Nerd question of the day
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Which is the fastest spaceship? And I don't mean like in Протон[^] vs Saturn 5[^]. I mean like NCC-1701-D[^] vs Lexx[^]. But of course not limited to just those ships, I'd like to hear motivations for why the Millenium Falcon is tha fastest ship too.
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
Hold on! I am writing a book with the fastest ever spaceship in it!
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Yes - an at maximum improbability, the Heart Of Gold is at every location and every point in time.
Hm, well, as soon an the correct improbability is calculated, the HoG is there instantly. But how long does it take to calculate it? And is the time needed for calculation to be considered as part of the travel time? Depending on the HoG's compute power (which is never talked about in THGTTG, as far as I know), it might be overtaken by others going very fast, while it is still standing there and calculating... But what would interest me is: Which one of the "pseudo scientific" space ships in SciFi Series is the fastest (leaving out those "pure fun" things, that don't even try to have a possibly scientific background)? The "Destiniy" from SG-U? Apart from the Stargate Universe, I just can't remember any real intergalactic journeys, most ships only do interstellar travel within one galaxy (also the millennium falcon) ;-))...
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Hm, well, as soon an the correct improbability is calculated, the HoG is there instantly. But how long does it take to calculate it? And is the time needed for calculation to be considered as part of the travel time? Depending on the HoG's compute power (which is never talked about in THGTTG, as far as I know), it might be overtaken by others going very fast, while it is still standing there and calculating... But what would interest me is: Which one of the "pseudo scientific" space ships in SciFi Series is the fastest (leaving out those "pure fun" things, that don't even try to have a possibly scientific background)? The "Destiniy" from SG-U? Apart from the Stargate Universe, I just can't remember any real intergalactic journeys, most ships only do interstellar travel within one galaxy (also the millennium falcon) ;-))...
Well the Andromeda travels betwenn three galaxies in seconds instead of weeks. I don't know how far these are apart compared to the Pegasus galaxy for instance. So it would be diffucult to definitely decide which ship is faster.
The good thing about pessimism is, that you are always either right or pleasently surprised.
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Which is the fastest spaceship? And I don't mean like in Протон[^] vs Saturn 5[^]. I mean like NCC-1701-D[^] vs Lexx[^]. But of course not limited to just those ships, I'd like to hear motivations for why the Millenium Falcon is tha fastest ship too.
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
I recall that the Bistromathic Drive[^] in the ship owned by Slartibartfast was faster than the heart of gold. Indeed, I'm sure the IID is referred to as an electric pram!
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Which is the fastest spaceship? And I don't mean like in Протон[^] vs Saturn 5[^]. I mean like NCC-1701-D[^] vs Lexx[^]. But of course not limited to just those ships, I'd like to hear motivations for why the Millenium Falcon is tha fastest ship too.
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
Probably the ships used by the Spacing Guild in Dune. The navigators were able to "fold" space which had the effect of instantaneous transportation across the galaxy - even faster than the hyperspace travel in Star Wars which took some amount of time.
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Which is the fastest spaceship? And I don't mean like in Протон[^] vs Saturn 5[^]. I mean like NCC-1701-D[^] vs Lexx[^]. But of course not limited to just those ships, I'd like to hear motivations for why the Millenium Falcon is tha fastest ship too.
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
I really don't think you've thought this through! For any ship travelling faster than light the notion of fastest is entirely meaningless because of relativity. In fact, arriving before you left is the only possibility with faster than light travel, and the faster you go, the earlier you arrive. So, although you get to the place you want to go in seconds (from the crew's point of view) you then have to wait an age to catch up to when you wanted to be there. It is a genuine example of more haste, less speed.
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Probably the ships used by the Spacing Guild in Dune. The navigators were able to "fold" space which had the effect of instantaneous transportation across the galaxy - even faster than the hyperspace travel in Star Wars which took some amount of time.
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Which is the fastest spaceship? And I don't mean like in Протон[^] vs Saturn 5[^]. I mean like NCC-1701-D[^] vs Lexx[^]. But of course not limited to just those ships, I'd like to hear motivations for why the Millenium Falcon is tha fastest ship too.
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
The DeLorean can travel in the time (and I suppose space).
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I really don't think you've thought this through! For any ship travelling faster than light the notion of fastest is entirely meaningless because of relativity. In fact, arriving before you left is the only possibility with faster than light travel, and the faster you go, the earlier you arrive. So, although you get to the place you want to go in seconds (from the crew's point of view) you then have to wait an age to catch up to when you wanted to be there. It is a genuine example of more haste, less speed.
I recall reading a short sci-fi story some time ago that had FTL transportation, but not FTL communication. The main kicker of that being that you could arrive at a distant planet, but everyone there would ignore you until light from your originating location was able to catch up. It was a silly premise, but it was intriguing as well.
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Which is the fastest spaceship? And I don't mean like in Протон[^] vs Saturn 5[^]. I mean like NCC-1701-D[^] vs Lexx[^]. But of course not limited to just those ships, I'd like to hear motivations for why the Millenium Falcon is tha fastest ship too.
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
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Which is the fastest spaceship? And I don't mean like in Протон[^] vs Saturn 5[^]. I mean like NCC-1701-D[^] vs Lexx[^]. But of course not limited to just those ships, I'd like to hear motivations for why the Millenium Falcon is tha fastest ship too.
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
The fastest must surely be the Heart of Gold in Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy since, with the help of its improbability drive (which is powered by a cup of tea in the Brownian motion producer) it could pass through every point in every universe simultaneously.