The Sword and Laser discussion

A klick is a kilometer right? I think if we had actually expanded out into space we would have some other form of distance measurement for the vast expanse of space. They talk about millions of klicks, it seems like the numbers they are using are massive and they could have some simplified version like a megameter being 1000km.

Probably to make it easier for the reader to comprehend the distances involved. Most people (even those still labouring with Imperial measurements) would understand kilometers better than megameters.

Also klick being slang would be better than some slang for a measurement people are unfamiliar with. They'd then have to explain what the slang meant and then what the measurement meant. Better to stick with something known.

I would venture because the military probably started all the exploration and they continued to use those terms. NASA is rife with military so I don't see it much of a stretch.

Raelene wrote: "I would venture because the military probably started all the exploration and they continued to use those terms. NASA is rife with military so I don't see it much of a stretch."

Don't forget that most of the planet uses kilometers/klicks in daily life. :)

Raelene wrote: "I would venture because the military probably started all the exploration and they continued to use those terms. NASA is rife with military so I don't see it much of a stretch."

That is a very US-centric view. Only 3 countries in the world don't use metric as their primary or sole system of measurement: Liberia, Myanmar (Burma) and the US.

Can't quote on my phone.

How is it US centric? If you want we can look at the soviets and the space race. If that wasn't all out military centric then I don't know what to call it.

Yea I'm guessing it's just to make it easier for the reader. But yea I agree... gigameter would've been a cooler unit to use for interplanetary distance. :)

Raelene wrote: "Can't quote on my phone.

How is it US centric? If you want we can look at the soviets and the space race. If that wasn't all out military centric then I don't know what to call it."

Because far more than just the military use those terms or metric. My post was showing that almost everyone in the world uses metric and klick is quite common slang.

Interestingly one of the earliest reported usages was in Heinlein's Starship Troopers.

well if a writer was like "the Tibrius Sector is 12 Parsec's away, have the redshirts on standby!" you probably woyldnt know how big that even is. The author uses a familiar length of measurement so you have a sense of scale. its like fantasy and their leagues.

btw 1 Parsec = 3.08568025 × 10^16 meters which is about 3.25 ish light years (i might be wrong on the .25 part hehe)

yea parsecs are annoying... I always have to look up what they mean. And really don't make much sense for interstellar travelers to use, they only make sense for astronomers.

Drew wrote: "They talk about millions of klicks, it seems like the numbers they are using are massive and they could have some simplified version like a megameter being 1000km."

A Megameter is 1000km. In the metric system mega stands for 1 million. (1 million metres)

For longer distances they can use Gigametre (1 billion metres, 1 million kilometres)

Terametre (1 trillion metres, 1 billion kilometres)

Then we keep adding 3 zeros for:
Petametre, Exametre, Zettametre, and Yottametre (which is 1 followed by 24 zeros)

The edge of the universe is about 400 Yottametres away, so no need for any larger numbers.

But like any distance we will use what we a familiar and comfortable with. So kilometres will probably become a standard in space.

Or we will end up with miscalculations like Nasa using metric and Lockheed engineers using imperial for navigation commands and the confusion crashing the $125Million Climate Orbiter into Mars back in 1999.

But like any distance we will use what we a familiar and comfortable with. So kilometres will probably become a standard in space.

so that's why we still use kilobytes for measuring file sizes? :D

megameters makes sense to me, rather than having to use hundred million this and that.

Humans like small numbers more than large ones. Most people cannot conceptualize a million of anything, so if we can make the numbers smaller, in theory it is better - ie using larger units rather than more of them. We think in miles (or kilometers) rather than feet or meters when we drive in the car, we adapt to thinking in larger units easier than just adding more and more of the smaller units.

Astronomical Units (AU) are the distance from the earth to the sun - the Earth is one AU from the sun. That would be a great unit that I can see used in a future such as in Leviathan Wakes where we have people scattered all around the solar system. I agree that it would make for poor fiction at the moment because it is not something most people use but I could see it coming to pass.

