Gian

Hi Mr Swansont and Mr Halc! looks like co-ordinate mass is a location like the balancing point at the centre of a mass rather than the mass itself. And whatever its nature the consequences are the same for space travel; that is in getting to c, mass of my spaceship becomes infinite and so infinite energy is needed. Co-ordinate mass and resting mass are still both mass? Is that right? Cheerz GIAN🙂XXX

Thanks Mr Mordred! guess I've got to get started studying GCSE physics!!🤔 GIAN 🙂XXX Thanks Mr Halc, the bit I think you're quoting says; "Stories of ships accelerating to 237 light-years in 48 hours, as in EE Smith's Skylark In Space, or half a light-year every minute, as in AE van Vogt's The Storm, simply will not do. Light takes exactly 1 year to travel 1 light-year, and without infinite energy we can never go quite that fast." Cheerz GIAN🙂XXX PS I'm still digesting the rest of what you said and will get back to you🙂

🤣So I have it totally wrong lol What's the p stand for? And can you refer to me to something easy-to-read but accurate about it? GIAN🙂XXX

Thanks Mr Halc, the Millennium Falcon 2 has super-advanced fusion engines given to me by the Time Lords. I just got the impression that mass increases the faster an object travels, so more energy is needed to continue the acceleration. I read it in Nicholls; The Science In Science Fiction (1982) pp68-9 attached GIAN🙂XXX

Hi Mr Halc, one last query the Falcon2 has a stationary mass of 200,000kg To get the mass of the Falcon when she gets to 99%c looks like I have to use tau: √1-v2/c2 which seems to work out about 0.14 Am I right that I have to divide the stationary mass by this number to get the mass of the Falcon at 99%c? which gives the Falcon's mass as about 1,430,000kg If so am I right that using E=mc2 gives the amount of energy needed to shift her at this point, which my calculator gives as 1.28571390E+17 joules which I think means the Falcon's fusion engines need to make about 1.2917joules for the last second before 99%c ?? Cheerz GIAN🙂XXX

Thanks again Mr Halc! I guess what I mean is if I just flew the Millennium Falcon 2 in a big circle by firing the stabiliser jets to keep us on the circular heading, as the engines accelerate the ship by 1G. Then when we're upto cruising speed of 99%c switch the jets off and head out in a straight line. But there would probably be no advantage in travel time. Either that or my gf and me would have to bear switching the acceleration to 2G which would be uncomfortable. Otherwise a 3½ year flight it is! Cheerz GIAN🙂XXX

Thanks Mr Halc! I'm going to use the math I've been sent to try and work it out for myself (honest!) But would there be anything to be gained in travel time ship's time if I first took the Millenium Falcon into orbit around our Sun, accelerating by 1G upto 99%c, then turned towards Alpha Centauri and cruised there in a straight line at a constant speed of 99%c, using the same method to slow down at the other end? Cheerz GIAN🙂XXX

Thanks Mr Halc, ah I see never thought of that. Well I think Joanne's got her heart set on alpha centauri; so accelerating by 1G for 2LY and then turning around and decelerating by 1G for the remaining 2LY, how long do you think it would take ship's time to get to centauri? THANKS TO EVERYONE ELSE I'M WORKING THROUGH YOUR REPLIES. JOANNE'S EXCITED TO GET STARTED Cheerz GIAN🙂XXX

I have a spaceship the Millennium Falcon 2. She can travel upto 99%c, and I want to take my girlfriend Joanne to Alpha Centauri which is about 4LY away. Obviously we can't start off at 99%c, so we will be accelerating at 1G from 0 and when we get to 99%c we will switch off the engines and cruise at a constant speed until we need to turn the ship around and fire the nuclear fusion engines to slow down the ship at a comfortable deceleration rate of 1G. What maths do I need to calculate our total journey time ship's time taking into account relativistic effects? I think the factor tau has something to do with it but I'm not sure how exactly Joanne wants to know how much luggage she needs to take. And how do I work out how long it will take for us Earth time to get home for our parents back on Earth? Any ideas? Cheerz GIAN😊XXX

As no one chooses to be depressed, could this be grounds for a plea of diminished responsibility?

Could a severe depressive episode cause such a change?

Am I right that one of the symptoms of psychosis is coming to believe stuff that isn't true? If so, can this extend to the moral sense? Eg suppose someone was really stressed and woke up one day believing it was OK to steal a car, when previously they'd never have dreamt of thinking that. Would that be psychosis? Cheerz GIAN

Agreed. I was interested to read in a kids' science book (my scientific level) that although there's no such number as √-1 but it's still possible to use it. They were able to deploy √-1 to prove faster-than-light travel would be impossible. Gobsmacked! Cheerz GIAN😀

So how do you propose to get human beings to the planets? 66y later they did; Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon🙂

Exactly so🙂 Lucky no one said that to the Wright brothers🙂

I believe it was in 1995 that Andrew Wiles proved Fermat's Conjecture, that no integer greater than n=2 could possibly satisfy the equation an + bn = cn Not knowing anything about Maths beyond GCSE I hope I've got that right. Does Andrew Wiles' proof have any practical application? Eg does it allow space engineers or architects or anyone else to do something they could not do previously? Or is this purely knowledge for its own sake? Not that there's anything wrong with that of course! Either way it's still beautiful and fascinating cheerz GIAN🙂XXX

Mars is just the beginning🙂

Exactly. Estimates vary, but one figure says that when the human population gets to 10 billion the Earth can no longer sustain the human family. Governments will be forced to look elsewhere. So the quicker we get to 10 billion people the better, so we can start living on Mars and become a spacefaring species Cheerz GIAN🙂xxx

So what's your solution to the Why Aren't We In Space problem?

I didn't say make giving birth compulsory lol. I just wish the human family was doing something a bit more interesting than PlayStation games Spelling: effect, not "affect." So do you think space exploration is something which should happen (I can't imagine anyone interested in science saying otherwise) and if so why isn't it happening and how do we make it happen? Cheerz GIAN🙂

Hope so

The worst thing about abortion and birth control -which are both consequences of secularism (NOT atheism) and commercialism is that they're sooo boring. Until about 150y ago, I guess birth control wasn't needed much (it was there, but not much) because in order to have 3 or 4 surviving children women had to conceive all their childbearing years. (In the 17thC, King James VII & II fathered 27 children. Only 8 grew up, and only 4 reached old age) If women did that now the Earth's population would be 150 billion in 20y, so a major population problem. In the 1970s it was said that by now 2024 people would be living on other planets. We're not, and for all our science & tech modern life is all sex and shopping (yawn.) No abortion or contraception, and we'd be having this conversation in a pub on Mars. Birth control stunts progress Cheerz GIAN🙂XXX

Other robots of course They bought it with their last few pennies. No more cash afterwards It would be. I guess they'd have to go through the industrial revolution again, with the same result, repeating cyclically. Cheerz GIAN🙂XXX

Exactly so. There'd be one small group of aristocrats who'd own all the factories, which would gradually dwindle to almost nothing as the only people the aristocracy could by from and sell to would be each other. The rest of the proletariat would try be self-sufficient farmers, operating in a cashless barter economy.