Faster than light travel
Poll: Faster than light travel
Total Members Polled: 70
Discussion
Ayahuasca said:
Doesn't gravity travel faster than light?
Nope.Ayahuasca said:
Or, was the gravity that we experience now created in the past and has traveled to us at light speed?
This. "The speed of light" is a bit of a misnomer because it isn't really a property of light. It's a property of space-time. It's the speed of cause and effect, man. Pass the doobie.
Halmyre said:
Wasn't Newton's quote a sarcastic dig at someone (Hooke?) who had claimed that Newton was riding on the efforts of others?
"If I have seen further it is because I am standing on the shoulder of giants" ... or something like that, in a letter to Hooke. It has been interpreted as taking the piss out of Hooke, but they weren't at each others throats, Hooke wasn't a midget, so probably more of a good story than actually true.HaiKarate said:
tight fart said:
Can you experience G force in zero gravity?
Of course. Acceleration and gravity are equal forces. They are indistinguishable from one another. So you just need a rocket pack in outer space to experience GForce. In the rocket the thrust is created at the back pushing on the rocket which pushes on the body and subsequently the seat you are sitting in, whereas under Gravity the force is acting on every particle (mostly) evenly, depending on the size of the distortion.
So in the Rocket you experience G-Force, in Gravity you don't until you hit the surface of the object causing the distortion.
annodomini2 said:
acceleration from a rocket is very different to acceleration in a gravitational distortion.
Only if relativity is very, very wrong is this true. Now relativity is certainly not the whole story, and indeed may only be, like Newton's laws, an adequate approximation, but there is no reason to believe it's that far wrong; unless of course you have the maths to demonstrate it?RobDickinson said:
thebraketester said:
Buy surely if you were in space and accelerating in a straight line at 9.8m/s/s , wouldnt the "force" effect to you feel exactly the same as the gravitational force when stood on the surface of the earth?
Yep, identical The force itself would be indistinguishable I agree.
Dr Jekyll said:
Subtle difference surely, in gravity you are being pulled towards the centre of mass, standing on a accelerating platform it would feel although every part of your body was being puled in exactly the same direction. Not that you would notice the difference unless your gravitational force came from a very small dense object.
The force itself would be indistinguishable I agree.
Nope no subtle difference.The force itself would be indistinguishable I agree.
When on earth you are accelerate downwards towards a point at 9.8m/s. If a Rocket accelerated at 9.8m/s you would have the same acceleration to a point below you. How far away the point is is irrelevant.
g=F/m
RobDickinson said:
Dr Jekyll said:
Subtle difference surely, in gravity you are being pulled towards the centre of mass, standing on a accelerating platform it would feel although every part of your body was being puled in exactly the same direction. Not that you would notice the difference unless your gravitational force came from a very small dense object.
The force itself would be indistinguishable I agree.
Nope no subtle difference.The force itself would be indistinguishable I agree.
When on earth you are accelerate downwards towards a point at 9.8m/s. If a Rocket accelerated at 9.8m/s you would have the same acceleration to a point below you. How far away the point is is irrelevant.
g=F/m
if the gravity point is tiny and literally at your feet then yes it might be different. Likewise if you are near a very strong gravity source ( black hole etc the difference in height between your feet and head would mean they experience different gravity.
But a rocket doesnt produce gravity.
It produces thrust and acceleration, which would mean the floor (as a whole) would be pushing upwards at 9.8m/s. Identical to standing on earth. (apart from the noise/vibration or whatever )
But a rocket doesnt produce gravity.
It produces thrust and acceleration, which would mean the floor (as a whole) would be pushing upwards at 9.8m/s. Identical to standing on earth. (apart from the noise/vibration or whatever )
The goofyness occurs when you try to use centrifugal forces in place of gravity, as is the basis for many sci-fi spaceships. This will create a feeling similar to gravity when you are stationary, however when moving through a rotating mass the effects of the centrifuge will be extremely disorientating unless the centre of rotation is a good mile or so away.
Dumbing it down.
Isn't Alpha Centuri, the nearest star other than our sun, three light years away? So it would take three years to get there if you could achieve light speed?
To make instellar travel viable then speeds many hundreds of times faster than light speed would have to be achieved to make it viable? But then what would would happen with the time dilation effects.
I also wonder if any alien civilisations are picking up any of our radio waves which in theory would have travelled out to a radius of maybe 70-80 light years since we started broadcasting. With some of the crap on the TV any aliens would think we are a proper bunch of nutters.
Sadly I think we are stuck here on Earth and at best within our solar system.
Isn't Alpha Centuri, the nearest star other than our sun, three light years away? So it would take three years to get there if you could achieve light speed?
To make instellar travel viable then speeds many hundreds of times faster than light speed would have to be achieved to make it viable? But then what would would happen with the time dilation effects.
I also wonder if any alien civilisations are picking up any of our radio waves which in theory would have travelled out to a radius of maybe 70-80 light years since we started broadcasting. With some of the crap on the TV any aliens would think we are a proper bunch of nutters.
Sadly I think we are stuck here on Earth and at best within our solar system.
colin_p said:
Dumbing it down.
Isn't Alpha Centuri, the nearest star other than our sun, three light years away? So it would take three years to get there if you could achieve light speed?
To make instellar travel viable then speeds many hundreds of times faster than light speed would have to be achieved to make it viable? But then what would would happen with the time dilation effects.
I also wonder if any alien civilisations are picking up any of our radio waves which in theory would have travelled out to a radius of maybe 70-80 light years since we started broadcasting. With some of the crap on the TV any aliens would think we are a proper bunch of nutters.
Sadly I think we are stuck here on Earth and at best within our solar system.
4.2 lyIsn't Alpha Centuri, the nearest star other than our sun, three light years away? So it would take three years to get there if you could achieve light speed?
To make instellar travel viable then speeds many hundreds of times faster than light speed would have to be achieved to make it viable? But then what would would happen with the time dilation effects.
I also wonder if any alien civilisations are picking up any of our radio waves which in theory would have travelled out to a radius of maybe 70-80 light years since we started broadcasting. With some of the crap on the TV any aliens would think we are a proper bunch of nutters.
Sadly I think we are stuck here on Earth and at best within our solar system.
If you could exceed the speed of light time starts going backwards the effect exponentially increasing the faster you go.
Interstellar travel for humans will require a revolution in technology, so it may happen maybe not. We may not have the answer in our lifetime.
caelite said:
The goofyness occurs when you try to use centrifugal forces in place of gravity, as is the basis for many sci-fi spaceships. This will create a feeling similar to gravity when you are stationary, however when moving through a rotating mass the effects of the centrifuge will be extremely disorientating unless the centre of rotation is a good mile or so away.
I suspect that one could get used to it, and it would definitely be better that the physiological effects of prolonged microgravity; a return to "normal" gravity would be, I suspect, somewhat nauseating however.Gassing Station | Science! | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff