On 7/1/2012 9:15 PM, Cousin Ricky wrote:
> In _Star Wars IV: A New Hope_, the _Millenium Falcon_ is said to go 0.5 past
> light speed.  Not fast enough!
>
This "assumes" you are talking about the literal speed of light, or a 
colloquialism. Lets say that a "light speed drive", to qualify, would 
cut down a trip of 10 light years to say 10 days. The same trip at .05 
past "light speed" would then be recognized, base on this metric, to the 
average traveler, as only taking 5 days instead. What the *actual* speed 
was, on this basis, isn't relevant, since its no a scientific measure 
being used, but a "common usage, meaning, X amount faster than the 
slower ship that can travel at 'light speeds'".

Yeah, I know. In reality its just one of many things that wasn't either 
bothered with, or which was "intentionally" left Buck Rogersish, so that 
it fit in with the sort of campy space travel of that era's TV shows, 
which tended to get everything wrong, including their predictions of 
what the future would even remotely look like. lol

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