Carl in Michigan
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- Aug 15, 2016
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Got 45 minutes to kill? Watch light travel to Jupiter. If that's just too long, it only takes 3 agonizing minutes to reach the first planet!
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Got 45 minutes to kill? Watch light travel to Jupiter. If that's just too long, it only takes 3 agonizing minutes to reach the first planet!
Hitch a ride on a gamma ray burst...
Faster Than the Speed of Light: New Model Proposes Jets Go Superluminal in Gamma-Ray Bursts
Got 45 minutes to kill? Watch light travel to Jupiter. If that's just too long, it only takes 3 agonizing minutes to reach the first planet!
Puts a lot into perspective as well as raising some interesting questions abut time, space and physics. As an aside, it also illustrates one thing that has long bothered me about sci-fi like Star Trek: they always show the stars whizzing by; 1C or the speed of light is = to Warp 1. Clearly, even at Warp 1, it would take hours to get to Earth from the outer solar system, so impulse power isn't going to get you anywhere but between a planet and its moon.
Since Warp 6 is supposed to be 216X the speed of light and Warp 8 = 512C, it becomes obvious that even at Warp 8, it would take about 5 seconds to get from Jupiter to the Earth. In that time, not only wouldn't the Sun barely even move, it would only brighten a bit. So in actuality, all these starships flying about in space wouldn't actually see the stars outside moving at all except possibly just barely moving like lazy snails at the very highest Warp 9.6.
But then, that just wouldn't make for dramatic television.
During a supernova the inner part of the star collapses first sending energy that has to wade its way through the outer part of the sphere. So the flash of light is a little delayed. However neutrinos pass through the star at (or almost at) the speed of light and are able to escape faster. That means we will see the neutrinos slightly before the light.Nutrinos from a supernova arrived at the earth before the visible light did. Still, interstellar travel is not possible. Even interplanetary travel isn't viable and is a colossal waste of resources.
At almost the speed of light the Fitzgerald contraction would make the distance to the destination like a trip to the park. Time dilation wouldn't allow them to even shuffle the cards. Warp speed isn't necessary. The writers of Star Trek must not have had a physics consultant.As an aside, it also bothered me that things would always go wrong on a planet somewhere and the Enterprise D would show up hours or at worst, days later instead of weeks or months. Amazing how small they made the galaxy! Like a trip to the park. Yet the Borg were years away? In reality, traveling at their highest Warp, (Warp 9.6?) it would take about a day to get from Earth to the nearest star, a Centauri. A day. That's REALLY fast. But the thing is, it's the NEAREST star. Not one star would pass us. Few stars in the sky would even move. With few exceptions, all you'd see is one star get brighter and closer to you over a day.
In reality, if we had Warp 9, the Enterprise crew would be spending a LOT of time playing cards between missions.
That is an illusion. It does not change the actual distance traveled nor the time spent to those outside their time frame. Mere theoretical fluff.At almost the speed of light the Fitzgerald contraction would make the distance to the destination like a trip to the park. Time dilation wouldn't allow them to even shuffle the cards. Warp speed isn't necessary. The writers of Star Trek must not have had a physics consultant.As an aside, it also bothered me that things would always go wrong on a planet somewhere and the Enterprise D would show up hours or at worst, days later instead of weeks or months. Amazing how small they made the galaxy! Like a trip to the park. Yet the Borg were years away? In reality, traveling at their highest Warp, (Warp 9.6?) it would take about a day to get from Earth to the nearest star, a Centauri. A day. That's REALLY fast. But the thing is, it's the NEAREST star. Not one star would pass us. Few stars in the sky would even move. With few exceptions, all you'd see is one star get brighter and closer to you over a day.
In reality, if we had Warp 9, the Enterprise crew would be spending a LOT of time playing cards between missions.
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If space itself is expanding faster than the speed of light; if one could devise a way to anchor themselves to the fabric of space time, theoretically you could move away from earth at a relative speed faster than the speed of light. Though it wouldn’t necessarily move you closer to another point of distant space.
That is an illusion. It does not change the actual distance traveled nor the time spent to those outside their time frame. Mere theoretical fluff.At almost the speed of light the Fitzgerald contraction would make the distance to the destination like a trip to the park. Time dilation wouldn't allow them to even shuffle the cards. Warp speed isn't necessary. The writers of Star Trek must not have had a physics consultant.As an aside, it also bothered me that things would always go wrong on a planet somewhere and the Enterprise D would show up hours or at worst, days later instead of weeks or months. Amazing how small they made the galaxy! Like a trip to the park. Yet the Borg were years away? In reality, traveling at their highest Warp, (Warp 9.6?) it would take about a day to get from Earth to the nearest star, a Centauri. A day. That's REALLY fast. But the thing is, it's the NEAREST star. Not one star would pass us. Few stars in the sky would even move. With few exceptions, all you'd see is one star get brighter and closer to you over a day.
In reality, if we had Warp 9, the Enterprise crew would be spending a LOT of time playing cards between missions.
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