11-December-2007, 03:22 PM
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Order of Kilopi
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Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: Denmark 55.6773° N 12.3610° E
Posts: 8,798
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From the link
Quote:
But the Enterprise isn't designed to enter an atmosphere??
Very true! However one could argue that this test was a simulation of the flight of the Enterprise where the Mach number of the flow is analogous to the Warp speed of the vehicle. The Mach number gives the speed of a vehicle relative to the speed of sound. The latter is determined by the atmosphere in which the vehicle is travelling (eg in air at room temperature, the speed of sound is about 300 m/s). The Warp speed is related to the speed of light (about 300,000,000 m/s in a vacuum). Hence the test simulates the effect of the motion of the vehicle on space-time (not on the atmosphere or space dust that it is travelling through)!
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‘To those who regard “crime fiction” as some sacred icon which must follow a rigid formula, I will always be the man who writes 18-syllable haiku.’ Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.
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