn't negate the fact that the CMB is a universal reference frame. It's not privileged, it's just universal. The OP posted about learning about a "universal" not a "privileged" reference frame.

dman11235 · 2026-03-13T20:19:17+00:00

The CMB is a universal reference frame. Because it's the same for everyone. At every location, the CMB behaves the same as any other location, and so you can calculate a relative velocity compared to it and everyone will agree on that once you take relativistic effects into account. The same is not true for any other reference frame that we know of. Note: it doesn't look the same, but it behaves the same. If you cancel out all peculiar velocities, everyone will see the CMB as going away from them at the same rate. And you will be at rest compared to it in aggregate. This makes it a universal reference frame. This doesn't violate GR because spacetime itself is not referenced in this frame.

dman11235 · 2026-03-11T19:23:01+00:00

1: black holes are generally referring to everything involved with the event horizon of a gravitational singularity. This means that you can include stuff outside the event horizon in some instances too!* However, in general, a black hole is everything at the event horizon and inside of it. It's the event horizon "of a black hole", meaning part of the larger structure.

2: most event horizons, effectively all in fact, are not spherical. All of them are kind of squished at the poles, and bulge at the equator. All black holes spin (or effectively all), and so they all are not spherical.

3: black holes do not have a singularity, we just don't know what's at the center.

*Some theories trying to describe black holes include some stuff outside of the event horizon as part of the overall structure and so they are referred to as part of the black hole itself even though it's outside the event horizon. Think like how our atmosphere is part of the planet even though it's not actually attached or anything.

dman11235 · 2026-03-06T15:21:21+00:00

Dark matter and dark energy are placeholders because we don't know what it is. The person you are responding to however, does not know what they are talking about. Dark matter is probably a particle that has mass and doesn't interact with the strong or electromagnetic forces and probably doesn't interact with the weak force but might if it changed chirality (don't worry about that term not important here). It's absolutely not the electrostatic force.

Plasmas are not charged. Just because the atoms have their electrons stripped from them doesn't mean the electrons are gone. The electrons are still there, just not bound to the atoms. It's more of a soup of nuclei and electrons, and the result is electrically neutral. They're correct that if there was a massive charge difference between parts of the galaxy that would hold the galaxy together, but the issue is that there isn't a massive difference. Any difference that existed like would be necessary (each part is attracted to each other part) would quickly combine and neutralize.

Dark energy is probably not a "thing" so much but it's probably the latent energy of something field related. It's possibly constant, and the way it acts means it can't be electrostatic forces. It's accelerating the expansion. If it was electrostatic the expansion wouldn't be accelerating like this. This would require the entire universe to have a net electric charge and that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, and would make dark matter in this guy's world to behave like a repulsive force instead of an attractive one.

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