Makoto Shinkai English Fan Forum and Site

Nick · Posted: Sat May 24, 2008 7:35 am Post subject: Texting and Einstein

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0370754/board/thread/106793391

I posted this on the imdb forums before I found these forums. I just wanted something cleared up. Please read my post in that link and if you think you can explain it to me I'd like to hear it.

Thanks.

Menasha · vc_bios_b960909 Joined: 27 Jan 2008 Posts: 822

If time around you slows down while remaining the same out side your "bubble" then I think your right. But doesn't the same effect happen to the signal traveling in space?

In other words I don't know, doesn't really matter to me. Works better for the story if she never gets a reply I think. Did she? I never really watched that movie, I didn't like it.
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Junpei · Posted: Mon May 26, 2008 4:23 am Post subject:

I think time and the universe are the most complicated things known. I find myself pondering over this countless times. But there are some things humans will never know.

I'm no expert in anything much so can't answer your question... I know even less about cell phones as I have never used one before. (Seriously) Maybe because I hate them haha.

gleowine · Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 1:12 am Post subject:

I did a little research on this. (Actually, I just looked it up in an old physics textbook I once got at a flea market.)

According to Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity (and remember, it's still only a theory), time is relative, meaning that its measurement depends on an observer's frame of reference. In other words, to find out what time it is depends on whom you talk to: if you talk to Mikako, she'll give you a different answer from the one Noboru gives you. The reason for this is that their respective frames of reference are different: for Noboru, it's the Earth; for Mikako, the Lysithea.

To Noboru, the Lysithea is flying away from the Earth at warp speed. But to Mikako, it is the Earth that is flying away from the Lysithea. Also, the chronometers on their cell phones were calibrated and synchronized while on Earth; however, as Mikako travels farther and farther into space, her chronometer will continue to run slower than Noboru's. That's because, in order for the Lysithea to pursue the Tarsians, it must travel through space at the speed of light, which results in a time dilation, i.e. the intervals between "ticks" of seconds on the clock get longer and longer. However, according to Mikako's frame of reference, a second is still a second, ticking away at the same rate as always. Again, this is all based on a theory that uses mathematical equations to calculate the time dilation. No one has actually been able to observe this, since, as the theory also tells us, it is impossible for any object to travel at light-speed. Or put another way, no object has been observed traveling at light-speed... yet. Scientists seem to have no problem accepting this; to them, it's just us regular folk who still don't get it.

So, what effect would this have on Mikako's texting? Actually, it shouldn't have any effect, since her email is digitized and piggy-backed on a carrier wave that itself is traveling at the speed of light. Radio waves, like light, are a form of electromagnetic radiation, and according to Einstein's theory, the speed of light is a constant no matter what the frame of reference. The only problem is that the Lysithea could not stay in one place waiting for Noboru's reply; it was still pursuing the Tarsians, and so with the increasing light-years would come an inevitable delay in receiving replies.

Of course, despite all this, Mr. Shinkai still imagined that thoughts, or rather "one thought," could possibly over-ride the theory. Perhaps someone else might like to take a shot at explaining that.

Nick · Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 8:12 am Post subject:

Thanks for the responses. Oh well I guess it's interesting to think about anyway. I just figured that if she's 15 and hes 23 (or whatever it is), then she should have received replies from him in a seemingly normal time frame. Anyway it's too complicated for me to think about - I'll just have to try it one day I guess...

Laz · Laz Joined: 09 Jan 2008 Posts: 1073

Radio waves travel much slower than light, don't they?

Anyway ... I'm willing to not look into the details of the science anyway because the whole delay in texting is a device to move the story along.
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You're a woman, I'm a calf ... you're a window, I'm a knife ... we come together making chance into starlight ... - Jeff Buckley

ここにいるよ. - Voices of a Distant Star

zitch · Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 3:42 am Post subject:

Didn't I have a post about this somewhere? Laughing

I'm not exactly a physicist (I'm a computer programmer by trade), but I don't think Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity really applies here. The Earth Navy fleet, for a lack of a better term, "leaps" from one point to another. Basically, the ships disappear at one point and reappear at another point without moving in-between the two points in normal space. I don't think I made that clear in my earlier post about this.

Oh, and light and radio waves are both types of electromagnetic radiation. They both move at the speed of light in relation to the observer in a vacuum. So (assuming in a vacuum like deep space) if Person A is moving at 0.9 times the speed of light relative to person B, a radio wave moving away from person B is moving at the speed of light relatively to both person A and B. Wrap your minds around that one... Smile

Laz · Laz Joined: 09 Jan 2008 Posts: 1073

Hmmm ... well ..I have a Physics Minor (like that matters) and I know that sound and light travel at different speeds (jets can break the sound barrier but cannot yet break through the light barrier, etc.), but I wasn't sure if that was just due to air as a medium.

Here's what I found on a NASA site ..

http://helios.gsfc.nasa.gov/qa_gp_ls.html#lightsound

Speed of Light vs Speed of Sound

How do sound and light arrive at the same time when light travels faster than sound?
This is a good and interesting question that is rooted in everyday experience. Indeed, it appears that sound and light arrive simultaneously when we attend a play in a theater or watch a movie. The reason is that we are very close to the stage or screen and loudspeaker. This may already be different during a concert in a stadium: For somebody in the distant rows the sound of the band and its movement is out of synch. The speed of sounds is approx. 300 m/s (1000 ft/s), while the speed of light is 300,000 km/s (approx.190,000 miles/s). Therefore, the sound arrives about 1/3 of a second after the corresponding movement, i.e. starts to be recognizable. In a theater the time difference is too short to be recognized.

The most striking experience of the different speed of light and sound is during a thunderstorm. Unless the thunderstorm is exactly upon us, a silent lightning is followed by a substantially delayed thunder. Yet both originate the same place and time. In fact, one can estimate the distance of the thunderstorm from the difference by counting .twenty-one, twenty-two, etc.. starting with the lightning. Saying each number takes about one second. The distance of the thunderstorm in miles is the number of seconds counted dived by five. Thus a thunderstorm is a great time to find out without instrumentation that sound is indeed much slower than light.

Dr. Eberhard Moebius
(November 2003)
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You're a woman, I'm a calf ... you're a window, I'm a knife ... we come together making chance into starlight ... - Jeff Buckley

ここにいるよ. - Voices of a Distant Star

gleowine · Posted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 6:52 pm Post subject:

Ilasir Maroa · Tracer Joined: 17 Dec 2008 Posts: 3

The text messages are sent while the ship is at rest, at least from what I could gather. The jumps appear to be fairly instantaneous, though whether they are or not is immaterial. The messages would take the year, and then the 8.7 seven years respectively. The replies would 8.7 years, because by the time they are sent, she's already at Agartha.

As for the signal, I'm wondering whether it comes from the phone,or if it piggybacks on the ships communications systems. Since the phone wouldn't likely be powerful enough on its own to cut through the background and also no disperse.

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