[VA] SRC #007 - 2020 April 1st Ramblings

[Bernd Grubert]

(04-02-2020 12:41 AM)Paul Dale Wrote:  #7: Distance to planet is 504 light hours. At half impulse this is 1008 hours of travelling time. There are 168 hours in a week. 1008/168 = 6 weeks exactly. Infinite warp speed would be required to get back and save the doomed system.

I agree with Paul. It is not possible to make it back in time.

However Captain Kirk might think (wrongly) that he has enough time due to time dilatation when travelling at half the speed of light (c) to the planet to pick up the ore. Since he is accelerated and decelerated his clock is slower than those in the rest of the universe by a factor of
1/sqrt(1 - v² / c²) = 1/sqrt(1 - 1/4) = 2 / sqrt(3).

For him the travel didn't last 1008 h but only 1008 h * sqrt(3) / 2 ~ 873 h. He might think that he still has ~135 h left to travel back to the solar system and prevent the sun from turning into a supernova. The required travelling speed would be ~ c * 504 / 135 ~ 3.73 c in this case. The warp speed would be ~1.55. (I don't know what happens with time during warp speed - does it reverse?).

On the other hand I don't think Captain Kirk would happen such a blunder :-) and I might also be on a totally wrong track.