Hello /sci/entists. Consider the following: you're in space, you have a ship with an engine capable of working forever. This engine gives a constant force, so in turn the ship has a constant acceleration. Given enough time, will this ship reach the speed of light or not?

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Anonymous Sat Apr 30 19:51:36 2011 No.2973978 [Reply] [Original]

Hello /sci/entists.
Consider the following: you're in space, you have a ship with an engine capable of working forever.
This engine gives a constant force, so in turn the ship has a constant acceleration.
Given enough time, will this ship reach the speed of light or not?

>>	Scientist !!ThFjnJh4EkH Sat Apr 30 19:52:36 2011 No.2973983 >>2973978 Let me rephrase your question: >/sci/, suppose the laws of physics didn't apply. What would happen in situation <X> according to the laws of physics?

>>	Anonymous Sat Apr 30 19:53:36 2011 No.2973987 no, silly, your mass would grow so much that you would be fatter than gabe

Anonymous Sat Apr 30 19:57:36 2011 No.2974010

so the assumptions are:
you somehow get infinite energy
the universe never ends

leaving out the fact that if you have infinite energy on board you would collapse into a black hole, after an infinite amount of time, you will travel at light speed, put seeing as you can never get to infinity, no.

>>	Anonymous Sat Apr 30 19:58:36 2011 No.2974012 >>2973987 Ok thanks, it was bugging me out.

>>	Anonymous Sat Apr 30 19:58:36 2011 No.2974015 File: 19 KB, 300x300, gabe-newell-300x300.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>2973987 .... I just try to make games you guys enjoy... why do you need to be so mean?

Anonymous Sat Apr 30 20:01:36 2011 No.2974032

No, you would just keep going faster, and faster, and faster.

The length of the universe in the direction of travel would increasingly shrink and blueshift until the light reaching the front of your ship from the cosmic microwave background radiation was too energetic and melted your ship.

If you could sustain 1g acceleration for 20 years, you could make it to the nearest galaxy, Andromeda. Relativity can really work in your favor.

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/rocket.html

>>	Anonymous Sat Apr 30 20:02:36 2011 No.2974041 >>2974032 I should add, from the perspective of earth, you would be getting closer, and closer, and closer to c. In terms of how long it actually takes you to get somewhere ("rapidity"), you'd be way above c.

>>	Anonymous Sat Apr 30 20:03:36 2011 No.2974044 >>2974010 You don't need the energy on board. See above, after a certain speed you can get all the energy you need from starlight or from the CMBR.

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