• Geek_King@lemmy.world
      321·
      3 months ago

      With the Earth’s elliptical orbit, momentum would only get you so far in terms of sticking with the planet.

      • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
        331·
        3 months ago

        relative to the galactic central point, per Eric Idle, the earth would be 200k/125 miles away in a single second, or relative to everything in the universe / background radiation, it would be 23,000 miles (37,000 km) away in a single second.

        Preserving momentum in different directions and you quickly double it

        Assuming an even rate of death, that’s just under 2 people dying per second currently, so you wouldn’t even be able to see the people who died before or after you if you retained human senses as a ghost.

      • LostXOR@fedia.io
        14·
        3 months ago

        Even with a circular orbit, if you’re unbound by gravity you’ll follow a straight path while the Earth curves, resulting in it appearing to accelerate away from you.

      • LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net
        1·
        3 months ago

        Yeah they would go flying off into space relative to earth but I was more referring to the idea that they’d somehow become stationary due to being immune to gravity. That wouldn’t be sufficient on its own.

  • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
    21·
    3 months ago

    This is incorrect. Ghosts do have mass, they just don’t interact with the EM force and only through the gravity, the strong and the weak interaction (and a fifth interaction that we don’t know about). That’s right, all that dark matter and dark energy is actually ghosts.

    • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
      8·
      3 months ago

      This is the best explanation I’ve heard for dark matter that doesn’t involve the assumption that our cosmological models are completely correct.

    • Huckledebuck@sh.itjust.works
      2·
      3 months ago

      Can we define ghosts simply as the extinguished consciences of sentient life? So, dark matter and dark energy are the thoughts and memories of our universe.

      With no mass they will continue in a straight line at the velocity they were at when they transcended.

      Ghosts everywhere!

  • metallic_z3r0@infosec.pub
    16·
    3 months ago

    Is the reference frame the CMB? You’d think you could just choose the reference frame at that point and move however you want, but arguing the physics of hypothetical metaphysical beings probably doesn’t make much sense.

  • Droggelbecher@lemmy.world
    13·
    3 months ago

    The only things that aren’t bound by gravity are massless. Massless things always have to be moving at the speed of light. So really the question is, what direction would the ghost shoot off to? Momentum would have to be preserved, so it’d be the opposite direction of where the corpse drops. Or maybe the corpse just move a teensy bit to the opposite direction of the ghost?

    Note: this assumes Newtonian or at least semi classical physics. In general relativity, there is no such thing as being unbound by gravity.

  • leds@feddit.dk
    11·
    3 months ago

    Eehh objects in motion stay in motion? Does that apply to ghosts? So would the ghosts fly off in straight lines since no longer subjected to suns gravity ??

      • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
        3·
        3 months ago

        I don’t see how. The law of motion for massless things seems to be “must stay in motion at c in a vacuum until smashing into something, slowly turning into something weird as it loses energy due to the expansion of the universe.”

  • ytorf@lemmy.world
    11·
    3 months ago

    I have a memory of seeing this exact idea in another comic on here but can’t find it! (Assuming it is a case of multiple discovery and not plagiarism)

  • 👍Maximum Derek👍@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    10·
    3 months ago

    By this line of thinking, dying in a mass tragedy might be the best thing that could happen to you. At least you wouldn’t be in solitary confinement for eternity.

    • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
      6·
      3 months ago

      Yeah, but…imagine if I were in that mass tragedy with you. You’re telling me you wouldn’t rather be alone for eternity, than with me for eternity?

    • gordon@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      3 months ago

      I mean, I’m sure there’s a statistic that someone can look up but as many people as are on the planet, I feel like there would always be someone within shouting distance if not closer. I guess it really depends on how fast the earth is moving and what the frame of reference is.

      • Cornelius_Wangenheim@lemmy.world
        9·
        3 months ago

        You’re underestimating the distances and speeds involved. The earth is traveling at 67,000 mph around the sun and the sun is traveling 514,000 mph around the galactic core and takes 225 million years to do one orbit. Even if two people died within a second of each other, they’d be 100+ miles away from each other.

      • NotMaster@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
        5·
        3 months ago

        Here is a sad face…

        Earth orbits the sun. The sun orbits the super cluster in the middle of the galaxy. The galaxy is flying off into space being pulled on by other galaxies. The earth will never occupy the same expect space if you factor in all the movements. If you were holding the hand of your loved one and the two of you died withing a thenth of a second apart you would not be able to see them by the time difference at those speeds.

        Though its all relative how you want to measure and what you want to measure.

      • 👍Maximum Derek👍@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        3·
        3 months ago

        The earth moves at 18 miles per second in orbital velocity alone, there aren’t people within shouting distance of me now, and the opposite site of the planet from me is 80 miles off the coast of Madagascar. If I die at home I’m alone forever unless my wife goes at the same instant.

      • ohwhatfollyisman@lemmy.world
        1·
        3 months ago

        according to this site, there are 166k desths per day; which works out to about 7k deaths per hour or a little under 120 deaths per minute (around 2 deaths per second).

        even if you get paired with somebody who dies in the same quadrant as you, there’s a good chance that that person will be an annoying prick.

        so the maths bears out. the commenter to whom you replied is correct in saying that–if the ghost-no-gravity theory is true–you would be better off dying in a mini-mass-massacre event.