Slime Farming

If you’re new to Minecraft you may not yet realize the need for slime in the game, but it serves some vital purposes. Both sticky pistons (useful in a number of applications) and several brewing recipes use slime balls as part of their crafting recipe; as such these little balls of slime become a valuable commodity. In order to obtain slime balls you have to kill slimes… carefully. Too much damage and the larger slimes won’t split into as many smaller slimes and the smaller slimes won’t drop the items you’re trying to get. This means that if you want to maximize your slime ball drops you’ll have to punch the creatures to death (rather than use a sword) or come up with another gentle system. While it may not seem like that big a deal to just go out one night and hunt some slimes, unless you’re next to a swamp, you’re not going to have much luck. Slimes only spawn in a swamp or in particular chunks (16x16x256 block squares) as determined by the seed used to generate your game world. Finding these special slime chunks and maximizing their spawning potential is what slime farming is all about.

Finding the Chunk

Slime Chunk Map

There are a couple ways to do this and one is easier than the other. Slime chunks are randomly dispersed throughout your world so that there’s one slime chunk in every ten chunks on average. Knowing this allows you to set up a large grid (9 16x16 divided rooms at no higher than 39 on the Y axis). Each grid section will correspond to a different chunk. Once the grid is set up, make sure you’re at least 25 squares away and wait for a few hours. When you come back, some slimes will more than likely have spawned in one or two of the sectioned off chunks. It’s important to make sure the walls are at least 2 blocks high to make sure slimes don’t jump from one to another. If this happens, you won’t be able to know for sure where they’re spawning.

If you prefer an easier approach a handy web application called Slime Finder exists which will map out your world and highlight all the slime chunks in green for you. This application can be found here. In order for this to work, you’ll have to enter the seed from which your world was generated. To find out what seed your world was generated from you’ll need to hit the “T” key in game to open your command prompt dialog and enter the command “/seed” (without the quotes). If you’re playing with a newer version of Minecraft this will cause the game to display a long number; this number is your seed. Record the number and enter it into the Slime Finder application and you’ll soon have a complete map for your convenience.

Regardless of the option you choose you’ll need to use your information dialog in game to know where you are as far as coordinates and chunks so you know where to build. You can open this by pressing F3 in game.

Building the Farm

A Slime Farm Under Construction

Once you’ve found your slime chunk (and preferably several side by side) you can start building your farm. The idea is to maximize spawning, but only for slimes. Unlike other mobs in the game slimes will spawn even when an area is well lit, so be sure to keep it lit up in order to prevent other types of mobs from spawning. This is also fairly handy during construction. There are some things to remember when building your farm about mob spawning. A mob will need to have enough space to spawn in an area (typically) and so for the purposes of slimes you’ll want an area at least 3x3x3 in order to allow room for the largest of the slimes, though for an effective farm you’ll want much more surface area to work with. Mobs won’t spawn on bedrock, so make sure your lowest spawning floor is at 6 or higher on the Y axis (as bedrock is present from layers 1-5). Slimes won’t spawn directly on top of torches or glowstone blocks so you’ll want to use either jack-o-lanterns or redstone lamps with redstone blocks in order to light the farm. If resources are a bit thin, torches will provide as much light, but they’ll slightly reduce the spawning rates. Finally, mobs will not spawn within 24 blocks of your character so make sure you have your waiting area at least 24 blocks away from your farm, but no more than 200 blocks away from the far as this will cause the slimes to start despawning. You can also use this as a loot collection point for convenience. Taking all this into consideration you’ll build your farm by creating floors with 3 blocks worth of space in between them as spawning floors for the slimes. These floors can be created anywhere from layer 6 to layer 39 on the Y axis. Try and fit as many floors as you can into this area as the more surface area you have for the slimes to spawn the more slimes you’ll have spawning and thus the more efficient your farm will be.

Setting the Trap

Once the spawning areas are complete you’ll want to consider how to get those precious resources you’ve made a place for. There are literally hundreds of trap designs to choose from assuming you don’t wish to simply make your own or hack and slash your way through each floor in a mad rampage for slime balls. Whatever design you select should be something you have the resources for and that will make the whole thing very convenient for you. Bear in mind for this the typical behavior of a slime left to its own devices. When not chasing a player a slime spawned in your farm will move to the nearest wall and continue from there to the nearest corner. As such, you can use this information to get slimes from the very top of your farm all the way to the trap at the bottom. Remember however that it can be a long way down and you want to kill them gently so if you opt to have them fall from on high, provide a pool of water at least 3 blocks deep for them to land in so they don’t die prematurely and without splitting reducing the effectiveness of your farm.

Conclusion

While it may seem like a lot of work for some slime balls, the slime farming process will save you a great deal of effort in the long run. So set up your farm and get ready for all the slime balls pouring in to your N3rd C0rn3r.

Take Care of Your Mom

As I’m sure most of you know, it’s mother’s day here in the good old USA and that means today especially is the day to take care of your mom. No doubt you’ve been inundated with ads and promotions about getting flowers or candies, but what your mom really needs is to know that those in her life really care for and cherish her. So make sure you make an extra effort to make that happen today.

Defense of Topic

For those who’ve been reading a while, you know that I’ll throw in this section anytime I’m talking about something that doesn’t seem to relate to the focus of the blog. In this case I’m talking about moms because it’s Mother’s day. Love them or hate them, you have a mom who has put time into making you who you are. I sincerely hope that the influence has largely been positive, but ultimately you’re reading this blog because you’re interested in the topics presented here, a fact that may not have been true without the influence of your mother in your life. As such, Mother’s day and the appreciation of moms in general are sufficiently connected to nerd culture to make it a valid topic for this blog.

Moms will be Moms

Most of us are aware of the vital importance of the mother on our society. Poems, ballads, and even movies (Mars Needs Moms) attempt to express just how important these impressive women (and some Mr. Moms) are in our society. Without them a lot of things would just fall apart and we’d be much worse for their loss. Personally speaking (and maybe as a guy I just can’t grasp this) I have difficulty understanding why women are so compelled to become moms. From the outside looking in it strikes me as exhausting, tiresome, frustrating, and never ending work. Moms often work, cook, clean, and worry their way through the day while their charges remain pleasantly oblivious, which in itself is a testament to how much they do. Moms will sacrifice all their time and energy, placing the needs of their children above their own.

Somehow moms will even find a way to be interested in all the things their children do, which for a nerd is a big deal. My poor mother has endured my excited jabber about various video games and movies, card games and even comic books with at least casual interest for over 20 years of full on, unadulterated, hard-core nerdiness and is still going strong as I constantly share the progress I make on this blog and all the other nerdy things I do. If I had to guess, I’d wager that the same is true for your mom as well.

Conclusion

If you still have the advantage of your mom, make sure you let her know today just how much you care about her and what she does for you, because she cares about you, and needs to get some love from her kid in the N3rd C0rn3r.

The Best Type of Car

You might think that the best kind of car is some sort of fancy sports car. Well I hate to break it to you, but that’s just not the case. It’s also not a truck, SUV, Van, motorcycle or a sedan. It’s not a hatchback or a hybrid… The best type of car is a station wagon. I recognize that this is a radical opinion, but I shall explain why it is the case.

Style

A 74 Pontiac Catalina

You have to admit that the station wagon has an unparalleled level of style over other types of cars. While some vehicles focus on being angular and sharp looking, the station wagon is content to simply allow its lines to flow. Even the boxier models tend to be sleeker in appearance than other types of cars. Many station wagons will employ stylistic options that other cars wouldn’t dare try (like fins and wood panels) and let’s not forget the wheel well covers for the rear wheels that give a station wagon an air of class unparalleled by most others.

Utility

It’s undeniable that a station wagon has what it takes to do most anything you want it to do. A station wagon can go as fast as you need it to, it can haul cargo either in the back or through the use of an attached trailer. Station wagons are just as good with passengers as a van or SUV, but lower to the ground to prevent roll-overs and give easier access to roof mounted cargo and let us not forget that a station wagon is typically wider than other vehicles which allows for a higher level of passenger comfort and a greater ability to transport large objects without adding accessories. A station wagon can be essentially whatever you’d like it to be, and do whatever you want it to do; it’s like a jack of all trades among cars.

