Posted on 08/25/2016 8:57:03 AM PDT by BenLurkin
“...and there’s the potential for a catastrophic collision with a speck of dust.”
It’d better stay away from my house, then.
Ah, but I was so much older then: I’m younger than that now.
So there is that.
Bookmarking
Hardly!
For a 12-gauge copper wire carrying a 10-ampere DC current, the speed of electric current (average electron drift velocity) is about 80 centimeters per hour or about 0.0002 meters per second.
0.00044738726 Miles per hour
Ah yes. Well I passed Bob Dylan on my way out... :)
Traveling any significant fraction of the speed of light is very dangerous without your seat belt on.
Search for ‘electron drift velocity copper’.
Does the electrical energy (electromagnetic energy) flow at the speed of light? Yes, and no... and both are true at the same time! It depends on where you're taking the energy flow measurement. 1) Yes - the energy always flows at the speed of light The flow of electromagnetic energy is determined by the Poynting vector and in a vacuum it can be shown that the flow of energy is exactly c (c = the relativistic invariant with a value in MKS units of 299,792,458 m/s and the speed of light in a vacuum). See [1] for poynting vector. NOTE: For a current carrying wire, the flow of energy is NOT through the wire, but comes in radially from the space surrounding the wire and flows inward into the wire's surface. See picture [2] 2) No - the energy never flows at the speed of light While the speed of the energy flow through space is equal to that of light, what people typically mean when talking about wires is the energy flow along the wire. When a switch in a circuit is closed, the electromagnetic energy begins pouring into the wire in a wave that spreads out and away from the switch. The speed of the energy along the wire is given by the speed of the leading edge of the wave. This speed depends upon the details of the materials and construction of the wire. For a copper bar, it's nearly light speed. For most wires it ranges from 0.7c to about 0.9c. See [3] Lightning The electromagnetic energy radiates away at 100% c, while the speed of propagation of the electromagnetic energy moving along the return stroke is 33% to 50% c.
I am pretty sure it won't effect my life style either way. [;-)
If we wanted to travel to another planet at those speeds, another huge problem would be slowing down enough to get into orbit around the planet once you get there.....
The solution might be to not go into orbit around the planet but instead to go into orbit with the planet.
There are several “near Earth asteroids” which do that in our solar system. They revolve around the sun but at about the distance as earth and in such a way that they are periodically close enough to earth to be of interest.
Not at all dangerous.
Just the other day...
I was able to go completely around the world in less than a second.
But damn!, that sudden stop...
The universe is flooded with photons traveling at the speed of light. Do you feel like you are traveling at the speed of light?
“The universe is flooded with photons traveling at the speed of light. Do you feel like you are traveling at the speed of light?”
When you are on an airplane, do you feel like you are traveling 500 miles an hour? If you toss a tennis ball in the air while on the airplane does is land back in your hand, or does it smack the back of the plane. What does the path of the ball look like to somebody on the ground? If somebody on the ground tossed a ball in the air what would its path look like from the guy on the planes perspective?
Actually, yes. When the plane takes off I feel the acceleration. When it lands I fell the deceleration. Acceleration is the important transformation when considering relative velocity. The amount of acceleration is the key relationship in the change from one frame of reference to another.
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