What is a "light-year"? (1 Viewer)

[JamesHl]

So if a distance to another a planet was 460 lightyears away you would only age 1 year going at speed of light

No. It would still take light 460 years to go that far. Your time reference would be 460 years and everyone else's would be 460 times that, assuming the 460 year figure is accurate. I don't understand how that would prove that you can go faster than light, anyway...

 

[Jack Briggs]

Patrick: You are woefully mistaken. That would be a lite year. JB

 

[wally]

Voyagers would get there in 43,312,500,000 years!

CNN is going to televise the arrival live. Saw a teaser for it yesterday.

 

[Steve_Tk]

I think Light Speed is considered 186,000 miles per second. So if you travel that fast you are going the speed of light.

I think the fastest one of our crafts has been about....the high teens or low 20's in space right?

 

[AllanN]

Can we please keep this thread from turning into a gredo shooting first debate and get back to the physics? Is there anyone out there with a good explanation of E=MC^2 and how it relates to traveling(or attempting to travel) at the speed of light?

 

[David Baranyi]

Since it will take million of years to reach the closest galaxy, how much the speed of light that a spacecraft needs to reach it in, say, a week?

 

[Mike Wladyka]

No. It would still take light 460 years to go that far. Your time reference would be 460 years and everyone else's would be 460 times that, assuming the 460 year figure is accurate. I don't understand how that would prove that you can go faster than light, anyway...

sorry, i said it was half ass and that i wasn't sure but,

since time slows down as C is reached than essentially light can travel farther than 186,000 miles in one hour since an hour is now 460 hours, but this is all from a person's frame of reference not physically faster than 186,000 if clocked with a radar gun...but it would feel (i think i said it before but maybe not) like less since the time changes near C...so you are kind of going faster than light but not really

 

[Mike Wladyka]

Is there anyone out there with a good explanation of E=MC^2

equation about changing matter into huge amounts of energy...aka atomic bomb

 

[Hunter P]

Even worse, communication between ships occurs as instantaneous as a long distance call from LA to NY. I don't remember them attaching warp drives to radio signals.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

E=mc^2

Energy is equal to the mass of an object times the speed of light squared.

Essentially it means all energy that is contained (or released) from a piece of matter is equal to the mass of the matter times the square of the speed of light. It is used for nuclear reaction equations as well as may others.

In case it is not intuitive, the energy contained in a fairly small piece of matter is astronomical (pun intended). That's why we can get such a big boom from such a little piece of plutonium.

It really has nothing to do with why we cannot exceed the speed of light, but the understanding behind this equation states what was explained earlier - to accelerate past the speed of light requires infinite energy. (physicists please help out, it's been a long time since PHY300).

 

[Dennis Nicholls]

Patrick: You are woefully mistaken. That would be a lite year.

Not to be confused with Vincent Van Gough who had a lite ear...

 

[Jack Briggs]

No, that would be a light ear. As the cliche goes, the devil's in the details. Very important.

 

[John Thomas]

Rudolph = bright deer?

Crackability ensues.

 

[Lee L]

Even worse, communication between ships occurs as instantaneous as a long distance call from LA to NY. I don't remember them attaching warp drives to radio signals.

Then you have my personal favorite, when the ship is zipping along at a relatively pedestrian 50,000 MPH and then they "jump to light speed" or "warp factor 6" and the people just stand there or lean back just slightly like you would on a boat that was barely accelerating. Sure they have artificial gravity to keep them on the deck but I'm pretty sure inertia is still a factor and they should really be pinned against the back wall and about 2 inches thick.

 

[Mike Wladyka]

they should really be pinned against the back wall and about 2 inches thick.

not to mentioned if they reached ridiculous or ludricous speed

 

[MarkHastings]

Can we please keep this thread from turning into a gredo shooting first debate and get back to the physics?

Easy big guy, it's a bit of harmless fun. No need to worry.

Besides, the question to the thread was answered in post #2.

 

[Holadem]

not to mentioned if they reached ridiculous or ludricous speed

Acceleration, not speed pines people against walls. And if those people are called Halle Berry or J-Lo, then I do that.

--
H

 

[David Williams]

when the ship is zipping along at a relatively pedestrian 50,000 MPH and then they "jump to light speed" or "warp factor 6" and the people just stand there or lean back just slightly like you would on a boat that was barely accelerating. Sure they have artificial gravity to keep them on the deck but I'm pretty sure inertia is still a factor and they should really be pinned against the back wall and about 2 inches thick.

On Star Trek, at any rate, all ships have both a Structural Integrity Field (SIF) to keep the ship from disintegrating when jumping to FTL speeds and an Inertial Damping System that keeps the crew from turning to chunky salsa on the back wall of the bridge.

 

[Jack Briggs]

But, then, think of the visuals that would result in.

 

[Ashley Seymour]

No. It would still take light 460 years to go that far. Your time reference would be 460 years and everyone else's would be 460 times that, assuming the 460 year figure is accurate. I don't understand how that would prove that you can go faster than light, anyway...

I think the first quote was right. The traveler would age 1 year.

If you could convert all your mass to energy, send it 460 light years away and instantly convert back to mass, you would not detect the passage of any time as time does not exist at light speed.