Security

When it comes to security, few cars can match the station wagon. While it certainly makes a difference what kind of alarm system you have installed ultimately the likelihood of your car being stolen in the first place is going to play the largest role in determining how safe your car is. When a carjacker decides what kind of car to steal, they’re typically looking for a car that is extremely valuable and thus something that’s going to be worth the effort and the risk to try and steal. More often than not this is going to be a sports car, truck, or SUV rather than a station wagon. Add to this that these types of cars are sometimes associated with services that make them less desirable targets for theft (like the Hearse) and that station wagons low levels of popularity makes them hard to make money off quickly and you have yourself a nearly theft proof vehicle.

Conclusion

While it’s true some vehicles may do a single task better than the station wagon can, no other vehicle offers the versatility available with the station wagon. It is because of this fact that I must insist that the station wagon is the best type of car and the type I intend to use whenever I have to move my N3rd C0rn3r.

The Art of the All-Nighter

Inspired by my own failures to remain awake and attentive throughout the course of an entire night, I did some research and have figured out the methods and mistakes that often accompany such an event’s success or failure. For many, the all-nighter is an event that accompanies a failure to adequately plan or results from procrastination. However for a gamer, a youth minister, or a monk seeking heightened spiritual awareness (seriously) it’s an anticipated part of life. As such I write this guide for those who want (rather than need) to pull an all-nighter, but simply omitting the steps that don’t make sense for your situation should help it be applicable to all. Building on my own research and experience, I will guide you in your quest to pull an all-nighter.

Preparation

Assemble the computer before you start your all-nighter

As with most things in life preparation is going to be the key. There are many things to gather and to do in order to prepare you for an all-nighter and if you’re reading this the day of, you’ll want to get started right away.

1. Set-Up – First and foremost you’ll want to set up the area you’ll be using for the all-nighter. Make sure computers are working and updated so there are no unexpected delays, make sure resources you need (pen, notebook, textbook, strategy guide, etc.) are readily available in this area so you can focus on the event rather than these little details. Be sure that your seating arrangements are somewhat uncomfortable preventing you from easily reaching a stage where you can just drift off right where you sit. You may also want to make sure there’s some energetic music going like techno, which will help you stay energized without distracting you with an overabundance of meaningful lyrics.

2. Gather Consumables – If you’re going to be awake for the entire night, you’re going to get hungry and thirsty. Typically you don’t notice this because you’re asleep, but while conscious it will be painfully obvious. Since you’ll be eating and drinking you’ll want to stock the area with food and drinks that will help you stay awake and alert without further contributing to your steady decline. Sometimes the unhealthy snack options are unavoidable, but as often as you can choose high protein, low carb snacks. A small serving will give you a small amount of extra energy consistently over the course of about an hour and a half where as a sugary snack is going to bring your energy level way up for a short time and then cause a crash. Fruits and some berries, trail mix, whole-wheat crackers with peanut butter or a low-fat cheese, and even cereal with low-fat milk are all good options (and of course there are more). Be creative and find things that you like, that you can stop yourself from eating all in one sitting (pre-portioning helps with this as fatigue lowers inhibitions), and that are not terribly disruptive to your activity (cereal doesn’t mix well with console gaming for instance).

