Faster than light?

[epepke]

I understand you points, thank you ... I'm speaking of being able to travel to a distant object 2 million light years away (when measured at rest) within a mere human lifetime. In a conventional sense it would seem to require faster-than-light travel, but it doesn't due to relativistic effects, be they time dilation (as seen by the stationary observer left behind), or length contraction (as seen by the traveler).

I'm not sure where the confusion is.

You'd measure the distance as shorter (measurements, of course, being relative to a sort of idealized reference frame with synchronized clocks, which you'd have to synchronize after accelerating, or imagine them synchronized, because accelerating would mess it all up).

You'd actually see it as longer (because everything would appear to be scrunched up in front of you, because all the angles of the light would be more acute, so it would appear smaller, as if it were farther away).

It's like zipping past the Earth. You'd measure it as squashed, but you'd see it as rotated (well, skewed actually, but it would look a lot like rotation).

 

[Just thinking]

I'm not sure where the confusion is.

I think that the confusion lies in there being no confusion ...

Where exactly do you think there lies confusion?