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Simulate universe expansion, Relativity, Quantum Mechanics
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| planckepoch | Date: Saturday, 22.02.2014, 23:02 | Message # 1 |
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Observer
Group: Newbies
United States
Messages: 4
Status: Offline
| What I would like to see in terms of improvements to Space Engine:
1) True scale invariance on the macro physical levels -- something like Outerra where I can land on a planet such as Earth and zoom in to the centimeter scale and marvel at every blade of grass or particle of sand. And on the other end of the spectrum, I'd like to see if I travel in any distance fast enough and far enough that I eventually come back right where I started. Basically a self-contained universe... cause right now after I fly to the "end of the universe" all I get is a pitch dark of nothingness in Space Engine... It should be made to wrap around.... there shouldn't be an 'edge' to the universe.
2) Basic model of space-time that takes Relativity into account -- perhaps as something that can be toggled on or off, so that the spaceships under such a mode will never be able to travel FTL (unless Warp engine simply warps space-time like a blackhole or wormhole does) And therefore the user will also be able to explore the universe from the perspective of a tiny mass particle or even that of a mass-less photon! Or classical experiments like fly off at 99.99% the speed of c and then return back to earth to find that the sun has turned into a red giant and there is no more Earth to be found!
3) Simulate QM for kicks -- or to be able to toggle it on or off and being able to zoom in on that blade of grass or particle of sand and zoom so far in that we reach the subatomic levels and Quantum effects take place. To be able to observe particles popping in and out of existence, spooky action at a distance, quantum entanglement, etc... This will largely be "for kicks" as it would be only a procedural emulation at micro-local levels when the user purposefully decides to zoom in on something with enough magnitude... no one really expects a bottoms-ups approach where the underlying simulation itself actually incorporates QM for its calculations... (expect perhaps at very special moments, more on that below)
4) Space Engine is like a 3D atlas of the Universe... however it is not entirely complete without simulating the universe at all stages of its life, from birth, to its prime, to its ultimate end. Add a temporal component to the existing spacial component.
By that I don't mean the Newtonian sense where planets orbit around stars and you can change the time to view how the moon looks on a certain night, etc but rather to be able to dial in any arbitrary time and see the stage of the universe at that point in time. (sure, a lot of that would be heavily extrapolated based on guesswork, but then again, isn't it also true that 99.99999% of all objects/stars currently in Space Engine is fractally/procedurally generated anyway?!) Use currently accepted models of the Universe (big bang at an infinitesimal, or maybe just planck length, size that expands to today's current size -- and at the other end, a cold dark universe with no matter left whatsoever and everything gets sucked into black hole and the blackholes themselves evaporate (I'd also like to be able to zoom way in and see one virtual particle get sucked into the event horizon of a black hole while other particle escapes as radiation!)
So for a "tour of the universe" I'd like to be able to witness the moment of the big bang... from the point of view of being smaller than planck size and with the time-factor in the space-engine slowed time to units of plank time, to "see" the universe expand and cool, to see (on the QM levels) energy forming into particles, and to witness the inflationary period of the universe and the first atoms forming and CMB and all that other sort of stuff... to witness the first stars undergoing thermonuclear reactions, and the death of stars like supernova or turning into a blackhole, etc....
At the moment of the big bang, you would have to take in both Relativity and QM into account... so at that crucial moment, both the relativity model and the QM model will have to be making real calculations as opposed to just "being there for kicks"... and the quantum randomness and asymmetry that occurs at plank scales during plank times of the very beginning of the big bang will be the "seed" that later determines matter distribution throughout the universe and will shape the look of the universe throughout eons at the very cosmic scales... (therefore the user will be able to create also his very own universe from scratch by setting a few fundamental parameters)
Also incorporate biological evolution into the game. Like Spore, or Framsticks, or GenePool, etc .... I want to be able to witness life forming from simple amino-acids to complex cells and to mammal organisms... Then after billions of years I want to be able to zoom into earth, and in a very "SimCity" or "the Sims" like fashion, to be able to see a human at home, playing on his computer, with a copy of Space Engine on his monitor, zooming into his virtual Earth, seeing a virtual human at home, playing on his virtual computer, with a copy of.... in a very "The Thirteenth Floor" type of fashion!
