Relativity does not make predictions about the nature of matter, space, and time inside an event horizon. No scientific theory does. A theory is an idea or group of ideas that make testable predictions about the behavior of the universe under certain conditions. There is no such thing as a testable prediction concerning the interior of a black hole. Therefore no theories make predictions about the interior of a black hole.
Under my interpretation of the meanings of these words: GR makes predictions about the interior of a black hole, but it does not make testable predictions, assuming that information cannot escape a black hole.
Furthermore, any scientific theory which postulates that information can escape a black hole can make testable predictions about the interior of a black hole. If it turns out that information in fact cannot escape a black hole, as seems to be the case, those predictions will be falsified; but a scientific theory does not have to be true, it only has to be testable.
This is because, assuming GR was 100% correct and QM effects don't apply ...
Stop right there. Your premise is false. False implies anything is true.
This is not how logic works. You are confusing necessary truths (logical absolutes) with contingent truths (facts about the world). The laws of physics are not logical absolutes; assuming the negation of a physical law is not a logical contradiction; therefore, assuming the negation of a physical law does not imply arbitrary statements.
It is conceivable that there is a universe in which GR is 100% correct and QM effects do not apply, and we can perfectly consistently apply logic to describe that universe.
Warp's question is perfectly reasonable, logical, and meaningful. A paraphrased version could be: "Supposing we programmed a computer to simulate a universe in which GR applies but QM doesn't. Then would X be possible in that universe?" The fact that this universe isn't the same as the physical universe is no logical problem, in the same way that it's ok to reason about SM64 physics despite their violent disagreement with physical reality.
If I understand correctly, in the Schwarzschild solution this is because all geodesics inside the event horizon, including all time geodesics, point directly to the singularity, so simply advancing it time makes the particle move closer to the singularity. Basically you would have to stop time to make the particle not move towards the singularity.
Absent any other forces, all massive particles follow timelike geodesics (definition here) -- this implies that in flat spacetime, all massive particles move at sublight speed, because a path through spacetime corresponding to FTL motion is not a timelike geodesic. In the highly curved spacetime near a black hole, all timelike geodesics point into the black hole. Therefore, all possible paths a massive particle can take point into the black hole, and the massive particle simply has no choice but to fall in, no matter what its energy is.
Warp wrote:
(Which raises the question: Assuming you could apply an infinite amount of energy to a particle, would it theoretically be possible to "stop time" for it, ie. make it stop moving in the time axis? Is this something allowed by the GR equations?)
Sadly, I'm outta my depth here. I have heard stuff said by popular science broadcasters (such as the legendary Dr Karl) along the lines that inside a black hole, spacetime is curved to such an extent that the space dimension pointing inwards to the black hole swaps properties with the time dimension: whereas before you could move freely in the 3 space dimensions but were constrained to move ever forwards in time, now you are constrained to move ever inwards in space but free to move back and forth in the remaining 2 space dimensions and time. If this is true, "time" as defined by "the direction a particle must necessarily go in" is no longer a single direction in space-time, but points in a direction which is affected by the curvature of space-time. I would guess that "time", in this interpretation, is defined at a point in space-time as the direction vector of the axis of the light-cone emanating from that point. Near a black hole, all light-cones point into the black hole so severely that no light can escape it.
Unfortunately, I don't know the numbers or the deep concepts for this, only the pop science version :( Head asplode.
To a layman (like me) there is little difference between the concepts of "you would need an infinite amount of energy to" and "no finite amount of energy is enough to", as they sound like two ways of expressing the same thing.
These are not logically the same. One place where these necessarily differ is where even an infinite amount of energy won't do what you want to achieve. For example, if you take the special relativity equations and dumbly plug infinite energy in (more accurately, if you take the limit as energy goes to infinity, since otherwise you can't deal with infinities in equations in a well-defined way), you find that a massive particle with infinite energy travels at the speed of light. No finite or infinite amount of energy is enough to travel faster than light.
IOW, just because a finite amount of energy couldn't do the job, doesn't mean that an infinite amount of energy will. Even if you take the limit of infinite energy (and ignore the curving of spacetime that marzojr mentioned this would cause) a massive particle can't escape a black hole -- since a massive particle with "infinite energy" moves like a massless particle, and massless particles can't escape a black hole either. Your statement "it would require an infinite amount of energy to stop it from falling into the singularity at the center" isn't true -- even an infinite amount of energy wouldn't be able to stop it.
The General Theory of Relativity predicts that if a particle enters the event horizon of a black hole, it would require an infinite amount of energy to stop it from falling into the singularity at the center.
On the other hand, the Pauli exclusion principle states, basically, that you would need an infinite amount of energy to make two particles be at the same place at the same time (which is what is happening in a singularity).
