(C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

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Lambuzhao
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Re: (C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Lambuzhao »

Do any Earth cultures divide the year into 10 seasons?
It may seem a little much, but the Saami divide it into 8 seasons.

I am finally working out the seasons for Tirga. There used to be 4, as on many Earth cultures. Then, I began to contemplate other seasonal calendars (Hindu, Saami), due to this weird 'donut-hole' effect in the middle of Summer and Winter (observed for about 6-8 years in my real-world heimat),coupled with a kind of overnight switch from spring into summer during May (first weeks are very cool Spring weather, last weeks are frigging hot; might as well be late June).

10 seasons seems like too many, but weather patterns have just been so un-fourth-worthy in these past years.

They are as follows (with as close as possible suggestions of how it maps out onto our calendar):

Waning Plenishustnice
(a.k.a. Liger Plenishustnice, Plenisende)
Hazy Hot Humid (80-90 F)
2nd week August - end of Sept

Hard Otumble
Warm Sunny Light Rains (60-70 F)
Oct~1st week Nov

Soft Otumble
Cool Fog Cool Rains (40-60 F)
Nov- end of Dec

Waxing Xonxhustnice
Cool Overcast Light Snows (20-40 F)
Jan

Quinqoxogje
Warm Clear Dry (50-70 F)
Feb

Waning Xonxhustnice
(a.k.a. Liger Xonxhistnice, Quinqoxende)
Cold Blustery Snow & Rains (20-40 F)
March - first 2 wks Apr

Soft Venoble
Cool Windy Rainy (40-50 F)
last weeks Apr - beginning May


Hard Venoble
Warm Windy Clear Dry (60-70 {~80s some years} F)
Last weeks May - mid June

Waxing Plenishustnice
Hot Humid Stormy (70-80 F)
mid June - first week July

Plenisogje
Overcast Cool Rainy (50-60 F)
remainder July - first week August


I don't know if this makes any sense. Again, it could be too much. And some of the names are clunky and just too long for any kind of common parlance. Yet, I cannot imagine even the most common of Tirgan commonfolk calling Winter 'winter' when there is this glaring, weeks-long period where the weather is more like late spring or even early Summer, sandwiched between clealry more winter-like weather. Thnx, Greenhouse effect But the Hindu & Saami seasonal calendars make me think otherwise.

Thoughts? Suggestions?
:wat:
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Post by elemtilas »

Lambuzhao wrote:I am finally working out the seasons for Tirga. There used to be 4, as on many Earth cultures. Then, I began to contemplate other seasonal calendars (Hindu, Saami), due to this weird 'donut-hole' effect in the middle of Summer and Winter (observed for about 6-8 years in my real-world heimat),coupled with a kind of overnight switch from spring into summer during May (first weeks are very cool Spring weather, last weeks are frigging hot; might as well be late June).

10 seasons seems like too many, but weather patterns have just been so un-fourth-worthy in these past years.
Yeah, this year has been quite odd indeed! Locally, I'd say Winter started this morning at about 0500 and looks to be overwith by fortnight tomorrow. [O.o]

Týpically, it's a little more sensible around here.


By mid to late March we have Forespring --- that variable time when it's either 50s and charging forth into Spring proper, or else dumping us with late season blizzards. Then we have

Cherryblossom --- that beautiful time of year when 60s are more the norm and all the idiot Lance Armstrong wannabes pull on their spandex and drive their bicycles all over the road, in a sure effort at suicide. Then we have

Erespring, those last days when the Winter Queen can still smite us with a late snow, but usually she gives up peacefully.

Forespring gets going in early April, when all the flowers are out and you can throw the windows open even at night because the clime is so mild! That lasts about a week and we skip right over Aftspring, jumping right into the heat of

Hell's Forecourt, when it's all hot and muggy and your clothes stick to your body and the local power company loves you cos you've got the aircon running in late April or early May! That lasts a good month or so, then we come into

Foresummer where the heat and mugginess turn to downright scorchery and muggery. That lasts a good month as well, then we come into

Dogsummer, where it becomes difficult to breathe because it's so hot and humid, and even dogs won't go outside if they can help it. Dogsummer then takes a slight pause for

Daowny Oshun Week, where the hot & sticky US-50 is clogged with hot and sticky folks heading, well, daowny oshun for some end of season fun in the sun! Immediately afterwards,

Dogsummer Part II resumes his duties but for a short time only. Soon enough she hands over the reins to

Aftsummer, where the scorching heat and oppressive humidity --- hot and humid enough that even a native Philipino will wish he were back in the hot and humid Philippines! --- moderate somewhat to something just shy of oppressive. Perhaps "slightly dogmatic"? This lasts for a month or so and by Halloween, temperatures are become quite moderate again, and this is

Indian Summer, that variable time of still warm days and cool nights that leads in

Erefall, with his cool days and cold nights.

