Cause and Effect

[FFunctionalData]

Loved this ep.

I just do not understand how the doctor was able to hear voices. It would have made more sense if it happened to Troi.

 

[yousirname]

I don't understand how Data's suggestion could even work at all. The air being forced out of the airlock is not pushing against anything; it's moving into hard vacuum, right? So it's not the same as (for example) a blown-up balloon that you release without tying, where the air escaping has other air to press against.

Seems to me that if anything, as long as the hatch through which the air is escaping is narrower than the chamber it's escaping from, the air would actually drag the Enterprise with it a little bit, no?

Maybe I'm missing some basic principle of physics.

 

[Trekker4747]

Loved this ep.

I just do not understand how the doctor was able to hear voices. It would have made more sense if it happened to Troi.

The voices were a physical manifestation -they were actually there, not in Crusher's head. Geordi says sensors had picked something up and other crewmen reported a problem too. It was initially assumed to be a problem in the Com System. Crusher's room just happened to be in the right place and time for her to hear -and later record- the voices.

 

[Mojochi]

Loved this ep.

I just do not understand how the doctor was able to hear voices. It would have made more sense if it happened to Troi.

The voices were a physical manifestation -they were actually there, not in Crusher's head. Geordi says sensors had picked something up and other crewmen reported a problem too. It was initially assumed to be a problem in the Com System. Crusher's room just happened to be in the right place and time for her to hear -and later record- the voices.

Geordi also has an effect he calls blurry after images in his visor. It's what initially made him dizzy. It's made out that they are both some kind of echos from previous loops

 

[Mysterion]

Good episode the first time, does not (for me at least) hold up to repated viewing.

Kelsey Grammer was a nice surprise at the end, and wish we'd seen Capt. Bateson show up on-screen again at some point.

 

[T'Girl]

I don't understand how Data's suggestion could even work at all. The air being forced out of the airlock is not pushing against anything; it's moving into hard vacuum, right? So it's not the same as (for example) a blown-up balloon that you release without tying, where the air escaping has other air to press against.

Newton's third law of motion.The Enterprise is expelling matter aft, this is where the propulsion forward is coming from.

I'm not exactly sure what the dimensions of the main shuttle bay door is, but assuming that there is sea level pressure in the flight deck, initially there would be over six thousand tons of force.

The air being expelled from a balloon doesn't push against the air in the room moving the balloon forward. The reaction force is pushing against the "inside top" of the balloon, as the air exits the "bottom," this moves the balloon forward.

 

[yousirname]

Well, fair enough.

 

[Trekker4747]

And six-thousand tons of force is nowhere near enough force to move an object that weighs millions of tons.

 

[T'Girl]

^ Consider how much push force you can product through the palms of your hands, for many people it's only about a hundred pounds. But this is enough to move a multi-tonne vehicle across a flat surface.

The force generated by exhausting the flight deck was probably similar to the Enterprise's maneuvering thrusters.

 

[Squiggy]

I don't understand how Data's suggestion could even work at all. The air being forced out of the airlock is not pushing against anything; it's moving into hard vacuum, right? So it's not the same as (for example) a blown-up balloon that you release without tying, where the air escaping has other air to press against.

Newton's third law of motion.The Enterprise is expelling matter aft, this is where the propulsion forward is coming from.

I'm not exactly sure what the dimensions of the main shuttle bay door is, but assuming that there is sea level pressure in the flight deck, initially there would be over six thousand tons of force.

The air being expelled from a balloon doesn't push against the air in the room moving the balloon forward. The reaction force is pushing against the "inside top" of the balloon, as the air exits the "bottom," this moves the balloon forward.

Essentially, a rocket without the fire.

And six-thousand tons of force is nowhere near enough force to move an object that weighs millions of tons.

Well, not with the speed that we saw in the episode. It looked like they jumped to impulse when the blew the shuttlebay. I think they would've crept away.

 

[Photoman15]

First, didn't the expulsion push against the other ship? Second, in space the ship weighs nothing.