How are these two opposite forces consolidated?
They aren't. Not with current theories. General relativity and quantum mechanics (of which Pauli exclusion is a part) simply do not agree, which means than both are incomplete descriptions of the universe. The sheer inability to observe the interior of a black hole makes it difficult to measure what actually happens; perhaps if we knew, we'd be closer to solving this great unsolved problem of physics.
What this means in practice is that, according to quantum mechanics, gravity does not exist. It's not in the models at all. There are only three forces: electromagnetism, weak and strong. According to general relativity, all particles are classical. There's no wavefunctions, no wave-particle duality, no quantum effects. Obviously, these are slightly embarassing omissions from the respective theories; but if you operate on a scale where the omissions are negligible (ie the very small for QM, the very large for GR) it doesn't matter too much.
The field of physics trying to unify these theories is called quantum gravity. You'll be waiting a while for an answer to your question. (The wp article lists "Points of tension" under which it says "however, no one is certain that classical general relativity applies near singularities in the first place"; reflecting the general problem of describing something which no information can escape from.)
I'm afraid I don't have a ready made clear-cut definition for you, but I'm sure you know exactly what I'm talking about.
Actually, I'm not sure I do. All you seem to be saying is "some muslims are bad, therefore islam is bad" but you avoid the similar argument "some christians are bad, therefore christianity is bad".
News articles like this can be read every week in British newspapers and hardly ever do any muftis, mullahs or imams say that they disagree.
No, those other Muslim leaders never disagree, do they? Oh wait:
The first sentence of that Daily Mail article wrote:
A senior Muslim cleric has been condemned by police and other Muslim leaders
Sure. I am definitely not a fan of Christianity either. But I'm sure you'll admit that there is a huge difference in conventions and principles between Christianity and Islam. In mainstream Christianity, the Bible quotes you posted aren't taken as literal word of God as far as I understand.
"The bible quotes you posted aren't taken as literal word of God" is an incredibly barefaced trope to use when criticising Islam based on the words in the Qu'ran. Somehow, the Bible is to be taken allegorically, but the Qu'ran must be taken literally? Not according to a lot of muslims.
If you want to state that Islam is not a religion of peace, you must first define what this means. That its central text is not peaceful when taken literally? By that definition, Christianity and Judaism are not religions of peace. That there are some violent followers? By that definition, Christianity and Judaism are not religions of peace. That there are loud self-identified Muslims who preach hate speech? By that definition, Christianity and Judaism are not religions of peace. That the central text is not peaceful when taken allegorically? That's not even a full definition until you explain how to decode the allegory.
Once you have a clear definition of "religion of peace" and a clear argument which shows Islam is actually less peaceful than Christianity or Judaism, then you might have a point. Currently you don't.
Perhaps such an explanation rule can be imposed on someone who has repeatedly been troll voting.
Only when a need has been demonstrated. As far as I can see there are no such persistent troll voters. Even if there were, the judges won't be swayed by troll voters who don't leave comments.
This is an improvement that I like, but not because it's ~25 seconds faster, but because it's different enough: different styles, more creative, funnier (to some people), more players, etc.
You keep saying two things in this and other threads: 1. SM64 is in the queue too often, and 2. the current workbench movie is not different enough from its previous publication.
Point 1. is objectively false. If you can't improve a movie which was published 2 years ago, that leaves very little room for making improvements to any movies at all. (Even if it were true that SM64 is updated too regularly, I don't think it's a valid reason to reject an improvement.)
Point 2. is subjective, but in my mind false too. It is noticably different to its predecessor. The framecount is just one part of it -- it uses new glitches, new techniques, and the endless staircase sequence is an absolute gem. To say the movie is too similar to its predecessor by any standard approaching objectivity would also reject a large proportion of improvements on this site. The most recent SMW wouldn't qualify (mostly the same, apart from the block dup glitch), the most recent castlevania aria of sorrow 100% wouldn't qualify (basically the same route, more tightly optimized with one or two new tricks; most of the improvement is from skipping the claimh solais), the latest golden axe wouldn't qualify (the action is mostly similar, despite strong improvements). Yet these are all movies I think are both entertaining in their own right, and solid improvements to their predecessors.
Your claimed criteria for rejecting the SM64 run aren't universalizable without rejecting a whole bunch of valuable improvements. If you simply weren't entertained by a run, that's fine -- and probably the best reason to vote no. But I can't accept that the new SM64 is not different enough from the previous run -- it is.
I am (somewhat loudly) of the opinion that the Shareware release of a game is a completely different game than the Registered counterpart. (...) Like others I'd love to see a run of the full registered game but if a full run was created I do not feel it should obsolete this run as they are separate games.
