tlhIngan-Hol Archive: Tue Mar 02 18:51:10 2004

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Re: tuj luSpetmey

De'vID jonwI' ([email protected]) 

Quvar:
>>>The closest I find is {yoS} "district, area"

De'vID:
>>Unfortunately, this is the wrong meaning of "area".  I wanted
>>to try <qoD> "inside, interior" and <Hur> "outside", but the
>>problem is that I couldn't disambiguate between the surface
>>area of a 3D object and its volume.

QeS lagh:
>chaq <<ghor>> Dalo'laH.
>Maybe you could do something with <ghor> "surface (of a planet)":

That's an interesting suggestion.  I wonder if <ghor> applies
to astronomical objects other than "planets", even though that's
the given definition.  For example, does a <Hov> have a <ghor>?
What about non-solid planets, like a gas giant?  Technically (in
Terran terminology), black holes do not have surfaces.  They
have what are called event horizons (the boundary where the
escape velocity is exactly the speed of light).  But who's to say
that Klingons make the same distinction as humans?

'otlh veH 'oH luSpet wanI' ghangwI' 'e'.  wanI' ghangwI' qoDvo'
tlhammo' narghlaHbe' vay'.  (narghmeH, narghwI' Do tIn law'
'otlh Do tIn puS.  'ach DuHbe' ghu'vam.)  wanI' ghangwI' Hurvo'
mejlaH vay'.  wanI' ghangwI' *ghorDaq, mejlaHbe' vay', 'ach
luSpet botlhDaq pumnISbe' je, ghoSDI', 'otlh Do ghajchu'chugh.

(I wanted to stick <-nIS> to <tIn> in the above <law'/puS>
construction... can I do that?  It looked odd.)

The event horizon is a barrier of light (photons).  Inside the
event horizon, one cannot escape because of gravity.  (To escape,
one needs to be faster than light.  But that's impossible --
well, I guess unless you have warp drive. :) )  Outside of
the event horizon it's possible to leave.  Right on the
event horizon('s surface), one can't leave, but one doesn't
need to fall into the black hole's centre (which, btw, is
called its singularity), if one travels at exactly the speed
of light.  (So you pretty much have to be a photon if you want
to live on the event horizon.)

>tInchoHtaHvIS luSpet ghor, ghurchoH luSpet Hat.
>"As the surface area of a black hole gets larger, its temperature begins to 
>increase."

tlhoS bIlugh 'ach bIlughHa'!  tInchoHtaHvIS luSpet (wanI'
ghangwI') ghor, bIrchoH luSpet woj.

>luSpetmey vIyajchu'be', 'ach chaq qechvam Dalo' DaneH.
>I don't know much about black holes :) but maybe this is the kind of thing 
>you are after.

qay'be'.  You've given me an insight into the problem, which is
that I've been thinking too much in terms of "nouns" such as
"area".  This is how physics is done on Earth (using concepts
like "area" or "mass"), but Klingons are more "verb"-oriented.
Instead of thinking "increases with the *area*", a Klingon would
emphasize "as the area *gets bigger*".  maj!

I had a previous problem where I was trying to express
"acceleration", but perhaps I should not be labelling my
acceleration vector with a "noun" at all.  Perhaps a Klingon
physicist would just label it <chung> "it accelerates", and
it would be perfectly clear that the number refers to the
amount of acceleration.  Similarly, <ghoS> "it goes" might
be used in place of <Do> "velocity".

So perhaps instead of looking for words like "surface area"
and "volume", I should really be looking at ways of expressing
"contains (in 2D)" and "contains (in 3D)".  <ngaS> might do,
but how do I differentiate the 2D and 3D cases?

>'ej chaq "volume" DelmeH <<logh tebbogh>> Dalo'laH. (qarchu'be' 'e' vISov, 
>'ach QaplaH'a'?)
>For volume, maybe <logh tebbogh>, "the space which it fills". (I know 
><logh> is strictly "outer space", but would it nonetheless work?)

In other circumstances, I would accept <logh> as "space" in the
sense of "amount of room occupied in 3D", but I don't think
it'll work for what I want to describe -- precisely because
I'm writing about astrophysics.  In the context defined, <logh>
has precisely the astronomical meaning of "space, outer space".
(Well, I've been bending the rules a bit and using <*loghpoH>
for "spacetime". :) )  I also needed a way of expressing order
and chaos, but I couldn't use <tlham> because it means
"gravity"! :)  I guess the gloss "outer space" is to clarify
that "space" in the definition of <logh> refers to the region
outside of Earth's atmosphere, say, as opposed to "the amount
of 3D expanse occupied by an object" (e.g. the "space" taken
up by the chair).  Now the problem is I need to use *both* senses
of "space" and I need to differentiate between them, i.e. I
need to describe the "volume" occupied by an "astronomical
region".  I can't use <logh> for both, because that would be
confusing.  But you've given me the idea of using <ngaS> and
<teb>, and using other *verbs* to describe concepts that Terran
science typically expresses using nouns.

--
De'vID

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