> As an SF writer, it's pretty interesting, though, to think of the weird shapes a society would take when your astronauts are outliving entire civilizations.
I guess this all depends on how you define simultaneity. Say I got on a relativistic rocket traveling near c and colonized Planet X in 10 years ship time and say 20,000 years Earth time. I put up my TV antenna as soon as I land, and I'd still be receiving Earth transmissions from approximately 10 years after I left, no? So even though civilization is long gone from Earth's point of view, from my point of view, I can keep up with the latest news as if I were still living there. So from my point of view I did not outlive anything.
If I were to go back, yes, everything would be gone.
That's not how it works. If the planet is N light years away from earth, the transmissions you receive would be those sent 20000-n years ago. along the way you'd get most of the messages sent during the 20k years as very red-shifted light, and extremely rapidly from your pov.
I think you may have that wrong (If I'm understanding you correctly).
If you traveled at the speed of light then you'd be at the planet in 0 time your time, and you would arrive with the first of the broadcasts over those 20k years. So once on the planet you'd get to watch all 20k years of broadcasts.
If you traveled at 1/2 the speed of light (not focusing on your dilation for the moment), then you'd still beat 50% of the transmissions and have 10k earth years of broadcasts to watch.
I think the question is what % of the speed of light is a gamma factor of 20k/10 = 2000. That's something like 99.9999999% of the speed of light.
Meaning you would get there before 99.99999% of the broadcasts had arrived and you'd be able to watch just about all of them in real time over the next (just less than) 20k years.
Assuming those two planets are roughly in the same reference frame, the only way 20k years could pass on earth w.r.t. your arrival is if the destination planet is 20k light years away.
If the destination planet is moving relativistically away from earth at an appreciable percentage of the speed of light then I couldn't say what the math would be. Maybe still the same, maybe not.
While traveling near c, I believe you'd be receiving Earth transmissions from approximately the same time you left, Earth clocks would appear to slow down to a crawl. But if you land on another planet and change reference frame to be more "stationary" again relative to Earth, I think a massive amount of Earth time would suddenly appear to have elapsed very quickly during the process of slowing/landing because of the huge shift in simultaneity.
Pretty sure only those 10 ship years worth of transmissions would suddenly appear. You're still 20K light years away so the rest of those years' transmissions are still in flight.
Hmm I suppose you're right. I guess you'd see very few transmissions during the journey due to time dilation, and then those 10 years would arrive relatively quickly when slowing/stopping?
I was thinking of this being the first half of the twin paradox, but perhaps for the apparent "time gap" in the spacetime diagram to appear, it's necessary for the traveling twin to turn and head back towards Earth quickly to shift simultaneity plane back in the other direction.
I guess this all depends on how you define simultaneity. Say I got on a relativistic rocket traveling near c and colonized Planet X in 10 years ship time and say 20,000 years Earth time. I put up my TV antenna as soon as I land, and I'd still be receiving Earth transmissions from approximately 10 years after I left, no? So even though civilization is long gone from Earth's point of view, from my point of view, I can keep up with the latest news as if I were still living there. So from my point of view I did not outlive anything.
If I were to go back, yes, everything would be gone.