But seriously though.... the universe will either end in a Big Crunch, cold death, or some other alternative ways. Since all that is speculative, model all of them and let the user choose with ending he/she wants to see....
Also, if you can, model Penrose's CCC... I'd like to see something like the following:
After countless years into the future, all matter losses its mass by reverting back to massless photons... the universe keeps expanding at exponential rates, and becomes cold and dark. Once there is no more mass in the universe, and also no more particle interactions, then both time and space/distance losses its meaning and at the very last "tick" of the universe's internal clock, either A) distances become zero (when "time" stops) and the entire universe collapses back into itself at infinite speed into an infinitesimal point (hence the start of another big bang for the next universe!) or through some magical conformal rescaling the entire massless and timeless universe get rescaled to become "very tiny" (which is pretty easy and trivial to do in any 3D animation program or game like Space-Engine, if you think about it) and sets the seed for the initial conditions of the next big bang... (essentially the end state of this universe is equivalent (after re-scaling and some conformal mathemagical hocus pocus) to the beginning state of the next universe (and vice versa) ad infinitum...
Also, can you talk to Robert at PMDG and get them to import one of their 737NGX or 777X into your game so we can fly around realistically in airliners? Please also incorporate both subsonic and supersonic flight dynamics like X-Plane does. Also realistic atmospheric effects and blade element theory, etc...
In Universe Sandbox (which prides itself on being a gravity simulator) it models gravity as being instantaneous, which is not what really happens, since gravitons travel at the speed of light. And in every flight simulator I've ever played, if you fly exactly at the speed of sound nothing happens, there is no sonic boom and no damage to structural integrity. Even in a game like Outerra, you hear lighting at the same time as you see it, which is ridiculous... An observer on the ground should not be able to hear a low flying supersonic missile before it actually reaches him!
Also please add an element of AI. Look at what they are doing with the IBM Blue Brain project. And OpenWorm. In a universe simulator, I'd like to be able to fall in love with a very pretty girl.
Thank you in advance!
P.S. Please let me know when the next version of Space Engine will be ready. Is this game open source? Can you share the C++ code with us?
Edited by planckepoch - Sunday, 23.02.2014, 04:18 |
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| DeathStar | Date: Saturday, 22.02.2014, 23:25 | Message # 2 |
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Pioneer
Group: Users
Croatia
Messages: 515
Status: Offline
| Quote planckepoch (  ) True scale invariance on the macro physical levels -- something like Outerra where I can land on a planet such as Earth and zoom in to the centimeter scale and marvel at every blade of grass or particle of sand. And on the other end of the spectrum, I'd like to see if I travel in any distance fast enough and far enough that I eventually come back right where I started. Basically a self-contained universe... cause right now after I fly to the "end of the universe" all I get is a pitch dark of nothingness in Space Engine... It should be made to wrap around.... there shouldn't be an 'edge' to the universe.
I'm not sure of detail getting that high, although it may be possible(I am not an expert), but an unbound universe is planned.
Quote planckepoch ( ) Basic model of space-time that takes Relativity into account -- perhaps as something that can be toggled on or off, so that the spaceships under such a mode will never be able to travel FTL (unless Warp engine simply warps space-time like a blackhole or wormhole does) And therefore the user will also be able to explore the universe from the perspective of a tiny mass particle or even that of a mass-less photon! Or classical experiments like fly off at 99.99% the speed of c and then return back to earth to find that the sun has turned into a red giant and there is no more Earth to be found!
1. This would, to my knowledge, be hard to simulate
2. Disabling FTL would be like not letting you warp time in KSP, or have the Minecraft world be only 1 block in size. It would seriously limit gameplay, but if you really want it, just don't cross the 1c mark. Simple as that.
Quote planckepoch ( ) 3) Simulate QM for kicks -- or to be able to toggle it on or off and being able to zoom in on that blade of grass or particle of sand and zoom so far in that we reach the subatomic levels and Quantum effects take place. To be able to observe particles popping in and out of existence, spooky action at a distance, quantum entanglement, etc... This will largely be "for kicks" as it would be only a procedural emulation at micro-local levels when the user purposefully decides to zoom in on something with enough magnitude... no one really expects a bottoms-ups approach where the underlying simulation itself actually incorporates QM for its calculations... (expect perhaps at very special moments, more on that below)
You are underestimating how hard this would be. SpaceEngine simulates astronomical events, so something like this would be completely superfluous.
