Relativity

George J. Smith wrote:

kzt wrote:There was an internal dialog by one character about her ‘real’ age and her calendar age. They were not that far apart, given she’d spend decades in space.

I believe that was Henke, something to do with a promotion that took effect on her birthday.

That is almost certainly correct.

I as well remember the quoted time dilation effects on people.
What to me seemed to have the potential to be more significant was the energy gained by missiles.
Everyone knows E=MC2, but equations can run both ways. Apart from the application where small grams of matter in fission or fusion can generate large amounts of energy; the "free" energy from missile wedges can impart massive energy to them as they near C.
As an object gets closer to C more and more energy is required to accelerate it as it becomes more massive.
An old SF joke is that it's not true that nothing can reach the speed of light in normal space, as such a ship would reach an infinite mass at that point, causing that universe to crunch around it. So only one ship per universe then you get a new big bang.

Obviously not by Honorverse mechanics, but passing through a wormhole should have an even bigger effect.

Daryl wrote:I as well remember the quoted time dilation effects on people.
What to me seemed to have the potential to be more significant was the energy gained by missiles.
Everyone knows E=MC2, but equations can run both ways. Apart from the application where small grams of matter in fission or fusion can generate large amounts of energy; the "free" energy from missile wedges can impart massive energy to them as they near C.
As an object gets closer to C more and more energy is required to accelerate it as it becomes more massive.
An old SF joke is that it's not true that nothing can reach the speed of light in normal space, as such a ship would reach an infinite mass at that point, causing that universe to crunch around it. So only one ship per universe then you get a new big bang.

Which is part of the reason the original single drive missile had the specs it had. Between the normal ships velocities during a confrontation and a single drive missile's speed, only is very rare situations would relativity become a factor. Wit MDMs however...it's just easiest to stay Newtonian.

cthia wrote:Obviously not by Honorverse mechanics, but passing through a wormhole should have an even bigger effect.

Since the transition is over so quickly, I am not sure there is a noticeable effect: after going out and coming back does that change even amount to milliseconds of difference?

cthia wrote:Obviously not by Honorverse mechanics, but passing through a wormhole should have an even bigger effect.

The effect is described as instantaneous and though you feel nauseous (from a little to puke your guts out depending on the person) nobody in the Honorverse has yet been able to find a measurable change in the effects of Time on a person (or ship) that has gone though a wormhole. More like POOF and you are there. NO time has passed, there is not time dilation through a wormhole as there in hyperspace at the relativistic speeds involved with you transiting though a medium even at relativistic speeds.

Ok, I't handwavium.

Brigade XO wrote:The effect is described as instantaneous and though you feel nauseous (from a little to puke your guts out depending on the person) nobody in the Honorverse has yet been able to find a measurable change in the effects of Time on a person (or ship) that has gone though a wormhole. More like POOF and you are there. NO time has passed, there is not time dilation through a wormhole as there in hyperspace at the relativistic speeds involved with you transiting though a medium even at relativistic speeds.

Ok, I't handwavium.

A wormhole is a discontinuity in space. You're not accelerating or decelerating anywhere, it's just that space connects to somewhere else.

tlb wrote:There is a story by another author where at the end of another vast space war, married veterans hired a starliner to run out and back repeatedly. That way when their spouses were released from service, they could reconnect and still be about the same relative ages. I do not remember the title nor who wrote it.

I think that's from the Forever War.

It's not just the same ages, but that they would ever meet again. Without playing such games the ones that got out first would be dust by the time their spouses returned. They played wormhole games with black holes but otherwise obeyed Einstein while between the stars, the relativity problem was much worse.

George J. Smith wrote:

kzt wrote:There was an internal dialog by one character about her ‘real’ age and her calendar age. They were not that far apart, given she’d spend decades in space.

I believe that was Henke, something to do with a promotion that took effect on her birthday.

Star travelers should forget about special dates.

Daryl wrote:I as well remember the quoted time dilation effects on people.
What to me seemed to have the potential to be more significant was the energy gained by missiles.
Everyone knows E=MC2, but equations can run both ways. Apart from the application where small grams of matter in fission or fusion can generate large amounts of energy; the "free" energy from missile wedges can impart massive energy to them as they near C.
As an object gets closer to C more and more energy is required to accelerate it as it becomes more massive.
An old SF joke is that it's not true that nothing can reach the speed of light in normal space, as such a ship would reach an infinite mass at that point, causing that universe to crunch around it. So only one ship per universe then you get a new big bang.

Back when the MDMs first came out I was part of a discussion trying to figure out what would happen if they hit a planet.

Ballpark answer: A pod of MDMs at burnout is equivalent to the dinosaur killer.

I have also been arguing that missile designers should be making their missiles attempt to ram if feasible, their warheads should be a fallback if that's not possible. (Note that it almost never would be possible, the objective is to make the defenders roll so as to degrade their defensive fire.) The missile kinetic energy makes the warheads look like child's toys, the only point to the warhead is that it can fire sideways.