The Oh My God Particle

Post by jerf » Fri, Feb 05, 2010, 2:13 AM UTC

billforsternz wrote: post #19

> And thus, approximately: v = 0.9999999999999999999999951 c Okay. >So taking 3×108 metres per second as the speed of light, we find that the particle was traveling 2.9999999999999999999999853×108 metres per second, Oh dear, that's a rather alarming piece of innumeracy. The speed of light is approximately 3x10^8 metres per second, All those 9's in 2.999 etc would imply the speed of light was exactly 3x10^8 metres per…

The speed of light is exactly 299,792,458.0000000 (and so on) meters per second. This is because this is actually the definition of the meter now, so my string of "0"s that are significant digits is justified. 299,999,999.999... is therefore superluminal and you are correct.

Post by donaq » Fri, Feb 05, 2010, 8:44 AM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #5

fexl wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's what he said: "according to his [the rider's] clock" it would take about 3 seconds to reach the center of the Milky Way. So yes, he is talking about how fast the riders perceive it, which is all they care about, since they wrote off their entire families for dead before they left. Now the strange thing about traveling at 1516c (i.e. far greater than the speed of light), is that the time dilation equation y…

Warp engines make a little stable bubble of space and shift what's around it, so onboard time matches galaxy time, and you can jaunt a significant way across the galaxy and still be home in a few years Earth time.

That sounds really cool. Where can I get one of those?

Re: The Oh My God Particle

Re: The Oh My God Particle