quote:Originally posted by Nim: That reminds me, if the human-ships can float in free air and even escalate over cloud height, do they really classify as "hovercraft"? All forms of hovercraft rely on the surface or on water for support.
What do they call those things on Starfleet ships, the devices that make the ship stop or stand still? The pads on the Matrix-ships must be like those. Friction generators, or something. But then what makes them go forward or up?
I always figured them to either be some new more powerful type of electrostatic repulsor system or more likely an arcjet engine:
Arcjets For electrothermal propulsion systems to achieve exhaust velocities much higher than 10 000 ms-1, portions of the propellant flow must attain temperatures in excess of 10 000 K while being kept out of contact with the engine component walls. Arcjets accomplish this by passing the propellant through an electric arc that heats it before it expands through a nozzle.
Core arc temperatures of 10 000 to 20 000 K mean that exhaust velocities of 5000 - 6000 ms-1 (Isp = 500 - 600 s) at efficiencies of around 40% are possible using catalytically decomposed hydrazine.
Arcjet thrusters entered commercial use for north-south station keeping on the Telstar-4 series of geostationary communication satellites in 1993. Higher power arcjets providing sufficient thrust for orbit transfer or primary propulsion manoeuvres have been demonstrated on test flights but problems with electrode erosion and availability of sufficient electric power have delayed their introduction for operational missions.
-------------------- "You must talk to him; tell him that he is a good cat, and a pretty cat, and..." -- Data "I will feed him" -- Worf (Phantasms)
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posted
Bond quoted: "Arcjets accomplish this by passing the propellant through an electric arc that heats it before it expands through a nozzle."
You pose that the "electric arc" component might be what those ring-pads are? Interesting. One relevant observation is the attack on the Osiris, in Animatrix; after the sentinels had cut off the main starboard hoverpad-array, the Osiris started spinning clockwise and crashed into the ground.
So if the side-emitters work against some sort of "pushing"-action emmitted by the emitters on the opposite side, it must mean the whole levitation technique operates kind of like old chimney-sweep acrobatics. A sweep worked his way up a vertical tunnel by pushing his hands and feet outwards, pinning himself between the walls.
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I've wondered how people are born. Does the matrix know when two people are having sex? My theory is the matrix creates a baby in the real world and alter the appearance of the women in the matrix to appear pregant. Then when the baby is born in the matrix the machine enters the real-world baby's mind in matrix.
Next I wonder what would happen if the timeline in the matrix were to continue and humans did the same thing over again by creating AI and a war with the machines within the matrix which lead to the creation of a matrix inside the matrix.
-------------------- I'm slightly annoyed at Hobbes' rather rude decision to be much more attractive than me though. That's just rude. - PsyLiam, Oct 27, 2005.
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An interesting question would be why a person's Matrix self-image should match his actual physical form? I can't imagine why the machines would waste time on such a trivial matter (particularly since these people would, ideally, never be unplugged from the Matrix). Since a baby would simply be a replacement battery, it theoretically need not even be related biologically to its parents inside the Matrix. That could be one hell of a psychological blow to someone just released into the real world; just imagine someone who was a white supremacist in the Matrix waking up to find he's really black!
I also have a problem with the whole idea of human bodies providing the power for the machines. For one thing, the useful output of a person's biology (beyond that needed to keep the organism alive) can't be all that much. Given the general weakness of Neo's body when it was decanted, I think it's safe to say his muscles received little or no use during his life. This limits his energy output largely to body heat; I don't know about you, but I certainly can't heat my apartment in winter all by myself.
With a relatively small amount of net energy per person, the power station would need a lot of warm bodies to power even a single city. The question then becomes one of food supply. Even lying inert, there is a minimum amount of food required to keep the body alive. The problem with this scenario is the lack of sunlight. No sun means no photosynthesis, and the whole food chain collapses (to say nothing of the oxygen/carbon dioxide cycle). I know the first film said the people were fed on the liquified bodies of the dead, but I don't think the math adds up.
Here's an example. Assume you have all 6 billion people on earth plugged in, each with an average body weight of 65 kilos. Assume a caloric intake of 1000 calories per day per person, which can be gained from eating 354 grams of beef steak. That translates to 2.126 billion kilos of meat per day. At 65 kilos per person, that's the equivalent of 32.7 million dead bodies daily, assuming you consume the whole shebang. At that rate, you'd need to kill off nearly twice the population of the world each year to feed the people in the Matrix.
-------------------- The difference between genius and idiocy? Genius has its limits.
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quote:Originally posted by Nim: Bond quoted: "Arcjets accomplish this by passing the propellant through an electric arc that heats it before it expands through a nozzle."
You pose that the "electric arc" component might be what those ring-pads are? Interesting. One relevant observation is the attack on the Osiris, in Animatrix; after the sentinels had cut off the main starboard hoverpad-array, the Osiris started spinning clockwise and crashed into the ground.
So if the side-emitters work against some sort of "pushing"-action emmitted by the emitters on the opposite side, it must mean the whole levitation technique operates kind of like old chimney-sweep acrobatics. A sweep worked his way up a vertical tunnel by pushing his hands and feet outwards, pinning himself between the walls.
Good example. Niobe's commands to Morpheus like "starboard 90%" would in effect be like the chimney sweep moving each foot up one at a time while simultaneously keeping pressure on the other hands and feet. You cycle one side of the pads up to make the turn but the other pads are still operating to keep the ship at a distance from the sides of the tunnel and in the air.