Longfall or The Bleaks is a quite variable season lasting from around Thanksgiving to perhaps St. Frodobert's: cool to cold, but by no means frigid. It can snow at anytime but often times we get little. But then comes

Frigidaire, where temperatures are much more likely to drop and we get enough snow to shut down schools, Government and indeed the whole region. Except for those same idiots, who have now put their bicycles away, and feel entirely confident that they can drive their Smart Cars at 60mph along the Beltway with 6 or 8 inches of snow on it. Frigidaire takes a short, well earned rest, a thoughtful and considerate pause, if you will, for

Groundhog Day where, from the Weather Prognostication Capital of the Entire Universe, none other than The Punxsutawney Phil --- yes! the The himself! --- will soon tell us whether we'll be seeing the arrival of Spring three fortnights hence, or whether it's six more weeks of Longwinter for us all. Regardless of Phil's often wrong but never in doubt attitude to weather forecasting, Frigidaire hands over to

Longwinter for the duration. But all the snowy days of Longwinter in February and early March must eventually come to their end, and soon enough Longwinter begins to moderate and transition into

Aftwinter, a time of variability, when we can have warm days and rain turn into frigid nights of ice and slush and sleet and snow.

I count seventeen seasons there. That's pretty much the norm around here.

EDIT: (And for 2017, it looks like Aftwinter will be quite the banger hereabouts!)

NB: There is a theoretical season called Aftspring, that by rights ought to be inserted between Erespring and Hell's Forecourt. But we often skip that formality and go straight for the heat and humidity.
They are as follows (with as close as possible suggestions of how it maps out onto our calendar):

Waning Plenishustnice
(a.k.a. Liger Plenishustnice, Plenisende)
Hazy Hot Humid (80-90 F)
2nd week August - end of Sept

Hard Otumble
Warm Sunny Light Rains (60-70 F)
Oct~1st week Nov

Soft Otumble
Cool Fog Cool Rains (40-60 F)
Nov- end of Dec

Waxing Xonxhustnice
Cool Overcast Light Snows (20-40 F)
Jan

Quinqoxogje
Warm Clear Dry (50-70 F)
Feb

Waning Xonxhustnice
(a.k.a. Liger Xonxhistnice, Quinqoxende)
Cold Blustery Snow & Rains (20-40 F)
March - first 2 wks Apr

Soft Venoble
Cool Windy Rainy (40-50 F)
last weeks Apr - beginning May


Hard Venoble
Warm Windy Clear Dry (60-70 {~80s some years} F)
Last weeks May - mid June

Waxing Plenishustnice
Hot Humid Stormy (70-80 F)
mid June - first week July

Plenisogje
Overcast Cool Rainy (50-60 F)
remainder July - first week August


I don't know if this makes any sense. Again, it could be too much. And some of the names are clunky and just too long for any kind of common parlance. Yet, I cannot imagine even the most common of Tirgan commonfolk calling Winter 'winter' when there is this glaring, weeks-long period where the weather is more like late spring or even early Summer, sandwiched between clealry more winter-like weather. Thnx, Greenhouse effect But the Hindu & Saami seasonal calendars make me think otherwise.

Thoughts? Suggestions?
:wat:
Agreed. Ordinary folks simply won't put up with a system that just feels wrong! And if I can have 17 fairly distinct seasons here locally, why can't the Tirgan folk have ten?
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Re: (C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by LinguoFranco »

What determines how many genders there are in a culture. Until quite recently, the West only had two genders AFAIK (I could be wrong though), while India has a third gender called Hijra and Indonesia has as many as five. Some cultures have four, dividing people into male, female, male with feminine tendencies, and female with masculine tendencies. What determines how many genders there are in a culture? Are there factors that affect this, or is completely arbitrary?
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Post by Salmoneus »

LinguoFranco wrote:What determines how many genders there are in a culture. Until quite recently, the West only had two genders AFAIK (I could be wrong though), while India has a third gender called Hijra and Indonesia has as many as five. Some cultures have four, dividing people into male, female, male with feminine tendencies, and female with masculine tendencies. What determines how many genders there are in a culture? Are there factors that affect this, or is completely arbitrary?
Well, "gender" is a form of caste system, so I suppose I'd expect to see more of it in societies with more castes. That would tend to suggest complex, stratified societies with extensive family networks, I guess.

