






I. The Erosion of Relativity?




CERN has published 

Robert Plunkett of the 



II. Physics Gets More Complicated







III. Just How Weird is Physics?








Comments     Threshold


RE: how about...
By snakeInTheGrass on 9/26/2011 1:24:09 PM , Rating: 2
Hmm, so we're sitting 4 light years apart. You send me a signal via laser, so at light speed. I reply with an amazing neutrino pulse that I somehow get running at 10x light speed and reply as soon as I get your signal. It arrives back where you are in just .4 years instead of 4 years. You may be able to do something with that given that it arrives before a laser pulse or radio signal, but given a distance to traverse and a given speed, it won't arrive before it was sent in any case.

If you travel at the speed of light, the argument is that you're no longer aging. If faster (infinite energy needs aside?), do you get younger? So if you fly to meet me (FTL), arrive somehow younger, and immediately return (FTL) to your starting place, you maybe (?) are somehow younger, but you still arrive after you left, not before.

Now you go kill your grandfather. You haven't managed to kill your father by killing your grandfather. Your grandfather may wonder what in the world you're up to as you try to kill him, but there's no issue of causality - you can't receive a signal before it is sent just because it's traveling faster than an arbitrary 'speed limit', and you won't arrive before you left either. You won't erase yourself, either. ;)

I DO buy that there could be an ability to transmit data backwards in time should it turn out to be possible to transmit information through quantum entanglement. Take one of the particles, let it travel at near-light speed for a while so that it 'relativistically' ages less, now you have a particle at current time, another at current minus some amount. Should you be able to transmit data from 'current' to the 'current minus some amount' and have that data show up before you send it then? Uh, seems like it. Though so far there's an inability to actually send data.

But anyway, that's a different issue than what is being seen in this case. I suppose light speed could have magical properties, but some of it sounds about as reasonable as the Ptolemaic spheres. It's safe to say that today's concepts in physics will largely look about as advanced as the earth-centric worldview given a few hundred years - and about as ridiculous.

RE: how about...
By Steve1981 on 9/26/2011 2:04:15 PM , Rating: 2
I suppose light speed could have magical properties

I'm not sure about the speed of light, but I recall watching a documentary indicating that 88mph was the ticket to time travel.

RE: how about...
By cjohnson2136 on 9/26/2011 4:07:50 PM , Rating: 2
I watched that same documentary and it was pretty awesome

RE: how about...
By Omega215D on 9/26/2011 5:47:51 PM , Rating: 2
Observer from Fringe: Their theories are quite fascinating.

RE: how about...
By MarkHark on 10/2/2011 7:42:59 AM , Rating: 2
Did it have something to do with a flux capacitor?

RE: how about...
By MozeeToby on 9/26/2011 3:57:42 PM , Rating: 3
Light speed does have magical properties, properties that 80 years ago made every physicist in the world sit down a drool like the village idiot.

The first hint that this was the case was when someone decided to try to find out how fast the earth was moving relative to the theoretical aether that light supposedly traveled in. The result they got upended physics: You get the same value for the speed of light even if your source and/or your detector are moving relative to each other.

Imagine you have a pitcher throwing balls at the back of a truck and have the pitches arrive at the truck at the same speed regardless of how fast or even which direction the truck was moving in. It doesn't work, it breaks all kinds of classical mechanics and the math doesn't work out at all.

Unless, that is, you assume that time isn't passing at the same rate for the person throwing the ball and the person catching it. And that the distance the ball travels isn't quite equal if you ask the pitcher and catcher. And that's exactly what happens when you approach the speed of light.

RE: how about...
By JediJeb on 9/27/2011 3:02:20 PM , Rating: 2
If I am an observer at a point in space and I can see two stars one light year apart. I see a person leave one star and travel to the other star at the speed of light, then I should observe that it took them 1 year to travel that distance. How long does it appear to the person traveling at the speed of light that it took them to get there?

If by the travelers clock it took less than one year, then from their point if observation they traveled faster than the speed of light since they traversed 1 light year is less than one year. If from the travelers point of view it took them 1 year to traverse the distance of 1 light year then they did not experience time compression. How long will the journey appear to take from the two points of observation?

RE: how about...
By MozeeToby on 9/28/2011 3:22:56 PM , Rating: 2
You have a good handle on time dilation but you're forgetting other relativistic effects. Observers on the ship traveling at .99c will measure the journey time as much less than a year, what they will disagree with the outside observer is the distance between the two stars. To them it will be much less than 1 light year.

RE: how about...
By JediJeb on 9/29/2011 4:55:31 PM , Rating: 2
But if the observers on the ship know before hand that the distance is 1 light year then would they not have to assume they traveled faster than light to make the journey in less than one year?

I guess another question I have about it is whether or not Time actually slows at velocities near the speed of light or is it simply that with the increased mass/inertia that comes from traveling at those velocities causes our measuring devices to slow down which would give the perception of time slowing down?

RE: how about...
By rakarlin on 10/1/2011 11:11:22 PM , Rating: 2
Thank you. The nonsense about causality violation was getting a little deep. Now, if you can make time go negative we have a whole new situation. But at velocity C or 2C or 10C it still takes positive time to get someplace; in fact to get anyplace. Regards

