posted
Well, since there's never been anything on the show to suggest that there is any time dilation at impulse speeds, I like to think the warp field stops it.
------------------ "How many Libraries of Congress per second can your software handle?" -Avery Brooks, IBM commercial
posted
Fructose 1: Gee...thanks. I stayed in school way too long.
Actually time dilation can happen at any speed, but the effect is usually too small to be measured. I do remember that time dilation has been measured on earth with a jet (subsonic) cargo plane on a round-the-world flight. A pair of chronometers were synchronized before flight: one was put on a plane that flew (I think) around the world and the other stayed put. When the plane came back its chronometer was behind the other one.
I didn't know about the TNGTM's comments about the use of space-time driver coil for impulse. That's interesting. But in truth I don't believe everthing the TechManual says.
This thing about limiting impulse speeds to 0.25 c doesn't make any sense to me. Wasn't the whole rationalization for stardates (not the real reason of not wanting to specify the date) that it allowed accurate timekeeping despite time-dilation effects? Putting such a speed limit on impulse makes as much sense as limiting cars to less than 30 mph (48 kph) because higher speeds mess up our hair, in other words, no sense at all.
On a related note: I don't understand how impulse drive works. The show seems to suggest that impulse drive is like a car engine: If you shut it off the ship comes to a complete stop. In the real world, rockets or other reaction drives would continue accelerating the ship as long as they operated. When a rocket is shut off the ship should continue moving at the same speed. Does the fact that starship behave like cars suggest that impulse operates more like warp drive?
The fact that time dilation hasn't been mentioned shouldn't be taken as proof that it doesn't exist. I think it's just something that the producers didn't want to deal with.
I don't know about the effects of warp fields on subjective time. In a ship traveling at the speed of light, time shouldn't pass at all such that you would feel that you had arrived almost instantaneously (ignoring time for accel/decel). I don't know what would happen when you go faster than light (maybe time goes backwards?). Anyways ships travelling at warp seem to have no time dilation, ie, time seems to pass at the same speed as in normal space. What sort of mumbo jumbo does the TNGTM have about this?
------------------ When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum
Alpha Centauri
Usually seen somewhere in the Southern skies
Member # 338
posted
Masao: The TNG:TM makes no mention of time dilation effects while at warp speeds. That does make sense, if we examine the physics behind warp propulsion. The description of a pulsating, double-lobed subspace field vaguely suggests that it isn't the ship that's actually moving, but the space-time continuum around it. Surprisingly, that is comparable with Miguel Alcubierre's 'warp drive' proposal from 1994 (IRL!). Alcubierre described that a donut-shaped ring of negative energy layed around a spaceship makes the space-time in front of the ship shift towards the ship, while pushing it away at the back of the ship. This means that the ship is not actually moving, but merely spacetime, with as result that a certain distance can be covered.
About how the impulse drive works: a ship's impulse drive consists of a set of deuterium (2D) fusion reactors. Exhaust products from the fusion drive are magnetically accelerated, and subsequently entering the subspace driver coil. The exhaust products then 'energize' the coil, thus generating a subspace field/low-level warp field. And how it stops? I haven't ever seen impulse drive outlets on the front of a ship, so I imagine that slowing down from impulse power is achieved by thrusters. However it is questionable if simple, tiny thrusters would be able to decelerate the ship within an eye wink. The TM doesn't say anything of it.
But to me, the TM isn't holy. It has been contradicted soooo many times on-screen. But Okuda and Sternbach just tried to make some things up, and that is understandable, considering all that 'invented' physics from Star Trek.
------------------ "Alpha Centauri is a beautiful place to visit, you ought to see it" - Kirk to 1969 USAF officer Fellini, "Tomorrow is Yesterday" (TOS)
posted
The slowing-down effect might be some inherent property of subspace. A completely depowered ship can slow down, so apparently it isn't something the ship does actively by using its engines.
Ships seem to be able to slow down much, much faster than they are able to speed up. Perhaps both the impulse and the warp engines must constantly fight a horrendous subspace drag effect. Or then the drag intensity of the effect can be varied. There could be a "subspace anchor" the crew can and will drop when the ship loses power. Or the warp coils or impulse driver coils could act as subspace anchors when not powered up.
The drag force energies involved must be bigger than the kinetic energy of a real-world object at near-lightspeed, since they can bring a ship to halt so rapidly from high impulse or even from warp. So the forces acting on the ship would be immense. Assuming that the "anchor" is permanently deployed and not something the crew can "raise" and "lower" at will, the impulse engines must be horribly powerful - so powerful that it doesn't matter if the ship masses 100,000 tons or ten million tons.
posted
Re: Franz Joseph ships appearing in Star Trek II.
I was watching STIII TSFS the other day and I noticed at the very begining of the movie they were using the same monitor sequence in the background that included the Saladin and Ptolemy classes showing up on the screen. Would it be possible for anyone with the ST III DVD to get screen captures of these images?
Thanks
------------------ -=/\=- Captain Stark http://beam.to/readyroom
"The man on the top walks a lonely path. The chain of command is often a noose." Dr. Leonard McCoy --Obsession, Stardate: 3619.2
Printer-friendly view of this topic