Regarding specifically the gender reserved for non-reproducing men: this is often closely associated with prostitution and/or religion. Regarding prostitution: it allows acceptable prostitution without requiring women to become prostitutes. The motivations for that may vary: an underpopulated society might want to reserve women for the production of respectable babies, while an overpopulated society might want to reduce the number of babies being born without families. Linearity might be an involved factor: perhaps in matrilineal societies, there is less of a problem with prostitution in underpopulated societies where babies are valuable (because hey, she had a new baby, we're rich! who cares where it came from!).

Regarding religion, creating a third gender obviously creates a pool of people who can go into the religion, so you don't risk losing your heirs to it. And it's useful because it takes people out of the political and economic competition, and out of the sexual competition (if some men aren't men so don't take wives, the men who are men suddenly find it easier to get the best wives).
An interesting example might be the clergy in Europe. They're not traditionally CALLED a third gender, but they very nearly were. They didn't have sex; they were (at least to some extent, in some areas, for some clergy, though it varied) taken out of the political and economic sphere to reduce competition. They in some cases continue to wear clothing styles more associated with women than with men. There's a lot of gender-confusing rhetoric and iconography about them - the idea, for instance, of the Church (and the priest as the representative of the Church) being the "Bride of Christ", for instance. And they were often assigned to the church at birth, or in puberty (traditionally the second or third surviving son would enter the clergy).
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Post by elemtilas »

LinguoFranco wrote:What determines how many genders there are in a culture. Until quite recently, the West only had two genders AFAIK (I could be wrong though), while India has a third gender called Hijra and Indonesia has as many as five. Some cultures have four, dividing people into male, female, male with feminine tendencies, and female with masculine tendencies. What determines how many genders there are in a culture? Are there factors that affect this, or is completely arbitrary?
Loads of factors. Obviously, biology plays a big role. Even before a society knows about genetics, it understands the basic two genders Nature has provided.

Culture also has its say. It will generally accept the fundamental two and build up from there. Especially once religion and philosophy have their say. These can either recognise multiple genders, or recognise only the basic two (or could, perhaps, boil down to a single one). I think it's reasonable to say that Western Culture recognises only two official genders because of Judeo-Christian philosophy, religious understanding and world view married to or supported by the scientific concept of genetics (and yes, I'm aware there are more than two genetic genders).

I'd actually argue that most ordinary folks in the West subscribe, if only subconsciously, to a four gender system. Obviously "female" and "male" / "girl" and "boy" are the predominant pair. But we also have those other two, "male with female tendencies" and "female with male tendencies". Nancygirl and Tomboy. Metrosexual seems to a modern word for a much older concept. Neither of these terms have to do with sexual orientation per se; just two more points along the gender spectrum.

Political movements, social media, the general culture of snowflakeism --- all these things also have their input for better or worse. If you think you're of a special gender that heretofore has been lumped in with something else, all you really need is a facebook page and maybe a twitter account. Make a stink and get your petition on change.org. Hey-presto! Instant gender recognition!

This last was only slightly tongue in cheek. The point is, there are very many factors that go into how society determines what is á gender and what is gènder and what it will accept as legitimate mainstream or fringe whackery.
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Post by qwed117 »

Spoiler:
elemtilas wrote:
LinguoFranco wrote:What determines how many genders there are in a culture. Until quite recently, the West only had two genders AFAIK (I could be wrong though), while India has a third gender called Hijra and Indonesia has as many as five. Some cultures have four, dividing people into male, female, male with feminine tendencies, and female with masculine tendencies. What determines how many genders there are in a culture? Are there factors that affect this, or is completely arbitrary?
Loads of factors. Obviously, biology plays a big role. Even before a society knows about genetics, it understands the basic two genders Nature has provided.

Culture also has its say. It will generally accept the fundamental two and build up from there. Especially once religion and philosophy have their say. These can either recognise multiple genders, or recognise only the basic two (or could, perhaps, boil down to a single one). I think it's reasonable to say that Western Culture recognises only two official genders because of Judeo-Christian philosophy, religious understanding and world view married to or supported by the scientific concept of genetics (and yes, I'm aware there are more than two genetic genders).

I'd actually argue that most ordinary folks in the West subscribe, if only subconsciously, to a four gender system. Obviously "female" and "male" / "girl" and "boy" are the predominant pair. But we also have those other two, "male with female tendencies" and "female with male tendencies". Nancygirl and Tomboy. Metrosexual seems to a modern word for a much older concept. Neither of these terms have to do with sexual orientation per se; just two more points along the gender spectrum.

Political movements, social media, the general culture of snowflakeism --- all these things also have their input for better or worse. If you think you're of a special gender that heretofore has been lumped in with something else, all you really need is a facebook page and maybe a twitter account. Make a stink and get your petition on change.org. Hey-presto! Instant gender recognition!

This last was only slightly tongue in cheek. The point is, there are very many factors that go into how society determines what is á gender and what is gènder and what it will accept as legitimate mainstream or fringe whackery.
Just a short addendum before this goes into locked split topic territory:
Another significant issue is the way that philosophies look at duality.

In philosophies where duality is not necessarily good versus bad, but rather right versus left (Hinduism, Buddhism), you'd probably get more genders (or subgenders), while dualities that are good-bad tend to be more 2-gendered with strong gender roles (see here Abrahamic religions and Zoroastrianism).
Spoiler:
My minicity is [http://zyphrazia.myminicity.com/xml]Zyphrazia and [http://novland.myminicity.com/xml]Novland.

Minicity has fallen :(
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Post by elemtilas »

qwed117 wrote:Another significant issue is the way that philosophies look at duality.

In philosophies where duality is not necessarily good versus bad, but rather right versus left (Hinduism, Buddhism), you'd probably get more genders (or subgenders), while dualities that are good-bad tend to be more 2-gendered with strong gender roles (see here Abrahamic religions and Zoroastrianism).
Interesting that!

I note that Daine cultures tend towards left/right (two sides of the same griddle cake) philosophy with a strong sense of going the middle way. They also understand a broader range of gender types.

Pass the maple syrup, friend, if you don't mind!
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Post by Lambuzhao »

What was the earliest "non-simple" { composite?} machine?
i.e. the first machine that combined two or more simple machines

Was it the wagon? Was it the loom? The potter's wheel? Archimedes' screw?
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Post by Ahzoh »

Lambuzhao wrote:What was the earliest "non-simple" { composite?} machine?
i.e. the first machine that combined two or more simple machines

Was it the wagon? Was it the loom? The potter's wheel? Archimedes' screw?
I think the potterer's wheel since apparently that existed before the first wheeled vehicle.
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Post by elemtilas »

Lambuzhao wrote:What was the earliest "non-simple" { composite?} machine?
i.e. the first machine that combined two or more simple machines

Was it the wagon? Was it the loom? The potter's wheel? Archimedes' screw?
Ah, the imagination is left free to wander among the buttery nooks and crannies of history on this one!

Of course, we must distinguish between earliest likely contender (scholarly conjecture), earliest actual (matter of True History) and earliest
discovered (archaeological luck), the answer as clear is Mississippi mud: no one can know, but this won't stop em from forwarding their bookworthy
theories!
But as it happens, we do indeed have a contender: the hoople. A wand of wood (lever) and hoop of lashed twig (wheel). Get it rolling by
engagement with the wand and you have a toy you can run along with. Or, alternatively, you can use it for target practice: roll it along and young hunters can
sling stones through the moving hoop.

And a very strong contender it is, too! Its simplicity of concept and design speak to very early invention and adoption. But more, the hoople has True History
and archaeological luck on its side. For, deep in the bowels of the Smithsonian, that great mathom house of the Americans, that treasure trove of human
history, there is a most curious relic, dug up near Olduvai back in the late 1800s. It wasn't until the 1960s or so that American archaeologists put two and three
together. The discoveries by the Leakeys back in the late 1920s, also at Olduvai, led those later researchers to search out that old artifact and reunite it with its
rightful owner.

