- #1
DarkMetroid
- 1
- 0
Okay, so the problem is that I'm supposed to analyze what the world would look like if the speed of light is 88 miles per hour (BTTF tribute), and so I naturally looked at the basics of baseball: the pitch. Yet something seemed wrong.
So, imagine playing baseball. For this problem, the pitcher and the batter are not moving with respect to each other. The batter prepares to bunt. Since the speed of light is 39.3 m/s, and the distance between the batter and the pitcher is 18.4 m, it will take (18.4m)/(39.3m/s) = 0.47 seconds before the batter even recognizes that the pitcher is throwing the ball. For that half second the event of pitching is in the elsewhere of the batter; he watches the wind-up as the pitcher marvels at his excellent pitch! Let’s say that, because of the increased effective mass of the ball at higher speeds, the pitcher can throw a fastball 30 m/s (67 mph) with respect to the players. This means it takes 0.61 seconds to reach the batter. Unfortunately, he had detected that it was pitched just 0.15 seconds before! That is not sufficient time to provide a useful reflex.
Yet doesn’t this seem to contradict relativity? It appears to the batter that the ball travels 18.4 meters in just 0.15 seconds, three times faster than the speed of light! What went wrong?
This would relate to the real world, because by the same math (that is somehow erroneous; I don't know), there would be a speed less than C in which the batter would observe the ball going faster than C.
So, imagine playing baseball. For this problem, the pitcher and the batter are not moving with respect to each other. The batter prepares to bunt. Since the speed of light is 39.3 m/s, and the distance between the batter and the pitcher is 18.4 m, it will take (18.4m)/(39.3m/s) = 0.47 seconds before the batter even recognizes that the pitcher is throwing the ball. For that half second the event of pitching is in the elsewhere of the batter; he watches the wind-up as the pitcher marvels at his excellent pitch! Let’s say that, because of the increased effective mass of the ball at higher speeds, the pitcher can throw a fastball 30 m/s (67 mph) with respect to the players. This means it takes 0.61 seconds to reach the batter. Unfortunately, he had detected that it was pitched just 0.15 seconds before! That is not sufficient time to provide a useful reflex.
Yet doesn’t this seem to contradict relativity? It appears to the batter that the ball travels 18.4 meters in just 0.15 seconds, three times faster than the speed of light! What went wrong?
This would relate to the real world, because by the same math (that is somehow erroneous; I don't know), there would be a speed less than C in which the batter would observe the ball going faster than C.