Newscientist has an article on Star Trek.
- Thread starter gturner
- Start date
If they were traveling at superluminal velocities in normal space, they'd turn into a Black Hole before being killed by radiation or destroyed by dust; but they call it "Warp Speed" for a reason.
Duh. That's what inertial dampeners are for. Amateurs. 
Or energy shields capable of withstanding amazing amounts of energy and heat.
[QUOTE="NewScientest]For a crew to make the 50,000-light-year journey to the centre of the Milky Way within 10 years, they would have to travel at 99.999998 per cent the speed of light.[/QUOTE]
What? In order to make a 50,000 light year journey in 10 years you'd have to be traveling 5,000 times the speed of light. If you're only traveling 99.999998 percent the speed of light it would take you a little over 50,000 years to get there.
What? In order to make a 50,000 light year journey in 10 years you'd have to be traveling 5,000 times the speed of light. If you're only traveling 99.999998 percent the speed of light it would take you a little over 50,000 years to get there.
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
In Warp the starship is technically travelling at sublight speeds, it's space around the ship being warped and moving faster than light. So any inertia will be sublight and not faster than light, since the ship utilises inertial dampeners they clearly wont feel a thing.
I love this following quote:
I love this following quote:
Whoever is writing these articles don't have a damn clue what they are talking about. The Borg do not utilise cloak and there is especially no reason to believe the Borg of the Abrams universe would use cloaking since we've not even seen them. My God the fail is incredible. They're trying to cover their fail by mentioning the changeover to the Abrams Universe. These people need sacking.
Well, it must've been a slow science news day.
However, the main point about the physics of near light-speed travel is quite accurate. But it's also likely that the ship would be destroyed by a grain of dust long before the point they mention.
One way I like to think about it is this:
If you take the frontal cross section of your ship and project it to some nearby star (your destination), traveling that path means you'll travel through the volume of that extruded shape (a tube, for example). If you're traveling really, really fast then a single dust grain would pack an incredible amount of kinetic energy, so if there is a reasonable or high statistical probability of a dust grain being in the volume of the tube, then your ship is probably going to be destroyed enroute.
This danger arises long before you even need to apply Einstein's theory. Even in Newtonian mechanics with KE = 1/2 m v^2 the energies are enormous.
Take an average grain of sand, which weighs 0.67 milligrams.
Take your velocity as 10% of light speed (just scooting along), so V = 30 million meters per second.
The energy released when you impact the grain of sand is 301.5 gigajoules.
A ton of TNT releases 4.184 gigajoules, so this grain of sand hits like 72 tons of TNT, more energy than a B-1 bomber strike can deliver.
If you're going 40% of light speed the impact releases over a kiloton (1.152 KT TNT) of energy.
So you'd best not hit anything.
However, the main point about the physics of near light-speed travel is quite accurate. But it's also likely that the ship would be destroyed by a grain of dust long before the point they mention.
One way I like to think about it is this:
If you take the frontal cross section of your ship and project it to some nearby star (your destination), traveling that path means you'll travel through the volume of that extruded shape (a tube, for example). If you're traveling really, really fast then a single dust grain would pack an incredible amount of kinetic energy, so if there is a reasonable or high statistical probability of a dust grain being in the volume of the tube, then your ship is probably going to be destroyed enroute.
This danger arises long before you even need to apply Einstein's theory. Even in Newtonian mechanics with KE = 1/2 m v^2 the energies are enormous.
Take an average grain of sand, which weighs 0.67 milligrams.
Take your velocity as 10% of light speed (just scooting along), so V = 30 million meters per second.
The energy released when you impact the grain of sand is 301.5 gigajoules.
A ton of TNT releases 4.184 gigajoules, so this grain of sand hits like 72 tons of TNT, more energy than a B-1 bomber strike can deliver.
If you're going 40% of light speed the impact releases over a kiloton (1.152 KT TNT) of energy.
So you'd best not hit anything.
None of this is exactly news; this is why Arthur C Clarke used an ablative ice shield for his very-fast-but-still-sublight ship in Songs Of Distant Earth.
What? In order to make a 50,000 light year journey in 10 years you'd have to be traveling 5,000 times the speed of light. If you're only traveling 99.999998 percent the speed of light it would take you a little over 50,000 years to get there.[/QUOTE]
Three words: relativistic time dilation. Look them up.
Three words: relativistic time dilation. Look them up.[/QUOTE]
I thought that but decided I was too thick to mention it.
Never thick -- I would have said tactful. I've given that up for Lent.
New Scientist nowadays is a popularist rag written by hacks -- hence the stupid reference to Star Trek.
Similar threads
