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by CJefferson
5600 days ago
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Unfortunately, you are trying to impose a traditional world, where speeds are additive, onto relativity. It just doesn't work that way. A light beam fired from Earth would overtake the smaller ship, so in Earth's frame it is going slower than the speed of light. |
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I never claimed that speeds are additive. I've just claimed that it fully depends on what you define as a speed. If you define the speed the classical way (space unit per time), then due to the relativistic effects, it will never work out for you.
However, and this is the point, if you define the speed as just some counter running in front of you which add a value on every engine thrust, then it will work out for you that you are traveling faster, then the "earth's" speed of light!!!
Imagine just another experiment. You are waking up at a space ship and there is nothing around you where you can fix your view to see if you are moving or not. So, the speed-counter on this ship shows you 0.9c (here c is "earth's c"). No, you press the accelerate button and accelerates to additional 0.2c. There is nothing which would stop you accelerating, because in your frame you can assume that you are at rest! So, adding now the new velocity amount to your previous you get 1.1c, HOWEVER, this the "earth's c" ,so the speed of light as it is measured on the earth!!! In your frame, since you have no clue if you was moving or not, you should assume that you have now only 0.2c or just 0c, since you cannot measure the speed in the classical way anymore (there is no other point to fix on).
So, this is the way how to understand the relativistic effects. There is no "super-dooper" spaghetti-monster hand, which will for some reason stop you accelerating. No, this is just because everybody around you will never be able to measure your real speed, because they can only measure the speed relative to their frame.