| Saif 15.06.2010 05:03 |
This is for Science geeks/nerds only. Anyone with a Science or Engineering background should be able to solve this problem. In the song '39, the Captain goes on a space voyage, travelling at a speed close to the speed of light. He returns 100 years later(Earth time) but has himself aged a year. In light of Einstein's theory of special relativity, what speed was the spaceship travelling at?(Assume the speed of light, c = 3 x 10^8 m/s and express the result in 9 significant digits preferrably upto 1 decimal place) |
| lifetimefanofqueen 15.06.2010 06:10 |
engerering isn't geeky, Brian and John were good at engenering, and they arn't nerds they are sooooo cool!!!! anyway I dont know, u lost me at the ''how fast was the ship'' bit, I am shit at science, especialy maths!!! im more of an art and english person XD |
| Saif 15.06.2010 07:15 |
lifetimefanofqueen wrote: engerering isn't geeky, Brian and John were good at engenering, and they arn't nerds they are sooooo cool!!!! anyway I dont know, u lost me at the ''how fast was the ship'' bit, I am shit at science, especialy maths!!! im more of an art and english person XD I meant geeky in a good way. :/ And this is Einsteinian Physics at its simplest, really. Anyway, I'm sure someone will be able to solve this eventually. ParisNair should be able to do this effortlessly. :D |
| pittrek 15.06.2010 08:05 |
Easy. 7793787,122931750151448720502313 in meters per hour :-) |
| Saif 15.06.2010 08:14 |
pittrek wrote: Easy. 7793787,122931750151448720502313 in meters per hour :-) I know you're joking, but most people will overlook that and think this is the correct answer. So if this figure went under anyone's sarcasm radar, that's not the correct answer. Even in metres per hour(which he used), it's way off. |
| pittrek 15.06.2010 08:22 |
Yes, I try to find my old things from school and refresh my memory and try it again :-) It's been quite a long time since school :-) BTW I counted with speed of light being 299 792 458 m / s and not 3*10^8 |
| Holly2003 15.06.2010 08:47 |
Saif wrote: This is for Science geeks/nerds only. Anyone with a Science or Engineering background should be able to solve this problem. In the song '39, the Captain goes on a space voyage, travelling at a speed close to the speed of light. He returns 100 years later(Earth time) but has himself aged a year. In light of Einstein's theory of special relativity, what speed was the spaceship travelling at?(Assume the speed of light, c = 3 x 10^8 m/s and express the result in 9 significant digits preferrably upto 1 decimal place) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You can't know that unless you know his itinerary: for example, maybe he stopped for a while to watch attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion? Or to see C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate? Too many variables... |
| Saif 15.06.2010 08:49 |
pittrek wrote: Yes, I try to find my old things from school and refresh my memory and try it again :-) It's been quite a long time since school :-) BTW I counted with speed of light being 299 792 458 m / s and not 3*10^8 Even if you had taken that value, the answer you gave in metres per hour would have been of the order 10^12, which it isn't. :P Holly, considering the itinerary can be a benefit or a hazard. If it's a benefit, then it's not my problem. ;) |
| Major Tom 15.06.2010 10:16 |
God I love Blade Runner! |
| GinjaNinja 15.06.2010 10:50 |
He was going very fast, that's all you need to know. |
| Saif 15.06.2010 11:39 |
You get an F for your apathy. |
| pittrek 15.06.2010 11:57 |
v = c * sqrt (0.99) ??? Damned, I used to be very good in math 10 years ago at school :-( |
| Saif 15.06.2010 12:10 |
pittrek wrote: v = c * sqrt (0.99) ??? Damned, I used to be very good in math 10 years ago at school :-( Yeah, that's approximately correct. The answer is 299984999.6 m/s, assuming c = 3 x 10^8 m/s. But if you use the value you cited earlier, it would be more accurate. You get a cookie. :D I was really good in Physics, Math and Chemistry as well. I've made a big career mistake. |
| lifetimefanofqueen 15.06.2010 13:13 |
I'm still at school LOL |
| Wilki Amieva 15.06.2010 15:51 |
That is correct if you assume a constant speed and an instantaneous acceleration. I suppose you used Lorentz transformations. |
| Saif 15.06.2010 23:30 |
Wilki Amieva wrote: That is correct if you assume a constant speed and an instantaneous acceleration. I suppose you used Lorentz transformations. ....OR we could just assume an average speed. :/ |
| Fireplace 16.06.2010 06:12 |
Holly2003 wrote: You can't know that unless you know his itinerary: for example, maybe he stopped for a while to watch attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion? Or to see C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate? Too many variables... Or did he perhaps stop off at some corner of Alpha Centauri to pick up his copy of The Cosmos Rocks? |
| magicmatze 16.06.2010 07:18 |
Time delation from the special relativity theory works at all speeds. But best speed would be a speed which is very close to the speed of light. The faster you are, the more time you're "travelling into the future". Most important matter is, that speed has to be constant (acceleration=0). If you want to know more read the wiki-article about the "Twin-Paradox" or similiar articles on the net. link By the way, this is also a problem in GPS-navigation, with a satellite-speed of 4000 m/s, but this has just a very small inflence. |
| Saif 16.06.2010 08:24 |