Your drink choice is also going to be important. Water is going to be your best choice and should be included even if it’s only used as a supplement to other beverages. At least one glass every half hour should help maintain hydration and focus through the night if that’s all you’re drinking. Sugary drinks are dangerous and caffeinated ones even more so. Anything with sugar in it will have the same effect as sugary foods, causing an energy spike followed by a crash. The high protein snacks can help to mitigate this effect, but they’ll be more effective if your drinks lack sugar. While most artificial sweeteners mess with your cravings especially over a long term period, for the purposes of staying up for a single night, they offer your best compromise between just water and full on sugar. Caffeine is also dangerous for those pulling an all-nighter. While it will help you stay awake, it like sugar is a short term effect resulting in a crash afterwards. However if you have few if any plans early the following morning,  you can use caffeine to bridge the gap between night and morning by stretching out your consumption (drinking a little at a time so that a single can of soda [preferably diet] lasts about an hour and a half). Because the sodium and caffeine in the soda, coffee, or tea will increase the dehydration effect (which makes you tired) you’ll want to increase your water intake as well to 1 pint for every can or cup of soda, coffee, or tea. This will not only stave off dehydration, but keep you active with frequent trips to the bathroom. For an all-nighter drink absolutely NO ALCOHOL! Alcohol will dehydrate you, decimate your focus, increase the frequency with which you feel the need to use the bathroom (cutting into available time more than necessary) make you feel warm and sleepy, and possibly irritate anyone pulling the all-nighter with you. In certain circumstances it’s also highly inappropriate (running a lock-in for instance). If you really plan on staying awake the whole night, leave the alcohol in the cupboard.

3. Sleep – The best preparation you can do for pulling an all-nighter (assuming you have the time) is to sleep beforehand. Take a disco-nap (a short nap of no more than half an hour), take a full on hour or two nap, or just get 4 to 6 hours of sleep before the event begins. Having just woken up when things are getting started will allow you to more easily remain awake and aware through the whole night.

Execution

During the event you’ll want to make use of all the materials you gathered beforehand to help you keep up energy levels, but there’s more to it than just eating a handful of trail mix and sipping on a soda. Even with these strategies fatigue may come knocking. In order to stave it off, you’ll want to employ some additional strategies.

1. Stay Engaged – As much as possible you need to keep yourself engaged. Boredom will bring on fatigue regardless of how much energy you have at the time. Avoid mindless activities in comfortable locations as these are a sure fire way to accidently fall asleep. If you’re at a LAN party and you see an entertaining program on TV with a comfy chair complete with a decorative  yet fluffy pillow, mind the sage advice of Admiral Ackbar (“it’s a trap!” for those of your who don’t know). Switching activities each hour or so can help stave off boredom and keep you engaged longer and video games are one of the best ways to keep yourself engaged and your mind active through the whole night.

2. Stay Active – Making sure you occasionally get up, stretch, and generally move a bit every hour or so is an important step for staying conscious during an all-nighter. While it may not always be feasible (as you could be in the middle of a dungeon run) typically when it’s not you’re already engaged and as such fairly alert. A quick walk around your area, a trip to the bathroom, or a resupply run to the kitchen can suffice then you’re back on the war path, so to speak, alert and ready for the next challenge.

3. Avoid Power-Naps – You may think that going to that super comfortable couch and sleeping for five or ten minutes is a great way to shore up your reserves for the rest of the evening, but I can assure you, it’s only going to make you feel even more tired than you did before the nap. In order to get actual beneficial rest your body has to reach stage three of the sleep cycle known as R.E.M. (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep. This is the state in which dreams typically occur, but they’re also not remembered. Dreams that you remember typically occur in stage two sleep, while you’re still partially aware of the outside world and before you’ve actually gotten any rest. While R.E.M. sleep comes faster to those who are more fatigued, the chances of getting any beneficial amount of R.E.M. sleep after only ten or even fifteen minutes of sleep is minimal, especially if you slept the night before your all-nighter (which I hope for your sake you did).

Recovery

So the night is over. The Sun is up. You made it through the night, now to make it through the day. If you have things coming up immediately (like an exam, a presentation, or some other important task) keep doing what you’ve been doing. Stay active and engaged, eat your energy foods, and stretch out your caffeine intake supplemented with plenty of water until you can get to a comfortable place and catch some Z’s. Ultimately the only true recovery solution is going to be a good night’s sleep and additional hydration. When you’re ready to finally hit the hay, find a comfortable spot with low light and low sound and sleep for six to eight hours. Unfortunately sleeping beyond the eight hour mark won’t help you recover any lost sleep, but a couple nights of consistent sleep should do the trick quite nicely.

Conclusion

While an all-nighter may not always be the healthiest choice, sometimes it’s necessary, and it can even be fun. With the proper preparation and execution you can make it through with flying colors (and if you’re properly hydrating that statement can be taken literally) and the appropriate recovery techniques will have you ready for another go in no time at all. Just be sure not to push yourself too hard as you struggle to stay awake in your N3rd C0rn3r.

