Is distance relative?

Duff Man Jr.

Ok I dont know the proper numbers but the question is the same.
Assume a point is 100 light years from earth, a spaceship sets off at close to the speed of light, it compleats the journey in 10 (spaceship)years.

What does the "distance clock" on the spaceship say it has traveled? Surely 10 light years, But how can it have finished the trip?

Kinda badly explained sorry.

jonbravo

Duff Man Jr. wrote: »

Ok I dont know the proper numbers but the question is the same.
Assume a point is 100 light years from earth, a spaceship sets off at close to the speed of light, it compleats the journey in 10 (spaceship)years.

What does the "distance clock" on the spaceship say it has traveled? Surely 10 light years, But how can it have finished the trip?

Kinda badly explained sorry.

ok, i think your talking about relativity, which says that the mass of a moving object increases as its speed increases....
so were banned from traveling at speeds of light.for that one reason alone.

now wormholes are said to be a shortcut between point A to point B..is this what you want to discuss!? Relativity or our fourth dimension known as time!?

Duff Man Jr.

For simplicty say 1 light year = 10 miles
The distance between point A and B is 100 light years = 1000 miles.
A spaceship travelling close to the speed of light does the trip in 100 years from earths point of view, or 10 years from the spaceships point of view.
So the spaceship will have traveled 1000miles (100 light years) in 10 years?

I think this is somewhat clearer.

jonbravo

Duff Man Jr. wrote: »

For simplicty say 1 light year = 10 miles
The distance between point A and B is 100 light years = 1000 miles.
A spaceship travelling close to the speed of light does the trip in 100 years from earths point of view, or 10 years from the spaceships point of view.
So the spaceship will have traveled 1000miles (100 light years) in 10 years?

I think this is somewhat clearer.

at the speed of light which is about 300,000 kilometres per second.......how long would it take to travel to,... lets say...zeta reticuli, 39 years if you travel at the speed of light from earth.
so how far is zeta reticuli!?

alpha centauri[our nearest star] is about 4.4 light years away,compare this with the fastest man-made object in space which is about 15 kilometres per second[voyager], the spaceship would take about 50 years to reach the nearest star.
hope that puts a bit of light on your question!?

Podge_irl

Duff Man Jr. wrote: »

Ok I dont know the proper numbers but the question is the same.
Assume a point is 100 light years from earth, a spaceship sets off at close to the speed of light, it compleats the journey in 10 (spaceship)years.

What does the "distance clock" on the spaceship say it has traveled? Surely 10 light years, But how can it have finished the trip?

Kinda badly explained sorry.

As well as time dilation you have length contraction in relativity. As far as the ship is concerned it has only travelled 10 light years because at the speed it was moving that is what the distance seemed to be to it.

Thargor

jonbravo wrote: »

at the speed of light which is about 300,000 kilometres per second.......how long would it take to travel to,... lets say...zeta reticuli, 39 years if you travel at the speed of light from earth.
so how far is zeta reticuli!?

alpha centauri[our nearest star] is about 4.4 light years away,compare this with the fastest man-made object in space which is about 15 kilometres per second[voyager], the spaceship would take about 50 years to reach the nearest star.
hope that puts a bit of light on your question!?

Yeah that really sheds a lot of light on his question, well done there Professor :rolleyes:

OP you're asking about Special Relativity and time dilation etc, its a strange thing to think about but its the generally accepted view of the universe so you just have to accept it and try and wrap your head around it, I couldnt even begin to explain it if I tried.

Duff Man Jr.

Ty guys, jonbravo I think you misread the question. I never heard of lenth contraction!

Wiki explains it good,
Length contraction, according to Hendrik Lorentz, is the physical phenomenon of a decrease in length detected by an observer in objects that travel at any non-zero velocity relative to that observer. This contraction (more formally called Lorentz contraction or Lorentz–Fitzgerald contraction) is usually only noticeable, however, at a substantial fraction of the speed of light; and the contraction is only in the direction parallel to the direction in which the observed body is travelling.

jonbravo

Duff Man Jr. wrote: »

Ty guys, jonbravo I think you misread the question. I never heard of lenth contraction!

Wiki explains it good,
Length contraction, according to Hendrik Lorentz, is the physical phenomenon of a decrease in length detected by an observer in objects that travel at any non-zero velocity relative to that observer. This contraction (more formally called Lorentz contraction or Lorentz–Fitzgerald contraction) is usually only noticeable, however, at a substantial fraction of the speed of light; and the contraction is only in the direction parallel to the direction in which the observed body is travelling.

Well i had a go at it [ walking away]

Kernel

Thargor wrote: »

OP you're asking about Special Relativity and time dilation etc, its a strange thing to think about but its the generally accepted view of the universe so you just have to accept it and try and wrap your head around it, I couldnt even begin to explain it if I tried.

You slagged jonbravo and went on to give no details yourself? Irony much?

Thargor

I told him it was special relativity and gave him a link to the Wiki page if he wanted to try and understand it, so in fact I basically gave him all the details it is possible to give on the subject, I just didnt bother trying to condense it down to the size of a forum post, so no, not "irony much". Read this and try harder next time:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony

Kernel

Thargor wrote: »

I told him it was special relativity and gave him a link to the Wiki page if he wanted to try and understand it, so in fact I basically gave him all the details it is possible to give on the subject, I just didnt bother trying to condense it down to the size of a forum post, so no, not "irony much". Read this and try harder next time:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony

I prefer jonbravo's explanation. At least he explained it.

Thargor

Kernel wrote: »

I prefer jonbravo's explanation. At least he explained it.

He didn't explain sh1t, that was my original point that you got worked up about, where is there any attempt at explaining it in this post:

jonbravo wrote: »

at the speed of light which is about 300,000 kilometres per second.......how long would it take to travel to,... lets say...zeta reticuli, 39 years if you travel at the speed of light from earth.
so how far is zeta reticuli!?

alpha centauri[our nearest star] is about 4.4 light years away,compare this with the fastest man-made object in space which is about 15 kilometres per second[voyager], the spaceship would take about 50 years to reach the nearest star.
hope that puts a bit of light on your question!?

Its just random rambling.