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williampitts
Oct 31, 2006, 03:25 AM
NASA has developed a rocket ship that can accelerate to the speed of light.
The crew can tolerate only nine G’s. How long will it take to achieve maximum
Velocity?
Thanks for your (answer) help.
William Pitts

imation
Nov 2, 2006, 08:35 PM
woah that's a weird question... I have no idea what the answer is but ill take a stab..
speed of light is 300mil mps yeah?
... d=v/t
d= no idea
v= c (c stand for speed of light if u didn't know)
t= that's the answer u want...

u can't do it cos u don't know how far... lol as u can see I don't do phisics...
I'm lost hhahaha OK I don't think I was of any help at all! Haha
sorry lol

dmatos
Nov 3, 2006, 08:07 PM
I think there are two possible ways to answer this question. The first is to completely ignore relativity.

1g is 9.8m/s^2
light speed is 3x10^8m/s

v=at
t=v/a

Simple, straightforward answer.

The other answer, using special relativity, if I remember correctly, is that the ship will never reach light speed. As it gets closer and closer to light speed, it experiences time dilation, such that while the acceleration experienced by the astronauts inside is still 9g's, the acceleration viewed by those outside the craft (and standing at the start point) gets slower and slower and, like the arrow in Zeno's paradox, it will never actually reach light speed (except, unlike the arrow, it actually will never reach light speed).