Whats half-life have to do with anything?

[Jackathan]

What does halflife(the textbook definition) have to do with halflife and halflife 2? They just choose it because it sounds cool? I just started thinking about it when I was in science at school, any ideas?

 

[KagePrototype]

I'm guessing it just sounds cool.

 

[B3@$T]

Think about what was in the game in half-life and then think of its defintion. Sort of adds up when you think about.

 

[Cyber$nake]

plus all the games have had a scientific name. Opposing Force is a term, and Blue shift is a term that I think someone said had to do with the Aurora...

 

[Jadewolf5675]

http://www.halflife2.net/forums/search.php?

 

[Cypher19]

Opposing force revolves around Newton's..hum...second? law, stating that for every force there is an equally opposite force. For example, you push on the wall, the wall pushes on you.

Blue shift (if I recall correctly..) refers to a way of measuring the speed of an object. If an object starts moving towards your eye very fast (i.e. 10^6 m/s, or 3,600,000 km/h) then the wavelength (and therefore, the colour) of the light will change (see Grade 11 physics wave education). Blue shift refers to this, but I don't know the exact specifics, try asking an astrophysics prof.

 

[Asknoone]

No, there is a reason

 

[L337_Assasain]

Half-Life refers to the lasting effect (how long it lasts) of the radiation in a certain material, in HLs' case, the xen crystals...just a theory...

 

[frances_farmer]

half life, represented by the lambda greek letter refers to the time it takes a sample of nuclei to halve.

 

[Brian Damage]

The wavelength of light emitted from or bouncing off an object moving towards you is compressed, shifting its colour towards the blue part of the spectrum. Hence "Blue Shift". The opposite, a "Red Shift" happens for objects moving away. Only visually detectable at extremely high velocities.

 

[koopa]

I think 90% of the reason Half-Life was chosen is because a) it was sort of scientific and mostly b) it sounds cool. Anything else is probably post-justification.

 

[Absinthe]

Well, there's the scientific definition. They probably got the idea from that. But I think they meant it in a more "Ha! Ha! You're gonna die and there's no chance in Hell you're gonna make it out!" sort of way.

 

[killahsin-[CE]]

It like all its expansion titles, are metaphoric titles for whats going on inside the game. Half-Life is the metaphor for the way the gateway was opened to zen. Mixing one world into 2.

 

[koopa]

Actually an extra meaning for half-life makes more sense if you think about the other titles. Blue Shift - you shift into one of the (blue) security guard. Opposing Force is pretty obvious too.

 

[Gotter]

I think it's just as simple as the fact that the entire story behind the game is because of the teleportation experiments being carried out in the -Lambda- Complex. Lambda being the symbol used to denote the radioactive decay constant.

 

[CombineHarvester]

What does halflife(the textbook definition) have to do with halflife and halflife 2? They just choose it because it sounds cool? I just started thinking about it when I was in science at school, any ideas?

Its a well known fact it was a valve joke. They realised that a certain demographic would rather talk about a computer game than have a "complete" life by chasing young ladies. Truth. Ask Gabe, he'll tell ya. Honest guv.

 

[L337_Assasain]

It like all its expansion titles, are metaphoric titles for whats going on inside the game. Half-Life is the metaphor for the way the gateway was opened to zen. Mixing one world into 2.

I actually agree 100% an excellent theory

 

[f|uke]

Its a well known fact it was a valve joke. They realised that a certain demographic would rather talk about a computer game than have a "complete" life by chasing young ladies. Truth. Ask Gabe, he'll tell ya. Honest guv.

That has always been my take on it,. Half-Life, as in, half of a real life. A clever double entendre

 

[Jackathan]

Opposing force revolves around Newton's..hum...second? law, stating that for every force there is an equally opposite force. For example, you push on the wall, the wall pushes on you.

Blue shift (if I recall correctly..) refers to a way of measuring the speed of an object. If an object starts moving towards your eye very fast (i.e. 10^6 m/s, or 3,600,000 km/h) then the wavelength (and therefore, the colour) of the light will change (see Grade 11 physics wave education). Blue shift refers to this, but I don't know the exact specifics, try asking an astrophysics prof.

Opposing force is named opposing force because you're on, well, the opposing force. They didnt mean for it to be scientific

 

[Homer]

I really like the way valve seems to be... smart. If the neat little thing you notice is that the game symbol denotes radioactive decay, well thats just a little cooler than in say... farcry, where you later realize that the lead character is probably mildly retarded. Or doom 3, where you realise that despite nearly a decade, id has not come up with a single new(non-tech) idea.

