To get around the problem of Newton’s third law of motion and the inability of matter to travel faster than the speed of light, we can look to Einstein and the relationship between space and time. The three dimensions of space and time (up and down, left and right, front and back) are all part of the so-called space-time continuum.
It’s important to understand Einstein’s work on the space-time continuum and how it relates to the Enterprise traveling through space. Einstein stated the following two postulates in his special theory of relativity:
The speed of light (about 300 million meters per second) is the same for all observers, whether they are moving or not. Anyone moving at a constant speed must obey the same laws of physics.
Putting these two ideas together, Einstein realized that space and time are relative, meaning that objects in motion actually experience time at a slower rate than objects at rest. Ta. This may seem silly to us, but we move incredibly slowly compared to the speed of light, so when we run or fly, we I don’t notice that the hands are ticking slowly. Scientists actually demonstrated this phenomenon by transmitting atomic clocks on high-speed rocket ships. They returned to Earth slightly behind the clock on Earth.
What does this mean for Captain Kirk and his team? The closer an object approaches the speed of light, the significantly slower the speed of time it actually experiences. If the Enterprise had traveled safely from Earth to the center of the galaxy at near the speed of light, it would have taken 25,000 Earth years. But for the crew, the journey will likely only take 10 years.
That time frame may be possible for the people on the spaceship, but we have an additional problem – if it takes 50,000 years for the spaceship to hit the center of the galaxy. Then the Federation would run into some problems trying to run an intergalactic civilization. come back.
Therefore, the Enterprise must circumvent the speed of light in order to synchronize its passengers with Federation time. At the same time, to travel efficiently through space, we also need to reach speeds faster than light. Unfortunately, as Einstein states in his special theory of relativity, nothing is faster than the speed of light. Therefore, as long as we look at special relativity, space travel is impossible.
According to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, matter bends the fabric of space and time. Distortions in the space-time continuum also affect the behavior of light.
That’s why we need to look to Einstein’s later theory, general relativity, which explains how gravity affects the shape of space and the flow of time. Imagine a stretched sheet. If you place a bowling ball in the center of the seat, the weight of the ball will cause the seat to warp. If you place a baseball on the same sheet, the baseball will roll towards the bowling ball. It’s a simple design, and space doesn’t work like a two-dimensional bedsheet, but it can be applied to something like a solar system. More massive objects like the Sun can distort space and affect the orbits of surrounding planets. . Of course, planets move so fast that they never fall into the sun.
On the next page, we’ll look at how this affects the enterprise.
