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In: Physics

Can a person, in principle, travel from Earth to the galactic center (which is about 2.30

Can a person, in principle, travel from Earth to the galactic center (which is about 2.30

Solutions

Expert Solution

Of course there is no reason why a person could not travel there. However, one thing you must keep in mind is that it is not just as simple as traveling 2.30x10^104 light-years, because the center of the universe (if we could locate it) would be moving relative to us. So by the time you traveled the distance, it is no longer there and you would have to travel even further. So we cannot answer this without first knowing how fast it is moving (or rather how fast we are moving away from it).

BUT, assuming now that you want some kind of numerical answers, we can simply discuss how long it would take a person to complete a 2.30x10^104 light-year journey (which will NOT take you to the center of the universe due to the argument above).
Yes it is theoretically possible for a traveler to make a trip of ANY distance within their lifetime. However, to someone who stays behind on Earth that trip could be as much as a thousand lifetimes.
The reasoning behind this is that to the traveler the faster he/she goes the shorter the distance becomes, they don't need to travel AT the speed of light they just need to get close because as the speed gets closer to that of light, the distance in the direction of travel becomes infinitesimally small due to length contraction. But by the same theory, the people who stay on earth experience a MUCH longer time than the traveler because of time dilation.

I could not calculate the answer to your 32y question. This is because the speed required is somewhere around 0.999999999999999...% the speed of light, which my calculator simply gives me that the speed is exactly 'c', so this gives a value for 'gamma' of zero, which leaves the distance as undefined.


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