• @TheButtonJustSpins
    link
    English
    28 months ago

    Wait, why would you arrive one year after the flash if you’re heading at 0.5c? It would take you two years to travel the 1ly.

    • @cynar@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      48 months ago

      The maths is wrong, though the idea is correct. At 0.5C, the length compression is approximately 86.6%. Basically, the star 1 ly away now appears to only be 0.866 ly away.

      From outside, you took 2 years to get there. By your ship’s clocks, you took 1.73 years to get there.

      The effect gets stronger as you approach C. At 0.99C, time passes at only 14% the speed it passes for an observer. The distance also shrinks to only 0.14 light years.

      This calculator lets you play with the numbers. https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/time-dilation

      Time dilation and length contraction are fundamentally linked. The change is the same in both, so that C is always constant, at any speed.