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Interstellar travel is the hypothetical travel of spacecraft from one star system, solitary star, or planetary system to another. Interstellar travel is expected to prove much more difficult than interplanetary spaceflight due to the vast difference in the scale of the involved distances. Whereas the distance between any two planets in the ...
Space travel under constant acceleration is a hypothetical method of space travel that involves the use of a propulsion system that generates a constant acceleration rather than the short, impulsive thrusts produced by traditional chemical rockets. For the first half of the journey the propulsion system would constantly accelerate the ...
Time dilation. Time dilation is the difference in elapsed time as measured by two clocks, either because of a relative velocity between them ( special relativity ), or a difference in gravitational potential between their locations ( general relativity ). When unspecified, "time dilation" usually refers to the effect due to velocity.
Speed of sound. The speed of sound is the distance travelled per unit of time by a sound wave as it propagates through an elastic medium. More simply, the speed of sound is how fast vibrations travel. At 20 °C (68 °F), the speed of sound in air is about 343 m/s (1,125 ft/s; 1,235 km/h; 767 mph; 667 kn ), or 1 km in 2.91 s or one mile in 4.69 s.
Faster-than-light ( superluminal or supercausal) travel and communication are the conjectural propagation of matter or information faster than the speed of light ( c ). The special theory of relativity implies that only particles with zero rest mass (i.e., photons) may travel at the speed of light, and that nothing may travel faster.
A light-year, alternatively spelled light year ( ly or lyr[ 3] ), is a unit of length used to express astronomical distances and is equal to exactly 9,460,730,472,580.8 km ( Scientific notation: 9.4607304725808 × 10 12 km), which is approximately 5.88 trillion mi.
Special relativity. Gravitational time dilation is a form of time dilation, an actual difference of elapsed time between two events, as measured by observers situated at varying distances from a gravitating mass. The lower the gravitational potential (the closer the clock is to the source of gravitation), the slower time passes, speeding up as ...
Naismith 's rule [ 1][ 2] Naismith's rule helps with the planning of a walking or hiking expedition by calculating how long it will take to travel the intended route, including any extra time taken when walking uphill. This rule of thumb was devised by William W. Naismith, a Scottish mountaineer, in 1892. [ 1][ 3][ 4] A modern version can be ...