It turns out, as we all know, that the Leakeys discovered the skeleton of a girl there at Olduvai in 1929 and this sensational discovery led to a deeper
understanding of human origins and evolution. What not many now realize is that the girl's skeleton, when dug up in 1929, was found to be missing a hand. Not
surprising, perhaps, for such a wee girl who'd been buried for so many millions of years. But as revealed in the journal Smithsonian back in April 1969, that
earlier discovery had been catalogued as a rounded loop of thin wood and dug up in the vicinity were a thin stick of wood and several tiny finger
bones
.

The proximity of the two finds, mere decimetres apart, led archaeologists to conclude that the hand bones discovered in the 1800s with the sticks of wood
belonged to the same individual and these were united with the skeleton of the girl now named Lucy. But the strange round loop of wood was all but forgotten
again, now that the skeleton was becoming more complete. Several years would go by until archaeologists took another look at the whole discovery. Upon
measuring not only Lucy's bones, in order to determine her height and physical build (in preparation for those famous images of what she might have looked like
when still living), it was also decided to measure the strange slips of wood she was found with. The hoop, though slightly fragmentary, turned out to be about
twenty inches in diameter, and if complete, the long thin stick was close to twenty six inches in length. It was dated to the same time period as the skeleton.
As reported in the same journal (April 1988), the conclusion was clear: here was three foot seven Lucy discovered with her prized possession, a wooden stick-
and-hoople, which she undoubtedly enjoyed running about with!, much like her later descendants would some thirty-two lakhs of years ago:

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Post by Axiem »

I had not realized that before Lucy the Australopithecus was discovered in 1974, there was also a Lucy discovered half a century earlier. Though I'm having trouble finding any citations for it; everything I find is for the 1974 Lucy...
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Post by eldin raigmore »

(This is a kinship system question. I expect the answers to be quick; apologies if the question itself is not quick.)

Background:
I have a con-society which tracks "double descent".
Everyone belongs to one and only one patriclan, namely the one their father belonged to.
Simultaneously and independently, everyone belongs to one and only one matriclan, namely the one their mother belonged to.
Two people can't marry if they belong to the same patriclan or the same matriclan, or either belongs to the other's mother's patriclan or the other's father's matriclan.
(However, there's no additional prohibition against marrying someone whose mother was in the same patriclan as one's own mother,
(nor whose father was in the same matriclan as one's own father;
(nor someone from one's father's mother's patriclan nor one's mother's father's matriclan;
(not even if all four of those are true at the same time.)



Some more needed information:
I'm wondering whether kinship terms should be based on EGO classifying ALTER like so:
  • Patriclans
    • ALTER's patriclan same as EGO's
      • and ALTER's mother's patriclan same as EGO's mother's
      • but ALTER's mother's patriclan different from EGO's mother's
    • ALTER's patriclan different from EGO's
      • ALTER's patriclan is EGO's mother's patriclan and ALTER's mother's patriclan is EGO's patriclan
      • ALTER's patriclan is EGO's mother's patriclan but ALTER's mother's patriclan is different from EGO's patriclan
      • ALTER's mother's patriclan is EGO's patriclan but ALTER's patriclan is different from EGO's mother's patriclan
      • None of the above
  • Matriclans
    • ALTER's matriclan same as EGO's
      • and ALTER's father's matriclan same as EGO's father's
      • but ALTER's father's matriclan different from EGO's father's
    • ALTER's matriclan different from EGO's
      • ALTER's matriclan is EGO's father's matriclan and ALTER's father's matriclan is EGO's matriclan
      • ALTER's matriclan is EGO's father's matriclan but ALTER's father's matriclan is different from EGO's matriclan
      • ALTER's father's matriclan is EGO's matriclan but ALTER's matriclan is different from EGO's father's matriclan
      • None of the above
I could either make this 6+6=12 kinterms, or 6*6=36 kinterms.
If I express both patriclannage data and the matriclannage data in each kinterm, I'd get 36 kinterms;
for example, if ALTER's patriclan and matriclan were the same as EGO's,
and ALTER's parents' clans were the same as EGO's parents' clans,
then EGO and ALTER might consider one another to be each the other's sibling.


