Need a little math help to answer another forum question

[MacGyver1968]

I'm having some trouble figuring out how to calculate something for another question on this forum....I guess I partied too much in my twenties, because I'm sure I knew how to do this in college...but I'm getting a "lack of ram" error from my brain now. Here goes:

The speed of light is ~300km/s

if you were accelerating at 50m/s2(squared..how do you type exponents?) how long would it take to reach C?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Zelos]

classic:
V=at
V=300000
a=50
t=V/a=300000/50=6000s

relativistic: never

btw, C~300000km/s
not 300km/s

[MacGyver1968]

Ooops thats my second scientific error today.

test please ignore:

E=mc²
there we go!

[Zelos]

no problem, but if you want to know the acceleration as you approch C i can give that to you aswell

[river_rat]

classic:
V=at
V=300000
a=50
t=V/a=300000/50=6000s

Check your units though Zelos - the correct answer is 3 x 10^8 (m/s) / 50 (m/s^2) which gives 6 x 10^6 seconds or almost 69 and a half days.

[Zelos]

riverrat, i used the numbers he gave me, i know that there shall be another 3 0's but he used units with 3 0's to little so i did the same

Er,

There's a flaw in your calculation chaps, as I understand it (and I may be proven wrong), you are using newtonian mechanics to calculate this figure - Newton was proven wrong by Einstein who shows that as you get toward the speed of light a body would tend toward infinite mass which as I understand it would then mean you would need toward infinite energy to accelerate further, i.e the barrier to travelling faster than light.
If infinite energy existed there could be no room for our little corner of the universe as it to would be filled with energy. ergo light speed of physical objects is strictly prohibited (except on paper or film). Least that's what I learned at school, but that was a long time ago.

[Zelos]

billco, i said "classical" and "relativity" in relativity i state, "never"

[Silas]

The speed of light is defined at the speed with which Zelos posts.

Seriously, dude, you joined two months ago and have done over a thousand posts - at least a coupla years' worth by any normal forum poster!!

[Zelos]

The speed of light is defined at the speed with which Zelos posts.

:-D

Seriously, dude, you joined two months ago and have done over a thousand posts - at least a coupla years' worth by any normal forum poster!!

what should i say? i love science, i love this forum, feel i want to be everywhere ^_^

[Absane]

Seriously, dude, you joined two months ago and have done over a thousand posts - at least a coupla years' worth by any normal forum poster!!

what should i say? i love science, i love this forum, feel i want to be everywhere ^_^

On Sciforums I gone from 800 posts to 4,000 in about 3 or 4 months.

I'm a post whore.