W
willpittenger
Guest
I am going to run several possibilities with two craft, both moving at .49 to .51 C. Please ignore any chance that the craft might hit, regardless of how tempting that would be. The discussions concern only the Doppler effect. One ship will always be sending a radio transmission to the other. This transmission might be RADAR. Please note that RADAR adds one additional Doppler cumulation. Radar beams are affected during transmission, bouncing off the target, and reception. What happens to the transmissions in each case?<br /><br />1. Start off with both ships heading towards each other at .49 C.<br />2. Have both ships accelerate to .5 C.<br />3. Have them accelerate to .51 C.<br />4. Have them turn around and go at .49 C<br />5. Again, have them accelerate to .5 C and then to .51 C.<br /><br />With the ships moving towards each other at .51 C, the cumulative effect is more than 1 C. In fact, the RADAR beams exceed 1 C at just .3333 C (rounded). If the ships are moving apart at .51 C, would the beams ever reach the target ship? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Will Pittenger<hr style="margin-top:0.5em;margin-bottom:0.5em" />Add this user box to your Wikipedia User Page to show your support for the SDC forums: <div style="margin-left:1em">{{User:Will Pittenger/User Boxes/Space.com Account}}</div> </div>