Help me out: how can a "light year" be a unit of distance?

That may be one for the science dudes, but I got a better question: why do they call them "apartments" when they're all together? What is up with that? Sheesh, and get this: why do we park on "driveways" but drive on "parkways?" I tell ya.

And how did Han Solo do the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs when a parsec is a unit of distance not time?

How can miles per hour be a measure of speed? Neither miles nor hours are measures of speed.

A light year is the distance light travels in a year, it's that simple.

Why do they call it Ovaltine?

The jar is round, the cup is round.

Shouldn't it be called Roundtine?

American education in action.

Another measure of distance often used in astronomy is the astronomical unit. Yo mama knows all about MY astronomical unit . . . oh no he didn't!

lmfao!

it's the distance light travels in one year. speed equals distance of time, so if we know the speed of light, 3 x10^8 m/s, and we know how long, in this case a year, we can calculate how far the light would travel. since a year and the speed of light can be treated as constants, it becomes a handy standard distance to use in calculations. but i bet you knew that already you little troll :)

And why do they call it taking a dump when you aren't taking it anywhere? Isn't it really LEAVING a dump?

come on guys wrote:

A light year is the distance light travels in a year, it's that simple.

Light trying to escape an event horizon can travel 0 feet in a year. Simple.

Wet behind the ears wrote:

Light trying to escape an event horizon can travel 0 feet in a year. Simple.

event horizon was a crappy movie

Number 2 wrote:

And how did Han Solo do the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs when a parsec is a unit of distance not time?

Same way Kip Litton does a marathon in 6 miles.

I feel dirty...

Number 2 wrote:

And how did Han Solo do the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs when a parsec is a unit of distance not time?

The Kessel run goes around a sector of space infested with black holes. Most pilots went on a much longer arc (18 parsecs in distance) to stay away. Mr Solo was very brave (or wreckless) and cut it a lot closer, almost getting killed.

Ie, Han Solo Kip Litton'd the Kessel Run by a little more than 6 parsecs.

Horshack wrote:

Number 2 wrote:

And how did Han Solo do the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs when a parsec is a unit of distance not time?

The Kessel run goes around a sector of space infested with black holes. Most pilots went on a much longer arc (18 parsecs in distance) to stay away. Mr Solo was very brave (or wreckless) and cut it a lot closer, almost getting killed.

Ie, Han Solo Kip Litton'd the Kessel Run by a little more than 6 parsecs.

It is also worth mentioning that making the Kessel Run in 12 Parsecs also says something about your ship's speed, as the escape distance from a black hole is a function of the speed you are moving, so just being reckless as a pilot is not enough, you must also have an unusually fast ship.

LETS MF RUN wrote:

it's the distance light travels in one year. speed equals distance of time, so if we know the speed of light, 3 x10^8 m/s, and we know how long, in this case a year, we can calculate how far the light would travel. since a year and the speed of light can be treated as constants, it becomes a handy standard distance to use in calculations. but i bet you knew that already you little troll :)

Cue Ventolin's calculator and his lines of fit for light = somewhere slightly slower than Wilson Kiprop for a 10k.

The reason they use that unit is that the speed of light is the most constant thing in the universe. You couldn't do this with any thing else because all other speeds very example you couldn't say a "car hour" to represent 60 miles because not all cars travel at 60 MPH all the time. It also makes space calcualtions easy to do for instance: say you want to know how long it would take for a radio signal to reach us from a galaxy that is 2 light years away. We know that the signal will travel at the speed of light so it must take 2 years for it to reach us. This is obviously much easier to get across the information rather than trying to use a unit like miles which really makes no sense in cosmic terms. Light years make the most sense in these huge distance calculations.

Might be constant in a vacuum. Slows down in crazy fluids like water.