hypersonic
Ancient Starship
Hi all,
Having only a loose knowledge of things relativistic . - I may be completely wrong with this...
I've noticed with Orbiter that, because it is solely based upon Newtonian physics, one can easliy creep up to & exceed light speed, if a craft has either sufficient non-realistic fuel & impluse... Or some form of Bussard Scoop..
Anyway.. during crusing along at 1.3c the other day LOL ... it got me thinking.
Whilst Orbiter is not currently capable of simulating time-dilation, mass increase (viewed from observer perspective) & other relativistic properties etc.
What 'could' be simulated surely, as it would simply be an arithmetic function, is the exponential bleedoff off of the ships accelleration, in inverse propertion to the energy being used to keep the ship accelerating, especially as the 'point of transition' is gradually approached, & noticeably seen at 99.9c
Meaning.. . Say a ship uses X energy to get to 90% of c ... To get to 95% (50% of the remaining velocity to c) will require the square of ALL the energy expended in getting to 90% c ..
To get to 97.5% would require the square of ALL the energy required to attain 95% c .. 98.75% requires the square of ALL the energy used to get to 97.5% & so on & so on.... thus you're exponentially requiring energy to a point of infinity to get to Light speed - you'll never do it...
Now surely this could be translated into a feature of orbiter?
TO visualise it... simply do a zoom out then zoom in on any object in Orbiter.. The way the zoom works gives a nice 'curved' slow down until you get to 0 meters (or in this comparison .. that would be light speed).. Now imagine that effect in your ships accelleration as it gets closer to c, whilst using the same constant energy expence..
Make sense? Am i completely wrong? or is this indeed what would be experienced?
Could it be incorporated in a Orbiter 2010 Patch?
Thoughts?
Cheers
Hyper
Having only a loose knowledge of things relativistic . - I may be completely wrong with this...
I've noticed with Orbiter that, because it is solely based upon Newtonian physics, one can easliy creep up to & exceed light speed, if a craft has either sufficient non-realistic fuel & impluse... Or some form of Bussard Scoop..
Anyway.. during crusing along at 1.3c the other day LOL ... it got me thinking.
Whilst Orbiter is not currently capable of simulating time-dilation, mass increase (viewed from observer perspective) & other relativistic properties etc.
What 'could' be simulated surely, as it would simply be an arithmetic function, is the exponential bleedoff off of the ships accelleration, in inverse propertion to the energy being used to keep the ship accelerating, especially as the 'point of transition' is gradually approached, & noticeably seen at 99.9c
Meaning.. . Say a ship uses X energy to get to 90% of c ... To get to 95% (50% of the remaining velocity to c) will require the square of ALL the energy expended in getting to 90% c ..
To get to 97.5% would require the square of ALL the energy required to attain 95% c .. 98.75% requires the square of ALL the energy used to get to 97.5% & so on & so on.... thus you're exponentially requiring energy to a point of infinity to get to Light speed - you'll never do it...
Now surely this could be translated into a feature of orbiter?
TO visualise it... simply do a zoom out then zoom in on any object in Orbiter.. The way the zoom works gives a nice 'curved' slow down until you get to 0 meters (or in this comparison .. that would be light speed).. Now imagine that effect in your ships accelleration as it gets closer to c, whilst using the same constant energy expence..
Make sense? Am i completely wrong? or is this indeed what would be experienced?
Could it be incorporated in a Orbiter 2010 Patch?
Thoughts?
Cheers
Hyper