Velocity/Gravitational Time Shift

[TheHuckster]

I'd think we'd die directly from lack of the sun before we'd make it out of the solar system, even if we got "lucky" and didn't hit anything on the way. At least we'd know there was no point in going to great lengths to keep on.

Yeah, the question is, what would the percentages of cause-of-death be? There's the lack of sunlight, the cold, the loss of food, or the inevitable reduction of society to scattered tribes of survivors of the riots and madness that would no doubt immediately occur after the event.

[Gravekeeper]

I'd think we'd die directly from lack of the sun before we'd make it out of the solar system, even if we got "lucky" and didn't hit anything on the way. At least we'd know there was no point in going to great lengths to keep on.

Hmm. Thats a good question. Lets find out! Let's see...if nothing else hit us or sling shot us it would take about a month to hit the Oort cloud. But about 15 years to exit the solar system entirely.

As for whether or not we could survive that long, some of us could. Earth would still have geothermal energy for warmth so anyone relying on geothermal energy would have a chance ( Iceland ). Once the oceans froze over they would provide insulation as well, sort of like Europa. So living underwater would be possible if we were crazy enough. But geothermal energy would be the best bet.

The more immediate problem would be most surface plant life dying off in a matter of weeks. However, larger trees could survive for some time along with us. Also, most of us would be dead so our oxygen requirements would plummet anyhow. But even if we needed oxygen its not a problem as long as we have access to water.

Most food production would halt, but there's enough packaged and canned shit around to keep the survivours going long enough to refocus on alternatives ( Though they would suck ).

So, yeah! A handful of unlucky bastards could theoretically live long enough to completely exit the solar system. It would be a miserable existence though.

[Andara Bledin]

So, yeah! A handful of unlucky bastards could theoretically live long enough to completely exit the solar system. It would be a miserable existence though.

So, we'd be left with generation-ship Earth, then?

[Gravekeeper]

So, we'd be left with generation-ship Earth, then?

I smell promising sci-fi TV series that Fox will cancel after 5 episodes.

[Mytical]

Interestingly enough the Colbert Report had somebody on discussing this. They commented that if you were to go 99.999999999% the speed of light and get to a certain point and come back to earth .. the people on board would have aged a year .. but time on earth 200000+ thousand years would have passed.

[TheHuckster]

Interestingly enough the Colbert Report had somebody on discussing this. They commented that if you were to go 99.999999999% the speed of light and get to a certain point and come back to earth .. the people on board would have aged a year .. but time on earth 200000+ thousand years would have passed.

...I would guess that that point would be half-a-light-year from Earth, judging by the numbers.

That's what they should be giving as math questions in school. No more of this archaic "Train X is leaving Santa Fe at 2:00" garbage.

How about "Floops left Mars traveling at 90% the speed of light towards the center of the Milky Way. Florps, from Betelgeuse, is traveling at 95% the speed of light. From Earth's point of view, how much time has passed before Floops has arrived, and Florps had arrived, and how much has each aged during the journey? Show your work."

[Gravekeeper]

Interestingly enough the Colbert Report had somebody on discussing this. They commented that if you were to go 99.999999999% the speed of light and get to a certain point and come back to earth .. the people on board would have aged a year .. but time on earth 200000+ thousand years would have passed.

At 0.9999999999 of light speed, 193.7 years would pass for the observer ( in this case Earth ) for every day the crew experienced on board. So that would be around 2.8 years on board = 200,000 years for us. The effect is completely top heavy in a sense. At 99% of the speed of light, the effect is only 1 week to 1 day on board. But for each decimal place you add above 0.99 it increases dramatically.

This is why there's no point in us launching any kind of sub-light expedition outside of our solar system. Because we'd eventually have to send our first FTL ship to go pick them up before they even got 1/10th of the way to our nearest neighbouring star.

We'd essentially just be sending them on a one way trip into the future. If we send them, their mission is pointless after an FTL ship catches up. If we send them and they DON'T get caught by an FTL ship, then they know that the human race likely went extinct and they are alone. >.>

[wolfie]

This is why there's no point in us launching any kind of sub-light expedition outside of our solar system. Because we'd eventually have to send our first FTL ship to go pick them up before they even got 1/10th of the way to our nearest neighbouring star.

"Far Centaurus" by A.E. Van Vogt (1944) goes into this.

[Andara Bledin]

So, there was some discussion of entanglement in this thread a bit ago.

For those who are interested, there's an article at Ars Technica right now about new tests being performed to study entanglement and explore the possibility that it might not actually be real.