The SPEED OF LIGHT vs. the LIGHT YEAR for Dummies!

So again in summary, in future Space Traveller is probably a job that is going to pay well, but it will probably be only suited to those who are Single with no exteneded families at all and no pets left at home that require feeding and watering! haha Ok, but even using the movie Example at 2.5 years one way or something like that, I think that would still probably translate to 10-15 YEARS or so in actual EARTH TIME? for a total round trip of 20-30 "lost" years back at home. So if you and a pregnant spouse were say 35 when you left, by the time you got back, your wife would be a senior citizen and your kid would be nearly as old as you were when you left. You on the other hand, have probably just aged slightly with a bit of grey on the sides. :)

Further.. and that probably sheds new light on that Parker line... "we need to discuss the bonus situation before we get back" Hahahahaha

Time dilation CANNOT exist in the Alien franchise for one simple, narrative reason... "I told her I'd be back in time for her birthday," (sobs) "her 11th birthday" - Ellen Ripley, Gateway Station, 2179.

@Snork... Yup... And I didn't even want to mention that in Cameron's Aliens, the Sulaco was apparently able to travel from Earth all the way to LV426 in a few weeks!!! That is the problem with all of the sci-fi we have ever watched... It has to conveniently ignore the realities of physics in order to move the story along. Im not going to get into it, but speaking of flight officers and their kids, that was one REALLY praise worthy element of the fake "Harvest" script from 2 years ago.. I give the author credit for realisitically trying to depict the effects of Time Dilation in that script... that plus the way in which the armed cruiser travelled and moved! Cool stuff... Obviously an author with a grasp of physics... Hopefully whoever he/she is, we will see their work in some other hardcore sci-fi project one day!

also by my figuring out Noxwords claim that LV-223 is 336ly away from Earth means the prometheus would have been travelling, on average at approximately 67 times the spped of light.

average speed if using m-theory that is, ,which is theoretically the way to attain such speeds

The equation for relativistic time dialation is just an application of the Pythagorean theorem. Td = T / sqrt( (1 - (v/c)* (v/c)) ) This is hard to show without superscripts but in words Time dialation Td = time T / the square root of (1 - the square of the (velocity divided by the speed of light) ) And you have a true velocity because the dialation effect is in the direction of travel. The same equation can be used for the dialation of distance. Just use distance in place of time. ROTFLMAO

The only reason I can think of, for why cinematic sci-fi generally conforms to the convention of "[i]faster[/i] than light" travel, is the nifty-cool warping/zooming SFX invariably used to visually illustrate it. My guess, is that if there's anyone out there actually ( physically ) visiting systems other than their own, it's probably accomplished by manipulating the fabric of space-time itself...........It [i]was[/i] depicted that way in "Dune," along with a number of other stories, and would theoretically obviate time-dilation effects.

Nobody has mentioned this entry on the Weyland Industries Corporate Timeline: Weyland scientists discover the inverse relationship between velocity and the flow of time making the long sought-after concept of faster than light travel a reality. The search for practical application begins. MAY 20, 2032

RIght, I forgot about that!

Its not that I had forgotten about that entry.. I have been looking at all the entries in the timeline now for sometime. All that entry does is say that Weyland has discovered a "magical" theory allowing FTL. Again, for this purpose of this movie which is taking place in a future not really that far from present day, we would need some kind of "magical" discovery in order to even make it possible. But the reason I had really intially started this topic was to try to illustate that we are not taking about a milk run to Mars here. The numbers we are talking about here are basically really mind boggling in terms of the distance from Earth. And even with Weylands "magical" FTL drive for this movie, they are still saying that it took over 2.5 years sustained flight time (in ONE DIRECTION) to reach the planet. And again, the point I was really trying to make was that back on Earth, 2 odd decades will have passed during this trip!! (Again just in the ONE DIRECTION!) You cannot get around that. People you knew when you left are either going to be dead or much, much older when and if you ever manage to make it back to Earth. And now Im going to go a little off topic with what ware released today about the movie Q &A session in London. Based on what was said about the footage released, most of the crew are NOT EVEN AWARE OF THE MISSION DETAILS when they get on the ship and go into their cryosleep. It sounds like they are only getting their full mission details after waking up and getting the Hologram entry from Weyland!! Wow!... I guess these people had like wide open calendars for the rest of their lives??

If David 8 is awake for 2.5 real years (read latest postings) watching the Prometheus crew in hyper-sleep, and LV-233 is the final destination, how far away is LV-233 from LV-426... given that you know how long Ripley was in return hyper-sleep? Open your papers.........now!

Here is the "magical discovery" that will revolutionize space travel at the end of the twenty-first century: [img]http://i1074.photobucket.com/albums/w420/ethon86/weapon03.jpg[/img] OK, just kidding. On the other hand I do not believe that Prometheus is a hard science fiction movie. But Still it is interesting to put the concepts to more scientific perspective. Perhaps the Prometheus travels in a wormhole (like a Klein bottle) to travel in time: [img]http://i1074.photobucket.com/albums/w420/ethon86/250px-Klein_bottle_svg.png[/img] Solid causality: Another approach would be to accept special relativity, but admitting that some mechanisms of general relativity, such as wormholes, would traveling between two given points without traversing the intervening space. While this avoids the need for an infinite acceleration, still entails the problem of causality and generate violating time curves closed. Causality is not needed in special or general relativity, but is considered a basic property of the universe that can not be overlooked. This is why many scientists expect (and wish) that quantum gravity can solve this rut. An alternative is to assume that if time travel were possible, would never lead to paradoxes. This is called self-consistency principle of Novikov. Go faster without accelerating: It is often assumed implicitly, that to accelerate something beyond c, it first must pass through c (something like that to go to 100km / h, first go to 99km / h), finding the problem of infinite energy needed. The energy required to accelerate it can form an asymptote approaching the speed of light. Similar to the idea of wormholes, there may be a method to change speed instantaneously (ie without accelerating). Then, an object moving over that c may only need energy comparable to that of an object to be less than c. The problem is how to "convince" the particles (and man that the "pile") to move faster than light without speeding. Perhaps the dream cameras would help much at this point. [img]http://i1074.photobucket.com/albums/w420/ethon86/Wormhole-demo.png[/img] But also the Time travel distorting seems very plausible on the movie.

