Re: Illusion of C



raven@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

David Johnston <rgorman@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 07 Sep 2006 19:19:56 GMT, raven@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

<snip>

No, that clock will tell you _your_ time, the "correct" time.


Thus, what he was talking about, the illusion, and he used the word
"illusion" advisedly, that you are covering a given distance in less
time than the world around, and are therefore going faster than you
really are. Why you are talking about the reality and insisting on
explaining something that everyone involved already understands, when
the word "illusion" is right in the subject heading escapes me.


Beucase the illusory speed effect isn't particularly usefull or relvant. Travelling at this supposed illusory speed of light, it doesn't take 4.3 years to get to proxima as measured by a ground based observer.

I think its very relevant. In particular, if -you- have to sit in a box, even a nicely appointed comfortable box, for weeks, months, years at at time, you'll want to know how long it feels like.

At the same time, you're going to want to know , assuming you plan on coming home, just how much time the people on the ground are going to think you were gone; is your rent going to be overdue? Are your savings bonds have going to matured? Is your teenaged niece going to be old enough to be your mother? At high "tach" (illusory speed) you might experience weeks and yet

It takes 4.3 years as measured by the ship based observer, and my question is, how long DOES it take for the ground based observer? Print both pieces of information right on the ticket to the passenger liner.



To answer the original question, the word which would be used for the
distortion of the time to get to a destination would be something like
"warp factor" except Star Trek poisoned that well.


Warp factor wouldn't really do the trick, as there's no "warp" happening. You could go with "Lorentz distortion factor" or even fizzbin, but to make such a thing relevant to a game would require more handwaving. That's why a bit of real physics was brought to the discussion by myself and others: to educate the OP about whats actually happeneing so that they'll have some idea of what they want to break for the story purposes.

If you don't like Tach, then LDF might work, or heck, Fizzbin. I don't see where you need handwaving to make it relevant though. Assuming, for the sake of arguement, that you're in a universe which lacks real FTL/Jump drives, but which has drives capable of "relativistic" speeds, then this is going to come up.

Look at the Forever War, for just one example of the question being raised in fiction.

Lance


John
.

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