by gmalivuk » Thu Nov 29, 2012 5:22 pm
Halinn wrote:Next up: assuming a linear speed gain, how many times would you have to wank to reach light speed?
As has been said, this breaks physics, but if you're okay doing that, just divide.
If you don't want to do that, you have to take a step back and use momentum, which is different in relativity than in Newtonian mechanics. Relativistic momentum can increase linearly and indefinitely, it just no longer would correspond to a linear or boundless increase in actual velocity.
Incidentally, if you go against the advice of the votey and use the rocket equation anyway, you get 0.0007812
2558 instead of 0.0007182
5000. This is because the rocket equation assumes a continuous release of mass, so the later bits are released from something that is already moving slightly in the opposite direction, and the earlier bits are released from something more massive than it ends up being.
The new result is 99.997% as much as the one in the comic, though, which most would probably consider close enough.
[quote="Halinn"]Next up: assuming a linear speed gain, how many times would you have to wank to reach light speed?[/quote]As has been said, this breaks physics, but if you're okay doing that, just divide.
If you don't want to do that, you have to take a step back and use momentum, which is different in relativity than in Newtonian mechanics. Relativistic momentum can increase linearly and indefinitely, it just no longer would correspond to a linear or boundless increase in actual velocity.
Incidentally, if you go against the advice of the votey and use the rocket equation anyway, you get 0.0007812[b]2558[/b] instead of 0.0007182[b]5000[/b]. This is because the rocket equation assumes a continuous release of mass, so the later bits are released from something that is already moving slightly in the opposite direction, and the earlier bits are released from something more massive than it ends up being.
The new result is 99.997% as much as the one in the comic, though, which most would probably consider close enough.