Drunkard's Walk Forums

I sat down and pondered just what sort of time dilation we'd encounter in Fenspace, and discovered that well my brain would asplode if I tried to get the proper numbers.
Especially since it seems that NOTICEABLE Time dilation kicks in at the top speed of even our slowest ships.
If I'm reading the formula right...
With delta-t being the time between two co-local events observed by one entity [Specific ticks of a clock, frex] and v being the velocity of a second entity relative to the first ...

[img]file:///C:/Users/Logan/AppData/Local/Temp/moz-screenshot.png[/img]Link to graph from Wiki article
We're getting into situations where, well, the nice "three hour tour" of the solar system takes a month of vacation time on earth.
And don't get me started on the FTL problems...
Someone traveling for an hour at 500c has a relative time dilation of approximately 22i. Never mind the time spent at infinite dilation at c.
I know, I know, MST3K Mantra or Bellisario's Maxim... (warning! TVTropes links)
But it got me thinking how Fenspace!Mikuru might be a Time Traveler after all. Especially if a time dilation of 22i means effectively going backwards in time at a "dialation" of 21.
So, say our intrepid explorers going on a trip in 2015 to some star 500 ly away arrive on an inhabitable planet in 1994 and raise a family/community, their granddaughter leaves to help fight the Boskonians in 2032 and arrives to join the nascent SOS-dan in 2011, besides... It's fun watching Grandma Haruhi beating up on Grampa Kyon before she got too weak to hold the harisen...
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

I fully expect that Handwavium deals with this, and most of the Fen just don't bother to try to figure out how to explain it.

There's probably at least one earthbound group of scientists that have discovered this quirk of Handwavium assisted space travel, and are slowly going mad trying to explain it...
--

"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor

Einsteins formulas are only relevant for speeds less than the speed of light... and only if you use "newton movement". At least thats the case which Einstein used for his formulas.

The trick movement of the speed drives (and the FTL drives) will be (most likely) governed by other laws (laws of 'plot' ? ).

Even if the trick drives are ruled by Einstein, the time dilation is only

1 / sqrt ( 1 - 0.1^2 ) = 1 / sqrt(0.99) = 1.005

(v^2 / c^2 is 0.01 for v = 0.1*c)

(and no, an imaginary time dilation is just "using formula out of context", not "moving back in time")

Trying to tie anything Handwavium touches to normal natural laws in any kind of consistent manner rapidly drives scientists towards Professorship. That said, an imaginary ? would mean a "perpendicular" time dilation, whatever the heck that might mean. Parachronics, possibly. What HRogge said.

We don't go much above .3c... even with acceleration drive fwhackery...

According to that graph, at those speeds, relativistic effects are still pretty minor. Just enough that you'd have to account for them to get your position right when you're heading into orbit (GPS satellites need some correction due to the effects of Earth's gravity well). A good computer and a time-beacon system would take care of it.

Or you could just say that speed drives work the same way warp drives to in star trek, witht he drive field creating a bubble of normal space time around the ship... or something.
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--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

Or, more interestingly and probably with more verisimilitude, that it works differently for almost every kind of engine that 'wavium generates, based on how much the user/builder actually knows about time dilation...
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

I'm just going to say we should treat time-dilation and FTL the same way it's treated in Star Wars: Ignore it. If we don't we stand a good chance of nerding this thing to death.
Mr. Fnord interdimensional man of mystery

FenWiki - Your One-Stop Shop for Fenspace Information

"I. Drink. Your. NERDRAGE!"

M Fnord Wrote:I'm just going to say we should treat time-dilation and FTL the same way it's treated in Star Wars: Ignore it. If we don't we stand a good chance of nerding this thing to death.

And get into problems with timetravel, even without "imaginary time dilation"...

Just by using multiple (at least 4 I think) FTL spacecrafts and radio signals.

I would agree to M_Fnord, relativity should be either ignored or it should be (normally) assumed that relativity is not valid for waved crafts.