I'm liking this train of thought. I think it could be simplified though. The general rule is "if it doesn't fit perfectly into the secondary grid, it falls." This accounts for falling mobs, items, and liquids. For sand and gravel, we can say that they're made up of unconnected particles, so no single piece fills the grid perfectly. (They don't fall over because the particles are perfect cubes and stacked on top of each other.) When you pack sand together into sandstone, it becomes a single object that fills the grid and thus doesn't fall.
Since there are some non-falling blocks that don't totally fill the basic grid (like slabs, fences, farmland, liquid sources) this non-gravity grid must be smaller - maybe 1/8 or 1/16 of the main grid size. I can even imagine how Ghasts could fly, by having internal organs that latch on and off of the smaller grid.
I'm liking this train of thought. I think it could be simplified though. The general rule is "if it doesn't fit perfectly into the secondary grid, it falls." This accounts for falling mobs, items, and liquids. For sand and gravel, we can say that they're made up of unconnected particles, so no single piece fills the grid perfectly. (They don't fall over because the particles are perfect cubes and stacked on top of each other.) When you pack sand together into sandstone, it becomes a single object that fills the grid and thus doesn't fall.
Since there are some non-falling blocks that don't totally fill the basic grid (like slabs, fences, farmland, liquid sources) this non-gravity grid must be smaller - maybe 1/8 or 1/16 of the main grid size. I can even imagine how Ghasts could fly, by having internal organs that latch on and off of the smaller grid.
Yeah, that's basically what I was trying to say :wink.gif:
I even had that sand/gravel idea in my head, but couldn't express it very well.
Progress. But what comes next? Will there be another 'Update'? Or...
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Yeah, that's basically what I was trying to say :wink.gif:
I even had that sand/gravel idea in my head, but couldn't express it very well.
Progress. But what comes next? Will there be another 'Update'? Or...
We still have to resolve why the world-cube, which isn't staying aligned with either grid, isn't falling into the sun.
So what about the fact of things only growing when we are near, and requiring our presence (in a macro sense- a decent amount of meters there) to be created? In a small way, do we need to breathe life into this world to make it real? Are we the demi-gods of the minecraft universe?
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I have iridescent wings,/I am angel-/They are black/Deep as the black Abyss of Space but Stars/glinting across flecks of green, blue, yellow,/red, gold, and silver.
You're right, WhisperingSiren. It seems like conscious life is some kind of catalyst for natural processes - time still passes without us (the sun and moon keep moving in SMP when nobody's logged in) but even things like liquid flow and lava setting things on fire need a nearby presence. In Minecraft, a tree can't even fall down in the forest without someone to hear it! (Or burn down, since trees don't fall... :smile.gif: )
In this thread, sand500 brings up the issue of the direction of gravity. In our universe, gravity pulls toward the center of mass of the body involved. This would mean that visitors to the Far Lands would be pulled slightly back towards (0,0) and would feel like they are walking slightly uphill when they move away from the center and downhill when they come back. To my knowledge this doesn't happen. My theory is that gravity is constrained to following one of the 3 axes of the prevailing grid.
What happens at the edges of the cube? I think there are two possibilities. One is that gravity simply pulls in whatever direction is straighter. That would mean that there would be a diagonal plane stretching out from the corner, separating two gravity fields that differ from each other by 90 degrees:
vvv/
vv/<
CC<<
CC<<
The other possibility is that gravity only applies when you are directly in one of the cardinal directions from the body in question, and is zero otherwise - large bodies cast six gravity shadows out into space :
vv00
vv00
CC<<
CC<<
(Hopefully my diagrams are clear.) I don't think there's any way to tell which interpretation is correct but to me, the second one seems Minecraftier somehow.
I love these kinds of threads... we know so much about our natural world, that the normal person who isn't a specialist often can't do these kinds of investigations and actually come up with anything new. Here, we know so little, that anybody adding to the discussion adds a concept, provides collaboration. It's a whole new universe, and it's kinda awesome :happy.gif:
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I have iridescent wings,/I am angel-/They are black/Deep as the black Abyss of Space but Stars/glinting across flecks of green, blue, yellow,/red, gold, and silver.
How big is the surface? Since the Far Lands are an accepted part of the game, I think they must be included. I'm going to take the point 32,000,000 meters out where physics stops working as the edge of the world. That makes the world-cube 6.4x107 meters across. This is 5 times the width of Earth and about half that of Saturn.
actully somewhere on the wiki it says that minecraft can generate a map that is 8 times the diameter of Earth.
Some great theorizing by Kimundi! Wonderful! "MCU" and "Catoms" are very useful terms.
