hey, so i know you can like look this up everywhere, but i cant get through these formal equations and expressions.
its not like only to ensure my thoughts about relativity, but to bring this knowledge to more people as it seems possible that our lives will be changed in a way we cannot even think about rite now and more people should reflect on our current and future position in the universe.
so, lets say we wanna travel to a planet some 10 lightyears away (i dont know how we would acquire the information that there is something of worth, but ok). if we could get close to speed of light (0.99999c), it would take some 20 years to get there and back, rite?
well unfortunately, and somehow luckily there are some things in the way. the gamma factor (1/(v^2/c^2)^0.5)) shows the relation between the distance measured from earth and the distance felt while in the spaceship. at v=0.99999c the value is 223.6. so the whole trip would require 223.6 times LESS time OR (but this is just a definition thingy) would be 223.6 times SHORTER in terms of distance.
BOTTOM LINE: it could be possible in, idk, 50-100 years, that a colony of the earth would start travelling through the universe and given that they could reach v=0.999999999999c (which is physically POSSIBLE, hard but still possible) they could travel some 10 million lightyears within 14 felt years. the problem would be that they could revisit the earth and would find that 20 million years have gone by. like the second you step into that ship its 100% that you will never see anyone again on that planet.
just think about it, physics is not just a dead thing that does nothing for you, imo it holds the keys to what we have to do in the second our planet becomes uninhabitable
thx for all that have come that far