Text 28659, 65 rader
Skriven 2007-05-06 21:01:14 av John Hull (1:123/789.0)
  Kommentar till text 28634 av Mimi Gallandt (1:123/789.0)
Ärende: Muslems
===============
Mimi Gallandt -> John Hull wrote:
 MG> John Hull -> Mimi Gallandt wrote:
 JH>> Mimi Gallandt -> VERN HUMPHREY wrote:
 MG>>> VERN HUMPHREY -> MIMI GALLANDT wrote:
 VH>>>>>> John, imagine we're going to the newly-discovered planet some 10
 VH>>>> light
 VH>>>>>> years away. At an acceleration rate of 1G, how long would it
 VH>>>> take us to
 VH>>>>>> get there?

 MG>>>>> Far, far longer than the average human life cycle. :(

 VH>>>> It would take over 58 years to reach light speed (if we could)
 MG>>> and just
 VH>>>> as long to decelerate from that speed so we could land.  A child
 MG>>> born
 VH>>>> just after takeoff would be 117 years old when he reached his
 VH>>>> destination -- assuming there was no period of travel at light
 MG> speed
 VH>>>> between acceleration and decelerations

 MG>>> Which is longer than the average expected human life. Unless of
 MG> course
 MG>>> Einstein had that relativity thing correct of course. (Keeping
 MG> in mind
 MG>>> that I'm not a scientist)didn't his theory suppose that time
 MG> passes at
 MG>>> a different rate the farther away from something (let's say
 MG> Earth) one
 MG>>> gets? (or have I, as usual, got that whole thing fubar?)

 JH>> You are talking about time dilation, and it has been proven.  If you
 JH>> have two clocks, one at Cape Canaveral and one aboard a spaceship
 MG> that
 JH>> are sychronized, they will both read the same elapsed time at the
 MG> start.
 JH>>  When the spaceship takes off and accelerates, the two clocks
 MG> begin to
 JH>> show different times.  For travelers on the spaceship, time
 MG> appears to
 JH>> be normal relative to their point of reference because the clock is
 JH>> traveling at the same speed they are.  But time is really slowing
 MG> down
 JH>> for them relative to the clock at Cape Canaveral.  A voyage that
 MG> takes
 JH>> 100 years out and back, at near light speed for the ship on its
 MG> clock,
 JH>> takes several thousand years if you go by the clock on earth.  Every
 JH>> human on earth would have lived and died several times over
 MG> before the
 JH>> ship returned.

 MG> Wow, sounds like I was really close. :)  Isn't that the theory of
 MG> Relativity? (damned black hole memory <g>)

Very basically.  There's a whole lot more to it, though, when you start digging
into it.

-- 
John
..
My Blog: Mad Gorilla's Jungle:      http://madgorilla.terapad.com/

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