• Karu 🐲
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    601 year ago

    If they’re unaffected by gravity, chances are they don’t have mass. If they don’t have mass, they’re not constrained by the Higgs field, which in turn means that they can never move at any velocity below light speed.

    Their unfortunate fate is to roam across all of space at the maximum possible velocity in perpetuity.

    • BOMBS
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      201 year ago

      Their unfortunate fate is to roam across all of space at the maximum possible velocity in perpetuity.

      On the other hand, it all happens in an instant to them.

    • @HeyThisIsntTheYMCA
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      131 year ago

      Nah we’re by a catholic cemetery. They definitely have mass. I suggest instead they all fall to the Earth’s Core since learning to ghost fly probably takes more than 80 minutes, and once you’re down in the ghost orgy why leave?

      • @sigh
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        91 year ago

        fall to the Earth’s Core

        we can save them, but I’ll need a rat, a giant nuclear drill train, and a family of orcas

    • @LufyCZ
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      61 year ago

      Can’t you theoretically just move super fast but across a very small distance? They could just “stay” with the Earth, moving with it as needed, maybe eventually they’d learn to do that automatically as well.

  • @KISSmyOS
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    1 year ago

    deleted by creator

    • @RojoSanIchiban
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      1 year ago

      Mass distorts spacetime, which to an outside observer appears to change the direction light travels. The light travels in a straight line.

      Gravity doesn’t alter the particle’s trajectory (or ours, for that matter). The warping of spacetime from Earth’s mass causes our movement through space to accelerate “down” at ~9.8 m/s^2

      So the ghosts are in the center of the Earth, in nearly literal hell.

      • @[email protected]
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        1 year ago

        They would fall through the center of the earth, continue back up through the mantle, pop up momentarily to spook someone on the opposite hemisphere, then repeat the whole trip in reverse with a period of about 40 minutes.

        • @RojoSanIchiban
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          71 year ago

          Hm… actually are they incorporeal AND massless, or just incorporeal?

          If just incorporeal, you’re right of course that initially after death they’d be falling back and forth, but over time through uneven gravity/curvature and through heat loss (stretching of unequal acceleration applied across the ghost essence, potential energy conversion, yadda), they should generally settle to the center after some time, unless there’s a maximum natural pressure of ghosts at whatever temperatures they have, so they may spread out somewhere within the crust if there are enough of them.

          If they’re incorporeal AND massless, then I totally F’d up and they’d fire off at light speed as soon as they shed their mortal coil.

      • @[email protected]
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        111 year ago

        But light isn’t a particle it’s a wave. I mean, just look at it… Oh… Forget it. It’s a particle.

        • @MrPoopbutt
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          31 year ago

          It’s neither a particle nor a wave, it’s a photon.

          A zebra is neither a horse nor a tiger, though it shares properties with both.

      • @[email protected]
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        11 year ago

        If the spacetime is distorted, and the light no longer appears to travel in a straight line, does that not mean that spacetime itself and the light that travels in are no longer straight?

        How can a straight thing be distorted but still be straight?

          • @[email protected]
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            21 year ago

            Is this 2D-3D comparison supposed to be like a human-understandable analogy for a 3D-4D relationship?

            I saw an explanation once about how time is the 4th dimension. They drew a line on the edge of a book. From the perspective of a single page (2D) it just looks like a dot, but because we can see many instances of that 2D representation it appears to us as a line. An individual page represents how we experience time.

            Is your ball example supposed to be kind of like that because I just can’t imagine how spacetime could be a 2D thing in a 3D universe.

        • @[email protected]
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          41 year ago

          I think a better way of explaining it is with the idea of a shortest path, and not nessesarily a straight line. With two points in space the shortest path between them will be a straight line. If there’s a large amount of gravity tugging on space time the shortest path will be curved.

        • @RojoSanIchiban
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          21 year ago

          That’s called General Relativity and Reference Frames.

          Start watching PBS Spacetime if you actually want to get into it.

          You’re also entirely missing the point of the comment that was a joke entirely re-explaining the “reason” for ghosts ending up at the center of the Earth, which is implied by the original comment.

        • @[email protected]
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          11 year ago

          I really hate that people just accept these advanced theories as objective truth. It’s just the best theory we have right now, that doesn’t mean that’s how it actually works. It’s good enough that we can almost always just use the theory and get good results, but then people get all pissy when you point out that it’s still just a theory and is not without its flaws.

  • Someology
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    261 year ago

    This sounds like it should be the premise of a Doctor Who episode.

  • @[email protected]
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    201 year ago

    Or they’re flung in a straight-line tangent out from Earth’s orbit, like water drops flying off a spinning sponge

  • @[email protected]
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    1 year ago

    I think about the same thing every time I watch a time travel movie or show.

    They should teleport into empty space every time

    • @[email protected]
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      1 year ago

      I guess that depends on whether you only travel through time (time vs space), or whether you follow the time-line back (aka. travel through time and space, kinda like both you and I are doing right now).

      EDIT: there’s also the reference point, and whether you can bring a physical vessel, or have to possess your younger self.

      Back to the Future appears to be using a kind of relative spatial reference point, and you bring your body along the ride.

      Contrary, Steins Gate (the part shown in the series) uses a body as reference, and has you “possess” said body. Though it hints that Back to the Future-like travel is also possible.

      Not sure if I can name any story where time and space are disconnected.

      • @[email protected]
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        31 year ago

        Larry niven and the known space universe. Doesn’t have time travel, but does have a form of teleportation, where you have to offset the energies for velocity changes between teleport target and teleport destination.

