DaveC426913
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- TL;DR Summary
- Queen's In the year '39 is the ballad of an interstellar journey with a huge time dilation factor. Given the specs, how far way can planet AWSNB be?
The premise (bear with me):
In the year of '39 assembled here, the volunteers
In the days when lands were few
Here the ship sailed out into the blue and sunny morn
Sweetest sight ever seen
And the night followed day, and the storytellers say
That the score brave souls inside
For many a lonely day
Sailed across the milky seas
Never looked back, never feared, never cried
[Chorus]
In the year of '39
Came a ship in from the blue
The volunteers came home that day,
And they bring good news
Of a world so newly born
Though their hearts so heavily weigh
For the Earth is old and grey
Little darling, we'll away but my love this cannot be
For so many years are gone
Though I'm older but a year
Your mother's eyes from your eyes cry to me.
In the Year of '39 - Queen
(It's a beautiful, haunting song)
Given:
Conditions:
Deductions:
Waitaminute ... I was going down the road of calculating the maxium possible distance of planet AWSNB from Earth (given the conditions), when realized it is much simpler than that, isn't it?
Solution:
From Earth's perspective, they traveled at (effectively) c, and made the round trip in 100 years. It immediately follows that planet AWSNB can be a maxinum distance of 50 light years. The whole relativistic time dilation aspect is a red herring.
Is my logic correct?
Followup:
If we modify Condition 1, so that n=2 (i.e. they returned in two centuries, not one), does that linearly affect the result? i.e. planet AWSNB can be 2x50 = 100 light years away?
I surmise the anwser is yes.
This seemed a lot more complex when I was working it in my head through while driving, but as I started writing, I realized it's not, is it?
In the year of '39 assembled here, the volunteers
In the days when lands were few
Here the ship sailed out into the blue and sunny morn
Sweetest sight ever seen
And the night followed day, and the storytellers say
That the score brave souls inside
For many a lonely day
Sailed across the milky seas
Never looked back, never feared, never cried
[Chorus]
In the year of '39
Came a ship in from the blue
The volunteers came home that day,
And they bring good news
Of a world so newly born
Though their hearts so heavily weigh
For the Earth is old and grey
Little darling, we'll away but my love this cannot be
For so many years are gone
Though I'm older but a year
Your mother's eyes from your eyes cry to me.
In the Year of '39 - Queen
(It's a beautiful, haunting song)
Given:
- The ship left Earth in the year (x)39.
- The ship returned in the year (x+n)39 i.e. some multiple of a century by Earth's reckoning.
- The Score Brave Souls Inside experienced a mere year of time passing.
Conditions:
- Let us look at the minimum case where n=1, i.e. their round trip was one hunded years by Earth reckoning.
- Let us assume that the ship was able to accelerate to cruising speed and back to rest in negligible time. (at 1g, I think it only takes a few months by Earth reckoning to get to relativistic speeds*.)
- Let us assume they decelerated at planet A World So Newly Born, checked it out in negligible time, and then headed back home.
Deductions:
- The time dilation factor is 100:1. This requires a cruising speed of .999999994c.
Waitaminute ... I was going down the road of calculating the maxium possible distance of planet AWSNB from Earth (given the conditions), when realized it is much simpler than that, isn't it?
Solution:
From Earth's perspective, they traveled at (effectively) c, and made the round trip in 100 years. It immediately follows that planet AWSNB can be a maxinum distance of 50 light years. The whole relativistic time dilation aspect is a red herring.
Is my logic correct?
Followup:
If we modify Condition 1, so that n=2 (i.e. they returned in two centuries, not one), does that linearly affect the result? i.e. planet AWSNB can be 2x50 = 100 light years away?
I surmise the anwser is yes.
This seemed a lot more complex when I was working it in my head through while driving, but as I started writing, I realized it's not, is it?
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