I was pondering the question of knocking blocks out of the worldgrid, and realized that different blocks hold on to the grid not only to different degrees but in different ways. In some cases particular tools are needed to attack the grid without damaging the block. And if stone is the higher-energy form of cobblestone, it loses extra energy when it is unbound which must be put back in through a furnace.
I like the idea of conscious minds providing force spreading through the grid (though I don't know if it needs to be a different grid than the primary worldgrid). It's not just minds that can knock things out of the grid, though: water will pop torches, and light and darkness will pop mushrooms and flowers.
The idea of separate gridbound and unbound forms explains things like chests, furnaces, etc. as they store and act on the unbound form, which is how the material for an entire house can fit into a 1m3 box. Stacking limits must also be a property of the unbound forms - perhaps some kind of exclusion principle.
Well, my current theory is that the world, sun, moon and stars are all part of a fixed grid, the World itself just happens to rotate around its WE-axis. On the World itself, there IS Gravity, but it can easily be nilified by the Gridforce.
I think you could make the case that thrown objects are transitioning from the grid of the player's arm to the worldgrid.
@yomikoma While I think it is only logical to asume a Cubical World, the facts do in fact point to a flat World: Sun and Moon rotate around the centre of the 128m high explorable world slice, instead of some point 32,000,000m below it.
How can you tell? I think the only evidence would be parallax, seeing the moon or sun move against the background of stars, and we don't know how far away anything is. If we saw parallax between the north and south Far Lands but not between morning and night, that would be evidence for the flat world.
Maybe we'll find out if Notch ever lets us build into space. You know, not to other planets and **** like that, but just into orbit or something. That would be awesome. Maybe there will be special space resources and space mobs.
I like your ideas about grid-establishment's role in evolution as well. Does that mean Slimes are more primitive creatures, since they haven't developed the ability to have different parts of their body have different grids?
Oi! I'm a Slime and I've got limbs. I've become a doctor to cure the issue with other slimes without them. I think of it more of a disease.
Anyways, very epic thread! I really like the scientific part of Minecraft. I don't have the imagination to add anything to this, unfortunately. :tongue.gif:
But in the Farlands there are giant drops like you described, which could mean the Minecraft planet is a cube. The drops are from like sky level to bedrock, without bedrock.
Practically, MineCraft is a game where the earth is flat, and is not a sphere.And the drops(if any) are straight in the void.So what ancient people in the real world thought(flat earth, and if you go to the edges you fall) applies in MineCraft. That's interesting, isn't it ?
EDIT:So are you willing to join us at MSG, yomikoma?
You should reply to her directly, in PM, instead of on here. She hasn't posted on this thread in a pretty long time, and it was a little necro when you posted in it. I meant to ask the people within it, not really so much to ask the thread :wink.gif:
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I have iridescent wings,/I am angel-/They are black/Deep as the black Abyss of Space but Stars/glinting across flecks of green, blue, yellow,/red, gold, and silver.
Here's a question I've been wondering about: where does the sun/moon/stars go when they sets? One cannot ignore the void, and I've never heard of the luminous sky cubes being seen in the void. Or have they...?
Here are some educated guesses about the structure of the Minecraft universe.
The World
The sun, moon, and stars appear to be fixed in relation to each other as they spin around the world. Since Minecraft is, to some degree, a reflection of the real world I'm going to assume that the world is spinning and the celestial bodies are staying still. Since almost everything in Minecraft is a cube, I'm also going to assume the world is a cube. (This is more or less the principle of "As above, so below".) We play on one of its faces as the entire cube spins around. (Being able to see the lower Void contradicts this, but since Mojang seems to block off the floor of the world as much as possible I'm going to ignore that.)
The idea of a world-cube also suggests a land of eternal twilight on the north and south faces, where the sun and moon both peek over the horizon as they chase each other around, but I doubt we'll ever see that in game.
Actually with a cube world (and living on only one side of the cube) there would be no, "land of eternal twilight". The far north and south side of the Minecraftian surface would have the same day/night cycle as the middle regions.
Actually with a cube world (and living on only one side of the cube) there would be no, "land of eternal twilight". The far north and south side of the Minecraftian surface would have the same day/night cycle as the middle regions.
True, but I was specifically talking about not living on only one face of the cube - there are 4 faces with the normal day/night cycle and then two faces, the top and bottom, which are in eternal twilight.
True, but I was specifically talking about not living on only one face of the cube - there are 4 faces with the normal day/night cycle and then two faces, the top and bottom, which are in eternal twilight.
I agree but it is not possible to reach another side of the cube in Minecraftia. The farlands just end. There is no other side of the cube so there is no land of eternal twilight.
Has anyone been to the ends of the Dirt? I assume the planet is called Dirt as we call soil Earth. I tried it once in creative but gave up because it seemed to be never-ending.