Quote planckepoch ( ) 4) Space Engine is like a 3D atlas of the Universe... however it is not entirely complete without simulating the universe at all stages of its life, from birth, to its prime, to its ultimate end. Add a temporal component to the existing spacial component.
By that I don't mean the Newtonian sense where planets orbit around stars and you can change the time to view how the moon looks on a certain night, etc but rather to be able to dial in any arbitrary time and see the stage of the universe at that point in time. (sure, a lot of that would be heavily extrapolated based on guesswork, but then again, isn't it also true that 99.99999% of all objects/stars currently in Space Engine is fractally/procedurally generated anyway?!) Use currently accepted models of the Universe (big bang at an infinitesimal, or maybe just planck length, size that expands to today's current size -- and at the other end, a cold dark universe with no matter left whatsoever and everything gets sucked into black hole and the blackholes themselves evaporate (I'd also like to be able to zoom way in and see one virtual particle get sucked into the event horizon of a black hole while other particle escapes as radiation!)
Although this is a cool idea, and it would be a nice touch if it was added eventually, I really, really doubt it will. This would require modeling of the evolution of galaxies,stars and everything else, which I personally am not sure if it is even possible.
Quote planckepoch ( ) Also incorporate biological evolution into the game. Like Spore, or Framsticks, or GenePool, etc .... I want to be able to witness life forming from simple amino-acids to complex cells and to mammal organisms... Then after billions of years I want to be able to zoom into earth, and in a very "SimCity" or "the Sims" like fashion, to be able to see a human at home, playing on his computer, with a copy of Space Engine on his monitor, zooming into his virtual Earth, seeing a virtual human at home, playing on his virtual computer, with a copy of.... in a very "The Thirteenth Floor" type of fashion!
No. Extremely superfluous feature that would be very hard to implement. Again, SE is an astronomy simulator, not an absolutely-everything simulator. I would love for this to be added, and everyone else here would too, trust me, but it is overly complicated and beyond procedural vegetation that I think is planned, there won't be anything else(I would love to be wrong)
Quote planckepoch ( ) Also please add an element of AI. Look at what they are doing with the IBM Blue Brain project. And OpenWorm. In a universe simulator, I'd like to be able to fall in love with a very pretty girl.
I hope you are joking on this one.
Quote planckepoch ( ) P.S. Please let me know when the next version of Space Engine will be ready. Is this game open source? Can you share the C++ code with us?
As soon as a new version comes out, it is the main news on the main page, so you can't miss it. And no, SE isn't open-source.
Edited by DeathStar - Saturday, 22.02.2014, 23:26 |
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| DoctorOfSpace | Date: Saturday, 22.02.2014, 23:38 | Message # 3 |
 Galaxy Architect
Group: Global Moderators
Pirate
Messages: 3600
Status: Offline
| Quote DeathStar ( ) This would require modeling of the evolution of galaxies,stars and everything else, which I personally am not sure if it is even possible.
It is possible on large scale simulations, all you need is one of these
Intel Core i7-5820K 4.2GHz 6-Core Processor
G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory
EVGA GTX 980 Ti SC 6GB
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| Psauce | Date: Sunday, 23.02.2014, 02:28 | Message # 4 |
 Space Tourist
Group: Users
United States
Messages: 25
Status: Offline
| I looked at your list and ...well it took a few minutes but I was able to implement all of your suggestions into the game and I have to say I'm impressed with the result. Screenshot from SE 9.7.2
Edited by Psauce - Sunday, 23.02.2014, 02:34 |
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| planckepoch | Date: Sunday, 23.02.2014, 04:28 | Message # 5 |
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Observer
Group: Newbies
United States
Messages: 4
Status: Offline
| Quote DeathStar ( ) 1. This would, to my knowledge, be hard to simulate
2. Disabling FTL would be like not letting you warp time in KSP, or have the Minecraft world be only 1 block in size. It would seriously limit gameplay, but if you really want it, just don't cross the 1c mark. Simple as that.
