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by fiblye
2909 days ago
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Imagine two RC cars driving in opposite directions on a crumpled up, (virtually) infinitely large blanket with an uncountable number of ripples. The cars' top speeds are 10 MPH. On top of each car is an ant watching the other car. Both cars start driving off at 10 MPH in opposite directions. From an ant's perspective on top of one car, the other car looks to be going 20 MPH away from it. Then someone starts pulling the blanket underneath the cars from opposite ends at 5 MPH. Now it looks like the other car is going 30 MPH. Now imagine for each ripple on that blanket, another hand appears and starts to pull, and the outer edges are pulled at 5MPH from the reference point of the nearest ripple. From the perspective of an ant on one end, it can eventually get to the point that the other car is warping off at 100MPH or more. And as this blanket spreads out more and more, things speed up more and more as well. The cars never technically exceed their speed limits of 10 MPH, but the space that they occupy is being pulled apart in a way that they seem to be exceeding 10 MPH from each other's perspectives. |
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