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Poetry
(lemmy.nz)
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this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2026
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So, what I'm taking away from this is that, if I ever see a blue rose, it's already too late, and the object moving at relativistic speeds toward me has already probably ignited a thermonuclear reaction in the air around it, but the light from the fusion bomb before me has not yet reached me?
It's fine! My math says the rose is actually moving away from you, at around a third of the speed of light.
At this speed, it orbits the earth (at sea level) 2.5 times in a second. Maybe it shoots for the moon, which it reaches in less than 4 seconds. Or it might be on its way to Neptune, which will take it 12 hours!
Also, if this red rose was actually moving towards you at the same speed, I guess it would look black, since you would receive a wavelength you can't see? Ignoring the pesky thermonuclear reaction stuff...
It's not necessarily too late ! it could be far, far from you. Far enough.
In that case, given that a rose would need to have a certain minimum angular size to be recognisably a rose, and it would have to be outside the atmosphere to not be a guarantee of the imminent cessation of my existence, that would have to be a VERY big rose, which doesn't bode well for life on earth if it's approaching at relativistic speeds. Or are you suggesting that it's a galactic - scale rose, and we've got a few million years before it obliterates the Milky Way?
"A galactic-scale relativistic rose by any other name would smell just as blue."
I was thinking we were looking at it through the lens of some bigass telescope
the only sane answer