Thread: Time and Space
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Old 04-16-2008, 03:36 PM   #15
DementedReality
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Quote:
Originally Posted by evman150 View Post
Classic Star Wars error.

1 parsec ~ 3.26 light years ~ 206,265 AU, where 1 AU is the mean Earth-Sun distance ~ 1.5E8 km.

So yeah, the parsec is a measure of distance. It derives from the words "parallax" and "second". The 206265 number, seemingly random, is not. 206265 is the number of arcseconds in a radian (3600*180/pi).

As for special relativity, it's not that hard once you wrap your mind around it. When you go fast, time slows down, length gets contracted.

Talking about (massive objects) going the speed of light is not very productive. It just ends in infinities and singularities, nothing substantive.
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