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How In Hell Oxium Is Lighter Then Air? Is This Even Possible?


derclaw
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Smelting this thing and using in crafting  must be a technological nightmare without some hardcore magnetic tools.

 

And since we now have "thing" can float on its own in the atmosphere - can we now have reduculusly huge airships as enemies in open tiles? 

Edited by derclaw
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*pssst!*  You're analyzing logic again.  We're not supposed to do that, remember?  We're not suppose to notice things like life support being shut down outside on a planet surface, and the fact that we die without oxygen, and yet we ride outside the ship at every evac.  Just run around and shoot stuff, that's all you need to know!  ;)

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'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic' - Arthur C Clarke.

 

We're talking about a timeframe many thousands of years in the future where we had (and appear to have lost) the kind of scientific knowledge that puts the truism into the above quote.

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I'm not really understanding the point of this thread. Are you under the impression that nothing can be lighter than air or something? 'Cause we've already manufactured solids that are less dense.

 

 

Take this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerogel

 

Add scientific ingenuity.

 

Cook for 1000 years on low heat, stirring occasionally.

I was about to post this.

 

Also, this (the new winner):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerographene

 

About 7.5 times less dense than air, and less dense than helium.

Edited by SortaRandom
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Take this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerogel

 

Add scientific ingenuity.

 

Cook for 1000 years on low heat, stirring occasionally.

This thing doesnt float in the air on its won lol. Also Lotus said that its alloy which means it should be something solid.

 

As for aerographen - IT DOESNT FLOAT IN THE AIR LOL - Wiki also says that. While it seems like Oxium does.

I am ok with ultra-light materials - but ALLOY that is lighter then AIR?

 (The cited density does not include the weight of the air incorporated in the structure: it does not float in air).

Edited by derclaw
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You can carry 540 freaking rockets, 210 knives and a giant dual handed axe and you still asking stuff about logic and physic?!?!!?!?

 

 

-_-

Well I kinda want Ogris ammo to be cut atelast 5-6 times. So yeah. I mean - solid thing that if left alone will skyrocket into space and will float somewhere round noasphere? I didint see any flying rocks recenly. Or Corpus found magic pixie levitating dust on Jupiter?... wait... OHHHHH! Oberon you son of a bitc*! That was your plan from the begining!

Edited by derclaw
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As for aerographen - IT DOESNT FLOAT IN THE AIR LOL - Wiki also says that. While it seems like Oxium does. (The cited density does not include the weight of the air incorporated in the structure: it does not float in air).

 

Oops, my bad.

Still, though, just make its structure tough enough to withstand an internal vacuum inside it and it's set and ready to float away. XD

 

 

Considering that this is thousands of years in the future, though, having a solid that's less dense than air really isn't that implausible. There are a lot of "lol video game logic" moments in this game, but this is hardly one of them. It's a sci-fi thing, not a made-completely-illogical-for-the-sake-of-gameplay thing.

Edited by SortaRandom
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You can carry 540 freaking rockets, 210 knives and a giant dual handed axe and you still asking stuff about logic and physic?!?!!?!?

 

 

-_-

 

That doesn't matter. My pants can store 99 collapsed stars in FF8, storage space is always waived because more storage space = more fun in any game ever. And infinite storage space removes the cap on potential fun in hoarding collapsed stars and putting them in my pants.

 

What matters is that SCIENCE!! WILL!! PREVAIL!!

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Well I kinda want Ogris ammo to be cut atelast 5-6 times. So yeah. I mean - solid thing that if left alone will skyrocket into space and will float somewhere round noasphere? I didint see any flying rocks recenly. Or Corpus found magic pixie levitating dust on Jupiter?

 

they do, we will and all grineerz will be saying: "Tennos... Corpus... STAHP."

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Ok guys, looks like it's time for a little (midnight) physics.  Please keep in mind that it has been a few years since my last physics course, I am slightly tired and trying to keep this simple.  Please excuse any slight errors (or make nice correction posts as you desire)

Density is basically mass per unit volume.  Weigh something and divide by the space it takes up and that is its density.  Generally, less dense things are held up by more dense things, which is why things float.

However, that above observation is not entirely true, simply because of something that is known as the buoyant force.  Anything that is not moving is in what is known as static equilibrium.  The sum of all forces acting on it are equal to 0 in all directions, therefore it does not move (or, more accurately, it does not accelerate, since Newton tells us that the sum of all forces is equal to an objects mass times its acceleration).

In any case, what tends to happen is rather simple.  Everything has a weight, which pulls the object down (yay gravity, thanks be to Newton).  Generally what happens to such an object is that it falls until something happens to push it up (typically the ground) with equal force, thus resulting in static equilibrium.

However, there is a special case, that of an object in a fluid (any gas or liquid is a fluid).  What happens here is called the buoyant force.  Basically, an object in a liquid (say, water) displaces some of the water.  Think of a glass of water, full to the brim, and then you drop a rock in it.  The water will overflow.  That water is displaced by the rock.  Now, in something a bit bigger, like a lake, the displaced water doesn't really go anywhere, it is still in the lake, but the level of the lake has risen slightly.  Now, water, as we all know, likes to get as low as possible, so it tries to push the rock up.  In this case, it fails and the rock sinks, because its weight is larger than the weight of the water it displaced.  But if you put something lighter in water, say a piece of wood, it will float.  The weight of the volume it takes up is less than the weight of the water that volume has displaced.  The water succeeds in pushing it up.

Now we can carry that on to any fluid and any material and we have the basic principal.

Of course, you are all saying that this means that anything less dense than air should float, but you also need to consider the geometry of the object.  By the same logic, anything that is more dense than a fluid should sink, yet we have steel ships that are quite happily sailing around the world without a thought of sinking.  This is due to the geometry of the ship, which makes it displace more water than a lump of steel would if it were merely a single mass.  Basically, the shape something is in influences its buoyant force, but the density is a property of the material.  So we can have something that is less dense than air in a shape that makes it too heavy to lift off under its own buoyant force.

In this case, (since I didn't read the article) I believe it was mentioned that the structure incorporates a large amount of air, so the total volume is high but the displacement of air is low, leading to a low buoyant force for a relatively high density.

 

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