It's also possible that the authors are transparently "translating" the units into something that we, the readers, can more easily grasp.

AU is a bit big for buzzing around the solar system. Many distances would be fractions of a AU.

Ulmer Ian wrote: "AU is a bit big for buzzing around the solar system. Many distances would be fractions of a AU."

Saturn is 9.5 AU from the sun, and Jupiter is 5.2 and that is a direct distance. There will be times when Jupiter is on the other side of the sun from Saturn so you are looking at almost 15 AU of distance. We tend to forget that our solar system is a complex machine of moving planets and other bodies and that the distances involved are HUGE.

One AU is approximately 149,598,000 kilometers or 93 million miles.

Proof: http://www.space.com/10900-solar-syst...

I don't know if I have the answer or not but I would tend to think that kilometers provide an instantaneous means of comprehensive comparative distance. In other words, Most humans understand how long a meter is in comparison with themselves. Our ability to comprehend how far a thousand meters are is summed up in the measurement of a kilometer. While there are larger units than a kilometer, we begin to lose our ability to instantly compare the distance with respect to ourselves. I think this may be the reason why, especially in literature, we encounter easily and instinctive number tags where we can equate distance to ourselves without employing sliderules.

because, while you could makeup terms like megameter, klicks/kilometers are an easily understood term and saying 'a thousand kilometers' is more immediately understandable (and thus doesn't pop the reader out of the story with a "WTF does that mean") than a made-up term.

Andy wrote: "Ulmer Ian wrote: "AU is a bit big for buzzing around the solar system. Many distances would be fractions of a AU."

Saturn is 9.5 AU from the sun, and Jupiter is 5.2 and that is a direct distance. ..."
Why would you be in a spaceship on the sun headed towards Saturn? :D

Going as far out as Saturn is the exception in this fiction. Usually you are buzzing around the belt or around the planets deeper in the well, where things are closer together. Sure this will certainly often involve an AU greater than 1, but like you said Jupiter and Saturn are 15 AU apart max. So you are talking about a unit of measure that ranges from 0 to 15. 15 AU is 2243 gigameters seems much nicer. Really file size is the only example we have where common people have to deal with large numbers, so it makes sense that it would follow that pattern.

@Rick megameter, gigameter etc aren't made up, even google is aware of them. Admittedly I wasn't aware of their existence until this thread. :D So I wouldn't say that Corey and their editors made a wrong call.

In Embassytown, Mieville made a point of having characters talk about their ages in (I think) kilohours. I had to stop a calculate that a couple times (I am 39 khrs). I'm glad Corey stuck with kilometers.

I get a better sense of distance in terms of travel time, ie 3 months out to Saturn.

kvon wrote: "I am 39 khrs."

You are the most articulate 4 year-old I've ever met! :)

Agrajag wrote: "kvon wrote: "I am 39 khrs."

You are the most articulate 4 year-old I've ever met! :)"

Kvon's avatar is a cat. So that's about 32 human years ;-)

Looks like a bat

Cattfish wrote: "Looks like a bat"

Kvon (the cat) is the poster above Agrajag (the bat)

Is it just me or is this thread starting to sound like a Dr. Seuss book?

Rick wrote: "because, while you could makeup terms like megameter, klicks/kilometers are an easily understood term and saying 'a thousand kilometers' is more immediately understandable (and thus doesn't pop the reader out of the story with a "WTF does that mean") than a made-up term."

So split the difference and call them "megaklicks".

megaklicks, dig it

Tassie Dave wrote: "Cattfish wrote: "Looks like a bat"

Kvon (the cat) is the poster above Agrajag (the bat)"

Oh, nice hitchhiker reference :)

Ok, back to the topic at hand

I think the most convienent way to talk about interstellar distances is in terms of time. IE I'll be to Ceres in 3 weeks, Saturn in 5 years or likewise. People can relate better to time than distance.