 

[Cole]

I think it could of been named Half-Life due to your a scientist experimenting with out of this world materials. Isn't Half-Life something about when half of the radiation(or somtin) decays?
Thus i think its somewhat of a coutdown till gordon dies. Yes dies. Or because theres uranium, deals with science etc... or just because it was ment to make you have half of your life nearly every second of the gameplay.

ok heres its definition: "the amount of time it takes for half of a substance or entity to undergo some specified process"
--Talk!

 

[City17Citizen01]

Valve guys were sitting around working on the game with no title,
along comes a guy and enters Gabes office, the guy being so health orientied looks at Gabe and comments about the Twinkee he is eating, 'hey do you know why those things last so long, like they have a shelf life thats really long...it's because they are radiocative and the stuff in em actually has a half-life thats really reallly long...it's some real nasty stuff your eating there', and Gabe is like '^$%&$%&.hmmm.Ero23453' because his mouth was full but then he swallowed and did one of these :bounce: , then he thought it would be cool if he named the game he was working on halflife because it would last so long and it just sounded cool, now teh hl2 is coming out he has the 2 as a power of HL which represents the games half life to the 2nd power (level of radioactivity). And by rasing the power of the Half life, it further extends the games shelf life...

makes sense to me. :rolling:

 

[h00dlum]

Opposing force revolves around Newton's..hum...second? law, stating that for every force there is an equally opposite force. For example, you push on the wall, the wall pushes on you.

Blue shift (if I recall correctly..) refers to a way of measuring the speed of an object. If an object starts moving towards your eye very fast (i.e. 10^6 m/s, or 3,600,000 km/h) then the wavelength (and therefore, the colour) of the light will change (see Grade 11 physics wave education). Blue shift refers to this, but I don't know the exact specifics, try asking an astrophysics prof.

cool i didint know that..i always thought that Opposing force was like (the marines is the opposing force) and blue shift was called that cuz Barney has a blue suit\cops, barney works the shift..im an idiot

 

[PlagueX]

Just to make it perfect (sorry for bad english ect...)

Half-Life is what we danes D denmark ) call "halveringstid" which in english means "the time to half something".
Speaking of the meaning of Half-Life it has got to do with radiaoctive atoms.
Example. There are 3 cases of radiation.
(this i translated from danish, dunno what the correct name is in english)
1. Alfa beam
2. Beta beam
3. Gamma beam

if something outputs "alfa beam" it means the core is unstable. Here we are talking protons and neutrons. Some how the core gives up, and release a proton. Which, because of speed and other effects I can't explain in english "transforms" into an electron, but that is not important.
The important thing is that now the core has one proton less. Which means it isn't the same atom any more. You could say it has bin "degraded".
So when you say "Half-life" it is the time it take the half of a mass to degrade to the atom below.

 

[Homer]

*edit*, yea, that^^

 

[h00dlum]

Just to make it perfect (sorry for bad english ect...)

Half-Life is what we danes D denmark ) call "halveringstid" which in english means "the time to half something".
Speaking of the meaning of Half-Life it has got to do with radiaoctive atoms.
Example. There are 3 cases of radiation.
(this i translated from danish, dunno what the correct name is in english)
1. Alfa beam
2. Beta beam
3. Gamma beam

if something outputs "alfa beam" it means the core is unstable. Here we are talking protons and neutrons. Some how the core gives up, and release a proton. Which, because of speed and other effects I can't explain in english "transforms" into an electron, but that is not important.
The important thing is that now the core has one proton less. Which means it isn't the same atom any more. You could say it has bin "degraded".
So when you say "Half-life" it is the time it take the half of a mass to degrade to the atom below.

We swedes call it halveringstid too

 

[Homer]

Well here in AMERICA we call it crap we don't have to learn, because out teachers unions strike when they fire incompetent teachers... wait, why am I proud of that?

 

[frances_farmer]

cool i didint know that..i always thought that Opposing force was like (the marines is the opposing force) and blue shift was called that cuz Barney has a blue suit\cops, barney works the shift..im an idiot

it is meant to mean that, as well as the scientific terms. its a pun of sorts.

 

[DevgruSeal]

Because in Half-Life (The Game) you are in an underground military research facility. You test radioactive chemicals. (Remember the part where you had to shut down the radioactive core coolant tank?)

 

[Inanimate]

I guess it´s because Gordon is Gman... and Gman lives another life than he does as Gordon... perhaps...

speculation only.. no spoiler... but they look alike..