Re: starship-design: Many things...

[Steve VanDevender <stevev@efn.org>]

Isaac Kuo writes:
 > Kyle R. Mcallister wrote:
 > 
 > >Have we measured Time dilation directly? Speed (.01C+) 
 > 
 > Yes.  We've confirmed it in clocks on aircraft travelling around
 > the world, on the space shuttle, GPS satellites (which simply
 > wouldn't work right if our calculations on time dilation were
 > wrong).  Also, we've confirmed time dilation in subatomic
 > particles in that their decay times dilate according to relativity.

It's also probably worth noting that the low-speed macrosopic tests,
such as loading an atomic clock on an aircraft and flying it around,
actually are better at demonstrating general relativistic effects (the
difference in gravity between the ground and 20,000 feet altitude) than
special relativistic effects (the motion of the plane relative to the
ground).  The special relativistic effects in such experiments are
noticeably above the experimental error, but not by a whole lot.  See
the discussion in _Spacetime Physics_ of one of the aircraft
experiments.