Re: Velocity limits on Starships...

Allan Goodall writes:
@:) At 10:30 AM 4/7/97 -0400, you wrote:

@:) >  However, it did make me think that perhaps a relativistic
@:) >velocity rule might work (it would be complex).  The amount of
@:) >speed you get from thrust could vary with your speed.
@:) 
@:) Based on which accelerated frame of reference?  Please, let's NOT
@:) get into relativistic movement. We'd have to keep track of ship
@:) velocity and positions from each individual ship's perspective,
@:) and from the perspective of a third party observer. <<shudder>>

  Shudder indeed, although this idea has occurred to me in the past.
Especially after reading the space-traffic-control section of
Cherryh's _Pride_of_Chanur_ in which some tricks for attack a station
at relativistic velocities (ie park in orbit a quarter of a second
after their sensors tell them you've entered the system) are
described.  I don't know how to make a board game to do this but a
computer game might be possible.  Ahh, that's another thing I'm never
gonna do.

  Lucky for us the rules I described do not require Einsteinian
relativity to work.  At least I hope so, although I've just had a
sudden loss of confidence in physics.  I think it works out but
somebody slap me if I'm being stupid.  The faster you go, the more
energy you need to make you go faster.

  F = ma = mv/t, so force is directly proportional to velocity.  The
more force you put out the faster you go, 1:1 (give or take a
constant).

  But:
	      2
  E = 1/2 * mv, so energy is proportional to the square of the
velocity.  That means the faster you go the more energy you need to
provide the same force (thrust in FT terms).  So that's why an engine
would become less capable at higher speeds.

  I have this horrible nagging feeling that I've (a) missed something
obvious and (b) just attempted to prove both Newton and Einstein wrong
in the same sentence.  Maybe it's all that SFB "warp space is
non-inertial" I've been playing recently.  I need to get back to FT,
let my head clear.

-joachim