DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: Brassmask on December 29, 2006, 04:46:58 PM
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That just sounds like an arbitrary rigid assumption.
It just seems to me that since we know how fast it goes, if we figured out a power source or device that could propel us that there'd be no reason that we couldn't go faster than the speed of light. It seems to me that it'd be dark around our conveyance but that's about it. The lights on the conveyance wouldn't be affected by our going faster than light because it would be travelling along with us.
I know that we don't have that kind of power but why is it that light cannot be exceeded?
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That just sounds like an arbitrary rigid assumption.
Yeah, it is arbitrary.
Good thing that it's not true.
(Yet another example of the general populace misinterpreting science.)
For more information, google Cherenkov radiation and quantum tunneling.
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I know that we don't have that kind of power but why is it that light cannot be exceeded?
The simple answer to the problem that you have posted is that the work of Lorentz, Fitzgerald and others have shown that as velocity increases, the mass also increases, the length contracts, and time slows down. Since you have to put more energy into increasing the acceleration at an ever increasing rate, and since mass approaches infinity at the speed of light, you are required to put an infinite amount of energy into accelerating the object. So, accelerating past the speed of light in not possible in our universe.
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I know that we don't have that kind of power but why is it that light cannot be exceeded?
The simple answer to the problem that you have posted is that the work of Lorentz, Fitzgerald and others have shown that as velocity increases, the mass also increases, the length contracts, and time slows down. Since you have to put more energy into increasing the acceleration at an ever increasing rate, and since mass approaches infinity at the speed of light, you are required to put an infinite amount of energy into accelerating the object. So, accelerating past the speed of light in not possible in our universe.
So, then how can light go as fast as it does? Shouldn't light that left the sun and travelled to the earth be ultraheavy, so to speak?
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http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/generalscience/faster_than_c_000719.html
this might help or make it worst here
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So, then how can light go as fast as it does? Shouldn't light that left the sun and travelled to the earth be ultraheavy, so to speak?
Photons have no rest mass. Zero times infinite is still zero.
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Length contracts?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light
Oh well. I don't understand why but it's interesting to read about. Especially the part about the colors you'd see at the opposite ends of the tunnels.
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In space you could accellerate forever .
But as you gain speed it requires greater power to accellerate further.
As you get close to the speed of light ,the power requirement becomes rediculous.
At the speed of light the power requirement for further accelleration is infinate.
This is the effect of "increased mass".
Also as one gains speed the passage of time is affected at the speed of light time would not pass any more.
On the other hand there are Tackyons
http://www.gallup.unm.edu/~smarandache/Russo-faster-than-light.pdf
And warp drive , which would move the rest of the universe without accellerateing you so much.
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http://www.advancedphysics.org/forum/showthread.php?t=505&page=2
If light is moveing in a vacuum it moves at its maximum speed , it is slower in water and can be slowed to rediculous amounts by a Bose-Einstein condensate .
http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/1999/02.18/light.html
But is a slow moveing thing still light?
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and can be slowed to rediculous amounts by a Bose-Einstein condensate .
Actually, last year they "froze" a beam of light in a Boze-Einstein condensate. Looked pretty cool.
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Good exposition in Wicipedia.....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light
[edit] Constant velocity from all reference frames
It is important to realise that the speed of light is not a "speed limit" in the conventional sense. An observer chasing a beam of light will measure it moving away from him at the same speed as will a stationary observer. This leads to some unusual consequences for velocities.
Most individuals are accustomed to the addition rule of velocities: if two cars approach each other from opposite directions, each travelling at a speed of 50 km/h, one expects that each car will perceive the other as approaching at a combined speed of 50 + 50 = 100 km/h to a very high degree of accuracy.
At velocities at or approaching the speed of light, however, it becomes clear from experimental results that this rule does not apply. Two spaceships approaching each other, each travelling at 90% the speed of light relative to some third observer between them, do not perceive each other as approaching at 90% + 90% = 180% the speed of light; instead they each perceive the other as approaching at slightly less than 99.5% the speed of light.
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and can be slowed to rediculous amounts by a Bose-Einstein condensate .
Actually, last year they "froze" a beam of light in a Boze-Einstein condensate. Looked pretty cool.
Is that why star light takes so long to get here? or is it even a factor?
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Is that why star light takes so long to get here? or is it even a factor?
No; that's purely because of the distance. It takes 8 minutes for light from the Sun to reach the Earth.
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Is that why star light takes so long to get here? or is it even a factor?
No; that's purely because of the distance. It takes 8 minutes for light from the Sun to reach the Earth.
I wonder if there could be any naturally occuring Bose-einstien condensed regions of space?
They would transmit light at some rediculously low speed and the light emergeing would be a record of anchient scenes on the other side.
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I wonder if there could be any naturally occuring Bose-einstien condensed regions of space?
They would transmit light at some rediculously low speed and the light emergeing would be a record of anchient scenes on the other side.
It would be interesting, but I think it's not predicted by current theory.
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They would transmit light at some rediculously low speed and the light emergeing would be a record of anchient scenes on the other side.
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Is light emerging from stars at the normal speed a record of more recent scenes? I tend to think that it's just light, not like anything coming from a movie projector.
