Geeky questions

[:]

Good news, everyone  A newbie on the horizon!!
I just finished episode 72 and I am happy Futurama junkie now

Here is a question for you. Fry was frozen in the cryogenic chamber in the first seconds of the year 2000. The timer was set for 1000 years and yet he woke up in year 2999 around 6 pm(it was still daylight), six hours before midnight. Was the timer on the chamber wrong or is there something else?? I know the writers sacrifice consistency for the comic effect but I think they got it right(intended or not).
As we now know the Earth orbiting speed is decreasing. Actually we added 1 second at the end of the 2008 for that reason. If that trend keeps progressing, in 1000 years we may add 5-6 hours of slowing behind the regular Gregorian Calendar used in the cryogenic chamber.

Maybe the earth speed is even more slowed by alien bombing and other events between 2000 and 3000.
What do you think?

[#1 :]

If you were computing back around the turn of the 20th Century you may recall that some Pentium chips of that era had problems counting. That or Y2K.

[#2 :]

Also, maybe in the Future, a local prankster rewired all the times on the crygoenic tubes, so he set Fry's to "Almost 1000 years" and thought it to be hilariously funny.

[#3 :]

That was in 2856. But the prankster didn't live long enough to see that ultimately nobody gave a crap.

[#4 :]

Here are some thoughts on the subject.

[#5 :]

It might have been going in 1000 years worth of time. You'd have to add in leap year, daylight savings etc.

[#6 :]

It might have been going in 1000 years worth of time. You'd have to add in leap year, daylight savings etc.

That doesn't explain only 6-7 hour difference. The clock in the tube is set in Gregorian Calendar like any PC. The mean gregorian year is 365.2425 compared to the mean tropical year (365.24219). That gives us 0,3 days error per 1000 years. But that's 0,3 days more so Fry would woke up about 7:12am in January 1st 3000(if the future people corrected the error, like pope Gregory did by dropping 10 days, to bring the calendar back into synchronization with day/night cycle).
So there are 2 possibilities:
1. Slowing down of the Earth orbiting speed around the sun( Nuclear war???)
2. The clock in the tube is faster then normal. 7 hours difference in 1000 years for an electronic clock is unbelievable accuracy



Another question: How many years Fry spent in stasis?

[#7 :]

I think the easiest explanation is that the tube is set to open during normal business hours.  Someone probably came along and changed the timer on Fry's tube by a few hours so that he wouldn't unfreeze when no one was around to help "process" him.  It's not like anyone would complain about being unfrozen six hours early when they've been in stasis for a thousand years.

[#8 :]

I keep thinking this says "Greek questions"

Have you a Zeus Herkeios?

[#9 :]

OK, the original Fry spent in stasis 2007,95 years

[#10 :]

It depends what year the speed of light was increased.
I'm guessing 2589.

[#11 :]

I keep thinking this says "Greek questions"

Have you a Zeus Herkeios?

Me too.

[#12 :]

Maybe the lab closes at 9PM in the future and they setted it to wake him up before then because they won't open the next day. And for the past, perhaps Nibbler had the keys.

[#13 :]

Clever question. Your way of handling it is the best, jiroscop.

[#14 :]

It might have been going in 1000 years worth of time. You'd have to add in leap year, daylight savings etc.

That doesn't explain only 6-7 hour difference. The clock in the tube is set in Gregorian Calendar like any PC. The mean gregorian year is 365.2425 compared to the mean tropical year (365.24219). That gives us 0,3 days error per 1000 years. But that's 0,3 days more so Fry would woke up about 7:12am in January 1st 3000(if the future people corrected the error, like pope Gregory did by dropping 10 days, to bring the calendar back into synchronization with day/night cycle).
So there are 2 possibilities:
1. Slowing down of the Earth orbiting speed around the sun( Nuclear war???)
2. The clock in the tube is faster then normal. 7 hours difference in 1000 years for an electronic clock is unbelievable accuracy



Another question: How many years Fry spent in stasis?

So you already had an answer but wanted to see how helpful we truly are? You're nice.

7.
It's acceptable to call the Atlantic Ocean the Atlantic Sea.
A) True
B) False

[#15 :]

B) Seas and oceans are 2 different things.

[#16 :]

OK great thanks

[#17 :]

It might have been going in 1000 years worth of time. You'd have to add in leap year, daylight savings etc.

That doesn't explain only 6-7 hour difference. The clock in the tube is set in Gregorian Calendar like any PC. The mean gregorian year is 365.2425 compared to the mean tropical year (365.24219). That gives us 0,3 days error per 1000 years. But that's 0,3 days more so Fry would woke up about 7:12am in January 1st 3000(if the future people corrected the error, like pope Gregory did by dropping 10 days, to bring the calendar back into synchronization with day/night cycle).
So there are 2 possibilities:
1. Slowing down of the Earth orbiting speed around the sun( Nuclear war???)
2. The clock in the tube is faster then normal. 7 hours difference in 1000 years for an electronic clock is unbelievable accuracy



Another question: How many years Fry spent in stasis?