Cattfish wrote: "I think the most convienent way to talk about interstellar distances is in terms of time. IE I'll be to Ceres in 3 weeks, Saturn in 5 years or likewise. People can relate better to time than distance."

I think that would only work if speed were a universal constant.

I've seen a number of novelists use light seconds as a distance measurement. I like this, especially in stories with tactical elements, because it provides information about how soon you can know something about an object you are observing.

Cattfish wrote: "I think the most convienent way to talk about interstellar distances is in terms of time. IE I'll be to Ceres in 3 weeks, Saturn in 5 years or likewise. People can relate better to time than distance.
"
Well that's how the Midwest does distance between cities, since travel times are pretty reliable and are always done with a car.

We got the impression that different ships would go at different speeds though, depending on their purpose.

I guess what I'm saying is that distance in space is so vast, it's meaningless, so you have to revert to time to get any communication across

Huh, I never knew a klick was a kilometer. I had wondered, in this book and in the Hyperion books.

I always have issues estimating distances and lengths. If someone tells me it's 5 km away or 5 miles, I never judge properly where it is. I like that authors try to use real units, so that it's more easily understood in terms of scope/scale. That said, for me, time and speed are much easier to grok.

That is a very US-centric view.

Not to be snarky but click is short for kilometer which is as worldcentric as you get not US. All militaries us metric measurements and all space exploration is military.

Cattfish wrote: "I guess what I'm saying is that distance in space is so vast, it's meaningless, so you have to revert to time to get any communication across"

Yeah your right. Even if your well educated in astronomy and know all the facts, actually comprehending those distances is almost impossible for the human mind. You have no frame of reference to relate them with. For example: New Your to LA is about 2,500 miles. Earth to the moon is 100 times that. Can you really picture in your mind how far that is?

What about light seconds (or for very long distances, light minutes)? A light second is the distance light travels in a second, or 300,000 kilometers. A light minute would then be 18 million kilometers. An AU is about 150 million kilometers, or 8.3 light minutes. The first two units are very useful not only as measures of distance, but also of light-speed communications lag. So if I'm 25 light minutes away from you, I know that it'll take 25 minutes for any transmission from me to reach you, and another 25 minutes for your reply to reach me.

Ulmer Ian wrote: "Well that's how the Midwest does distance between cities, since travel times are pretty reliable and are always done with a car.

We got the impression that different ships would go at different speeds though, depending on their purpose."

Now that I think about it, time makes even more sense for intra-solar system travel. Midwestern cities don't move relative to each other, but bodies in space do. The distance between Mars and Ceres is X metres today, but in four months it will be very different. It'd probably be easier for ship crews to think of voyage duration instead of inconstant distances that will mostly be calculated by computers anyway.

Time definitely wouldn't work, because of the difference in speed mentioned above. I don't picture them using light seconds either, because they're still travelling slowly compared to the speed of light. I thought astronomical units also, and I'd like to give it the shorthand of golds, ie Earth and Mars are any where from half a gold to two and a half golds apart, depending on where they are in their orbits.

Unrelated: Do you guys think the US will ever adopt SI units? I'm Canadian, so I'm in the weird position of having been taught to think in km and kg, but still give my height and weight in feet/inches and pounds because of the US's influence.

I'm in the US and all my high school and college physics and chemistry were in SI units. But the commercial and public sectors of the country seem stuck in Imperial units forever. All distance is in miles, speed is in miles per hour, gas is in gallons, weight in the grocery store is in pounds (meat and produce). I think it'll take a miracle to change that.

The funny thing is I'm old enough to remember when gas broke the $1/gallon barrier. Most gas pumps couldn't handle that. So they temporarily switched some of them to dispense in liters instead (since the price of a liter was less than a dollar). Once new pumps were deployed, we were back on the Imperial system again.