My First Playthrough of Dragon Age: Origins

As you may have guessed from the title, I just completed my first playthrough of Dragon Age: Origins and I must say that after reading through the epilogue I’m relieved at how well everything seemed to have turned out and I’m only a little disappointed about a few decisions and their consequences.

Gameplay

The Main Menu

Despite the age of the game, the gameplay is not terribly complicated. I found it a bit difficult to get the hang of the item ranking system at first, but about halfway through the game it started to click and I had my party outfitted with the finest equipment the game had to offer (well mostly anyway). The game seemed to run quite smoothly even when dealing with large numbers of enemies and given the complexity of the game, the one or two bugs with simply solutions seems perfectly reasonable.

Graphics in the game were quite good for a game of its time and I couldn’t help but notice the rich level of detail put into everything from the broadest landscapes to the minutest portion of your set of armor. In fact, I found myself on a few occasions actually choosing my equipment based on aesthetics rather than stats, especially when the stats were even (or really close). Loading times were reasonable especially given the amount of blood the system constantly has to render and the sustained effects running concurrently (by the end of the game I was maintaining 4 just from my character).

Sound was in most cases quite well done. The SFX could occasionally get a bit repetitive, especially there toward the end when your character is so boss that s/he is one hitting any enemies with its name written in white. Music was of course expertly done, as is a custom for the game designers over at BioWare. Music was well used to set the mood (in more ways than one) and did an excellent job of conveying what was happening and generally what moral alignment each character represented.

Interface

The game interface was difficult to master at first (some sort of tutorial mission at the start of the game would have helped a lot) but once a player learns what they’re doing it becomes somewhat more intuitive. Inventory management was probably the biggest pain as it was difficult to know what anything was for and hard to tell at a glance if one piece of equipment was better than another (at first anyway). Despite this, combat was well streamlined and included the power wheel (a BioWare staple) for easy target selection and power management enhanced by the quickbar option for faster, more real-time decision making. Automation for non-selected characters was also quite good employing the “tactics” mechanic allowing you to select a predefined set of tactics for each character based on their role or fine-tune their responses using a number of different stimuli and reaction.

Story (spoilers)

A Chantry Templar

The tale begins shortly after character creation and will vary depending on what race and class you chose. As I played as a dwarf commoner and as such my story experience will be based on that story line. The initial plot is interesting, emphasizing the struggle to crawl up out of depravity and achieve something, doing what’s necessary to survive and thrive while (in my case at least) trying to be as moral as possible. While this last part was sometimes difficult (and at others downright impossible) the overall story line seems to have gone the way I’d hoped (mostly). Regardless of how you start you eventually find your way to Ostigar where the armies of Denerim are massing for a faceoff against the darkspawn hordes. When the battle begins however Logain takes the bulk of the army and retreats leaving the King and the Grey Wardens (including your character) to die. You and Alistair survive only because of a rescue from Flemeth, a crazy witch of the woods who as it turns out has been body snatching daughters for hundreds of years to remain alive. You then set off on a quest to unite the scattered forces of Ferelden against the darkspawn and the archdemon controlling them.

This quest takes you through the tower of magi, the forests where the elves reside, the underground city of the dwarfs, and the disparate kingdoms of the humans and ultimately leads to a final battle fought in Denerim.

My ending left me mostly pleased with the elves happy and at peace, Alistair on the throne with Anora, and the dwarfs moving forward and even retaking some of their lost territory, however there were a few things I wanted to try and rectify before moving on to Dragon Age II, namely I need to harden Alistair so that I can get him to marry Anora and keep Logain, destroy the anvil (like I meant to, but screwed up the dialog and didn’t have a conveniently close save to fix it) and allow Logain to kill the demon so that I can live and secure extra military aid to help the dwarfs fight in the deep roads. I’m hoping that I have a save far enough back to make that possible, but we’ll see.

Conclusion

Dragon Age: Origins is an excellent game well worth your time to play and continue playing as it does go on, but such is the nature of a good RPG. If you like RPG’s, BioWare, and generally having fun with a game that asks you to make some tough choices then definitely pick up a copy of this game for your N3rd C0rn3r.

