Don't read this section if you are sane. It's complete and utter rubbish that was an appalling waste of time to write, let alone to read. If you're still with me, the foregoing is true, but you obviously don't care. This part of my account of the J2E is the continuation of my Starship fantasy that I began when I collected my new car from Cairns and drove it to Nirvana.
EVEN FLIGHTS OF FANCY HAVE NUMBER SCHEMES
When tall tale-ing my car as a Starship, instead of reporting journeys totalling 10,000 kilometres, I embellish a little by using space measurement, the fundamental unit of which is the parsec. But, of course, in the spirit of Batman and other popular cultural outrages, it would never do to be modest. Distance travelled, therefore, is not in parsecs, but megaparsecs.
Like, as big as you can go? Then why not gigaparsecs?
Well, because the whole universe itself, big though it is, is only 10,000 megaparsecs from one side to the other. One gigaparsec would be about 100,000 times bigger than the universe.
While it is within the bounds of acceptable exaggeration to go as big as possible, going beyond the number scheme is just dum – if a gigaparsec, why not a teraparsec or whatever comes next?
Having humbly accepted the limitations of my own number scheme, I thought it would be fun to work out the implications of the claimed distances in the timeframe of the two trips.
If you are not a Startrek fan, apart from the fact that you need to get a life, you are unlikely to be aware of the limitations that science fiction places upon itself when relating the exploits of space daring do-ers. Science fiction has no problem ignoring serious science to talk of travelling faster than the speed of light. AS the speed of sound is designated Mach 1, the speed of light is Warp 1. As aircraft are capable of speeds of up to Mach 5, and rockets reach Mach 14 to escape the earth’s gravity, so in science fiction, space craft travel at greater than Warp 1. But there has to be a limit beyond which it is not possible to suspend disbelief. The current generally agreed limit is Warp 10. I just thought I’d mention that.
SPACE FLIGHT CALCULATIONS
1 Parsec, 3.262 light years (see How big is a light year)
1 Megaparsec, 3,262,000 light years
10,000 Mp, 32,620,000,000 light years
Age of Universe, 15 billion years
Radius of universe, 15,000,000,000 light years; 4,598 megaparsecs
Return journey
Edge to centre, 30,000,000,000 light years; 9,197 megaparsecs
Daily average, 10k Mp in 32 days; 312.5 Mp/day; 1,019,375,000 light years/day
Transit Rate, 2000 Mp in 3 days (one way)
4000 Mp in 6 days (two way)
8000 Mp in 12 days (two return journeys)
Speed, 8000 Mp in12 days
8k Mp, 26,096,000,000 light years
8k Mp in 12 days ,2,174,666,667 light years/day
Speed, Warp 793,753,333,333; Warp 7.94 X 10tothe11th
1 Gigawarp, 1 billion times Warp speed
WarpOne X 10to the9th
1 ly in 1 yr ,Warp 1
1 ly in 1 day ,Warp 365
10 ly in 1 yr, Warp 10
10 ly in 1 day, Warp 3650
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