I'm not talking about limiting spaceship speed to c. Even taking 'relativity' out of the equations, what about something as simple as accounting for the THE HUBBLE CONSTANT and the fact that distant stars are actually events that happened long ago?
Right now, evening forgetting the fact that it is not physically possible to zoom to distant galaxies in the blink of an eye, the farther one travels away from earth the more back in time one travels to.... most of the very distant observable stars in the sky are no longer anywhere close to where they were and many of them have already died and don't exists anymore. So it is physically and temporally inaccurate for Space Engine to portray the faraway stars as being where they are... it would be more accurate to assume that the universe itself is indeed expanding at faster rates, to take into account the expansion, and to incorporate that within the game engine itself (with a toggle on/off for those that don't care for that level of representation/accuracy)...
For example, say I'm landed on Earth in Space Engine and use my virtual telescope to "zoom in" on a galaxy or star that is 4 or 5 billions of light years away. Say then that I get into my spaceship and wish to travel to that star. I use a magical warp drive to get there in a few minutes. (there is thus no time-dilation, because I'm not affected by relativistic) On my way there I find that the star is actually much further away than I had anticipated and the star ages much faster (because I'm catching up with its light, so it is blue-shifting, so to speak) and by the time I get there, the star has already burnt out and I'm billions of light years further than where I first anticipated where I would be. But when I look back at our Sun, it is actually the exact same distance as when I first measured the star (now dead, perhaps as a black hole, etc) back at the observatory on Earth. (because I would be looking back in time the other direction!) and our sun would be a brand new star that just barely formed and came into existence and the observatory itself would not even exists for another 4 - 5 billion years. !
Playing a space engine game/sim that doesn't take this into account is akin to playing a fighter jet or flight simulator game in which you hear a distant explosion at the very same moment that you see it occur, or hearing a supersonic missile come at you, or flying your aircraft at exactly the speed of sound for as long as you want without consequence... or hearing an explosion happening behind your aircraft when you are receding from it at mach 3. etc
Added (23.02.2014, 07:28)
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Quote Psauce ( ) I looked at your list and ...well it took a few minutes but I was able to implement all of your suggestions into the game and I have to say I'm impressed with the result. Screenshot from SE 9.7.2
Attachments: 7427422.png(154Kb)
Wow nice screenshot! That got me thinking... The next SE should randomly seed intelligent life throughout the universe in accordance with Drake equation, and then create a separate screensaver client that interfaces with the SpaceEngine.exe server and whenever an intelligent lifeforms is found the user wins a monetary prize. So say the creators of SE create a metaserver and everyone who runs the SETI client on their machine also donates CPU/GPU cycles by routing some sort of bitcoin/litecoin mining and completing some hash functions... SE devs gets money from the pool, and then redistributes a portion of it in the form of prize winnings in accordance to the users who are lucky enough to detect intelligence life.
Participants can randomly choose where in the Universe (it doesn't necessarily have to be on Earth) that they wish to pitch their tent to listen to random radio signals for intelligent life and it would be interesting to see which users detect intelligent life first, and where it was detected from and where it came from...
Also, perhaps for a small fee, users would be able to create custom arecibo messages to be transmitted across space for other's to receive. (putting the "intelligent" into intelligent life)
Edited by planckepoch - Sunday, 23.02.2014, 04:39 |
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| Watsisname | Date: Sunday, 23.02.2014, 06:48 | Message # 6 |
 Galaxy Architect
Group: Global Moderators
United States
Messages: 2613
Status: Offline
| All of your suggestions have already been implemented in a future release of SE, though at that point we finally agreed on a better name for the program and named it "The True Universe". We don't live in The True Universe, we just occupy an early bug-testing version. Please don't poke it too hard.
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| Tca_11a | Date: Monday, 24.02.2014, 01:14 | Message # 7 |
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Space Tourist
Group: Users
Portugal
Messages: 26
Status: Offline
| Quote Psauce ( )
Attachments: 7427422.png(154Kb)
Wow this was awesome. 
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