    • Natanael
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      1 year ago

      There’s scifi that did this. The series Seven Days is one example

    • @[email protected]
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      21 year ago

      This assumes some concept of location independent of the surrounding matter.

      We like to think that way because we live on a mostly-not-changing clump of rock and dirt.

      There is nothing to define location other than what’s nearby.

      The only alternative anyone ever proposes is larger clumps of matter further away. Relative to the sun. Relative to the center of the Milky Way. Center of the Milky Way is the most “legit” Nonmoving Point we can think of.

      But maybe the legitimacy of the nonmoving point is based also on its nearness to you. Perhaps the thing that defines the wormhole’s position through spacetime is inertia and gravity.

      Hard to see what else it might be, other than “it doesn’t move” which, the entire point above being, doesn’t really exist

  • @CookieMonsterDebate
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    151 year ago

    Which is why they’re usually just temporary visitors to Earth. The planet is actually passing through them, so they fade in, crying their despair at their lonely fate, and fade back out…

    • Overzeetop
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      71 year ago

      So…we’re flying through a universe filled with ghosts and the appear as we happen upon them as we glide through space. Which is truly fascinating since most ghosts people see appear to be humans or humanoids clad in local clothing from the most recent three centuries of Human fashion. It’s mind boggling to think how many recent-development earths must have passed just in front of us over the billions of years of universe for us to see such spirits.

      Either that or there are a lot of liars and hallucinations out there. I know which one of these options I believe in!

    • @[email protected]
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      11 year ago

      And the orbit of the earth passes by random groups of ghosts every Day of the Dead, Obon, Halloween’s, or ancestors day in which ever culture there ks

    • @[email protected]
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      31 year ago

      i mean, presuming ghosts can talk to each other there should at least be some company, and they ought to get to see some celestial objects now and then.

      and hell at least you have space to stare at, as opposed to the nothingness of limbo

        • @[email protected]
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          21 year ago

          Wide open starfield shot. Deep space. Nothing is moving.

          In the middle of the screen, but small in the distance, floats a transparent human form. It’s motionless, but looks relaxed. Asleep perhaps.

          Suddenly all its limbs start thrashing wildly in frustration. This goes on for about twenty five seconds, then it’s still again.

  • Punkie
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    91 year ago

    If that were true, they’d speed away from us at about 900mph.

    • @[email protected]
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      111 year ago

      Much faster than that, even. The surface of the planet moves at up to ~1000mph relative to the earth’s center of mass, but once you factor in the orbit around the sun, the orbit around the galaxy, and even the galaxy’s motion, you’re looking at miles per second instead of mph.

      One article I found when googling this says that measuring relative to the cosmic microwave background, we are moving at 390 km/s.

      • @CaptainMcMonkey
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        1 year ago

        Relative to what, though? A lot of lore has ghost tied to locations on earth, which are typically fixed places. I guess if there was some kind of astology ghost tied to certain stars it might rocket off in some unexpected way.

        Maybe that could be a tool in some exorcist’s bag. Convince a ghost it’s tied to some stars, and trick it into changing its frame of reference.

        Sorry, adhd, just saw the microwave background part. What i said still makes sense though.

        • @[email protected]
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          51 year ago

          I think this might be the most fun answer, that the ghost decides its own frame of reference and can be tricked to choosing the wrong thing then just fly off into space at incredible speed.

      • Are they also inertialess? Being immune to gravity won’t make them just stop; stop, relative to what?

        So, they continue in a straight line, while their body moves in rotation with the Earth’s surface × orbit around the sun × orbit around Sagittarius A × whatever movement the Milky Way is making based on the local cluster… I wonder how much angular movement the supercluster is making.

        • @[email protected]
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          21 year ago

          I think the inertia question would affect the velocity of the ghost relative to the rest of the planet. But unless the ghost has the necessary movement powers to maintain their position, I have to think the earth’s path versus the ghost’s straight line through space would diverge pretty quickly.

          Interesting to think about, especially in light of the other reply discussing the hypothetical of ghosts being able to choose & switch frames of reference.

          Honestly though, since just about everything is affected by the way gravity bends spacetime, including light, I bet they’d stay with the earth. Maybe just have to hover above the surface in order to not fall down to the core of the planet.

  • @[email protected]
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    1 year ago

    If ghosts are real… then every living thing, cockroach, dogs, fish, fleas, birds, they get ghosts too, billions upon billions of ghosts flooding, saturating the universe.

    • Natanael
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      91 year ago

      Inb4 they have miniscule but non zero mass, and they’re the actual dark matter

      • @DontTreadOnBigfoot
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        41 year ago

        All the things they listed are sentient.

        Maybe you mean they come from sapience?

        • @[email protected]
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          21 year ago

          There’s a point where you have to question whether sentience is present vs the ability to react to the world… Mostly in flies (which have some of the lowest neuron count of any animal) they just fly towards smell and light etc. - they don’t get angry or upset or noticibly happy and that’s not too far beyond a light switch reacting to you pressing it.

        • @[email protected]
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          1 year ago

          Maybe the word I should have used was “cognizance”? Edit: Probably not but the right word isn’t coming to me

          If ghosts were real and we only saw human ghosts, I would have to assume either ghosts are species specific; meaning you can only see ghosts of beings that were the same animal as you. OR the soul is an evolutionary step and humans are the only species that made it far enough to have ghosts

          • @[email protected]
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            11 year ago

            If I was in a world where ghosts were real I would have to assume other “spiritual” aspects from different cultures are real too. So maybe you can only be a ghost of you’re spiritually adept enough 🤷‍♂️

  • Bebo
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    41 year ago

    So if they don’t experience gravity they are made of neither matter nor antimatter.