How long would it take you to travel one lightyear just using a can of beer and a remote?

Question

Here we are on a planet that spins around the sun, a sun that spins around the galaxy and galaxy that spins around the local group.

How long would you have to be a couch potato sitting with your can of beer and your remote control in order to travel one light year?

You can use Newtonian or Einsteinian mechanics, or your own imagination.

I my own solution which is creative and mechanically based. But I'm not wedded to it. This is an open question and I'll try to pick the best answer. :-)

My own answer, if I was answering the question, would have been that one year later, you will be one lightyear away from your origin, namely the couch your started sitting on a year ago. This is a spacetime viewpoint. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime#Space-time_intervals Time and distance become fungible qualities.

Think of it this way. In one year, you will be one year farther from the Big Bang, and you will measure it as a distance, namely one lightyear. 1 year of spacetime is the equivalent of one lightyear.

Amansscientiae came closest to my viewpoint. And KBW3 was on the same track, plus he pointed out the need for doughnuts.

I loved all of the answers. But I personally enjoyed the Monty Python diddy

Answer 1

Relative to the centre of the galaxy perhaps (because i don't know where the centre of the universe is, since the day I discovered it was not myself.)

Monty Python galaxy song says:

the planet is revolving at 900 mph (plus or minus a bit depending on what latitude you live at... it's probably about that here in Canada).

Orbiting the sun at 19 miles per second.

Then they say that the sun & you and me & all the stars that we can see are moving at a million miles a day (whichly is rather vague, but let's work with it.)

So... if you want to find the value of the net displacement just say 1 million miles/day then figure the distance of one LY and use the equation v=d/t to find time.

If you want to find displacement, probably add them? & make sure they are all in the same units (metric system of course)

Answer 2

As others have pointed out, you need a reference point. I would choose the one which is not only the straightest line but the fastest. That would be our orbit around the galaxy. It is 220 Km per sec. This far overwhelms our orbital speed around the sun as well as our rotational speed. At this speed it would take us 1363 years to go one light year around the galaxy.

This path, by the way, is a large circle which represents the cosmic sign of the donut. The beer and the remote are not adequate to make the trip successfully. You MUST also have the donuts.

Answer 3

that totally depends, are you talking about a net movement of 1 lightyears or a total movement of 1 light year. if it was a net movement the earth rotating would cancel out, as would the earth revolving around the sun and the sun revolving around the center of the galaxy. so if its net movement the only thing that would matter is the movement of the milky way galaxy, which would take only a few years.

if your just talking about the total movment it would be proably around a year or 2 because the galaxy is already moveing at a good portion of the speed of light and the sun is moving pretty fast too. so it wouldnt take that long.

Answer 4

Hi. Assuming the North pole just to simplify, 292168117 miles per Earth orbit. About 20,500 years.

Answer 5

Which inertial system outside the solar system are you thinking about? The co-moving one... in that case it is infinity. Or the one that moves at 0.9c relative to us? Then you need special relativity to calculate the eigentime of the couch potato.

I can hear Einstein's voice from the grave asking

"Travel one light year relative to what?"

:-)

Answer 6

43000 yrs

assuming you are sitting on the equator and doing nothing but revolving around the axis of the earth.

Answer 7

im guessin a full life time and more... idk ^_^