this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2024
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Well, the ship analogy doesn't really hold up. If we draw a parallel with existing maritime ships, they can sustain their rated top speed when necessary. However, this is rarely done primarily due to fuel efficiency. Since there are diminishing returns to pushing speed, it’s only done under serious time constraints.
"the ship analogy doesn't really hold up ... if you consider the ships to be a completely unrelated kind of ships ... except here's how it would still hold up anyway"
Warp speeds were clearly modeled to mimick knots. And I'm sure that the lore reason for them not traveling at Enterprise's top speed all the time is again fuel efficiency and not because it would "blow up" (although 9.9 might be above its rated top speed, I don't remember). So it doesn't hold up with people, where you can just eat more and perform at your best all the time, we have additional emotional constraints that don't apply to equipment.
Other than all that... perfect analogy.
There is a lot of equipment that is rated for short bursts of power that would be destructive when sustained.
Military aircraft for example can often reach high speeds for a short duration. This is not improvised but designed and rated for.
Most modern CPUs have non sustainable boost speeds that they can reach but not sustain due to thermal limits.
Electric turbochargers often can only operate in short bursts.
There are countless more examples.
Sure, but we aren't talking about bursts speeds. We are talking about sustained cruising speeds. I've responded to a similar comment of yours in more detail in another branch.
But that's literally what the post is about. You cannot perform in burst mode sustainably. If you could that wouldn't be the top/burst speed anymore.
Then it's literally the same. We can maintain our max for sustained periods too, but it burns more fuel, we require more maintenance, and eventually we break down.
You can't just eat more and work 18 hours a day, 7 days a week. But you can and often do run equipment at it's top rated performance because it doesn't have emotions.
We could stretch the analogy and assume emotions to be a separate kind of fuel reserve, but I don't know if this simplification does justice to the complexity of human nature.
Ships have a max speed due to drag from water and other complicated physics stuff involving hydrodynamics.
Modern ships are far more maneuverable and able to reach their top speed faster than they used to, even when carrying more mass. That is because their engines are more powerful and we maxed out 'enough for top speed for naval vessels' a long time ago.
I know why ships have max speed, I have a bachelor's degree in maritime navigation.
But also, I honestly don't see how this comment is relevant to the subject. Yes, modern ships are faster than older ships. But they still usually run at half speed or less.
To be super technical about the argument (sorry): Your initial comment is irrelevant to the subject since the post talks about (fictional) starships to which very different (and handwavy) physics apply.
Im still glad to have learned a tiny bit about real world ships though. Thanks.
The principle applies to pretty much all equipment. A CPU will happily sit at 100-ish% utilization for years (if there are no thermal constraints), because it can't have an emotional breakdown.
Well, maybe it can, that would certainly explain a couple of cases that I have had...
A cpu will not do boost speeds sustainably. That is what its best performance is though. If I remove the thermal limiter my cpu will happily cook itself even though it is rated for 5GHz top frequency.
Edit: Saying there are no thermal constraints is like saying it will not break. You presume the conclusion there.
If there are no emotional constraints I will also function a lot better sustainably.
I specifically didn't mention overclocking because then there is no defined top speed. Depending on the binning, a CPU can be pushed arbitrarily far. If you provide proper cooling it can be sustained relatively indefinitely, but you still wouldn't do that all the time because energy efficiency tanks. That 10-20% performance usually isn't worth the added 100% power draw.
This argument hinges on the definition of "top speed". Is top speed what's written on the speedometer and what the device is designed for, or is it the max speed it can go before it explodes? I think, in this context we are talking about is max sustained speed/performance, judging by the fact that neither the human or the Enterprise have died/exploded. While devices are often designed to and perform at their "top speed", people can't for reasons other than inefficiency.
The thing is modern CPUs boost behavior is the intended, design for thing. We as humans should have a working regulator when top performance is acceptable even if damaging if sustained. A cpu also has that. That is a thermal/current/voltage limiter.
At least my takeaway from the post is that you one can't sustain a level of power/performance that is achievable in moderation / bursts.