Questions:
Would any of this be realistic, and/or naturalistic, and/or just plain usable?
If not, why not?
It's made out of pieces that do in fact occur in natculture; for instance, "double descent". I'm just not sure all of them occur together.
Does anyone know?
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Post by Edahsrevlis »

Micamo wrote:How can a species naturally capable of inter-planetary travel (that is, with just their bodies, not with suits or spaceships) evolve from a terrestrially-based form of life?
It would have to be advantageous to leave the planet, so you'd need requirements met between both the species and the planet for that to be possible.

If you could travel 60 mph, it would take 6 months to reach the Earth's moon. About 1400 miles per day. To reach Venus (162 million miles), it would take 320 years at that speed. Which means the species has to be able to either generate propulsion in space, or have extremely long lifespans.

Solar system requirements:
Lots of planets/asteroids within close proximity
Similar atmospheric makeup for each planet
The specimens who don't leave the planet are exposed to seasonal inhospitable conditions, resulting in only the population that leaves the atmosphere surviving.

Species requirements:
Buoyant and frequently float out of their atmosphere. Probably full of gasses like methane or hydrogen, which are both flammable.
Method of deep-space propulsion, possibly also using flammable gasses stored in its body (think dragon farts).
Imagine a space whale, grazing through the clouds to eat atmospheric gasses while floating over its low-gravity planet, storing more gasses.
Because the ground-level atmosphere of the planet is less ideal or toxic to the species, it prefers lower atmospheric concentrations, or none at all, which is how it can survive in space on the gases stored in its body. The outer atmosphere provides a better mixture of gases for longevity.

When atmospheric concentrations of certain gasses become too sparse, the whales float toward other planets, increasing their speed with bursts of flaming dragon farts or something. I believe they wouldn't slow down in space since there is no friction or drag, so they move faster and faster.

A lot of them would have to crash into other planets and die to eventually evolve a way to slow down.
The ones who overshoot and accidentally orbit the planet, would be the surviving species.

They would float from planet to planet on a rotational basis, eating the atmosphere for energy and moving to other planets when the supplies run low or the planet becomes too inhospitable. I suppose they could return to the planet once its atmosphere regenerated. Kind of a "fly south for the winter" mechanism but with planets instead of seasons.
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Post by alynnidalar »

Uh. That question was asked almost seven years ago.
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Post by eldin raigmore »

alynnidalar wrote:Uh. That question was asked almost seven years ago.
IMO that's OK. I still enjoyed Silvershade's Edahsrevlis's answer.
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Post by Edahsrevlis »

alynnidalar wrote:Uh. That question was asked almost seven years ago.
Just long enough for a farting space whale to reach us.
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Post by GamerGeek »

Edahsrevlis wrote:
alynnidalar wrote:Uh. That question was asked almost seven years ago.
Just long enough for a farting space whale to reach us.
[xD]
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Post by Salmoneus »

Edahsrevlis wrote:
Micamo wrote:How can a species naturally capable of inter-planetary travel (that is, with just their bodies, not with suits or spaceships) evolve from a terrestrially-based form of life?
It would have to be advantageous to leave the planet, so you'd need requirements met between both the species and the planet for that to be possible.

If you could travel 60 mph, it would take 6 months to reach the Earth's moon. About 1400 miles per day. To reach Venus (162 million miles), it would take 320 years at that speed. Which means the species has to be able to either generate propulsion in space, or have extremely long lifespans.
I don't like to be too critical, but I think someone ought to point out that there are three big misunderstandings here. Well, two, at least.

The first one is this idea of travelling toward the moon at 60mph. Travelling to the moon at that speed is really, really difficult - because it's hard to move that slowly. Stand still on the surface of the earth and you're moving (relative to the centre of the earth) at 1,000mph already. Reach a Low Earth Orbit, and you're by definition moving at around 15,000-17,500 mph. By the time you reach the moon, you need to be moving at 2,400 mph. If you somehow did reach the moon travelling so slowly, you'd not be able to land on it, because it would whizz past you at ~2,400mph (or hit you, and a rock the size of the moon hitting you at ~2,400mph is not nice).

