Mod Idea: Simulating surfaces -> Borg Technology -> Twinkie Physics -> Worldviews

[PvK]

Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:
D= V/T, mixed with relativity, eh?

D=V/T? No. D = V x T.

If D = V / T, the longer you travelled, the less far you'd go.

Unfortunately, at relativistic speeds, time is distorted as well as space.

As you go faster and faster, time slows down for the other object.

Maybe in the egocentric universe imagined by Star Trek authors. In the 20th Century Earth physics I studied, I don't recall any such thing. A fast moving object is not going to have temporal side-effects from the frame of reference of the rest of the universe. It's own perception of time is what changes, if you believe the theory.

If faster than light speeds would make the time negative, then the ship would see the universe getting younger, and the universe would see the ship getting younger.

Again, I assume you're talking to Spock here, and not to Einstein. Quantum theory, unless I'm wrong, maintains that the speed of light will not be exceeded. It's just that "time slows down" from the perspective of the traveller. From no perspective, however, does time stop or reverse.

Once the ship decelerates, the twin paradox effect should make the end result be that the ship would end up younger, and the rest of the universe be slightly older than when the whole thing started.

Seems to me that yes, the universe would be slightly older, as usual, and the very fast ship would be younger, but only younger than it would have been if it were standing still, from the stationary frame of reference. The ship will still be older than it was before it started moving.

For example, if we hook up a drive capable of what would be ten times the speed of light to a Twinkie, and send it five light-years away and back (ten light-years total distance), we'll see it re-appear in ten years time, and history will not be changed, but the Twinkie will only have aged one year. No humpback whales will be saved.

PvK