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Reading the books for the first time. How unreasonable is my gripe about thrust "gravity"? (lemmy.ca)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/theexpanse@lemmy.world
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With the show being one of my favorites, I'm happy to say that I'm really enjoying the novels as well. That said, it keeps bugging me when the term "thrust gravity" is always used to describe something that's explicitly Newton's 3rd law - ie, not gravity. I'm probably not understanding something, but it bugs me to see a series that makes a point to be at least reasonably scientific to use a term that seems so wrong.

Side note: How come the third law missed out on natural feeling shorthand? 1st - inertia. 2nd - f=ma. 3rd - ???. Feels like something got overlooked there.

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[–] 8 points 2 months ago (6 children)

It is probably just to make it simple to understand without being awkward. To always have to say that it is thrust causing acceleration that mimics the force of gravity is way too long. It gets the idea across succinctly, and it is a novel not a scientific paper.

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  • [+] [S] -6 points 2 months ago (5 children)

    Where did I say it should be long and awkward? Words are invented all the time to convey more complicated concepts. It doesn't seem unreasonable to suggest that could have been done here.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    So you'd prefer they invent a word instead of using existing words that are easily understood by the reader? How would that improve anything? It wouldn't be any more scientifically accurate, and would be harder to understand.

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  • [–] [S] -3 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    Sure. My only issue is that it's scientifically inaccurate, so I don't see a problem with that. Writers invent words all the time and I don't really consider it confusing as long as they're adequately explained at some point.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    So the author invented calling it thrust gravity. How is that different than explaining it and saying it is something like t-grav? They are both made up names for the same thing. And there is a scientifically accurate description of what is happening in the book. So I still am failing to see how using a different name is more or less accurate.

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  • [–] [S] -1 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    My only issue is that it’s scientifically inaccurate

    I already explained why it's different. I'd also have an issue with people calling lift on an airplane "anti-gravity".

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago

    It isn't different. Thrust gravity and t-grav are both made up names for a concept that was accurately described in the book. So they are both equally accurate since there is nothing scientific about a made up name.

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