Author Topic: Relativistic Baseball  (Read 446 times)

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Offline imref

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Relativistic Baseball
« Topic Start: September 26, 2012, 11:39:37 AM »
Quote
What would happen if you tried to hit a baseball pitched at 90% the speed of light?

- Ellen McManis

Answer:  http://what-if.xkcd.com/1/

Offline The Chief

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Re: Relativistic Baseball
« Reply #1: September 26, 2012, 05:49:13 PM »
The carefully considered HBP ruling at the end was a nice touch.

Offline Lintyfresh85

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Re: Relativistic Baseball
« Reply #2: September 26, 2012, 06:23:57 PM »
I don't understand... if we were ever to create a space ship that could go speed of light... would everything in its vicinity explode upon contact?

Offline imref

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Re: Relativistic Baseball
« Reply #3: September 26, 2012, 07:53:39 PM »
The carefully considered HBP ruling at the end was a nice touch.

yeah, I LoL'd but didn't want to spoil anything.

Offline imref

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Re: Relativistic Baseball
« Reply #4: September 26, 2012, 07:56:09 PM »
I don't understand... if we were ever to create a space ship that could go speed of light... would everything in its vicinity explode upon contact?

Einstein argues that lightspeed travel is impossible (mass would reach infinity at light speed).  Years ago I read a book about the science of star trek that argued  that even if you could near the speed of light, the g forces of acceleration would kill everyone on board.  The star trek writers actually got around this by creating a device that generated negative g-forces in front of the ship to counteract the force of acceleration.

then again:
http://news.discovery.com/space/warp-drive-spaceship-engine.html