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From: rjnoe@ihlts.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.startrek
Subject: Re: Trivia Questions
Message-ID: <216@ihlts.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 10-Oct-83 10:35:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihlts.216
Posted: Mon Oct 10 10:35:50 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 11-Oct-83 00:11:07 EDT
References: <188@ihu1f.UUCP>, <328@osu-dbs.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, Il
Lines: 18

Stardates *do* have meaning, although not very well defined.  No attempt
was really made in the TV series to make it consistent.  Generally, they
seem to be one solar day as measured at Earth, but I do NOT have adequate
evidence for this.  The idea was to provide a synchronizing mechanism when
one has starships traveling at (possibly hyper-) relativistic speeds in
distant parts of the galaxy.  Since (using space inertial navigation
systems) individual starships can measure their own speed, they can compute
the "simultaneous" passage of time on Earth (when one defines "simultaneous"
in the proper relativistic fashion).  Thus a starship can assume any speed
it is capable of, travel anywhere in the galaxy it can reach, and return to
rendezvous with any other ship or starbase indicating the same current stardate
(assuming they also did so at some specific time in the past).  Further, ships
with no relative velocity measure the passage of stardates at precisely the
same rate with respect to onboard time.  Obviously, different amounts of
time could have passed for two observers but stardates would be the same.

-- 
		Roger Noe		...ihnp4!ihlts!rjnoe