People have been to the Farlands using different teleportation tools (and a very few have spend tens of thousands of hours actually walking there/flying there in creative). What happens is the world continues but the physics becomes weird (for instance you pass through solid blocks and sometimes terrain generation can mess up) and then the game eventually crashes.
Since there are some non-falling blocks that don't totally fill the basic grid (like slabs, fences, farmland, liquid sources) this non-gravity grid must be smaller - maybe 1/8 or 1/16 of the main grid size. I can even imagine how Ghasts could fly, by having internal organs that latch on and off of the smaller grid.
Yeah, that's basically what I was trying to say :wink.gif:
I even had that sand/gravel idea in my head, but couldn't express it very well.
Progress. But what comes next? Will there be another 'Update'? Or...
Click on my signature to get taken to my Profile, from where you can see my Posts and other Details!
We still have to resolve why the world-cube, which isn't staying aligned with either grid, isn't falling into the sun.
I have iridescent wings,/I am angel-/They are black/Deep as the black Abyss of Space but Stars/glinting across flecks of green, blue, yellow,/red, gold, and silver.
What happens at the edges of the cube? I think there are two possibilities. One is that gravity simply pulls in whatever direction is straighter. That would mean that there would be a diagonal plane stretching out from the corner, separating two gravity fields that differ from each other by 90 degrees:
The other possibility is that gravity only applies when you are directly in one of the cardinal directions from the body in question, and is zero otherwise - large bodies cast six gravity shadows out into space :
(Hopefully my diagrams are clear.) I don't think there's any way to tell which interpretation is correct but to me, the second one seems Minecraftier somehow.
I have iridescent wings,/I am angel-/They are black/Deep as the black Abyss of Space but Stars/glinting across flecks of green, blue, yellow,/red, gold, and silver.
actully somewhere on the wiki it says that minecraft can generate a map that is 8 times the diameter of Earth.
I was pondering the question of knocking blocks out of the worldgrid, and realized that different blocks hold on to the grid not only to different degrees but in different ways. In some cases particular tools are needed to attack the grid without damaging the block. And if stone is the higher-energy form of cobblestone, it loses extra energy when it is unbound which must be put back in through a furnace.
I like the idea of conscious minds providing force spreading through the grid (though I don't know if it needs to be a different grid than the primary worldgrid). It's not just minds that can knock things out of the grid, though: water will pop torches, and light and darkness will pop mushrooms and flowers.
The idea of separate gridbound and unbound forms explains things like chests, furnaces, etc. as they store and act on the unbound form, which is how the material for an entire house can fit into a 1m3 box. Stacking limits must also be a property of the unbound forms - perhaps some kind of exclusion principle.
I think you could make the case that thrown objects are transitioning from the grid of the player's arm to the worldgrid.
How can you tell? I think the only evidence would be parallax, seeing the moon or sun move against the background of stars, and we don't know how far away anything is. If we saw parallax between the north and south Far Lands but not between morning and night, that would be evidence for the flat world.
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Oi! I'm a Slime and I've got limbs. I've become a doctor to cure the issue with other slimes without them. I think of it more of a disease.
Anyways, very epic thread! I really like the scientific part of Minecraft. I don't have the imagination to add anything to this, unfortunately. :tongue.gif:
But in the Farlands there are giant drops like you described, which could mean the Minecraft planet is a cube. The drops are from like sky level to bedrock, without bedrock.
You should reply to her directly, in PM, instead of on here. She hasn't posted on this thread in a pretty long time, and it was a little necro when you posted in it. I meant to ask the people within it, not really so much to ask the thread :wink.gif:
I have iridescent wings,/I am angel-/They are black/Deep as the black Abyss of Space but Stars/glinting across flecks of green, blue, yellow,/red, gold, and silver.
Here's a question I've been wondering about: where does the sun/moon/stars go when they sets? One cannot ignore the void, and I've never heard of the luminous sky cubes being seen in the void. Or have they...?
Click on my signature to get taken to my Profile, from where you can see my Posts and other Details!
Actually with a cube world (and living on only one side of the cube) there would be no, "land of eternal twilight". The far north and south side of the Minecraftian surface would have the same day/night cycle as the middle regions.
True, but I was specifically talking about not living on only one face of the cube - there are 4 faces with the normal day/night cycle and then two faces, the top and bottom, which are in eternal twilight.
I agree but it is not possible to reach another side of the cube in Minecraftia. The farlands just end. There is no other side of the cube so there is no land of eternal twilight.
People have been to the Farlands using different teleportation tools (and a very few have spend tens of thousands of hours actually walking there/flying there in creative). What happens is the world continues but the physics becomes weird (for instance you pass through solid blocks and sometimes terrain generation can mess up) and then the game eventually crashes.