Are all articles expected to be writeen in past tense? 82 Airborne 23:34, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

• Yes. Goes with that whole "A long time ago" feel. -- SFH 23:36, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Mistake?Edit

I don't know if this is the right place for it, but when travelling at great speeds YOUR time passes slower, not the observer's. As in the given example, according to the traveller the trip took 2 hours and according to observers 200 years (and both are right). On a side note, that means that the relativistic shield should actually be protecting the rest of the galaxy against time dilation, not the ship itself. Otherwise, the traveller too would experience the trip as taking 200 years.--QED 20:54, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, the description gets it backward, but the anecdote is correct. The whole ageing difference effect arises because acceleration is a detectable effect, so when a ship accelerates the universe knows that it is the ship undergoing a change and not the universe, whereas with constant velocities exactly who seems to be moving is relative. The article is actually right when it says the shields protect the ship, since that is the element that is causing the dilation effect, but the ship experiences less time than the rest of the universe. Seems a little odd though, since in most cases you want your journey to go faster; having the shield on would mean you wasted more of your life sitting about waiting to get somewhere. It would however be useful en route to a combat situation, since it would give you the same time to strategise and prepare as your target. Leaving it off meanwhile would be convenient for buying time for critically injured people if there's a queue for medical treatment, since it lets you get to a free slot 'faster'. Pretty sure this isn't what I'm meant to be using my physics degree for :P