-------------------- "You must talk to him; tell him that he is a good cat, and a pretty cat, and..." -- Data "I will feed him" -- Worf (Phantasms)
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quote:Originally posted by Woodside Kid: Here's an example. Assume you have all 6 billion people on earth plugged in, each with an average body weight of 65 kilos. Assume a caloric intake of 1000 calories per day per person, which can be gained from eating 354 grams of beef steak. That translates to 2.126 billion kilos of meat per day. At 65 kilos per person, that's the equivalent of 32.7 million dead bodies daily, assuming you consume the whole shebang. At that rate, you'd need to kill off nearly twice the population of the world each year to feed the people in the Matrix.
Now *my* head hurts.
Regarding a creation of AI within the Matrix, I think there's some of goverance in place on how far time and scientific advancement progresses in the Matrix. The still produce cool cars and sunglasses and things, but I doubt there are any developments of real substance.
There is obviously still poverty and business and the whole hustle and bustle, but I don't think anything every really happens.
posted
No, everything is just electron blips in the CPU....
-------------------- "You are a terrible human, Ritten." Magnus "Urgh, you are a sick sick person..." Austin Powers A leek too, pretty much a negi.....
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posted
Obviously nothing that happens in the Matrix is real... I mean, from the perception of those plugged in, I don't think there are ever any real significant changes to life inside.
posted
Also, all the people killed per year in accidents, weather shifts, diseases and homicide, that's a lot of bodies to just "flush out" on sheer principle. Imagine if some of the "liberated" people were to reinsert themselves, out of laziness. "Hey Biff, did you hear about that plane crash 10 blocks down? About a 1000 casualities... -Really?! Great, cuz I'm absolutely starving here!"
Da Woodside Kid! wrote: "An interesting question would be why a person's Matrix self-image should match his actual physical form?"
Because if they didn't, the audience would get Alzheimer's from trying to keep track of every actor looking totally different from their out-of-Matrix selves. People would lose bladder control in their seats, start talking to their dead relatives and claim they all were subject to incest as a child. We can't have that, can we?
Bond: "You cycle one side of the pads up to make the turn but the other pads are still operating to keep the ship at a distance from the sides of the tunnel and in the air."
Indeed, and when banking as hard as Niobe did, you would want as little resistance as possible from the pads that face the way you want to go. Also, the pads could shift position and rotation to a rather great extent, making for many exciting combinations. :.)
In a way, I'd have hoped the Matrix Universe had gotten a series with a four-season run. I would've liked to know what the ship's core is running on, how the Zion defenses work and what the tonnage, armor, max velocity and lifting force of the ships are.
For size-reference, here's a nice guide, courtesy of some cutting and pasting from the Matrix.com website. I assume that they are all the same scale.
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Indeed it was the pickup-ship in late "Reloaded".
Also the thing the heroes rode into Zion in, barely. It's the biggest and most heavily-armed of the four (haven't gotten a scale-comparison of the Osiris yet, she's a contender). It's got ten machineguns in nose- and shouldermounts alone. When I get money for the "Revolutions"-DVD, I'll find out more.
I believe the callname "Hammer" was just a verbal referral, kind of like how the USS Missouri was the "Big Mo". All the official sources brand the ship "Mjolnir", an anglicized form of Mj�lner, Thor's hammer.
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I also have a problem with the whole idea of human bodies providing the power for the machines. For one thing, the useful output of a person's biology (beyond that needed to keep the organism alive) can't be all that much.
Well, according to thermodynamics the useful output energy of any system has to be less than the input. The whole concept made no sense, unless the machines had another reason for keeping us alive and just figured, hey, may as well use 'em for power while they're just sitting around.
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
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If I recall correctly the power-plant also involves "a form of fusion", I suppose that is meant to make up the difference. Also considering that there appears to be only one machine city and one Matrix power station indicates that the machines are limited by the ammount of humans they can sustain, which in turn limits the ammount of power the machines have.
It just occurred to me that if you consider the effects that the 'scorched sky' has on machines I think their motivation suddenly becomes comprehensible. They're effectively trapped, since they can't leave Earth and are limited by the capabilities of human-pod power, which has a habit of going haywire every century or so and with so much of their resources going into maintaining the humans and the Matrix it's no wonder that the machine world has become so internally oppressive and apparently stagnant. I think this answers a question that has bugged me ever since I saw Revolutions, that being why would the machine god keep to his word when he could easily have the sentinals slaughter Zion and start it all over again, after Neo defeated Smith.
posted
First of all, the machines turned to humans only after we had blackened the sky. They were kind of desperate, to say the least. Since they were at this point a sovereign nation, developing their own AI and technology at a high rate, they must've developed the tech to harness and use the energy of a human in the best possible way.
Secondly, as they were at some point able to start growing humans in crop fields, they must since long have had the ability to manipulate DNA or genes, to create the most "desirable" humans for the purpose in question. It was probably available even before the war, during man's second renaissance. Therefore what's to say they didn't modify the way humans radiate energy/heat? We breed animals for singular purposes all the time, creatures that wouldn't function in the wild. There's even talk about creating a race of pigs that have human hearts, which will then be harvested to ease the pressure on the organ market.
Remember also that the machines in "The Matrix" had the technology to put wires and coils into our bodies, in the spines and everything. A person may not be so warm on the outside, but on the inside we're usually, let's see, about 99�F. Perhaps the metal grid laced onto the skeleton and spine of the "copper-top" humans is what absorbs the energy, not the surrounding liquid or pod.
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