Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!lll-crg!ucdavis!ucbvax!mit-mc.arpa!KFL From: KFL@MIT-MC.ARPA ("Keith F. Lynch") Newsgroups: net.space Subject: (none) Message-ID: <[MIT-MC.ARPA].708613.851106.KFL> Date: Wed, 6-Nov-85 22:01:16 EST Article-I.D.: <[MIT-MC.ARPA].708613.851106.KFL> Posted: Wed Nov 6 22:01:16 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 9-Nov-85 04:55:31 EST Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 23 Date: 24 Oct 85 13:05:55 GMT From: decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-amber!dipirro@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Are we having fun yet?) Most people agree that as long as speed-of-light restrictions apply, it is impractical for intelligent life forms to travel to different star systems (unless, of course, their solar system is about to blow up). I certainly hope this is wrong, since I seriously doubt that faster- than-light travel will ever be possible. I don't see why it should be impractical. Certainly it would take enormous amounts of energy to travel insterstellar distances in reasonable amounts of time, but you can get any distance in an arbitrarily short amount of time, thanks to relativistic time dilation, if you have the energy and don't mind the fact that much greater lengths of time are passing on earth and at your destination. Arthur C. Clarke has pointed out that you can get as far as the Andromeda galaxy, two million light years away, within a human lifetime if you accelerate and decelerate at 1 g (the acceleration of gravity experienced on earth). And if you double the acceleration, the time goes down by a factor of four. ...Keith