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But... rope, man. ROPE!
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Originally Posted by Ironik
Don't tell him the ants in Them! can't exist! Don't do it!
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Durr is at it again...
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It's funny, because while my mathematics degree is also laughing pretty hard, the Electrical engineering degree I started out to obtain, and the subsequent Mechanical engineering degree I also attempted, are pondering soberly. |
Originally Posted by RemusShepherd
Really? My physics degree isn't in pain, it's just gasping for air from laughing so hard.
 The problem, Durakken, with making something larger is that physics doesn't scale with you. To have the pieces of a building 100x larger behave the same, you need gravity to be 100x weaker, friction to be 100x stronger, and probably the materials would need to be 10^6 times stronger (100x cubed, because of the three dimensions). Physics works differently at different scales. Sometimes that helps you, sometimes it hurts you. Scale changes on that magnitude are never simple. |
It doesn't make me any more 'expert' on the subject to have failed at those attempts... but it's ok, I probably failed because they were so complex.
Arc #6015 - Coming Unglued
"A good n00b-sauce is based on a good n00b-roux." - The Masque
Ok, I'll drop an off-the-cuff colloquial definition of "complex".
A system is 'complex' if the relationship between each of its subsystems is not easy to grasp, or sometimes, even discern.
"Larger" systems inherently have more 'moving parts', and it is thus sometimes more difficult to ascertain the effect of a change/failure in one part on the whole system.
In fiction: the Death Star. Who'da thunk that puting a tiny missile in an exhaust port would blow up the WHOLE THING? 
(OK, not a great example. But lol.)
In real life: the Space Shutle Challenger. (Relatively) tiny systems failure.
An example of a VERY complex system: the climate of Earth. Lots of moving parts, can't always tell how one change in the system will change the 'superstate' of the entire system.
Another very complex system: a living creature. And it's pretty easy to show that a larger system is much more complex than a smaller system in living things: Compare an amoeba to a squirrel. Living things have the same basic functions on a macro scale (eat, reproduce, etc.) but larger creatures need organs and specialized systems to do the things that are not needed at a smaller scale.
Wikipedia: Complex System
A complex system is a system composed of interconnected parts that as a whole exhibit one or more properties (behavior among the possible properties) not obvious from the properties of the individual parts.[1]
Wow, I highly reccommend that article - lots of detail!
Arc #6015 - Coming Unglued
"A good n00b-sauce is based on a good n00b-roux." - The Masque
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And oddly longer bits of rope ARE more complex to make than shorter ones. I saw a programme about it during the week (based on Edwardian times, so around 1890ish or so).|
Originally Posted by Luminara
But... rope, man. ROPE!
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The really long ones required guys on bikes and could only be made in one or two places where the run was long enough.
Galadiman, you are saying that it is the number of parts that make something more or less complex.... so in the example of the buildings...
1 building that is 10x10x10 = 5/10 in complexity
1 building that is 100x100x100 with the same design, but with larger parts = 5/10 in complexity
1 building that is 100x100x100 which outwardly looks the same, but uses various support structures that are the same size as the 10x10x10 building = 6/10 in complexity
1000* buildings that are each 10x10x10 that all have different designs = 9/10 in complexity
* made it 1000 to make it equivalent to the 100x100x100 structures...
Is that what you are saying?
Also to you does the level of the complexity of 1 piece relative to a replacement of that piece make the overall more complex?
For example if we say non-attached parts count in the complexity of the building and we have an old black and white tv in there, does getting a new HD flatscreen tv with 3D of the same size make the building more complex? I would say no.
If this is all right, which I'm not saying it is, then like I said, the Flotilla is more complex than a City Ship or 2.
So you're still not clear that increasing the size of an individual part is not trivial?
So you think that you can make a paper airplane with a 100 foot wingspan?
Do you think that a 10 foot tall bumblebee can still fly?
(more to follow)
Arc #6015 - Coming Unglued
"A good n00b-sauce is based on a good n00b-roux." - The Masque
In your example, the HDTV is not part of the intrinsic function of the building.
In your other example, the failure of one ship in the flotilla will not generally have a significant impact on the larger system, and it can be pretty easily discerned.
Arc #6015 - Coming Unglued
"A good n00b-sauce is based on a good n00b-roux." - The Masque
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If you're saying that Darth Vader's Superstar Destroyer and all of its attendant fleet of escort vessels combined are more complex than the Death Star, that may be the case. (Or in the real world, an aircraft carrier versus its flotilla of escort ships.) However, what I understood you to be saying was that a Rebel Blockade Runner was just as complex as the Star Destroyer that was chasing it. I think that's how most of us took it. I'd go back to verify it but I don't really care to.
