re: 3 Body Problem - Netflix

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Wouldn’t it be gaining speed after each explosion and covering more distance exponentially? The last 50 or so detonations would be much further apart if we are figuring 10 seconds in between detonations. Or the detonations if kept at the same distance apart would begin to be close to simultaneous.

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You’re correct that keeping them the same distance would reduce the time between detonations. By my math the last two detonations would be something like 0.01 seconds apart.

I don’t think that matters though. The timing of the detonations relative to the position of the capsule is what matters, not relative to the other detonations. So let’s say for shits and giggles that you have a 1 km “window” for each detonation - meaning the bomb has to go off within 1 km of the sail to work. At 3,000 km/s (1% speed of light) that means you have a window of 0.3 milliseconds to detonate the nuke. Whether it’s 300 km or 300,000 km from the previous nuke doesn’t matter, you still only have a 0.3 millisecond window.

The minimum spacing would be determined by the distance at which the explosions start to interfere with one another. Theoretically, that distance should not really change based on the speed of the capsule.