Physics

PHYSICS OF RED DWARF
This is Lindsay's page on the Physics of RD. Well, you could always say the Mistakes of RD, but that's only partial truth. She'll not only find the mistakes, but go to great lengths to correct them. If you don't follow what she says in this page, it's your own problem. I'm not helping you.

How old is Lister?
"That’s an easy question!" you may think, but take some time to really think it through. First, we have to define age. Is it the length of time someone has existed? If so, then the answer to this question can become very complicated. When Lister went into stasis, he was 25 years old. Therefore, when he emerged from stasis he was 25 years old. But who’s time are we talking about here? Time depends on the observer. Since in stasis you don’t exist, then Lister has existed for 25 years, and is therefore 25 years old. But that’s from his point of view. For those from an outside point of view, those who can see him in stasis, let’s say Holly for example, he has existed for 3 000 000 years. Add to that his 25 years of existence before going into stasis, and you get 3 000 025 years of existence for poor Lister. Is your head spinning yet? Just wait. Our hapless space traveller has gone back and forth in time so many times, it gets to be almost impossible to determine his actual age. In the book "Backwards", Lister is said to have a chronological age of 107. Of course, that’s from his point of view. To himself, he has existed for 107 years. But to Holly, or any entity else who could have been observing him is stasis, he has existed for those extra 3 000 000 years, so Lister is therefore 3 000 107 years old. Of course, his physical age is much less, since he has spent much time in a backwards earth, which will definately come up later in this page. So in answering the question "How old is Lister", we have to know from who’s point of view you want the answer to be. If it’s Lister you’re asking, and you want to go with what "Backwards" has to say, then Lister may answer "I’m 27" or whatever it adds up to, or he may answer "I’m 107", since to him, he has lived for that long. Ask Holly, and he will most likely answer "Lister is 3 000 107 years old", Holly being so precise and all. As to Lister’s true age? We can never really know for sure, not in this universe at least. An interesting question I have often asked myself is “What would happen if we carbon-dated Lister?”.

What is a Swirly Thing?
First things first. A swirly thing is almost always a worm hole. For those who don’t know what a worm hole is, then I will explain. A worm hole is a hole in spacetime connecting one section of space to annother. If you go through the worm hole at one part in space, you would arrive in a completely different part, which could be several metres or several thousand light years away. This is possible because of a simple fact of spacetime. It is curved. We, of course, don’t notice this, but it is true. In three dimensions we are traveling in a staight line, but in four, or perhaps five, we are travelling in curved lines. Imagin spacetime as a piece of paper. If we curve the paper, two points on the paper that would otherwise be far away will in fact be close together. But something living on the paper could not get to the other point on the paper, since he cant’ pierce the paper. If we stuck a straw through the paper to connect with the other point of the paper, then the entity living on the paper could walk through the straw, and thus be at the other point on the paper without having ot take a long trip. The same is for spacetime. The straw is the worm hole. Starbug could fly through the worm hole and arrive in a completely different region of space. They could then fly back through and be back where they started.

What does the red spectrum tell us about quasars?
Well, you knew we had to get to this one eventually. Rimmer didn’t have to define a whole bunch of words to answer this simple question. The answer is: The red spectrum tells us that quasars are moving away from us very fast and are very far away from us. I will, however, explain all of this. A quasar, also know as a “radio galaxy”, is an astronomical phenomena that is billions of light years away. We’re not exactly sure precisly what they are, but we have a good idea. Imagin something with the mass of a galaxy, but is much smaller. At the center of this thing is a massive black hole. The black hole is sucking in matter, but since there is so much matter for it to suck in it overflows. The extra matter is projected in a jet of particals out into space, a jet sometimes several light years long. We can see this jet, even though it is so far away, because it is so powerful. Remember, though, that we are seeing the quasar as it was many billions of years ago. Since it is up to fifteen billion light years away, then it has taken the light from it fifteen billion years to reach us. It is as if we are looking into the past. So, what does the red spectrum have to do with all of this? Well, some man (I don’t feel like looking up who, I think it was Hubble) used a type of telescope that showed the spectrum of objects in space. (Yes, come to think of it, it must have been Hubble) He found that objects that were moving the fastest away from us had spectrums greatly shifted to the red. Objects moving closer to us had spectrums shifted to the blue. You can think of it as wave lengths of light. Actually, that is exactly what it is. As you may (or may not) know, longer wave lengths of light are more red, and shorter wave lenghts of light are more blue. So the wave lenths of a galaxy (as an example) that is moving towards us will be closer together (imagin them being squished together as the galaxy moves towards us), and vice versa for a galaxy moving away from us (or in this case, a quasar), thus giving objects moving away from us a red spectrum, hence answering Rimmer’s question. Do you think I could have passed the Officer’s Exam?

Since: 03/05/98 Remember this is just begining and under construction!!!
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