You went the wrong way.  He would have waken up 7 or so hours early, not late.

[#18 :]

It might have been going in 1000 years worth of time. You'd have to add in leap year, daylight savings etc.

That doesn't explain only 6-7 hour difference. The clock in the tube is set in Gregorian Calendar like any PC. The mean gregorian year is 365.2425 compared to the mean tropical year (365.24219). That gives us 0,3 days error per 1000 years. But that's 0,3 days more so Fry would woke up about 7:12am in January 1st 3000(if the future people corrected the error, like pope Gregory did by dropping 10 days, to bring the calendar back into synchronization with day/night cycle).
So there are 2 possibilities:
1. Slowing down of the Earth orbiting speed around the sun( Nuclear war???)
2. The clock in the tube is faster then normal. 7 hours difference in 1000 years for an electronic clock is unbelievable accuracy



Another question: How many years Fry spent in stasis?

You went the wrong way.  He would have waken up 7 or so hours early, not late.

But there is a suggested revision of the Gregorian Calendar by removing 1 leap day every 4000 years to correct the error. The gregorian mean year is longer then the tropic mean year.

[#19 :]

This my geeky question would be 'What if Fry dimensionally went back in time to kill his great grandfather but accidentally killed himself and real life (dimensionally) killed himself?

Answer Please, if u can answer it!

Beat that everyone!?!?!?!?!   

P.S. I'm cleverer than u think! 

[#20 :]

 

[#21 :]

You're almost so stupid I think you're a regular account just trying to mess with us. Is that too much to hope? :\

[#22 :]

If Fry (Universe A) hooked up with Leela (Fighting mongooses) would Leela (A) be pregnant.  (Say it was just fry in the other universe and there was no coin flipping involved.)

[#23 :]

Einahpet, Fry after killing his great grandfather would in turn kill his grandfather, his father and him. However, because Fry is his own grandfather, I believe nothing would change, because his great grandfather and himself aren't connected anymore, because he killed enis. He is in an infinite loop.


Also einahpet isn't a regular account trying to mess with you.

[#24 :]

Are you accusing her of being fake? I HATE when people do that!

[#25 :]

Ooh, I have another (unrelated) geeky question.

Why, in God Fellas, can't the Planet Express ship catch up to Bender after he's been fired out of the torpedo tube?

i) If the ship needs the power of its engines just to maintain its current speed than what 'maintains' Bender at the speed he is going at? Or, to put it another way, if cutting the engines would cause the ship would slow down then why doesn't Bender, who has no engines, also slow down?

(Note: On earth, gravity drags projectiles into the ground long before air resistance brings them to a halt but if we could somehow have air without gravity (or a curved earth) we would see that bullets (etc.) would behave like they did at the end of the Matrix; they would slow down and eventually just stop, (much like they do when fired into water) 'hanging' in the air where they are. So if there's something that acts like friction when you're travelling at Planet Express ship-like speeds which requires powerful engines just to prevent you from always slowing down then why doesn't it act on Bender the same way it seems to act on the ship?)

ii) If things in space retain their current speed and direction unless they are acted on by some force (causing acceleration or deceleration, i.e., the way things work in the universe according to our current understanding) then why can't the ship run the engines a bit longer to get a bit faster and (eventually) catch up with Bender?

[#26 :]

Ooh, I have another (unrelated) geeky question.

Why, in God Fellas, can't the Planet Express ship catch up to Bender after he's been fired out of the torpedo tube?

i) If the ship needs the power of its engines just to maintain its current speed than what 'maintains' Bender at the speed he is going at? Or, to put it another way, if cutting the engines would cause the ship would slow down then why doesn't Bender, who has no engines, also slow down?

(Note: On earth, gravity drags projectiles into the ground long before air resistance brings them to a halt but if we could somehow have air without gravity (or a curved earth) we would see that bullets (etc.) would behave like they did at the end of the Matrix; they would slow down and eventually just stop, (much like they do when fired into water) 'hanging' in the air where they are. So if there's something that acts like friction when you're travelling at Planet Express ship-like speeds which requires powerful engines just to prevent you from always slowing down then why doesn't it act on Bender the same way it seems to act on the ship?)

ii) If things in space retain their current speed and direction unless they are acted on by some force (causing acceleration or deceleration, i.e., the way things work in the universe according to our current understanding) then why can't the ship run the engines a bit longer to get a bit faster and (eventually) catch up with Bender?

I think you are threading the wrong mill here.

