Yahoo Answers is shutting down on 4 May 2021 (Eastern Time) and the Yahoo Answers website is now in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.
Hypothetical Question with regards to star travel, acceleration, and c?
Suppose that the technology was available to construct a spacecraft that had a maximum speed of something significant with respect to c, say 0.5c. Let's suppose that that spacecraft is a manned spacecraft.
Am I correct in thinking that there's nothing intrinsically life-prohibiting abut a human travelling inside a vessel that has a constant velocity of 0.5c? And would I also be correct in thinking that the only potentially prohibiting aspect of the situation would be actually reaching that velocity in anything remotely resembling a timely fashion. i.e. that the only potentially restrictive element here would be any enormous acceleration involved, and that if the velocity of 0.5c was reached by acceleration at a level acceptable to humans, then there would be nothing intrinsically limiting to the situation?
2 Answers
- zee_primeLv 61 decade agoFavourite answer
You're right. Travelling at a constant high velocity feels just like standing still. But the maximum acceleration you can withstand for a long period isn't much more than 1 g. At 1 g it would take about 6 months to accelerate to 0.5 c. So a round trip to a star 4.5 ly away would take about 11 years by Earthbound clocks but as little as a year or two for you, allowing for time dilation. Back in the 1950s, somebody showed that by accelerating to nearly the speed of light, you could circumnavigate the observable cosmos in about 42 years by your clocks, but when you decelerated for the second half of the trip and got out, you'd find that about 20 billion years had passed on Earth.
- Anonymous1 decade ago
Yes, you are correct. Traveling at a constant velocity, there is no acceleration. Without acceleration there is no force exhibited upon a mass. As to reaching the velocity of 0.5c, a timely fashion would be out of the question if that means having a sustained acceleration greater than 7 times Earth's surface gravity.