Space folding a la Dune/Event Horizon is the only theoretically possible way to enable "FTL" travel, but there's no known way to control a singularity or reproduce similar effects that we know of with known energy sources. The biggest issue is producing the necessary amounts of energy to reach relativistic speeds or bend space with a gravity well.

I thought that warp travel (star trek) theoretically solves the problem of time dilation. If someone knows more about it then please correct me. GIven that this movie takes place in the future space travel could work completley differently than any theory humans are currently working on. Thats part of the fun of sci-fi. If you had told me 10 years ago that I would have a Kinect and a cell phone that looks cooler and does more than the data pads on Star Trek TNG I wouldn't have believed it. The big problem with developing space travel today is that most of our brain power is spent on finance instead of science. Some of the most brilliant minds in the world work for banks instead of NASA. I personally think this is a major mistake. The world isn't getting any bigger and we need more places to go.

in 2179 it took the sulaco 17 days to travel from Gateway Station, in orbit over Earth to LV-426 in the Zeta Reticuli system, which is 39ly distance away. Thats all but 40ly in 2.5 weeks, 40 / 2.5 = 16, thats a distance of 16ly per week, which works out at just over 2ly distance per day, which equals approximately 10 trillion km per 12 hours, and (by rounding of here) means the USS Sulaco was moving at the average speed of just under 1 trillion km per hour - thats 1,000,000,000,000kmph. Noxwords calculations (which granted may be from incorrectly quoted numbers from those that show the footage yesterday, and if this has since been rectified, apologies in advance) stated that Prometheus is set on LV-223, which was allegedy 336ly away from earth, which is approximately 10 times further away than LV-426. Which would take the USS Sulaco in 2179 approximately 170 days, or 6 months to reach. Now the rumours that the Prometheus crew are in stasis for 2.5-5 years. Which means the Prometheus would be 5/10 times slower than the USS Sulaco. This is plausible, except for the fact that a planet(oid) called LV-223 in a system 336ly away would be much harder to identify than a planetoid called LV-426 in a system 39ly away. Even if LV-223 is 10 times the size/mass of LV-426 there is all of the "stuff" inbetween, and with 297ly difference between the systems, that's a lot of "stuff" (Supernova, other systems, stars, black holes, nebula etc.). There is also the following key information according to weylandindustries.com's corporate timeline... [u]FTL TRAVEL MADE POSSIBLE[/u] Weyland scientists discover the inverse relationship between velocity and the flow of time making the long sought-after concept of faster than light travel a reality. The search for practical application begins. [b]MAY 20, 2032[/b] [u]HELIADES[/u] Weyland Industries introduces the first FTL-capable SEV (space exploration vehicle). [b]JANUARY 17, 2034[/b] [u]DISCOVERY OF THE OUTER VEIL[/u] Weyland astronomers note an area of space appearing very rich in minerals and other natural resources. Weyland expected to travel there within the century. [b]DECEMBER 21, 2037[/b] [u]DISCOVERY OF ACHERON LV-426[/u] Weyland astronomers discover multiple moons and a ringed planet just outside the Zeta 2 Reticula System, which are possibly able to support life. Weyland expects to travel there within the century. [b]MAY 14, 2039[/b] [u]PROJECT PROMETHEUS UNDERWAY[/u] Based on recent classified findings by Weyland researchers, the company determines the exact coordinates of a new destination for long-time pet project: Project Prometheus. New round of investment is immediately opened and mission planning enters full-swing. [b]JANUARY 1, 2073[/b] Which make no mention of a system 336ly away, and furthermore I doubt the Heliades could have reached such a system when it was launched. Therefore I surmise that this LV-223, which I suspect may actually be LV-423 is in the Zeta Reticuli system and is nearby LV-426. furthermore I suspect that at the end of the Prometheus Shaw and Vickers on there victorious return to Earth, having thwarted the SJ's plans find themselves being chased by the Derelict, only for it to crash on the nearby LV-426 as the SJ pilot starts to get a serious case of indigestion. BTW - I also believe that these speeds are reached using the "shortcuts" allegedly allowed via M-theory, or in other words "wormholes". It's lazy sure, but should such things be proven to exist they would theoretically allow FTL space travel without the need to worry about the effects of time dilation, which we know do not exist in the Alien universe because of Ripleys statement regarding her daughter, that I made in a previous post.

We have a map to LV233. Given the vastness of the galaxy we could have overshot LV426 altogether. Imagine FTL travel has been invented and an Earth-like planet has been discovered tens of lightyears away. Your one of the exlporers who goes on the first trip to this planet knowing about the effects of time dilation. By the time you arrive to the planet there is allready a colony being built as the time dilation problem was solved and travellers who werent even born when you left have allready made it to the new planet. Your expedition would be almost futile. Would it even be practical to try to send people over great distances before the time dilation problem is solved?