Edit: I just remembered that our carbonated beverages and wine are in metric units. But our milk is in gallons and quarts. Hey, at least we're consistent. :)

Haha I remember when the price of gas went over $1/L here. Some places just left out the 1. Very misleading :)

Light seconds, despite the name, is purely a measure of distance, and has nothing to do with the speed of travel (indeed, a ship traveling at a high fraction of c would find light seconds less useful - like a motorist measuring travel distance in feet or meters rather than miles or kilometers). The depth of the main asteroid belt is on the order of 600 light seconds, with a circumference ranging from 6000 to 10,000 light seconds, so the unit does not seem to be too large for that realm.

Telling someone you're 2500 klicks is only useful as a reference. Unless you tell them how fast you are traveling they don't know how long it will take you to traverse that distance.

Joe wrote: "Now that I think about it, time makes even more sense for intra-solar system travel. Midwestern cities don't move relative to each other, but bodies in space do. The distance between Mars and Ceres is X metres today, but in four months it will be very different. It'd probably be easier for ship crews to think of voyage duration instead of inconstant distances that will mostly be calculated by computers anyway."
Makes even less sense. Obviously once you are underway the important thing is how long it takes to get there.

But to use time in any other context also requires specifying the speed since its obvious that there isn't a standard speed. Depends on the makeup of the crew (eg belter ships probably go slower) and the purpose.

@Agrajag the UK is the master of mixing up units. Cars are sold with MPG, but they buy gas by the liter. I guess because unit changed was imposed by the EU so they are pretty half-assed about it.

They could have used AU = Astronomical Units the distance from Earth to the Sun but Klicks are easy to understand and made sense to me.

Simmy wrote: "Light seconds, despite the name, is purely a measure of distance, and has nothing to do with the speed of travel"

Yes but it is also useful as a measurement of time too. For example if you are sending a message to a ship 600 light seconds away you know that it will be at least 1200 seconds before you get a reply and in military situations anything you observed about that ship is 600 seconds out of date.

I think the real reason they use klicks, is that this book is an action movie, and anyone that saw an 80s action movie knows that all distance is described in klicks.

Carl wrote: "They could have used AU = Astronomical Units the distance from Earth to the Sun but Klicks are easy to understand and made sense to me."

I think it would be easier to imagine .5 AUs than 74,799,000 km.

I think you folks are over thinking this. Kilometers work for a couple of simple reasons. In the world of the book, they are a unit that can be used for large distances and small. Early on as Holden is about to head over to the derelict ship they use this - a couple of times for very large distances ("twenty million klicks") and other times they talk about klicks in human scale terms ("hold us at two klicks out"). The nice thing about this is that the number conveys scale rather than relying on the unit of measurement to convey that scale - 2 klicks is pretty close, 20 million is a LONG way away. In contrast lightseconds and AU can convey large distances but are useless for something like a few kilometers.

The second reason to use kilometers is that they're familiar to most of us. How many of you have an idea of how far a kilometer is? Even if you don't know precisely, you probably know it's on the same scale as a mile, so you have an intuitive feel for it. Now, without the above discussion, how many of you knew how far a light second was? Yeah, me neither. It's good to just use terms that your readers are familiar with.

"Klick" itself is a bit on the edge of that... it's familiar to long time SF readers, not to a general audience (military aside), but the book actually uses kilometer and klick in proximity to make the point that one is a slang term for the other.

While I like the AU for solar system wide scale in a SF story I think the Kilometer is useful for closer in measurements and Kilometers per second and maybe per hour for speed is necessary and really all you have that works. I believe Jack Campbell in his Lost Fleet series uses AU and Kilometer both well but that was more a military SF series with fleet scale battles so for the really massive distances he used AU and for closer scale distances he used Kilometers. Kilometers work for me I was in the Marines so I am use to them but as a hard SF reader the AU is a nice way to give solar system wide scale to something. When you get into millions of klicks it get harder to envision but really the scale of space is impossible for us to envision but so well regardless of the measurements used it’s a really big place.

One more vote for AU, as it seems a measure which would relate to an observable condition of belt life, and the scale makes more sense when we're talking about such massive distances. Saying an asteroid is .08 AU away just takes less time than saying it's 11,967,840 kilometers.