MovieChat Forums > Paul (2011) Discussion > Andromeda Galaxy question

Andromeda Galaxy question

posted 12 years ago by DaytonaBob
22 replies | jump to latest

Look I realize this is science fiction where pretty much anything is possible. That is the point.

But this sort of bothered me, even though just a little bit (and yes this overthinking it but nonetheless....).

The Andromeda Galaxy is freaking far away. We are not talking about a galactic distance here, we are talking about inter galactic distance here.

The Milky Way, our galaxy is between 100 and 120 thousand light years from end to end (so to speak) and any way you look at it, that is a huge freaking distance. And it has anywhere from 200 BILLION to 400 BILLION stars with perhaps as many planets and maybe 2 percent in the habital zone in terms of distance from their sun.

The Andromeda Galaxy is over 2.5 MILLION light years away. And that's to the edge, and Paul is from within that galaxy.

Now granted, again, this is science fiction but good god, that is a serious distance to try and say you traveled from.

Hell even Star Wars and Star Trek give that sort of travel a pass. Although Stargate did it with some serious stretching of distances. There they went to very distant galaxies which also stretched credulity.

So I gotta wonder why saying from a distant part of THIS galaxy doesn't work for writers? I mean ten thousand light years, which is only one tenth of the distance between 'ends' of our galaxy, sounds pretty far yet not far enough for writers?

They who give up liberty to
obtain a temporary safety deserve
neither liberty or safety

[–] 12 years ago

[deleted]

[–] DaytonaBob 12 years ago

GFYS

They who give up liberty to
obtain a temporary safety deserve
neither liberty or safety

[–] demo_deus 12 years ago

It's called 'suspension of belief'. He also brought back the dead. Either way this was a comedy and only needed some mention of where he was from that a few in the crowd could recognize and feel smart about.

[–] captwampler 12 years ago

Paul used Chevron Techron 93 octane gas.

[–] aliensalmon 11 years ago

Hyperspace/Slipstream/Einstein-Rosen Bridge Travel

I'm an Extraterrestrial-American.
a.k.a. killersalmon a.k.a. NovaFlames

[–] raf-33 11 years ago

Being able to travel to the nearest solar system, Alpha Centauri, is likely to be as difficult as travelling to the farthest reaches of the entire universe. It's shows like Star Trek that actually have it wrong, pretending we can have engines that travel faster than light and hop us between stars, it's been proven that faster than light travel is impossible, thus proving most sci-fi shows flawed.

If we ever develop some form of interstellar travel then it's likely to be some sort of bending-space type of nonsense like in the movie Event Horizon and that really will make distance obsolete, we'll just vanish and reappear elsewhere.

It's either that far-fetched idea or the absolutely mindblowing prospect that we will one day have the ability to travel at the same speed as light (let alone faster than it) and even then we would still need to pack enough sandwiches and tea to last us the 4 years and 3 months it would take us at that speed just to reach Alpha Centauri.

Opinions are just onions with pi in them.

[–] thebadwolf 11 years ago

it's been proven that faster than light travel is impossible.

No it hasn't E=MC2 says nothing can travel faster than light but there has been findings that say otherwise with neutrinos.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/nov/18/neutrinos-still-faster-t han-light

But in any case scientific theory's are only correct until something says otherwise they change and are not proven truths

[–] lemner 11 years ago

Then where is everybody?

Semper Contendere Propter Amoram et Formam

[–] king_of_bob 9 years ago

That question suggests you vastly underestimate the "size of space" and the distances between celestial bodies. Like they say at the beginning of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, "Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space."

If you were in space you could theoretically throw a stone in any direction and the odds are fair that said stone would never hit anything. Until eventually it went all the way around the universe and returned to the exact point you threw it from. Wrap your head around that one.

The new home of Welcome to Planet Bob: http://kingofbob.blogspot.ca/

[–] djstatika 11 years ago

Im pretty sure that just turned out to be some dodgy fibre optic cables or something.

[–] qubit01 11 years ago

Also, quantum computing has proven that data can travel faster than light. If you were to entangle two qubits and separate them by a billion miles, any change in state of one would be instantaneously reflected by the other.

Will twerk for food...

[–] king_of_bob 9 years ago

This is an issue of confusing the terms. Technically nothing with mass can ACCELERATE to the speed of light, but there is nothing preventing TRAVEL at faster than light speed. Travel simply refers to going from one place to another, regardless of the means of transport.

