There’s a short story in the Expanse Universe where Solomon Epstein is killed by his experimental propulsion system when it accelerates so fast that he can’t reach the controls to turn it off and then blacks out.
The drive is named posthumously after him based on the design notes found on his computer by his widow.
I remember watching that episode. Such a great series.
I think this is a slightly different phenomenon though. The problem with Epstein is rapid acceleration resulting in an increased gravitational force relative to the speed of acceleration well beyond 1g and continuing to accelerate faster until fuel is exhausted.
The scenario in the article is about indefinite acceleration. Indefinite acceleration doesn’t have to be fast to eventually reach near light speed provided enough time.
In the story his miscalculation results in 37 hours of fuel. With no dead man’s switch he dies from lack of oxygen to the brain, and the ship just keeps happily accelerating until the fuel is exhausted.
For a long enough trip, anything over 1G results in your passengers and payload having to deal with excess stresses, up to and including ship damage or passenger death. In the Expanse they are quick to point out the increased chance of stroke due to prolonged and excessive acceleration.
1G is nice because you can move like you would on the surface.
5g acceleration for 37 hours will get you up to 1% of the speed of light. Constant acceleration with no fuel limits gets you into the realm of relativity very quickly.
The drive is named posthumously after him based on the design notes found on his computer by his widow.