I don't understand this argument. Even if they are different games, what does it matter? We don't want to duplicate content in published movies. It's not sensible to have a NES SMB2j run as well as a Super Mario All-Stars Lost Levels run -- even if you think they are separate games, the resultant movies are too similar. Similarly, we don't want to duplicate an entire episode of Jazz Jackrabbit in two separate movies, particularly if that episode is the entire content of one of those movies. Whether the games are the same or not doesn't enter into it -- the acid test is whether the resultant movies are too similar.
With regards to cracking the PRNG (Pseudo-Random Number Generator): I wrote a tool in plain c++ which actually tells you when you can get certain soul/item drops, but I left it along with the wip mentioned above.
I'd be very interested in such a tool to lua-ify it. It'd also be great to get the soul and item drop algorithms onto the resources page.
So while investigating RAM addresses for the article I thought I'd write a lua script to show enemy HP and MP values
This sounds very useful, although I've never used lua scripts. Might have to learn that some day.
If you liked that, you'll love my next trick: monster drop search! Find when monsters will leave drops! Takes the drudge out of drop manipulation! Become rich with ease! Impress ladies with your collection of antique weaponry!
This script puts a display in the top-right which lists all enemy types on screen (except bats). The display looks like this:
r Basilisk
c5,23, r4, Final Guard
tl;dr version: Final Guard has a common drop which will drop in 5 or 23 RNG cycles' time, and a rare drop which will drop in 4 RNG cycles' time. Basilisk has a rare drop which won't drop within the search window (40 cycles). Even with this script, it will take some trial and error to actually get the drop; but it's a lot more guided trial and error than it would have been otherwise.
Detailed version: Each monster type has a common drop and a rare drop. Either drop may be null (ie no drop). These drops have a value indicating how rare these drops are: the higher this number is, the less likely a drop is to happen. Moreover, when a monster dies, only one of these drops will be checked for: 3/4 of the time the common drop will be checked (even if it's null), the other 1/4 of the time, the rare drop will be checked (again, even if it's null). As a result, in order to get a drop, you need the common/rare choice RNG call to succeed, then you need the immediately following RNG call to satisfy the rarity function. A common drop with the same rarity value as a rare drop is therefore 3 times more likely to drop.
Incidentally, an increase in rarity of 1 is exactly equivalent to a reduction in LCK of 64. No drop may happen more than 1/4 of the time, no matter how high your luck. For scale, the common items in AoS runs are: Baselard - rare:30, Combat Knife - rare:15, Rotten Meat - common:10 (while spoiled milk from evil butcher is rare:30), Muramasa - rare:40, Final Sword - rare:50. The same item may have different chances from different monsters: baselard is rare:30 from zombie but common:20 from evil butcher.
To translate a rarity into a total probability, calculate 1/(16+4*rarity-floor(LCK/16)) for rare items, and 3/(16+4*rarity-floor(LCK/16)) for common items, clamped at a maximum probability 1/16 (rare) and 3/16 (common). So with LCK<16, a zombie's baselard (rare:30) is 1/(16+4*30) = 1/136. A luck of 100 would change this to 1/(16+4*30-6) = 1/130. A luck of 1000 would change it to 1/(16+4*30-62) = 1/74.
Final sword (rare:50) at luck 0, 100 and 1000 has a probability of 1/216, 1/210, and 1/154 respectively. IOW, boosting luck is not worth it, and is less worth it for rarer items. And given that luck operates at a granularity of 16, the enchant souls ghost dancer and gremlin and the various luck-boosting items offer such wimpy LCK boosts that they often don't change the resultant probabilities at all.
The Rare Ring has two effects: first, it makes rare drop checks happen 3/8 of the time instead of 1/4, and it doubles the probability of all item drops. So the net effect is common drops happen 5/3 more often, while rare drops happen 3 times more often. (The resulting probability formulae are left as an exercise to the reader.)
Known problems with the lua script: It's not very efficient (it would be faster to cache results, but I don't have the time or motivation to do that) and it thinks that destructable walls are really bone pillars.
I want to look at the soul drop code next, but I can't promise anything. It depends on seemingly random memory locations, and is several times more complicated than the item drop code.
(Thanks to Hoe, whose post here got me started on this.)
EDIT (22/11/2010) more detail on probabilities.
So while investigating RAM addresses for the article I thought I'd write a lua script to show enemy HP and MP values: Gravy
It displays info in the top-right of the screen, but you can uncomment a line to display it underneath the monsters instead. It's an early effort -- lots of things are stored in the same RAM positions as enemies including projectiles (evil butcher knives), limbs (manticore tails, man-eater segments) and breakable walls; these are erroneously identified as enemies.