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Originally Posted by Durakken
If this is all right, which I'm not saying it is, then like I said, the Flotilla is more complex than a City Ship or 2. |
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
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Are we still not getting the whole possible/impossible thing? I did not say it was possible to do that. I said if it were possible. Everything just being bigger, but fundamentally the same does not make something more complex.|
Originally Posted by galadiman
So you're still not clear that increasing the size of an individual part is not trivial?
So you think that you can make a paper airplane with a 100 foot wingspan? Do you think that a 10 foot tall bumblebee can still fly? (more to follow) |
We are not taking into account the gravity, nor the process which would be needed to make the same material be exactly the same at super sizes. I am saying that a structure that is 100 foot tall and a 10 foot tall building that you looked at the plans for and saw they were 100% the same just that one has everything bigger is one not more complex than the other.
Even if the materials weren't processed in some magical way I would still say they are the same in complexity the same as I would say a 5 foot human is of the same complexity as 6 foot human.
As far as the tv... because of what you said... Let's say you have a car and you have a 2 piston engine in it. You remove that engine and put in an 8 piston engine. In arguably the 8piston is more complex and more advanced. Does this make the Car more complex? I would say no. The car isn't magically more complex because one of it's parts is more complex now.
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I kind of think he meant something along the lines of substituting Duplo bricks for Lego bricks. If that's the case, then sure, the structure would not be any more complex. However, that's not how the real world works. An aircraft carrier isn't made out of larger bits than a battleship. In reality, everything is made out of Lego bricks (metaphorically speaking). There aren't any Duplos in life. Well, outside the toy box, that is.|
Originally Posted by galadiman
So you're still not clear that increasing the size of an individual part is not trivial?
So you think that you can make a paper airplane with a 100 foot wingspan? Do you think that a 10 foot tall bumblebee can still fly? (more to follow) |
Just to drive it home, this model of Serenity used 3,000 Lego bricks. Whereas this much larger ship, Admiral Ackbar's Home One uses more than 35,000. Bigger size equals more complexity.
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
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I'm saying that |
Originally Posted by Ironik
If you're saying that Darth Vader's Superstar Destroyer and all of its attendant fleet of escort vessels combined are more complex than the Death Star, that may be the case. (Or in the real world, an aircraft carrier versus its flotilla of escort ships.) However, what I understood you to be saying was that a Rebel Blockade Runner was just as complex as the Star Destroyer that was chasing it. I think that's how most of us took it. I'd go back to verify it but I don't really care to.
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#1 If you were able to make a small ship and a big ships almost 100% the same save for say a huge empty space, which you can do in this case, then while the big ship is slightly more complex due to design that
#2 this big ship would always be less complex than 50,000 ships together that are all designed differently and not only would it be less complex it would be less of a draw on their resources and overall it would take up less material.
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You have to stop saying silly things like this. An engine is not a "part" that's somehow separate from the rest of the vehicle. It's an integral component that makes up a car. Putting a more complex engine in a car certainly does make the car more complex, because you've added more parts and more complexity. |
Originally Posted by Durakken
As far as the tv... because of what you said... Let's say you have a car and you have a 2 piston engine in it. You remove that engine and put in an 8 piston engine. In arguably the 8piston is more complex and more advanced. Does this make the Car more complex? I would say no. The car isn't magically more complex because one of it's parts is more complex now.
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If your Jeep has a solid windshield and you substituted one of the old Army Jeep windshields which folds down, you've added more complexity to the car. If you change from manual windows to power windows, you've added more complexity to the car. All of these pieces are part and parcel of the vehicle, so changing to a more complex version of them is a de facto increase in complexity to the vehicle.
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
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Of course not. If you take a machine and make it "imaginarily" larger, it is not 'more complex'. But why do you care then? The nature of making something Much Bigger actually changes its ability to perform a desired task. That's what everyone is talking about, and you have repeatedly denied this fact. And this fact is actually IMPORTANT. With a possible few exceptions, a larger mechanical object requires more things to make it work than the basics of the original object. And materials and design and physics and all that stuff are actually important to any conversation of consequence.|
Originally Posted by Durakken
Are we still not getting the whole possible/impossible thing? I did not say it was possible to do that. I said if it were possible. Everything just being bigger, but fundamentally the same does not make something more complex.
We are not taking into account the gravity, nor the process which would be needed to make the same material be exactly the same at super sizes. I am saying that a structure that is 100 foot tall and a 10 foot tall building that you looked at the plans for and saw they were 100% the same just that one has everything bigger is one not more complex than the other. Even if the materials weren't processed in some magical way I would still say they are the same in complexity the same as I would say a 5 foot human is of the same complexity as 6 foot human. As far as the tv... because of what you said... Let's say you have a car and you have a 2 piston engine in it. You remove that engine and put in an 8 piston engine. In arguably the 8piston is more complex and more advanced. Does this make the Car more complex? I would say no. The car isn't magically more complex because one of it's parts is more complex now. |
Re: engine: Is it harder to fix if it breaks down now? Are there more moving parts? You're going to have to pick: if you mean the Macro operation of the machine, no, it is not more complex. But if you mean the actual intrinsic workings of the machine, then I would propose you ask a lawnmower mechanic to fix your Hemi. And if you mean operating it, ask a Cessna pilot to fly a Jumbo Jet. The basics are the same, but the SIZE of the Jumbo jet actually changes the basic way you operate the machine.