 

[yousirname]

'Weight' is the force exerted on a body by gravity and is not relevant here.

Mass is constant regardless of gravitational environment.

 

[Shazam!]

Like putting too much air in a balloon!

 

[Tiberius]

Second, in space the ship weighs nothing.

I call troll.

We went over this with you in August last year.

LINK

 

[JirinPanthosa]

It's possible the other ship's window of time wasn't large enough to put the pieces together. For all we know their loop was only a few minutes long.

What I don't get is why they didn't do something like this:

Randomly select whether to go forward or go back in a way based on background radiation or something so you can guarantee it would come back with a different result each loop.

This decision may not get you out of it this loop, but it is guaranteed to save you in the next *few* loops.

I second Timescape as the infinitely rewatchable episode. Picard drawing the smiley face in the warp core breach was awesome.

Of course, if the ship is one kilometer long and the breach would envelop the ship in six hours, the breach should have been noticeably moving.

 

[Tiberius]

Of course, if the ship is one kilometer long and the breach would envelop the ship in six hours, the breach should have been noticeably moving.

The Enterprise D is about 640 meters long, if I recall.

 

[Trekker4747]

Second, in space the ship weighs nothing.

I call troll.

We went over this with you in August last year.

LINK

It's amazing how often people confuse the "things weigh nothing in space" thing. Sure, in space and not in a gravitational body I would "weigh nothing" and a 2 year old could, theoretically, pick me up. Say if we were on a very light object with no meaningful gravity (like an asteroid.) But weight and mass are different things.

Just because things don't weigh anything (or much) in space doesn't mean they're easy to move. Think of it this way, if things "weigh nothing in space" that means that when Neil Armstrong went to the moon he could've picked it up and chucked it out of orbit like he was Superman. The notion of being destroyed by an asteroid would be meaningless because all we would need to do it just send something small to the asteroid to push it out of the way. I mean, it weighs nothing, right? Nope. It doesn't work that way.

Mass and weight are not the same thing.

The Enterprise is still a huge chunk of metal that on earth would weigh millions of tons. You're not going to move it out of the way in a quick manner with few second long blast of a small (comparatively) room full of air. The air in that space to move the Enterprise would have to weigh more than the ship, a LOT more, to move it so quickly. In "reality" that blast of air would just make the ship infinitesimally faster in its movement in that direction.

If things "weighing nothing" in space was enough to make them easy to move we would have figured out the whole "going the speed of light" thing and "sending ships to other planets" thing a long-assed time ago. But, in reality, the problem is to go a speed you have to move mass, to move mass you need fuel, fuel weighs something (adds mass) so it means you need more fuel to move it ad infinitum.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Of course, if the ship is one kilometer long and the breach would envelop the ship in six hours, the breach should have been noticeably moving.

The Enterprise D is about 640 meters long, if I recall.

640 meters / 6 hours = 2.96 cm/second. Quite noticeable to the human eye.

As for the solution to Cause and Effect, I might explain that as, relative distances are distorted in the show. If one ship is traveling at different multiples of the speed of light they can still see each other slowly getting closer on the viewscreen. In Cause and Effect they didn't really need that much thrust to move clear of the ship. Let's say the ship needed to move 100m in 5s. The ship then needed to accelerate at 8 m/s^2.

 

[Pavonis]

640 meters / 6 hours = 2.96 cm/second. Quite noticeable to the human eye.

That's only if the rate of expansion is constant, and it's probably not.

 

[FFunctionalData]

Loved this ep.

I just do not understand how the doctor was able to hear voices. It would have made more sense if it happened to Troi.

The voices were a physical manifestation -they were actually there, not in Crusher's head. Geordi says sensors had picked something up and other crewmen reported a problem too. It was initially assumed to be a problem in the Com System. Crusher's room just happened to be in the right place and time for her to hear -and later record- the voices.

Geordi also has an effect he calls blurry after images in his visor. It's what initially made him dizzy. It's made out that they are both some kind of echos from previous loops

time travel ep hurt my head.

thank you for clearing it up though.