Everything in space is moving really, really fast. "Distances" in space are therefore typically measured not in miles but in delta-v: requisite changes in velocity.
Species requirements:
Buoyant and frequently float out of their atmosphere. Probably full of gasses like methane or hydrogen, which are both flammable.
Second big misunderstanding: you cannot float out of the atmosphere. Certainly not with methane in you!
"Floating" is what happens when a body is less dense than the fluid surrounding it. Gravity tries to push objects down, which means that the air beneath them gets pushed. It therefore pushes back in an equal and opposite manner: there is a force of buoyancy equal to the gravity of the mass of the air that is being pushed out of the way by the falling object. If the object has less gravity than the air it displaces (i.e. it is less dense than the air), then that buoyancy is greater than the gravity, and buoyancy pushes the object up until it reaches a level where it is approximately (because shape etc can alter the details) as dense as the surrounding air. If the object is denser than the air around it (i.e. has more gravity than the air it is trying to displace), then its gravity overwhelms buoyancy and the object sinks - until it reaches a level where the surrounding air is as dense as it is (if such a layer exists).

A bag of methane, therefore, will float up into the air until it reaches the altitude where the air has the same density as methane (more or less). It cannot rise any higher than that, because above that point its own gravity will be greater than the ability of the thin air to resist. To float "into space", an object would have to have the same density as space. Space is a vacuum, with zero density, so the object would have to have zero density too, which means it would have to have zero mass.

[Technically, this is all not precisely true. The atmosphere doesn't just stop, for instance, but just because less and less dense asymptotically, and even outer space is, technically, not a perfect vacuum (there are a couple of atoms every few cubic metres. There may also potentially be some density (or negative density even) in a perfect vacuum because of Quantum. However, these numbers are so incredibly tiny that they are effectively negligible for the purposes of things like space whales].

So, you can't float into space. The only way to get into space is to launch yourself incredibly quickly away from the planet.
Method of deep-space propulsion, possibly also using flammable gasses stored in its body (think dragon farts).
Here's the third big issue, although technically it's not a mis-understanding, just probably a lack of thought about the scale of a problem.

To push something, you need not only energy but also propellant. Newton's laws means that pushing forward is also pushing back, and moving forward is also moving something else back. A rocket throws propellant out of the back so that the rocket itself can move forward.

Unfortunately, that means that to accelerate at the end of your journey, you need to still have propellant, so you need to have carried that propellant with you. That means that that propellant also needs to have been accelerated along with you (otherwise it would still be back at home). Fair enough - except that that means that in order to bring that propellant with you to the end of your journey, you need to have brought other propellant to propel that propellant, and THAT propellant needs to have been brought ALMOST to the end of your journey. But THAT propellant also needed to be propelled, so you need extra propellant to do that. And then you need MORE propellant to propel THAT propellant. And so on, and so on, and so on. Very rapidly you reach a situation where most of your propellant is actually being used to propel other propellant (and, likewise, most of you fuel is being used to move propellant around; rockets try to cheat by using their own fuel as propellant).

That's why a basic single-stage rocket is 90% propellant, and only 10% actual rocket.

This means that any interplanetary craft will need one of these three things:
- extremely tiny levels of acceleration over a very long period of time
- an incredibly low mass
- a very high percentage of propellant to actual travelling body.
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eldin raigmore
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Re: (C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by eldin raigmore »

Salmoneus's points are good ones. If anyone wants to make progress on the subject of that sub-thread, those points need to be thought about and handled somehow.
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Re: (C&C) Q&A Thread - Quick questions go here

Post by Lambuzhao »

If anything, they (or one of the manifestations of their life cycle) would be farting zepplins, along the lines of what Sal suggested.

Which reminds me of proposed ideas of what life might be like on a gas-giant like Jupiter:
https://astrobioloblog.files.wordpress. ... r-life.jpg
https://astrobioloblog.files.wordpress. ... loater.png

(Carl Sagan and Vangelis always help to set the proper mood)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... akLB7Eni2E


But just try escaping that gravity into space!
Don't think so.

I'm not sure a 'terrestrial' or mebbe 'planetochthonous' (that is, born of a planet anywhere from Earth to larger) creature could evolve a space-faring creature.
They'd either have to have evolved on a weak planetoid (i.e. a large asteroid, perhaps somewhere like Pluto or maybe a Mercury-sized planet) or else was genetically created, like Dougal Dixon's Vacuumorph, which see:

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5245/5223 ... d6f6_z.jpg
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5007/522 ... 30ed_b.jpg
http://www.sivatherium.narod.ru/library ... p00263.gif


But I'm open to whatever the future may teach us.
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