Recently I have been playing Mass Effect 1 and 2 for the second time. During these play-throughs, I have taken more time to read the codex entries, and I have become fascinated with the Mass Effect Universe. Naturally, one of the parts that really fascinates me the most is the science behind Mass Effect.
Then I stumbled onto this video, in which Theoretical Physicist Michio Kaku examines the various aspects of Mass Effect, and tires to comment on the plausibility of each aspect.
For example, how far off of ‘invisibility’ are we? Are Biotics physically plausible? Could we travel faster than light using “the Mass Effect”?
While the video is enjoyable and all of what he says is accurate, unfortunately it seems as if Dr Kaku has never played the game, as he doesn’t actually address the “mass effect” in good detail. Instead he talks about dark energy and matter, which is nothing to do with the mass effect. I will now attempt to jump in!
Dark Energy and Dark Matter are two phenomena we know exist due to observational evidence from astrophysics. We have simply not identified what they are or how they work.
In Mass Effect the spacecraft are powered using the fictional “element zero”. Element Zero is mined from planets and other celestial bodies. Planets and celestial bodies are not Dark Matter; by definition we can see them, so they are not ‘dark’.
In the game, if you run an electric current through element zero, it creates a mass effect field. This is analogous to electromagnetism; combine magnets and electricity to create a field of energy. By changing the polarity of the electric current, you reverse the type of the mass effect field; either you mimic the effects of more mass (more gravity) or lessen it. So, positively charged element zero creates false ‘gravity’ aboard ships, whereas negatively charged element zero allows you to travel faster than light. How so?
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| My attempt at representing Gamma |
Well, let’s switch back to real physics. Einstein taught us about a little problem with mass: we weigh less than we think we do. Mass at any given time is equal to ‘rest-mass’ multiplied by a constant (gamma). So if you weigh 10kg when not moving, your actual mass is equal to 10 multiplied by gamma. What’s Gamma?
Gamma is basically a function linking mass to the speed of light, which results in gamma increasing the faster you go, until it reaches infinity at the speed of light. This is shown here on the graph, as velocity increases, gamma gets higher and higher.
This is why you cannot go quicker than light; because you weigh 10kg multiplied by infinity. And to accelerate something with infinite mass requires infinite force (f=ma). Unless…
Unless you has some magical way of generating a field that lowers mass. Lower your mass to effectively zero, and you can travel at the speed of light, and who knows how much faster!
Hence, ‘mass effect’. Those giant Mass Relays create a linear corridor of space with no mass, allowing virtually instantaneous point-to-point travel.
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| Mass Relay |
So if we did discover an element with the properties of Element Zero, then the infrastructure seen in the game would be plausible. But it has nothing to do with Dark Energy or Dark Matter!
Very good read. Its good to know someone else loves these games enough to put this much thought into them.
ReplyDeleteHalf correct (good effort though). Mass will indeed increase as v approaches c making acceleration harder and harder. However for velocities greater than c there is an additional problem and altering the rest mass isn't going to make it go away (interesting idea though it may be).
ReplyDeleteYou forgot the square root in the Lorentz Factor (i.e. 1/(sqrt(1-(v^2/c^2))). That's what causes the problem with FTL. Once v > c, 1-(v^2/c^2) < 0 and when taking a square root of a negatve it all gets a little imaginary. SO it is not just the mass increase you correctly point out that causes the FTL issue but rather that exceeding c is going to produce an odd mathematical result.
Getting arbitrarily close to c is not really a physics challenge, more an engineering (and energy sourcing) problem. Still difficult but in principle just keep pumping in more and more energy (not quite but near as dammit). However there is a good reason in the Lorentz factor as to why FTL is problematic from a physics perspective.
So the mass effect would be good for accelerating objects to sub-luminal speeds (less mass requires less energy), however that would work but wouldn't help with covering the vast distances of interstellar space. Citadel to Ilios and back to the Citadel even at light speed would be a round trip of about 50, 000 - 100, 000 years. Even with the unskippable cutscenes it didn't take that long.
:)
Amazing minds at work here! It is also interesting to think about how the game developers came up with this concept!
ReplyDelete@Dragon Watcher! hey, thanks for the read!
ReplyDeleteYeah, I mainly wanted to convey a sense of why the name "Mass Effect" is so relevant using the simplest parts of Einsteins theory. But yeah, you are correct, we never find out exactly how the 'mass effect' alters space itself between relays to permit point to point galactic travel.
This is a good post. I found myself browsing the codex a lot more in my second and third playthrough. Of particular interest to me is the Extranet, and it's little entry about universal bandwidth. Very interesting stuff that's entirely plausible.
ReplyDeleteI thought I'd mention that I too have a blog. It was inspired largely by Mass Effect. My partner wrote a great post about the Asari. Let me know what you think:
http://gofortheoptics.blogspot.com/2011/05/ass-effect.html
Very interesting read. I can't wait to read more stuff from your blog.
ReplyDeleteI always assumed that the Mass Effect was used to generate space-time field distortions to create a Alcubierre Drive.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive
So the Mass Effect is used to create a "space-time wave" that moves forward at a certain speed, you don't move faster than the speed of light within space, but when you add your movement and space-time's shift you do go faster.
With this I assumed that the corridors "push" spacetime to create this waves, then when it reaches the other side, the wave is canceled (with an inverse wave) since these "spacetime distortions" could do really funny screwed up stuff where they to pass through only a part of a planet.
Good read. I love going through the codex entries in mass effect and learning how everything works. I love how thought out it all is.
ReplyDeleteitsjustagame.net
Actually, according to the codex, the mass effect field also makes the speed of light locally faster. You're not at any point going faster than light locally, you're in fact altering not only local m_e, but local permittivity and permeability of free space. You are decreasing at least one of them, resulting in a higher local speed for c. The giant ME relays create a corridor of higher c.
ReplyDeleteThis also makes E_k and p lower. p=mGammav, E_k=m(Gamma-1)c^2, so at higher velocities (and lower m), it's a lot easier to get far more than universal c if local c is very high.
so this article seems to have some years on it, but i'd just like to point out...
ReplyDeleteeinstein & work aren't perfect, obviously, so consider dark energy and dark mass as anomalies of what e&w methodology (plus extensions and add ons) didn't account for. remember: no one has solved n-body, so the 'physics' game is over before it begins. neither has 'physics' opted to do anything but ignore NP-complete (for the most part statement is true, blah blah).
if you begin with some basic questions you may be able to better develop all ideas towards an improved extensibility. for example, if space is empty, how does it not collapse? if gravity is a collapse of space (vacuum due to void), is gravity nothing more than a name for a particular story form catalog - can 'vacuum due to void' explain any and every force? things and stuff move towards low pressure irregardless of whether or not it happens to be towards another thing ... what i'm saying is that thinking about the relationship between the earth and the moon is not sufficient ... e&w is not sufficient ...
the universe sucks. mass effect is more real than we have thus far made it.
Good talk, but the element zero emits dark energy, which is then manipulated into mass effect fields by applying an electric current. As for biotics, due to element zero exposure, they can manipulate dark energy into creating mass effect fields, by sending a neural impulse into their implants, which increase the signal. Biotics need precise hand or body movements to generate the desired effect along the correct neurones. Dark Matter isn't used, but dark energy is. As you said Eezo is fictional, but it emits Dark energy :P
ReplyDeleteThanks for a very interesting blog. What else may I get that kind of info written in such a perfect approach? I’ve a undertaking that I am simply now operating on, and I have been at the look out for such info. earth
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