Forums » Off-Topic
Speed of light travel
Aye that. If the sun stopped working right THIS instant, we still wouldn't know about it for a whole 9 minutes. Or a journey to our next door neighbor (the Centauri system - an interesting trinary star) would still take 4.5 years at light speed.
If the sun just vanished, would Earth immediately fly outward toward the Kuiper belt or would we continue in orbit until information of the event reached us, 9 minutes later?
a journey to our next door neighbor (the Centauri system - an interesting trinary star) would still take 4.5 years at light speed.
Forgot to add "for a stationary observer". From my limited understanding, at lightspeed time would be meaningless from the traveler's perspective; it would take no time at all. At 95% the speed of light, the journey would take just under a year and a half from the traveler's perspective. That's why the video is slightly misleading (although it does include a disclaimer); it zooms out from the sun at 1c, implying such a journey is plausible, but if one had the privilege to make such a journey it would actually take no time at all, and the distance would be infinitely stretched.
a journey to our next door neighbor (the Centauri system - an interesting trinary star) would still take 4.5 years at light speed.
Forgot to add "for a stationary observer". From my limited understanding, at lightspeed time would be meaningless from the traveler's perspective; it would take no time at all. At 95% the speed of light, the journey would take just under a year and a half from the traveler's perspective. That's why the video is slightly misleading (although it does include a disclaimer); it zooms out from the sun at 1c, implying such a journey is plausible, but if one had the privilege to make such a journey it would actually take no time at all, and the distance would be infinitely stretched.
I don't think gravity is effected by the speed of light. We still wouldn't notice till the light ran out though.
gravitational waves do propagate at the speed of light afaik but I'm not sure.
I mean this is getting into some pretty hoighty toighty physics shit but i'm pretty sure gravity doesn't propagate instantly.
I mean this is getting into some pretty hoighty toighty physics shit but i'm pretty sure gravity doesn't propagate instantly.
Gravity is a distortion in the space-time continuum caused by mass. If you removed that mass instantly wouldn't the distortion likewise disappear at the same time? I'm not arguing, just discussing.
Prepare for wikipedia links!
The problem with this instantaneous effect is that things happening at the same time don't necessarily happen at the same time: wikipedia link number 1.
So, although for some observer the sun disappearing and the earth flying off into space would happen at the same time, a different observer, with a different reference frame, would see the sun disappearing, followed shortly by the earth flying off the rails. For a third observer, moving in a different direction, the earth would fly off first, followed by the sun's demise.
That being said, one of the consequences of having a finite speed to the propagation of gravity, gravitational waves, haven't actually been measured yet. This is probably not because they aren't there, but because they're damn hard to measure. Still, there's a chance that everything we think we know is wrong.
PS: Heil %target%!
The problem with this instantaneous effect is that things happening at the same time don't necessarily happen at the same time: wikipedia link number 1.
So, although for some observer the sun disappearing and the earth flying off into space would happen at the same time, a different observer, with a different reference frame, would see the sun disappearing, followed shortly by the earth flying off the rails. For a third observer, moving in a different direction, the earth would fly off first, followed by the sun's demise.
That being said, one of the consequences of having a finite speed to the propagation of gravity, gravitational waves, haven't actually been measured yet. This is probably not because they aren't there, but because they're damn hard to measure. Still, there's a chance that everything we think we know is wrong.
PS: Heil %target%!