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I'm a physics graduate, so I have a solid understanding of special but not much knowledge of general relativity. I tried a thought experiment the other day involving a spacecraft accelerating continuously at 1g. By my reckoning it would take around a year to begin approaching light speed but I couldn't understand the dynamics in this scenario. Specifically, given that it cant breach the 'light barrier' would the passengers begin to experience less acceleration (intuitively this does not seem right to me) and what is the 'light barrier' measured with respect to anyway given that SR tells us it is a constant for all observers. I understand that the ship would gain super-luminal velocities relative to ,say, the background stars but how would relativity affect its acceleration? Obviously I am neglecting the influence of mass and radiation on the ship.

John Rennie
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