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Pssst. Hey kid. Wanna ride a photon through the solar system at the fastest speed possible?

Aethon

By Aethon
in Science & Spaceflight

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-Velocity-

-Velocity-

Posted
Posted (edited)

No thanks. I'll take my slow rocket ship instead. At light speed, time runs infinitely fast in the external universe, and all lengths in the direction of your motion are contracted to zero. So if you could ride a photon through the solar system, you would instantaneously find yourself in the death throes of the universe- assuming there is an end- and trillions of light-years away from Sol or probably further, assuming you weren't "lucky" enough to strike something like a star or planet or interstellar dust grain hundreds, thousands, millions, or billions of light-years from Earth first. At least you would have a very high probability of being absorbed by interstellar dust if you left in a direction aligned with the galactic plane- though that depends on what kind of photon you wanna be. If you're a radio photon, you've pretty much got a guaranteed instantaneous one-way-ticket to the end of the universe. That's not something I wish to see :P

Edited by |Velocity|
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KerikBalm

KerikBalm

Posted
Posted

Yea... photons are weird.... from their point of view, the universe is a dimensionsless point, so they would be everywhere at once; and time ceases to pass (or rather infinite time passes for observers for every moment you experience)... yet we clearly see they only go in on direction, and only interact with a narrow part of the universe....

So with that in mind.. relative to a photon, you're not travelling at lightspeed, because relative ot a photon, the universe is a point... and how can you have a velocity (distance/time), when all distances are 0 ?

I'd rather be lagging behind that photon at 0.999c... at least then things still make sense.

But actually... time dialation was weird... if you could get arbitrarily close to the speed of light, you could get to pluto in an arbitrarily short time from your point of view.

*engage near-litespeed drive*

*wait 5 seconds*

*disengage near-litespeed drive*

You: "well that was quick, we're at Pluto and the trip was only 5 seconds"

Mission control on Earth: "uhhh no, it took 6 hours for you to get there, and then another 6 for your message to get to us. We all went home and had a good sleep after you left, and got back here in time to see your message:

You: "Its been 10 hours! We went slower than lightspeed, and it only took us 5 seconds to get here. Mission control's reply would be sent the reply at lightespeed - faster than we traveled. Why haven't they got our message and responded!?! are our comms working?!?!"

Subordinate: "Uhhh... Sir, how did you get to be in command of this mission if you don't understand the implications of relativity?"

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Starwhip

Starwhip

Posted
Posted

*engage near-litespeed drive*

*wait 5 seconds*

*disengage near-litespeed drive*

You: "well that was quick, we're at Pluto and the trip was only 5 seconds"

Mission control on Earth: "uhhh no, it took 6 hours for you to get there, and then another 6 for your message to get to us. We all went home and had a good sleep after you left, and got back here in time to see your message:

You: "Its been 10 hours! We went slower than lightspeed, and it only took us 5 seconds to get here. Mission control's reply would be sent the reply at lightespeed - faster than we traveled. Why haven't they got our message and responded!?! are our comms working?!?!"

Subordinate: "Uhhh... Sir, how did you get to be in command of this mission if you don't understand the implications of relativity?"

How about this one?


Input Ship Velocity (Percent of c): 99.99999999
Input Distance (Light-Years): 42
Observer Time: 42.0000000042
Ship Time: 0.000593969391109

You go 42 light years in 5 hours.

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WestAir

WestAir

Posted
Posted

To be perfectly fair, I think we all understand that this video was made using an Earth observers reference with regards to redshift and relativistic distortions. It's hard to teach a bunch of 3rd graders that all 3 dimensions break down at light speed.

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Bill Phil

Bill Phil

Posted
Posted
Huh? that makes no sense?

How can we talk of velocity when from that frame of reference..... there is not even any distance?

Big difference between no distance and 0 distance... It's technically infinite speed, but the cosmic speed limit prevents that generally, so it has to be light speed.

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rtxoff

rtxoff

Posted
Posted
what if 2 photons are both moving at light speed away from each other? whats their relative speed then?

or better still; towards each other, what would the impact velocity be?

All questions are answered with "the speed of light".

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NeatCrown

NeatCrown

Posted
Posted (edited)
How about this one?


Input Ship Velocity (Percent of c): 99.99999999
Input Distance (Light-Years): 42
Observer Time: 42.0000000042
Ship Time: 0.000593969391109

You go 42 light years in 5 hours.

42... 42... 42!

Coincidence?

eyediagram.gifRO01-TheThinker2.jpg4306knot.jpg

And naw, I wouldn't take a lightspeed journey across the solar system.

1. I'd be frozen due to relativity

2. I'd have infinite momentum, and therefore infinite mass. A black hole would be created that's destroy the whole universe (due to relativity).

Edited by NeatCrown
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