Is this useful to anyone? Is there data you'd rather see displayed? For example, I've found the addresses for cooldowns, perhaps that would be useful?
Props to gocha, whose RNG script I butchered in order to get started.
EDIT: Here's a script to show monster cooldown values. There are 5 different cooldown types which are coded as follows: K = kick, W = weapon (inc. Julius's whip), S = slide (also julius's uppercut attack), B = bullet soul (inc. julius's subweapons), G = guardian soul (also julius's whip swinging when you hold B down). It can be seen from this script that some bullet and guardian souls have monstrously high cooldowns -- julius's axe and black panther are both in the ~60 frame range.
(Internals stuff: the cooldown types are encoded in memory as K == 2, W == 3, S == 4, B == 5, G == 6. It strikes me that there ought to be a cooldown type for 1, but nothing I've found so far produces such a value. I've tried various weapons, bullet souls, and guardian souls; does anyone have any ideas? Am I forgetting some way of damaging a monster?)
I've given it some thought, and Blocking Mail should save some time, mainly on the Final Guard, gonna check that later.
The hippogryph trick is very curious indeed, it saves 6 frames on Chaos and 4 frames on Headhunter and Big Golem each.
Sounds exciting! Kudos to zhangsongcui!
Kriole wrote:
I'm currently adding Corner Boosting and Platform Boosting to the resource page. Feel free to clean it up.
Thanks very much for this. I added an explanatory note to your first corner boost example. I don't understand your black panther example -- AFAICS, each frame, Soma's position just increases by his Y-speed. AIUI, when corner boosting occurs his Y-position will increase by more than his Y speed because the corner is ejecting him (and indeed, this is what I see in the first example). Or am I missing something? (Also, his Y speed ends up at 8:2A but he only descends 8 pix/frame; why not the full 8:2A?)
Kriole wrote:
Is a boss rush speed run acceptable(glitch and glitchless)?
There's two separate issues here:
1. There's no guarantee that a boss rush TAS would be published as an official movie on tasvideos.org. The Judge Guidelines says such as "Keep the number of different branches per game minimal. A run for a proposed new branch for a game should offer compelling differences relative to previously published runs of that game.". If a boss rush TAS is submitted, there is a very real chance of rejection because we already have 4 published AoS branches (any%, all souls, any% glitched, julius any%). This rule was much more strict in the past than it is today, but there are still no guarantees.
Have you manipulated the RAM in your boss rush? You have 99 positron rifles. Published TASes on this site should, in theory, be possible on the console, and so should not rely on memory poking. If you want to publish a boss rush TAS, you will need a verification movie which collects all the stuff you need first. Sadly. (This would almost certainly be at least an hour of verification movie for 2 minutes of boss rush movie. >_< )
2. You're always welcome to post boss rush TASes in this thread. It might even be nice to have a list of boss rush TASes on the game resources page (plug, plug). Here's a boss rush from Yrr earlier in this thread (and about 14 months ago). The boss rush you PMed to me is faster by over a second.
I would certainly watch and enjoy any boss rush posted to this thread; and here, I'm not fussy about RAM manipulation. If your only goal in making a TAS is to get it officially published, it's not the best reason to do it. If you want to entertain people, we are here and we will watch it, and if it gets published, then that's an added bonus :)
Eek triple post!
I got a PM from a chinese TASer called zhangsongcui who pointed out you can save time by using hippogryph through the Chaos door. Here's my take on it (quick and dirty, not guaranteed optimal), it saves 4 frames over Kriole's recent run. Surely it must be hexable?
zhangsongcui, please post a message here and say hello to everyone!
If that amazes you, don't come to Russia. Many of the movies shown here by professors are downloaded (and our largest torrent tracker actually received a public people's choice award a couple years ago).
But it has slightly more legitimacy there because Russia isn't signed up to some key copyright agreements...
A lot of old games are available on modern systems such as Wii Virtual Console. Shame you have to play on a Classic or Gamecube controller. The wiimote turned sideways will do fine for NES games, since its controller was so simple, but games for the SNES, mega drive and especially N64 were designed for a particular controller layout, and playing on something different would be confusing at best.
(mega drive == european genesis)
Stick it in!
Re: black panther, when I measured this afternoon using gocha's rng lua script, I could swear it was 2 rng/frame, not 1/frame. I tested in a save room so there were no other factors. Or am I measuring wrong somehow?
Please excuse double post.
I thought it was high time we had a resources page, so I created one. It's only a first draft, so I'd appreciate if you could all look it over. In particular, it's lacking much information about heavy glitches (the 0HP sleep glitch or other OOB glitches) and has nothing on julius mode at the moment.
Have I missed anything? Can you help explain any of it better? Do you have any good examples in microstorage I can add to the article?
EDIT: updated link to url without colon.