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Hundreds of sci-fi movies have depicted hyperspace travel, where stars appear as streaks of light as the spacecraft in question surges forward. But according to a team of physicists, that’s bullshit — and hyperspace travel would look a whole lot fuzzier.
A team of graduate students from the University of Leicester, has turned their thinking to what astronauts would see when they travelled close to the speed of light, and it turns out it’s nothing like the movies would have us believe.
You see, the physicists have realised that you wouldn’t even be able to see any stars, a result of the Doppler effect. The Doppler effect — responsible for the changing pitch of a siren as it moves towards or away from you — dictates that when a person moves toward a source of electromagnetic radiation, the speed of approach causes an apparent shift in wavelength. That’s why sirens get higher pitched as they approach you.
But in a spacecraft moving at the speed of light, the frequency of light would be shifted so dramatically that it would fall outside the visible spectrum, meaning the astronauts onboard wouldn’t see any starlight at all. Instead, Cosmic Microwave Background — radiation left behind after the Big Bang — would be shifted into the visible spectrum
The result: the crew would actually see a central disc of bright light. That means that hyperspace would look like the fuzzy image shown above, and not a thing like the Hollywood version, an example of which is pictured below. Thanks, physics: you just made sci-fi movies even less accurate. [Leicester University]
Almost like the light at the end of the tunnel? Perhaps after we die then we travel at super-luminal speeds towards wherever we’re gonna end up next?
Or maybe we just rot in the ground… who the hell knows?
That’s a really cool observation, imagine a religion who’s selling point is “We’ll get you to the afterlife at the speed of light
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Hmmm. A religion with a sci-fi basis, I think Scientology already got there
Well to be honest, I never thought that the streaky lines would be realistic anyway. I have no knowledge of the Physics involved but it just didn’t seem right. It’s like they were being stretched across the galaxy.
Also what about the wormhole styles seen in things like Stargate?
Or Quantum Leap or Sliders….wormholes are much more colourful (allegedly).
Correct me if I’m wrong, but surely Hollywood and physics can both be right here?
As the spacecraft accelerates, it isn’t going to instantly be travelling at ~C, so there’ll be some stretching up until the point the craft is travelling fast enough to blue-shift the visible light out of the visible spectrum. Meaning you’ll get your streaks, and then they’ll disappear (a la Star Wars?)
And what about the light moving away from the observer? Will that not therefore become visible again as it gets caught up to?
This just in SciFi movies aren’t factually correct.
Noooo! Don’t ruin my childhood. Star Trek was a documentary series!
If you drive toward a car at 50mph, and the other car comes towards you at 50mph, the relative speed between you is 100mph. Equally if you follow a car, both doing 50mph, the relative speed is 0mph.
But Einstein’s theory says this breaks down at light speed. If you travel toward a photon at c, whilst the photo comes toward you at c the relative speed is still c. And if you follow a photon at c, the photon still moves away from you at c.
I guess doppler still comes into effect due to wavelength, but my head starts to hurt at this point.
Isn’t this similar to two cars travelling at 50mph crashing into each other? The force of impact is still that of a 50nph crash not 100mph as one might expect.
That’s about momentum, I think.
God, I’m an ex Physics teacher too. Best emphasise the EX bit.