ok, this is SO hilarious! well, perhaps less so to all the non-physicists, but *i* thought is was fabulous!
today in physics we asked the question of how much fuel it would take to accelerate a 1kg mass to the speed of light (c). later, professor morris sent us the following, via e-mail:
Lets scale back our ambitions about boosting a kilogram to the speed of
light c. Instead, lets go for a final velocity of c/30 = 10^7 m/s.
This is slow enough that the classical rocket formula certainly applies.
Use a roughly double Saturn V ish propellant velocity of 10^4 m/s. Then
log(m) = (10^7)/(10^4) = 1000.
m = exp(1000) kilograms.
m = 10^(1000/log 10) = 10^(1000/2.3) = 10^434 kilograms.
Just for reference, the mass of the sun is about 10^30 kg, the mass of
the milky way galaxy is about 10^11 solar masses, or 10^42 kg --- hmmm
we seem to be short by a *factor* of 10^392 ... more galaxies!