• tetris11@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      There is the Great Ghost Cluster in the distant void, passing messages up and down its endless stream of ghost bodies in order to log world events at the speed of voice.

  • FMT99@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    This implies there’s an absolute center to the universe relative to which the earth moves but spirits do not.

    • Psaldorn@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Or you just maintain your velocity at death. With no other forces, that’s the way you head forever

      • tetris11@lemmy.ml
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        8 months ago

        But this character died stationary on the floor. Unless it’s the Earth moving away from her as part of its normal orbit, in which case she’ll get to visit it again soon

        • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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          8 months ago

          If the only force no longer acting on her is gravity, she just instantly got a massive new vector

    • InputZero@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      There absolutely is a coordinate system like that, in the comic it would be the spirit’s coordinate system with them at the center. There actually is an absolute center of the universe and it is you and me, and everything else in the universe is at the center of it’s universe (depending on your definition of the universe). That’s what special relativity is all about, each thing is at the center of it’s own universe and you have to translate any measurements between coordinate systems.

      All the comic implies is that a sprit doesn’t follow null geodesics, but that’s general relativity.

    • DrRatso@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      I think they simply became totally massless and is no longer affected by gravity.

  • hswolf@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    to be a little pedantic, if you take in account the rate of expansion of the universe, and take as a truth that the ghost stays stationary in spacetime, earth would disappear in an instant

      • blind3rdeye@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        That’s a fair point. So then one might expect the ghost to continue their motion tangential to the orbit of the earth, and so they’ll float away.

        However, the theory of general relativity suggests that gravity isn’t really like other forces. It doesn’t push or pull anything at all; but rather its bends the fabric of time and space. Objects ‘falling’ due to gravity, or ‘in orbit’ around a planet are actually moving in a direct straight line in curved space-time. And this is why gravity still applies to massless objects such as light. So then, I’d say the ghost would still be affected by gravity - and that their main concern would be falling into the earth rather than drifting away.

      • braxy29@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        😆 this comment really amused me, i guess the basic physics plus ghosts in the same matter-of-fact statement

      • hswolf@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        But that would imply that the ghost is a physical thing right?

        Does it come to existence when we are born? Or does it appear when we die?

        Does It behave like matter? If not, properties like velocity, inertia or energy wouldn’t apply.

        The comic is really amusing to bring forth these questions

      • hglman@lemmy.ml
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        8 months ago

        Nah, it won’t be perfect. Some, tiny divergent velocity will exist.

    • enkers@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      Would that not depend on your inertial frame? Like isn’t the entire concept of being stationary relative to spacetime not an actual thing? I’m not trying to be pedantic, BTW, I literally don’t know the answer to my question.

      • Klear@sh.itjust.works
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        8 months ago

        Yup. Same as the time travel meme that was on the front page recently, this relies on there being a fixed inertial frame which is not a thing in our weird universe.

  • Reddfugee42@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I always thought it funny that traditional ghosts can go through walls but are held up by the floor. Finally some consistency.

    • hglman@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      Just implies that ghost have some kind of interaction with gravity. Maybe ghosts make up dark matter.

        • hglman@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          The interaction is clear more complicated than just pulled down, it also causes interaction with normal matter but only in a direction of the acceleration from gravity.

  • emmie@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    Nothing is as terrifying as SpaceEngine.

    Frankly. This… software rearranged my brain and changed me fundamentally.

    There are no words to describe being lost in the 10^27 of space. It’s just too much, you will go insane and if you survive you will lose the ability to talk with people, lose every single thing that you thought matters. You will be alone even in the busiest of places, some part of you forever stuck in the 10^27 of emptiness between Galaxy Groups.

    This isn’t a joke. Ignorance is bliss

  • go $fsck yourself@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Odd how they chose gravity, but not the fact the earth is both rotating and revolving around the sun. Even more than that, the entire solar system is revolving around the center of our galaxy.

    • Ephera@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      The way I interpreted it, is that gravity normally holds you on Earth despite all the effects you listed, and gravity not affecting this ghost, that’s the problem.

    • Chakravanti@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      Well do catch up on SMBC if that’s actually your objective. His bits are deeper on all that than anything I’ve read without some good drugs.

  • nexguy@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I always thought it was fun to imagine you are an immortal being and you get to walk around pranking people like jumping in front of a train but just bounce off or eating a sandwich with bleach but you are perfectly ok then one day the sun balloons and eventually the earth gets destroyed and you are wisked away then eventually trapped in the gravity well of a brown dwarf star and get sucked to the center for trillions of years.