Bender's real problem in this case is that he is going faster than the top speed of the ship.  It simply cannot go faster.  Boom.  But the real issue with this is that it, in itself, is a joke/reference to Einstein's law of relativity as well as the discussions about the speed of light being the highest possible speed reachable.

Consider this.  If you are travelling at the speed of light.  And you throw a Bender doll straight ahead of you, and it starts to travel faster than you.  Would this even be possible?

Also, I don't get why you are talking about air.  Bender is in vacuum.  There is no friction.  He attempts to loose his momentum, but by then, he is already too far away from the ship, at which point Fry and Leela have already given up.

[#27 :]

The PE ship's engines aren't a traditional reaction mass arrangement. They're shifting the Universe around the ship through some kind of magic quantum entanglement arrangement which seems to have a top speed.
Firing Bender out of its Alcubierre bubble turns him into a relativistic projectile. And since the PE ship has been seen to traverse the Universe in a matter of days, Bender's traveling probably thousands or millions of times the speed of light in real-space (apparently possible in the Futurama Universe, though a realistic depiction would have had all light in the Universe coalesce into a single point in front of Bender, and the wavelengths would shorten relative to him due to his velocity and strike him as hard gamma radiation. This is not shown - he is able to view the Universe normally).

Also: It's a cartoon!

[#28 :]

No you're a towel cartoon!

[#29 :]

SOS, it's because Bender's mass is far less than the mass of the ship. Bender was accelerated beyond the ship's speed by the torpedo tube (compressed air?). Even if Fry and Leela turned the ship backwards and fired all the torpedos it probably wouldn't be enough of a kick. An object has the same mass regardless of the gravitational pull acting on it and it has the same mass in zero G. If the mass gave the object a weight of 1 lb. on Earth the same object would weigh 2 lbs. on a planet that had 2G gravity.

I think the rule of thumb is double the speed needs 4 times the power, triple the speed needs 9 times the power, quadruple the speed needs 16 times the power, and so on for an object of the same mass. I think the same is true for mass, an object double the mass unit would needs 4 times the power to move it the same speed as the single mass unit object, and so on.

So if Bender has a mass of 1 unit and the ship has a comparative mass of 1000 units the problem should be obvious.

[#30 :]

Yes, but hobbitboy's problem was that the ship shouldn't theoretically have a top speed; that it should be able to accelerate indefinitely in a vacuum.
Which is true - we've already seen that lightspeed is no barrier to it (the speed of light having been increased - I'd forgotten about that). So the only reason for a 'top speed' must have something to do with the nature of the Dark Matter engine as described in A Clone of My Own, moving the Universe and not the ship. It must be limited by some unknown factor... perhaps the tensile strength of the fabric of spacetime. If they push it too hard it'll tear through and get sucked into another reality.

[#31 :]

The "rules of thumb" are for an object in a vacuum at 0G, they are a property of mass. An atmosphere would merely add drag in relation to it's viscosity and I think its density.

The top speed of the ship may also have something to do with it's structural strength.
Crank the engines up too high and they may tear from their mounts and blast out the front of the ship, or the ship could get squished like a tin can, or shake apart.

[#32 :]

I'd say the fact that the ship would become more massive as it gains speed would create a speed limit Coldy. Namely the speed at which it became infinitely massive.

[#33 :]

Wait, what? Why?

[#34 :]

Einstien's Theory of Relativity - it's the law.

[#35 :]

   I'd say the fact that the ship would become more massive as it gains speed would create a speed limit Coldy. Namely the speed at which it became infinitely massive.

But if you're that close to an effective relativistic limit then you'd need the torpedo launchers to be 'almost'* as powerful as the ship's engines to be able to give the torpedos (or Bender) any significant relative motion and hence be of any use while flying at top speed.

* To within a few orders of magnitude since Bender's mass would be within a few orders of magnitude (say, 4 ?) of the mass of the ship.

[#36 :]

Einstien's Theory of Relativity - it's the law.

Doesn't apply. Like with an Alcubierre drive - technically the ship isn't actually moving. When will you puny humans get past your primitive conceptions of 'speed'?

[#37 :]

Relatively it is. Just as raising the speed of light is merely a stretching of the speed scale or relativley moving everything closer together. Which, like most things scientists do, made everyone more grumpy.

You'd have to explain how the effect of the Alcubierre drive on the ship still "propels" Bender regardless of his distance from the ship and it's drive. If Leela turned the ship around for Earth wouldn't Bender's course have changed with it if he is in someway still linked to it?

[#38 :]

He's not. With the universe 'moving' outside the ship, he exited the bubble and was flung violently... into normal space outside...
...the ship doesn't move, that's stated in the canon...
...oh right, you know what - 3am. It's a cartoon.

[#39 :]

...oh right, you know what - 3am. It's a cartoon.

You came to that conclusion once before and yet you're still here.