h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Geek? Did someone mention pizza?

finally i remebered that einstein conundrum i was talking about. the theory rests on the principle of relativity, (this was around long before albert came along, incedentally) which states that you can't tell you are moving without referring to an outside point. if the headlights suddenly ceased to function when you hit light speed you would be able to tell you were travelling at light speed (or very close to it) simply by whether or not the headlights were working, violating the principle of relativity. as for the later question (time vs light speed) with the many 'dwarf references, i checked it out and you would percieve time normally but observers would see it as time passing slower for you. a good way to rationalise this in your head is to look at the aforementioned twins paradox. although if you are actually interested i might be persuaded to post something approaching a copy of it. . did someone mention chocolate? i'm all dry after that lengthly monologue.

I'm strapped into the driving seat of my old Rover 2000 fuel injected turbo GT Vandenplas, my dog "Sol" (a really laid-back yellow labrador) is along for the journey, I've got enough chocolate for any eventuallity, I've put all my money into a high return savings account, started the old girl up, switched on the hyperdrive booster and WHAMMO, ten minutes later I've got billions in the bank and chocolate is the rarest substance on Earth?, corse I've got no family and no friends, but I've got my dog. (now I wonder what that brown sticky substance he's licking from his lips is)...

Trust some people to turn pure scientific debate into crass commercialism. What a mercenary. The brown sticky substance is probably what dripped from your pants when you accelerated to light speed in a Rover. At least, I'm damned sure it would drip from MYpants if it were me.

Just to clarify, "I've got no family and friends, but I've got my dog." Is that before or after you hit the hyperdrive?

did i miss something there?

Does anyone know what the gear-box in ye good olde Enterprise looks like? Cause when the warp-drive fails yet again, they just get slower instantly (no inertia there, it seems)...
"The gear's dead, Nonnie"...

Can you run that by me again please cause I lost you after the first sentence

One of the three major food groups, surely

Chocolate!! did someone say Chocolate, surely Sol hasn't eaten your Chocolate. How will you survive the rest of the journey!!!

The other two food groups would then be pizza and more pizza right jus sis guy?

Isnt it more about how close the clocks were to the planet? ie the closer you are to a mass the more gravity exerted and more space/time bends? Or put another way if you balance one clock on your left foot and hold the other one in your right hand for 10 minutes whilst spinning around really fast, when you get up off the floor one clock will say 10:10 whilst the other may say nothing as the wire came out of the socket and thats what made you fall over (as well as gravity of course).

yup, that sounds right to me!
Albert Einstein

Mia Culpa

Sorry for changing the pace of the forum, my little piece of escapism, I thought
showed the properties of near light speed travel.

A ten minute journey made by you, (at near light speed) would have huge
consequences on your life, your family and friends would no longer exist after such a
trip, your finances have increased due to inflation , possibly into the billions.

My dog, the Rover and the chocolate are fictitious, (so's the money). as if you couldn't
guess.

Anyway.... on the subject of the speed of light,

Your finances may have increased, but they would be worth less.

The four major food groups:

Pizza
Chocolate
Ice Cream
Beer

(Not necessarily in that order. )

Thanks to your wise investment, during your trip I managed to buy Earth, Venus, and am in the middle of a deal to aquire Pluto (I like to think ahead.) Thanks!

ah. a social climber.

Getting back to the Origional Question...

This is a question best left to Engineers. (Oh wait, I am an engineer.)

The answer is simple if we take into account "Time Dilation", described by Einstein, and measured by our experience with satellites in orbit. (The best examples are the GPS satellites, as they have an atomic clock within them. If we didn't take time dilation into effect, measurements taken from them would be off in 20 minutes time.)

Previous contributors to this forum have mentioned, quite elequently, how time slows down as one speeds up.

If we go by the spedometer inside the vehicle, we may be traveling at the speed of light, in relation to the outside world, but in fact we are moving at a fraction of the actual speed of light.

Symptoms of turning on the headlights will include bright light, and illumination of the objects in front of you, similar to placebo. The colors will shift, but that's about all you'd notice.

As for the exact speed we'd be traveling at...
vr = actual speed of Rover
vi = apparent speed inside the Rover (the spedometer)
dialiation = (1-vr^2)^(-1/2)
= Relation of time inside to the time outside
vi = vr * dialation

Plotting in a spreadsheet, and eyballing the chart:

http://www.philly2nite.com/~yoda/lightspeed.gif

At approx 0.71c we would appear from inside the car to be traveling at the speed of light.

Wowser, that was a bit deep weren't it...

I think you were being very generous Shorty, I would have said what a lot of cods wallop.