Light at the End of the Tunnel

[sethoflagos]

This one has perplexed me for some time.

 

Scenario:

 

Travelling close to light speed towards say the Andromeda galaxy.

 

If we were to look directly towards our destination, would we be totally frazzled by intensely blue-shifted radiation? (Assuming we didn't have a really good pair of Ray-Bans)

Edited August 15, 2016 by sethoflagos

[Mordred]

yes all signals ahead would be extremely blueshifted

[Sensei]

In Special Relativity

Relativistic Doppler Effect has formula

 

[math]f=f_0(1+v)\gamma[/math]

 

[math]\gamma=\frac{1}{\sqrt{1-v^2}}[/math]

 

Which is also equal to

[math]f=f_0\sqrt{\frac{1+v}{1-v}}[/math]

 

with v normalized to 0...1 (divided by c).

 

With v near 1.0 (or near c, without normalization), gamma is so high that regular photons at visible spectrum (average 2.32 eV green photon), could be blueshifted to more than 1.022 MeV (0.4-0.5 million times than green photon)

 

In such situation there is starting pair production, of matter and antimatter,

and positrons are starting annihilating with body of spacecraft, damaging it and destroying.

[sethoflagos]

In Special Relativity

Relativistic Doppler Effect has formula

 

[math]f=f_0(1+v)\gamma[/math]

 

[math]\gamma=\frac{1}{\sqrt{1-v^2}}[/math]

 

Which is also equal to

[math]f=f_0\sqrt{\frac{1+v}{1-v}}[/math]

 

with v normalized to 0...1 (divided by c).

 

With v near 1.0 (or near c, without normalization), gamma is so high that regular photons at visible spectrum (average 2.32 eV green photon), could be blueshifted to more than 1.022 MeV (0.4-0.5 million times than green photon)

 

In such situation there is starting pair production, of matter and antimatter,

and positrons are starting annihilating with body of spacecraft, damaging it and destroying.

 

So Warp Factor 8 is a bit of a no go? Unless we travel into the void, which seems a bit pointless.

[michel123456]

 

So Warp Factor 8 is a bit of a no go? Unless we travel into the void, which seems a bit pointless.

?

But the void is full of photons.

[sethoflagos]

?

But the void is full of photons.

 

It was a throwaway comment, Michel.

 

But since you raise the point, not so many of the photons would be coming directly at me would they? Once their trajectories are sufficiently oblique, the blue shift issue goes away, doesn't it?