magicmatze wrote: Time delation from the special relativity theory works at all speeds. But best speed would be a speed which is very close to the speed of light. The faster you are, the more time you're "travelling into the future". Most important matter is, that speed has to be constant (acceleration=0). Yeah, there would be no need for further acceleration once it reached the requisite speed(inertia of motion). But I think Wilki mentioned instantaneous acceleration in order to account for any curvilinear direction changes because instantaneous acceleration is present even when there is no change of magnitude(vector algebra). We can minimize it by assuming the only direction change is while reversing the space ship's path(to return to Earth). |
| Wilki Amieva 16.06.2010 11:25 |
Exactly. |
| Wilki Amieva 16.06.2010 11:33 |
I have just found what I have written roughly five years as an answer to "How exactly is '39 about time travel?" posted in this very forum: link long deleted now. "Well, it has to do with the Time Dilation phenomenon as explained by Einstein's Theories of Relativity. Let's say that you board a spaceship and accelerate to a very high speed in relation to a resting frame. If you do so, an observer in the resting frame will notice that your time will run slower than his/her own time. This time dilation is not an artifact that will only affect the moving clocks (or any other time-measuring devices) - in fact, it will affect ALL physical processes, including biological, so it will effectively delay aging ('For so many years have gone though I'm older but a year'). The most common way to calculate the time as measured in the moving clock from the one measured in the resting frame and vice-versa is to apply the so called Lorentz Transformations: link This is a simple set of ecuations (believe me - there are complex generalizations of those, such as the Poincaré Transformations) in which you input the measured time interval and also the relative speed. If we believe that the volunteers returned one hundred years later ('In the year of '39 assembled here the volunteers' and 'In the year of '39 came a ship in from the blue', but 'In the land that our grandchildren knew' and 'Your mother's eyes from your eyes cry to me') then we can only calculate the equivalent speed of the volunteers' spaceship (unfortunately, the song does not give us any information about its acceleration), which is roughly 99,995% of the speed of light!!! So, we can conclude that the spaceship's captain is either Captain Kirk or Mr. Fahrenheit!" |
| Holly2003 16.06.2010 12:14 |
The only danger is if they send us to that terrible Planet of the Apes. Wait a minute... Statue of Liberty... that was our planet! You maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you! Damn you all to Hell! |
| ParisNair 16.06.2010 12:53 |
Saif wrote: ParisNair should be able to do this effortlessly. :DLOL! Not at all man. 10 years ago, I might have tried...but now I am absolutely clueless. I am an engineer by education, and physics and maths were my fav subjects in school. But I know less with every passing year. And I am more interested in arts and history now. Saif wrote: I've made a big career mistake.I was thinking this too :-) Is your knowledge of medicine as good as your physics? |
| GratefulFan 16.06.2010 18:09 |
ParisNair wrote: LOL! Not at all man. 10 years ago, I might have tried...but now I am absolutely clueless. I am an engineer by education, and physics and maths were my fav subjects in school. But I know less with every passing year. And I am more interested in arts and history now. ===================================== It's funny how that works isn't it. I could not wait to hurry up and finish my one compulsory and completely tedious grade 9 history credit so I could get on with the hard sciences for the rest of my education and career. But my pleasure reading has flipped and is almost exclusively related to political and cultural history and the soft, social sciences. I now really, really kick myself for ignoring that part of my formal education because sometimes I feel like I'm flapping around and flying blind in my continuing learning. I know there must be wonderful, foundational, definitive books in these areas that I know absolutely nothing about. |
| Saif 16.06.2010 22:21 |
ParisNair wrote: Saif wrote: ParisNair should be able to do this effortlessly. :D LOL! Not at all man. 10 years ago, I might have tried...but now I am absolutely clueless. I am an engineer by education, and physics and maths were my fav subjects in school. But I know less with every passing year. And I am more interested in arts and history now. Saif wrote: I've made a big career mistake. I was thinking this too :-) Is your knowledge of medicine as good as your physics? Well, it obviously is(my medicine knowledge). It was a grueling 5.5 years("officialy" four). We had daily exams in the Medical College. The goddamn item exams. And we had some horrible professors. Now I'm an intern at a local clinic and will probably have to continue for a year. It pays like crap. Even auto-rickshawallas earn more than us. That's why many of my friends are teaching at those medical/engineering coaching centres. Heard they pay like Rs. 1000/lecture in the biggest ones. I've been forced to tutor a few of my Grade 11-12 cousins so I had to catch up with my Physics/Chemistry/Math. |
| Micrówave 17.06.2010 05:17 |
The answer is 42. |
| Saif 20.06.2010 06:11 |
All right then, find the equation whose only roots are 42 and the magnitude of lightspeed. :P |