Light speed and Astronomical Unit question.

[Spec]

Where does Astronomical Units come from?

I mean, I thought that the speed of light was the fastest thing out there, and now, (Thanks to JM and EVE ) I saw that my ship warps at 3 Astronomical Unit / second. I was wondering what AU stands for so I googled it...I then found out that 1 Astronomical Unit / second = 149 598 000 000 m / s.

Why do we have such a measure? And how can you even measure something going at that speed?

Spec.

[Blake]

The distance from the earth to the sun.

It makes sense for like solar system stuff, but I'm not sure if it makes sense to measure ship warp speed in it...

[Spec]

How can you calculate a distance from one thing to another in time if nothing, except light, travels from one to another?

Spec.

[Omni Rex Draconis]

Astronomical Units are good for calculating parallax - calculating how far away something else by shifting your viewing angle position and doing a little trigonometry.

It is also the basis of another unit of distance in space - the parsec. That is the distance measured by a one second (1/60th of a degree) shift in angle as you move from one side of earth's orbit to the other. It is about 3.3 lightyears.

As Blake said, however, it is most useful for comparing distances on the scale of the solar system.

[Blake]

The AU is a measurement of distance not velocity.

They just tossed a per second on the end to make a velocity measurement.
But it's used in real astronomy circles for distance, not velocity.

[Spec]

Originally posted by Blake
The AU is a measurement of distance not velocity.

They just tossed a per second on the end to make a velocity measurement.
But it's used in real astronomy circles for distance, not velocity.

Not they, but google too.

http://www.google.ca/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&channel=s&hl=en&q=au%2Fs&meta=&btnG=Google+Search

Spec.

[Perfection]

Originally posted by Spec
How can you calculate a distance from one thing to another in time if nothing, except light, travels from one to another?

Spec.

Huh?

Calculating distances using light*time is pretty common. Even within the solar system light delays are on the order of minutes and hours, which factors into space travel communication.

[SlowwHand]

What about your headlights, if you're going at the speed of light?

[Perfection]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
What about your headlights, if you're going at the speed of light?

If you're going at the speed of light then you are light, headlights aren't made of light.

[Blake]

Originally posted by Spec


Not they, but google too.

http://www.google.ca/search?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&channel=s&hl=en&q=au%2Fs&meta=&btnG=Google+Search

Spec.

and you can ask google what a light year/hour is, it's just a calculation, doesn't mean anyone actually uses ly/hour.

Besides even if it's physically impossible to travel at 1AU/s
It's still physically possible to travel at 0.0001 AU/s.

It might be dumb to measure the velocity of your car in AU/s, but you CAN do it!

[SlowwHand]

Originally posted by Perfection
If you're going at the speed of light then you are light, headlights aren't made of light.

The beam of light emitting from your headlight structural.

[Ari Rahikkala]

Re: Light speed and Astronomical Unit question.

Originally posted by Spec
I mean, I thought that the speed of light was the fastest thing out there, and now, (Thanks to JM and EVE ) I saw that my ship warps at 3 Astronomical Unit / second.

The operative verb here is "warp" . It's faster-than-light travel we're talking about. Well, that is, 3 AU/s would be faster-than-light in our universe - in computer games, the speed of light generally is infinite.

Why do we have such a measure?

They could measure speed in furlongs per fortnight if they wanted to (incidentally, 1 petafurlong per fortnight is about 1.112 AU/s). AU/s was chosen because it's convenient for measuring the speed of ships zipping about inside solar systems.

And how can you even measure something going at that speed?

You don't *measure* it. The game engine simply knows it .

[Dauphin]

Originally posted by SlowwHand


The beam of light emitting from your headlight structural.

The speed of light is invariant in vacuo and you will still get a ticket for speeding.

[Grandpa Troll]

So, I guess to summize, it would read (and I am a bit rusty since it has been 27 odd years since my thesis on relative or applied megalith structuring) like
(light speed* velocity/M3) / (Pi+AU)=petafurlong Pythagorean Theorem.

I am suspecting Edsger W. Dijkstra has a few bonafide publications supporting this area.


In a semi related note, my teachers also studied in the presence of classrom dignitaries Kemmons Wilson and Wallace E. Johnson.

Both certify a much clearer picture, once having not only attended but passing their lessons!

Grandpa Troll

[Impaler[WrG]]

Light takes roughly 8 minutes to go from the sun to the Earth, thats 60*8=480 seconds, Light would cross 3AU in 480*3=1440seconds so a speed of 3 AU/sec is 1440 times the speed of light. According to TOS Warp measurement scale that would be equivalent to warp 11.3 by the method of cubing the warp factor to get the multiples of c.