Arc #6015 - Coming Unglued
"A good n00b-sauce is based on a good n00b-roux." - The Masque
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See, here's a problem... to me changing a part does not make it more or less complex, because when I'm talking about the complexity of a car I'm talking about the overall structure of a car and not the individual pieces. If you could, which you can't, simply replace a car engine with another engine of some different design, to me, that car engine would make no difference in how complex i see that car. |
Originally Posted by Ironik
You have to stop saying silly things like this. An engine is not a "part" that's somehow separate from the rest of the vehicle. It's an integral component that makes up a car. Putting a more complex engine in a car certainly does make the car more complex, because you've added more parts and more complexity.
If your Jeep has a solid windshield and you substituted one of the old Army Jeep windshields which folds down, you've added more complexity to the car. If you change from manual windows to power windows, you've added more complexity to the car. All of these pieces are part and parcel of the vehicle, so changing to a more complex version of them is a de facto increase in complexity to the vehicle. |
I don't care that you do, in terms of arguing over it, because complexness is a vague concept apparently and is more about your own opinion than anything concrete that we can say this is and this isn't complex. But, what is important is that we understand that you view this differently and this allows us to not talk pass each other.
So now that we can say materially and designwise...
The city ship would be more complex than a single small ship...but less advanced than a flotilla of 50,000 ships...
Here's the question, is it possible that the drive of the city ship, in your opinion, could ever be more complex than the entirety of those 50,000 ships combined?
This is pretty much asking a ludicrous question of is the modern Cell phone possibly more complex than the entirety of a 1950s town...
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#2: Nope. Again, 50,000 ships are NOT more complex than ONE BIG SHIP that is to perform the same task. Because in making the larger SYSTEM, one has to account for all sorts of things that the 50,000 individual ships take care of ALL BY THEMSELVES. Everybody gotta go #2? No prob, everbody has a little bucket. On a large ship, you cannot have One Big Bucket. |
Originally Posted by Durakken
I'm saying that
#1 If you were able to make a small ship and a big ships almost 100% the same save for say a huge empty space, which you can do in this case, then while the big ship is slightly more complex due to design that #2 this big ship would always be less complex than 50,000 ships together that are all designed differently and not only would it be less complex it would be less of a draw on their resources and overall it would take up less material. |
And I apologize for that gruesome visual.
Also, watch conflating the terms "complex" and "advanced". They are unrelated.
Arc #6015 - Coming Unglued
"A good n00b-sauce is based on a good n00b-roux." - The Masque
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Maybe, maybe not. We'd have to get someone in here who actually designs real-world analogues to officially make the call for us.|
Originally Posted by Durakken
I'm saying that
#1 If you were able to make a small ship and a big ships almost 100% the same save for say a huge empty space, which you can do in this case, then while the big ship is slightly more complex due to design that |
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| #2 this big ship would always be less complex than 50,000 ships together that are all designed differently and not only would it be less complex it would be less of a draw on their resources and overall it would take up less material. |
The battleship USS New Hampshire weighed 70,965 tons and had a crew of 2,355. The destroyer USS Cushing weighed 2,050 tons and had a crew of 329. So you would need 7 destroyers to move the same number of people as one battleship. But 7 destroyers would only weigh 14,000 tons, a full 56,000 tons less than a battleship. So the answer to the question of whether a larger ship would be less of a draw on materiel and use less material in its construction, the answer is probably "no".
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
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True, but that is not the question at all.
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Originally Posted by galadiman
Of course not. If you take a machine and make it "imaginarily" larger, it is not 'more complex'. But why do you care then? The nature of making something Much Bigger actually changes its ability to perform a desired task.
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Originally Posted by Ironik
Maybe, maybe not. We'd have to get someone in here who actually designs real-world analogues to officially make the call for us.
If the standard we're measuring things by is moving people around, then I would venture to say that a battleship uses more material than the equivalent number of destroyers required to move the same number of people. Let me go check.... The battleship USS New Hampshire weighed 70,965 tons and had a crew of 2,355. The destroyer USS Cushing weighed 2,050 tons and had a crew of 329. So you would need 7 destroyers to move the same number of people as one battleship. But 7 destroyers would only weigh 14,000 tons, a full 56,000 tons less than a battleship. So the answer to the question of whether a larger ship would be less of a draw on materiel and use less material in its construction, the answer is probably "no". |
Do you not realize we're talking about in a reality where this takes place in space and they have stuff that makes it so that a battleship and a destroyer can literally work on the same engines and achieve the same speeds. The only difference they have in terms of systems and such is the size/advanceness of a single part?
