Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: Notesfiles; site uiucdcsb.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!mgnetp!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcsb!mcdaniel From: mcdaniel@uiucdcsb.UUCP Newsgroups: net.startrek Subject: Re: re: destruct revisited - (nf) Message-ID: <16000004@uiucdcsb.UUCP> Date: Thu, 16-Aug-84 02:33:00 EDT Article-I.D.: uiucdcsb.16000004 Posted: Thu Aug 16 02:33:00 1984 Date-Received: Sat, 18-Aug-84 00:44:53 EDT References: <361@ihuxo.UUCP> Lines: 15 Nf-ID: #R:ihuxo:-36100:uiucdcsb:16000004:000:753 Nf-From: uiucdcsb!mcdaniel Aug 16 01:33:00 1984 #R:ihuxo:-36100:uiucdcsb:16000004:000:753 uiucdcsb!mcdaniel Aug 16 01:33:00 1984 You know, there is such a thing as the speed of light. If the sun had gone nova at the "same instant" as the planet blew up, the light and other effects from its explosion would have arrived on the order of 10 minutes later -- long enough for the Bird of Prey to get out. The sun and the planet need not explode simultaneously, or even when the signal from one's explosion reaches the other at light speed. The planet just may have happened to blow up well before the sun. (You have two different mixtures of nitro plus other stuff, on an increasingly vibrating surface. Which one goes off first? Unpredicable and unrepeatable. Chem people: please don't flame if the nitro actually wouldn't blow up in such circumstances -- just see the analogy.)