News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star by jsjohnst on Friday February 11, 2022 @09:20AM (#30301761)
> a trip to the next star can be a week-long affair from your point of view

You’d need to travel at around 233x the speed of light to make getting to the nearest star be a week trip, no?

Re:Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star by _Microft on Friday February 11, 2022 @09:40AM (#30301984)
The effect is called time dilation. The section of interest here is „Time dilation caused by a relative velocity“:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation

Re:Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star by jsjohnst on Friday February 11, 2022 @09:42AM (#30302006)
I’m aware of time dilation, my point was that a “week vacation” to something “over 4 light years” away is just hyperbolic.
Re:Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star by samatman on Friday February 11, 2022 @09:25AM (#30301812)
Nope! If you obtain the full speed of light then a) you're not made of baryons anymore so congratulations on that and b) no time passes whatsoever between your being emitted in some tight laser beam on planet A, and being transcribed on planet B, from your perspective.

None. Photons don't experience time, they are time.

Re:Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star by rbanffy on Friday February 11, 2022 @09:30AM (#30301875)
Not exactly. For you to think you are traveling 20x faster than light, your friends that stayed at home would have to see you traveling at 0.99995c. For 233x faster than light, that's a lot of 9's in that number.
Re:Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star by s1artibartfast on Friday February 11, 2022 @12:29PM (#30304206)
I get 0.999c for 20x and 0.99999c for 220+
Re:Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star by rbanffy on Friday February 11, 2022 @02:15PM (#30305764)
I'll trust your numbers more than mine.

But, for all intents and purposes, this is impossibly fast ;-)

Unless you are on the Bistromath, that is.

Re:Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star by s1artibartfast on Friday February 11, 2022 @12:02PM (#30303791)
There is no faster than light, I can't parse this statement.
Re:Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star by psyc on Friday February 11, 2022 @12:20PM (#30304048)
Distance divided by [time experienced by traveler]. GP is not saying that traveler went faster than light.
Re:Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star by rbanffy on Friday February 11, 2022 @09:24AM (#30301811)
From the passenger's point of view, yes. For everyone else you'd be veeeery close to c, but not quite there.
Re:Earth-like planet spotted orbiting Sun’s closest star by jsjohnst on Friday February 11, 2022 @10:56PM (#30309800)
My point was it’s hyperbolic. You’d have to be going so close[0] to C that it’d be impossible.

[0] about 0.99999c if what someone else in this thread said is correct