Re: What would the end velocity be if...?

throopw@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (Wayne Throop) writes:

> : "Rod" <rodrodrodrod@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> : Haven't done the sums but I would have thought you would have left
Newton 
> : 
> : far behind and would need to use special relativity
> 
> Not really.  A hundred g in a 60k mile accelerator would take you less
> than ten minutes.  To reach significant fractions of lightspeed would
> take you many hours. 

At 100 g ( 980 m/sec^2), to reach lightspeed (3*10^8 m/sec)
would take about 3.06*10^5 sec (ignoring relativity, of course) 
or 85 hours.  The accelerator would have to be about 4.59*10^13 m long,
or 307 AU, extending into the inner Oort cloud.
-- 
Robert Israel              israel@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 of Mathematics        http://www.math.ubc.ca/~israel

University of British Columbia            Vancouver, BC, Canada