if u travel in a spacecraft at the speed of 99% the speed of light to the star sirius and back how many years old would u be when u return back on earth compared to people on earth!!!
well guess work i guess that u can do!!! u cant find an approximate answer for this i guess.....but if u have any geniuses out there it wont hurt to try it out a bit!!!
2007-05-02 21:53:20 · 8 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Sirius is 8.6 light-years away, so it would take you approximately 17.4 (= 2*8.6 / 0.99) years Earth time to get there and back assuming instantaneous acceleration and deceleration.
At 99% of c the γ-factor is 1/√(1-0.99^2) = 7.1, so your elapsed time would be 17.4 / 7.1 = 2.5 years. So you would be almost 15 years younger than someone who had been the same age as you when you set out.
2007-05-02 22:04:00 · answer #1 · answered by Scarlet Manuka 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
OK, first I am going to assume that we can forget out things people in the real universe have to think about like acceleration and stuff, and that we instanty start traveling at 0.99c.
I am also going to assume that we spent 0 time at Sirius (although why go there when you don't intend to do anything there).
Now, the Lorentz facor says t1=t0/(1-v^2/c^2)^.5. Pluging in .99c for v you get t1=t0/7.08881205008333000000. Now here is where it gets a bit complicated.
t1 is the time frame for you (notice, you not u. Using abbrevations like that is annoying when trying to convert word problems into something you can work with since single letters often have some meaning in either math, physics, or astronomy) and t0 is the time frame for an observer on Earth.
As others have pointed out, Sirius is 8.6 light years from Earth, so traveling a 0.99c., it would take you 8.68686868686869000000 year to travel there in the time frame of an Earth observer. If we divide that by the Lorentz factor we get 1.22543363055684000000 years for the trip there. Since we have already stipulated that we don't muck around with the other laws of physics like acceleration and such, we just doube that to get the time for a round trip and get 2.45086726111368000000 years.
So, to an observer on Earth 17.37373737373740000000
years would pass, but to you only 2.45086726111368000000 years.
Hope this helps. . .
2007-05-03 06:08:29 · answer #2 · answered by Walking Man 6 · 3⤊ 0⤋
Ya i know the answer..........
Acc to Einsteins theory of relativity,time passes more slowly the faster u travel.Suppose an astronaut aged 20 on a trip departs in 1980 to star,laeving behind on earth his new born son.He travels 99% the speed of light.when he returns to earth in 2040 he finds tht he is now the same age as his son.
This condition implies on every human's as tht of his son...
2007-05-03 15:54:56 · answer #3 · answered by ADITYA S 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
well first you gotta give the distance to sirius. let the distance be x. accrd. to the earths initial frame, u cover the whole x at speed .99c. that takes time 100x/99c.
adding return journey, u get 200x/99c.
that time in your spacecraft frame will be equal to about
200x/99c*1/7.088 accrd. to the theory of relativity time dilation.
so the time difference is equal to about 6.088*200x/(99c)(7.088) which is approx. 1.735x, where x is in light years and you get the time in years. if you take the distance between sirius and earth to be 8.6 light years, which is factual, you get an elapsed time difference of about 14 years and 336 days.
2007-05-03 12:34:55 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
instead of doing all this math, ill give you the short answer. if your tarveling at around the speed of light, time basically stops for you. since sirius is about 9 light years away, the round trip should take about eighteen years. therefore you should stay about the same age as when you left and people on earth should be eighteen years older. i hope this helps!!!!!!
2007-05-03 09:02:15 · answer #5 · answered by Bones 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
let's get world sirius--assuming you could achieve that speed(keep in mind that ther're things in your brain that are moving at C(2)==c squared----so if time stood still for you on the way out, then it only makes sense that you would get it back----sirius is 8.6 light years from us==17.2 years round trip(but to us poor people on earth)--it would seem as if you had made a trip to the bathroom--check to see if we're running out of toilet paper--i just came back from sirius ,were you there too?
2007-05-03 05:26:39 · answer #6 · answered by wftxrabbit 2 · 0⤊ 2⤋
They call it the twin paradox.
The twin goes out and comes back to find the earthly twin an old man.
It can we worked out mathematically and it is correct.
In reality it could not be done,so it remains a mathematical concept only.
2007-05-03 09:16:36 · answer #7 · answered by Billy Butthead 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
seriously i don't know how for is sirius!!!!!
2007-05-03 05:05:56 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