- #1
RagingPineapple
- 21
- 0
I've not got much of a background in physics, but this question has bugged me for ages. So I hope you don't mind me asking :)
I know that as an object under acceleration approaches the speed of light, it becomes increasingly more difficult to push it further. I imagine it like pushing against an elastic band: as you approach the limits of the band, each mm of additional stretch takes more effort to achieve than the last one.
My question is - where is the energy going? At human speeds, you can book-keep your energy loss - trace it back and find out how much is lost in friction, for instance.
In this case, if it requires more energy to accelerate the object as it approaches C, then where is this excess energy going? Is the energy being expended on creating the time dilation effect?
Or alternatively, is it all just a mirage created by time dilation? In other words, if we put fuel in a space ship, all our calculations on its use are relative to time (e.g. gallons burned per second). The ship will be enduring time dilation, so what we see as the ship appearing to labour as it approaches C is actually the ship applying less energy per second from our point of view?
My brain hurts. Please ease my pain XD
I know that as an object under acceleration approaches the speed of light, it becomes increasingly more difficult to push it further. I imagine it like pushing against an elastic band: as you approach the limits of the band, each mm of additional stretch takes more effort to achieve than the last one.
My question is - where is the energy going? At human speeds, you can book-keep your energy loss - trace it back and find out how much is lost in friction, for instance.
In this case, if it requires more energy to accelerate the object as it approaches C, then where is this excess energy going? Is the energy being expended on creating the time dilation effect?
Or alternatively, is it all just a mirage created by time dilation? In other words, if we put fuel in a space ship, all our calculations on its use are relative to time (e.g. gallons burned per second). The ship will be enduring time dilation, so what we see as the ship appearing to labour as it approaches C is actually the ship applying less energy per second from our point of view?
My brain hurts. Please ease my pain XD