If you're not couching this argument to determine whether the larger object can perform the same task as the smaller objects, then what are we talking about again??
Arc #6015 - Coming Unglued
"A good n00b-sauce is based on a good n00b-roux." - The Masque
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At this point you have to imagine me just staring at you as if I had just caught you chewing on the little white hockey puck in a urinal, wondering what the hell you're thinking. Because seriously, man, WTH?|
Originally Posted by Durakken
See, here's a problem... to me changing a part does not make it more or less complex, because when I'm talking about the complexity of a car I'm talking about the overall structure of a car and not the individual pieces. If you could, which you can't, simply replace a car engine with another engine of some different design, to me, that car engine would make no difference in how complex i see that car.
I don't care that you do, in terms of arguing over it, because complexness is a vague concept apparently and is more about your own opinion than anything concrete that we can say this is and this isn't complex. But, what is important is that we understand that you view this differently and this allows us to not talk pass each other. |
Complexity is *not* a vague concept. It's a very concrete concept. More stuff = increased complexity. Period. You put more stuff in a car, then the overall car is more complex. How do you not get that?
A car is a collection of components -- subsystems -- which all work together. If you substitute an engine which has 100 moving parts and 100 non-moving parts with an engine that has 200 moving parts and 150 non-moving parts, then you've increased the complexity of the car by adding that more complicated subsystem.
Based on this discussion and others that you've initiated, it really seems to me as if you've never moved beyond the finger-painting stage of understanding how the real world works. Real cars don't run by twisting a giant rubber band and letting it unwind the way your childhood toy cars did. A car is a complex assembly of complex components all working together to create what we colloquially call a car.
I have a question for you: is a 2010 Ford Mustang more complex than a 1965 Ford Mustang? If you say "no" then you are completely wrong.
The Alt Alphabet ~ OPC: Other People's Characters ~ Terrific Screenshots of Cool ~ Superhero Fiction
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I repeat my Bucket argument.
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Originally Posted by Durakken
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Do you not realize we're talking about in a reality where this takes place in space and they have stuff that makes it so that a battleship and a destroyer can literally work on the same engines and achieve the same speeds. The only difference they have in terms of systems and such is the size/advanceness of a single part? |
Arc #6015 - Coming Unglued
"A good n00b-sauce is based on a good n00b-roux." - The Masque
It's still moot. The situation in question makes replacing the 50,000 ship flotilla with a handful of giant city-ships undesirable, even if it were possible (which it isn't, even with the maguffin that allows relatively tiny drives power massive ships, and the fact that the owners of said flotilla didn't/won't have the resources to undertake such a project) or practical.
Furio--Lvl 50+3 Fire/Fire/Fire Blaster, Virtue
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"So come and get me! I'll be waiting for ye, with a whiff of the old brimstone. I'm a grim bloody fable, with an unhappy bloody end!" Demoman, TF2
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I have no idea about your question Ironik, because I don't care about cares all that much so to me those numbers and names mean nothing as I don't know anything about them other than they are cars more or less.|
Originally Posted by Ironik
At this point you have to imagine me just staring at you as if I had just caught you chewing on the little white hockey puck in a urinal, wondering what the hell you're thinking. Because seriously, man, WTH?
Complexity is *not* a vague concept. It's a very concrete concept. More stuff = increased complexity. Period. You put more stuff in a car, then the overall car is more complex. How do you not get that? A car is a collection of components -- subsystems -- which all work together. If you substitute an engine which has 100 moving parts and 100 non-moving parts with an engine that has 200 moving parts and 150 non-moving parts, then you've increased the complexity of the car by adding that more complicated subsystem. Based on this discussion and others that you've initiated, it really seems to me as if you've never moved beyond the finger-painting stage of understanding how the real world works. Real cars don't run by twisting a giant rubber band and letting it unwind the way your childhood toy cars did. A car is a complex assembly of complex components all working together to create what we colloquially call a car. I have a question for you: is a 2010 Ford Mustang more complex than a 1965 Ford Mustang? If you say "no" then you are completely wrong. |
So to you, if I change engines then the car is more complex and if I remove the radio it's less...ok. To me removing a windshield doesn't make the car less complex, but if to you it does, ok.
The problem, Durakken, with making something larger is that physics doesn't scale with you. To have the pieces of a building 100x larger behave the same, you need gravity to be 100x weaker, friction to be 100x stronger, and probably the materials would need to be 10^6 times stronger (100x cubed, because of the three dimensions).
Physics works differently at different scales. Sometimes that helps you, sometimes it hurts you. Scale changes on that magnitude are never simple.
English is apparently more complex than physics and engineering, since you both didn't understand that, but understand those topics.