The math being simple while the effects emerge automatically is the best part. Relativity is unintuitive precisely because the consequences are so far from the formula.
Show HN: What if the speed of light was 5 km/h?
291–294 of 294 posts
Re: Show HN: What if the speed of light was 5 km/h?
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
If The Moon Were Only 1 Pixel (A tediously accurate scale model of the solar system) https://www.joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsys... has a button at the bottom right for 'C' which scrolls to the right at the speed of light on that scale. https://thinkzone.wlonk.com/SS/SolarSystemModel.php?scale=10... lets you make scale model calculations (useful if you're building one). The default model scale has th…
In Australia there is a scale model of the Solar System where the sun is the main dome of Siding Springs observatory and the planets are on billboards at scale size and distance. Pluto is several hundred kilometres away (and the size of a tennis ball on the billboard) This discussion has made me wonder what it would look like to have a different scale where the distances are based on the “speed limit” (which is mostl…
The 10,000,000,000 (1 : 10B) scale would be kind of neat for Australia. Six soccer fields in Sydney and you've got the Sun to Pluto. One soccer field holds the Sun to Jupiter.... Alpha Centauri is in Perth. The speed of light is 100 meters / hour.
https://thinkzone.wlonk.com/SS/SolarSystemModel.php?scale=10...
Re: Show HN: What if the speed of light was 5 km/h?
#293At first sight, this is remarkably more accurate that the "slower speed of light" game from MIT that was made available all those years ago (~2012). Many issues with the MIT game were discussed here: https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/43695/how-realis... While the thread lists multiple issues, the issue that I found was with modeling temporal aspects of relativistic doppler (I also reported it on the github…
Thanks! Yes, I'm trying to pay extra close attention to modelling every perceivable effect as closely as possible. The remarkable thing is that none of the mathematics is particularly complicated, so if you get the math right, then all of the predicted effects emerge automatically.
How come the things I'm travelling towards seem to stretch further away the faster I go? Doesn't length contraction work the opposite way?
Edit: ah I did some googling and relativistic aberration has the opposite effect and beats out length contraction.
Re: Show HN: What if the speed of light was 5 km/h?
#294Earlier quoted context omitted.
So the question becomes where does the 11k come in? It was just wrong?
Current me if I’m wrong but I think that was a calculation based on a specific velocity at some fraction of C. Whereas a constant 1g acceleration would far exceed that fraction and thus shorten the time significantly.
> Of course that as you get closer to C, the traveling object will experience time dilation (relative to observer), so the time passed will be less. At 99.999% C, the traveler would take ~11,000 years to arrive to Andromeda.
When you say constant 1g acceleration, do you mean acceleration well past the speed of light? I thought we were talking about all speeds less than the speed of light.