No. of Recommendations: 2
Cool article. Reminds me of a book I once read.
Tau Zero. The "Tau" refers to the dilation coefficient in special relativity (also called "proper time"). I won't give the story away completely, but there was this spaceship that continued to accelerate almost to the speed of light, and was able to observe the universe evolve over billions (trillions?) of years within a few decades.
en.wikipedia.org - Proper timeIf you look at the integral in the second box, the "1-v^2/c^2" is the dilation coefficient (actually the reciprocal coefficient). As v approaches c, you get 1-(almost)1. In time dilation, that gives you a value close to zero, which is in the denominator in the equation for time dilation:
en.wikipedia.org - Time dilation(scroll down to the equation just about the "reciprocity" section to see it)
Which, mathematically, is why you can't go the speed of light. The math becomes undefined at that point.
Good book, I thought.
amazon.com - Tau Zero Poul Anderson 