The problem with traveling at light speed is a result of energy required to ACCELERATE, but there are theoretical methods of travel through space\time which do not require acceleration. Warp drives and wormholes for example.

The new home of Welcome to Planet Bob: http://kingofbob.blogspot.ca/

[–] konfou 9 years ago

In case of Star Trek, the spaceship doesn't travel faster than light. As a matter of fact, it doesn't move at all while in warp speed. It is space itself that moves. It isn't only theoretically possible but, with evidence of gravitational waves, it has actually happened for Big Bang model to hold correct.

[–] king_of_bob 9 years ago

It's great when someone on IMDb actually knows what they're talking about.

The new home of Welcome to Planet Bob: http://kingofbob.blogspot.ca/

[–] king_of_bob 9 years ago

It's shows like Star Trek that actually have it wrong, pretending we can have engines that travel faster than light and hop us between stars, it's been proven that faster than light travel is impossible, thus proving most sci-fi shows flawed.

Actually the way the engines work in Star Trek is perfectly plausible. Using that type of technology, in theory, we could travel faster than the speed of light. It's only an issue when using traditional propulsion methods. ACCELLERATING to light speed is impossible, but it has NEVER been proven that traveling faster than the speed of light is.

If we ever develop some form of interstellar travel then it's likely to be some sort of bending-space type of nonsense like in the movie Event Horizon and that really will make distance obsolete, we'll just vanish and reappear elsewhere.

See, it's pretty hard to take your opinion of the science seriously when you don't even know what this "nonsense" is called. Event Horizon used wormhole technology, which technically speaking is faster than light travel. Since traveling by wormhole would allow one to arrive at their destination before a beam of light from the same starting location would.

And you meant "irrelevant" not "obsolete."

It's either that far-fetched idea or the absolutely mindblowing prospect that we will one day have the ability to travel at the same speed as light (let alone faster than it) and even then we would still need to pack enough sandwiches and tea to last us the 4 years and 3 months it would take us at that speed just to reach Alpha Centauri.

Like I said, traveling faster than light is not even close to impossible. It's only impossible using traditional propulsion methods. In the case of Star Trek the ship isn't actually traveling through space, rather it generates a warped bubble of space\time, and it is perfectly allowable theoretically. Space is technically moving around the ship rather than the ship moving through space so there's no problem arising from acceleration.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRn4WpoNAyo

The new home of Welcome to Planet Bob: http://kingofbob.blogspot.ca/

[–] redkeno 11 years ago

We used to walk, then fly, people said that we would never break the sound barrier. Obviously one day we will cross the universe in a matter of seconds. You just don't live in a time period where humans can do that. There could be races out their billions of years older than us, of course they could pop over here as easily as we grab a snack from the kitchen. Andromeda is a close galaxy.

Fate is what you call it when you don't know the name of the person screwing you over.

[–] gabypanama 11 years ago

Wormholes? Bending time\space? Hyper-speed? Anti-matter propulsion? If you Asked a medieval person if man was going to the moon someday, he would have told you "impossible, its beyond reality and any possibility".

[–] king_of_bob 9 years ago

They may also have said "No way. The moon is way too small for anyone to stand on." :P

The new home of Welcome to Planet Bob: http://kingofbob.blogspot.ca/

[–] covea-31-262163 10 years ago

A wormhole and having the ability to warp space would make inter galaxy travel possible. Plus the probability of "hidden variables" of which with our current level of knowledge we know nothing all mean anything we can imagine is possibl.

Ron

[–] konfou 9 years ago

Indeed, you're overthinking it. It is mainly a comedy and then it is scifi.

[–] king_of_bob 9 years ago

Distance is irrelevant if one has access to wormholes or is capable of generating them.

The new home of Welcome to Planet Bob: http://kingofbob.blogspot.ca/

[–] persen1 9 years ago

A wormhole and having the ability to warp space would make inter galaxy travel possible. Plus the probability of "hidden variables" of which with our current level of knowledge we know nothing all mean anything we can imagine is possibl.

Subspace travel. They messed with that in Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis, who made it possible for them to travel to the Pegasus Dwarf Irregular Galaxy in a couple of months, a distance of some 3 million light-years away from Earth.
Forgot to mention, that on Stargate, they just called it the "Pegasus Galaxy".