Eve: Harvester Mining Drone vs. Tech II Mining Drone

Many people are familiar with the game Eve which has you set as the pilot of your own ship in a very free form, do whatever you’d like kind of universe. For those abandoning the tutorial quest line early on, many hours are spent on wiki’s and “how to” articles catching up with the steep learning curve, but once you know what you’re doing the wiki visits become less frequent (though for me they were still necessary from time to time). For a player there are literally hundreds of options to choose from with major categories including missions, shipping, manufacturing, research, pirating, and mining which serves as the backbone of it all and is one of the more lucrative options available especially for those just starting out.

A Hulk doing its thing

The life of a miner

Mining in Eve is hardly what most people would consider fun and games, but for those that truly enjoy the micromanagement aspect of the game and prefer spending hours designing a custom fit for their ship to slapping on the latest module and testing it out, it’s a good profession to go with. Even in high security space it’s not without its dangers, but typically you make enough to replace any lost equipment.

The most challenging aspect of mining is figuring out your ship fitting. Naturally you want to max out your relevant mining skills (mining, refining, etc.) to get started and of course your appropriate ship skills will play a large role as well as the ship you’re using will likely include yield bonuses for having the better skills.

Many people mistakenly believe the mid slots on mining barges are rather useless. This is just not the case. Many drone modules can be used in these slots allowing your drones improved abilities that make them better in both combat and mining; namely the Drone Navigation Computer and Omnidirectional Tracking Link module. The faster your drones move and the farther they can shoot, the quicker they can cover the distance between your ship and the asteroid you’re mining thus increasing yield per second. Likewise rigs for mining yield, speed, or range are going to be excellent investments as well.

Once you’re past the preliminary setup and training you start getting into the more advanced aspects of the mining game and we’ll be talking specifically about drones. Drones are little robots that can be stored in some ships and used to help you in different situations. There are many different types of drones, but the primary types are for combat and mining. You can typically use up to 5 drones at one time (though there are ways to get more) and you’ll have to have your drones skill trained to level 5 in order to use all 5 (you get one drone for each level). Mining ships, especially barges are designed to work with even the biggest mining drones so you should be able to benefit somewhat from their implementation. The difficult part is figuring out which drones to use.

There are really only two contenders for the title of top mining drone; Harvester Mining Drones and Tech II Mining Drones. On the one hand harvesters clearly have the advantage in ore yield, but practically speaking Tech II’s have twice the operational speed (not to mention they’re smaller and cheaper) which you’d think would even the playing field. After days of searching online finding no satisfying results I decided to make a spreadsheet and figure the problem out for myself. I started by entering the base information for both types of drones and then started setting up a system that would automatically calculate the effects of different skills and modules in relation to the base stats of each drone. These considerations took into account mining yield, drone speed, cycle time, and optimal range as those are the relevant factors for figuring out yield per minute for mining drones.

the spreadsheet I made

The results turned out to be quite interesting. The spreadsheet allowed me to test several different setups (and the Eve Fitting Tool let me know how much of each thing I could actually fit on the ship). The most effective setup seems to be 2 Drone Mining Augmenter II’s and 1 Drone Navigation Computer I along with skill level 5 in Drones, Mining Drone Operation, Drone Interfacing, Drone Navigation, and Drone Sharpshooting with the only remaining factor being distance from the ship to the asteroid. After testing several common distances (0m thru 15,000m) in increments of 1,000m I was able to determine that Harvester Mining Drones produce the greatest actual yield per minute (Yield/((distance-optimal range)+cycletime

+distance)) within the range of 0m thru 8,749m, whereas Tech II Mining Drones performed the best at 8,751m up to their maximum operational range. 8,750m was the breakeven point between the two models where they’re both just as effective.

Conclusion

Because the standard and most practical approach to the effective use of mining drones is to keep them close, I have to concede the victory to the Harvester Mining Drones. I will say however that for those who prefer to use drones to get at asteroids that would otherwise be out of reach or for those that like to keep a flight of combat drones with them just in case, the Tech II mining drones still hold a great deal of merit. Whichever type you choose, I’m sure you’ll find them to be quite helpful in your N3rd C0rn3r.

