Why did I ever decide a circular bridge was a good idea? Sometimes I want to go back to 1993 and kick myself. (“Just stop it! Can’t you see, straight lines are good!“) Probably just as well I don’t have access to a TARDIS. Or a Delorean.
But on a brighter note, I will be at Ad Astra, which this year runs April 4-6. Guests of Honour: David Weber! Steven Erikson! And many others! I’m looking forward to hanging out with my science fiction and fantasy peeps. Good times.
Be sure to check out Scavina as the Queen of Clubs!
Wow. David Weber. That would be sweet. Love the Honor Harrington novels, and many others. Shiva Option, In Death Ground… so many good ones I have in my collection. Does good collabs too, Steve White is one (In Death Ground). Love those Space Opera novels. Me jelly.
Note that the TARDIS has a circular bridge… And if applied properly it has the advantage that the stations can be arranged to face the captain in the center.
*writes note to self* Never…try… to draw… TARDIS… from the inside…
Well at least on your bridge they sensibly have seat-belts and shoulder-harnesses. Every time a crewman is thrown to the deck on the Enterprise my kids yell out in unison, “seat-belts, stupid”.
One nice thing about the circle (or sphere, if you’re considering three dimensions) is that it’s the only shape that looks the same at relativistic speeds. Straight lines get all bent and weird. (Of course, this only means that the aliens doing a drive-by-at-99%-lightspeed-scan of your bridge will get the basic shape right even in the raw data, but first impressions sometimes matter.)
Being a mathematician, I more often get to apply the view that a straight line is simply a circle that happens to pass through the point at infinity. You can map either one onto the other conformally (i.e., locally preserving all angles).
I like the way you think, sir.