The Effects of Gravitational Time Dilation and Universal Expansion on Distant Starlight

We’ve all heard the estimates about the distances light travels from certain stars and they’re literally astronomical. Based on the travel time of the light from these stars they are estimated at billions, even trillions of light years away. I have no doubt that the distances are being correctly calculated, but because time is relative, there isn’t the direct correlation to age that most people seem to believe

Gravitational Time Dilation

A Black Hole

If you’ve watched any science fiction you’ve likely become familiar with this concept. The idea supported by general relativity is simply that actual time moves slower the closer you are to a gravitational mass. This can be tested by setting two clocks to the exact same time and then moving one to a very high altitude (further from a gravitational mass) and one to a very low altitude (closer to a gravitational mass). Leave them there for a while and then compare the times. They will be off by just a little bit. This same phenomenon can be created using acceleration (which generates gravitational force or g-force). Naturally the effect on Earth is minimal, but the stronger the gravitational influence, the more pronounced the effect will be. This is often demonstrated with the example of a black hole where the gravity is so intense that not even light is fast enough to escape the fall of space into the gravitational mass and time itself comes to a complete standstill. This is of course an extreme case and naturally the effect is far less pronounced with other masses, but still present.

Now when we think about light traveling from one place to another, we often forget to factor in the effects of gravitational time dilation. Light traveling from our sun takes about 8 minutes to get from there to here, from our point of reference. However, given its acceleration and the fact that it’s traveling through a massive gravity well (the sun) to get to us, the actual elapsed time for the photon in question would be significantly less. As the acceleration factor only alters the time experienced for the photon itself and not so much travel time, we’ll set aside that consideration for now, but think about distant starlight. As it leaves its star it leaves a rather large gravity well (the star). As it continues to travel, time elapsing much faster outside the star’s gravity, it continues to leave the effect of other gravity wells (the solar system, the local system cluster, and ultimately the galaxy and the super-massive black hole sitting at its core) until it is traveling in open space. Without the effect of gravity time elapses very quickly in these areas with potentially millions and even billions of years passing in what seems like a couple thousand for us here on Earth in our own fairly significant gravity well. This means that the star that’s a couple billion light years away actually gets its light to us within a couple thousand years from our perspective

The implication of this of course is that the age of the universe may well be several billion or even trillion years old, without necessitating that the Earth be more than perhaps 10,000 years old.

Universal Expansion

The Milky Way Galaxy

While it’s true the theme park is always expanding, I’m actually referring to the universe itself. Since the event that spawned the whole of the physical world, referred to as the Big Bang, the universe has been and is continuing to expand, growing ever larger each moment. This effect can be seen by observing distant stars. Any object that produces light can be analyzed to determine if it’s approaching, remaining a consistent distance away, or moving away from the observer. This is done by examining the light waves coming from the object and seeing if they’re being compressed into less space (shifting the light to the blue end of the visible light spectrum) or being stretched out over more space (shifting the light to the red end of the visible light spectrum). A blue shift indicates the object is approaching, whereas a red shift indicates that it’s moving away. With the exception of a few bodies that are close enough to our galaxy to be affected by its gravity enough to be approaching (other galaxies in our local group) everything in the universe can be seen to be moving away from us, indicating that the universe is still expanding.

What this means for distant starlight is that the original distance it needed to travel to get here is actually less than what it is now. In fact it was significantly less a second ago than what it needs to travel now. This means that while those stars that are several billion light years away now are indeed that far away, when they were first born and when we first received light from them, they may not have been nearly that far away meaning that a star’s distance now, is not an accurate measure of the age of the universe.

Conclusion

Combining these two factors together presents interesting new options for theorists on the age of the universe and what that might mean for humanity. Most notably proponents of a young earth will stand to gain the most from these potential new theories giving greater credence to their ideas and beliefs. If you find these ideas intriguing, be sure to share this article with your friends, as I’d love to see some of the spin off theories show up in another N3rd C0rn3r.