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They would transmit light at some rediculously low speed and the light emergeing would be a record of anchient scenes on the other side.
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Is light emerging from stars at the normal speed a record of more recent scenes? I tend to think that it's just light, not like anything coming from a movie projector.
Generally light travels at a very steady speed and in very streight paths (exceptions are interesting).
The light that tans you on the beach left the sun eight minutes ago , the light from a twinkleing star left it years ago , if you look at a more distant star you are looking further into the past.
This is one of the reasons that the Hubble is so valuable , it has looked at objects so distant that it is presently considered that we have seen halfway back to the big bang.
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They would transmit light at some rediculously low speed and the light emergeing would be a record of anchient scenes on the other side.
Holy crap!
The reason I was asking about the speed of light is because I had this fantastical idea about sending cameras out into space to capture events that happened in earth's history and, of course, the camera would have to go faster than the speed of light or use some kind of warping.
For instance, sunlight bounced off Earth from Dealey Plaza on November 22nd, 1963 and is now somewhere out in space. Someone on another planet 43 light years away has just missed the opportunity to know if there was a second gunman on the grassy knoll.
In order to see that spot, you'd have to have the camera out in space in the direction that Earth was facing wherever it was in its orbit. That would be the easy part with computer models, I mean, figuring out where the camera would have to be, of course.
Naturally, the seemingly impossible part of it would be getting a camera out light years ahead of the light that left Earth in 1963. Also, the camera would have to be capable of seeing extremely small detail from light years away but we can pretty much do that already, right?
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Also, the camera would have to be capable of seeing extremely small detail from light years away but we can pretty much do that already, right?
Not the kind of detail you're talking about.
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Someone on another planet 43 light years away has just missed the opportunity to know if there was a second gunman on the grassy knoll.
They probably still wouldn't be able to tell. I suspect that gunman was a time traveller from our distant future, sent to prevent JFK from making some seemingly minor decision that would have affected the world in a negative way many years down the road. And he would have been wearing a cloaking device, so the camera wouldn't have seen him anyway.
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Someone on another planet 43 light years away has just missed the opportunity to know if there was a second gunman on the grassy knoll.
They probably still wouldn't be able to tell. I suspect that gunman was a time traveller from our distant future, sent to prevent JFK from making some seemingly minor decision that would have affected the world in a negative way many years down the road. And he would have been wearing a cloaking device, so the camera wouldn't have seen him anyway.
We're talking about reality over here. You're just talking crazy! ;)
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We're talking about reality over here.
Oh, okay. By my calculations, by the time we invented a craft that could travel faster than the speed of light, and a camera with the resolution necessary to capture a recognizeable image from the distances required, the light images from November 22, 1963 will have such a huge headstart, we wouldn't be able to get a camera out in front of them with enough time to capture the images and send them back to Earth before the world came to an end anyway. So the identity, or even the mere existance, of the gunman on the grassy knoll will remain in the realm of speculation, except for those of us who know the truth.
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So the identity, or even the mere existance, of the gunman on the grassy knoll will remain in the realm of speculation, except for those of us who know the truth.
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Do de dodo dO de dodo........
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There is a film of the President as the bullets struck him.
The Film is fuzzy and the background is very out of focus.
NASA has developed Algorythyms to sharpen up out of focus pictures , especially for pictures that are repeats of the same background.
How much potential for improvement does the Zapgruder film have?
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There is a film of the President as the bullets struck him.
The Film is fuzzy and the background is very out of focus.
NASA has developed Algorythyms to sharpen up out of focus pictures , especially for pictures that are repeats of the same background.
How much potential for improvement does the Zapgruder film have?
Do you mean the REAL Zapruder film or the one that everyone has been shown for the last few years in order to try and revise history?
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There is a film of the President as the bullets struck him.
The Film is fuzzy and the background is very out of focus.
NASA has developed Algorythyms to sharpen up out of focus pictures , especially for pictures that are repeats of the same background.
How much potential for improvement does the Zapgruder film have?
Do you mean the REAL Zapruder film or the one that everyone has been shown for the last few years in order to try and revise history?
Do all the ones that there are , if it is possible , sharpening up a phony might make its phonyness more evident. If it is real, it may have information hidden in it.
Time travel might be beaten as a tecnical problem someday , if it ever is the croud at Deally Plaza is likely to doubble and some really good camers will have been will be there in impossible tense.
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There is a film of the President as the bullets struck him.
The Film is fuzzy and the background is very out of focus.
NASA has developed Algorythyms to sharpen up out of focus pictures , especially for pictures that are repeats of the same background.
How much potential for improvement does the Zapgruder film have?
I saw something like that. A film that had been 'stabilized' or something. I thought i posted it. Will try to find it. It was horrifying, I could see...well, never mind. Horrifying will do.
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I have on my Desk here a book by David Bodanis titled "E=mc2".
I have to reccomend it strongly , it is about the people who made the equation what it is , not just Einstien but his parents and collegues , his predissessors and his students . It is an engrossing story with Women and Men and governments struggleing loveing and betraying each other . It is more about the people than anything elese but in the process of understanding how these people came to be able to understand the principals the reader gets a good idea of what these principals are too.
I learned several surprising things in it, but I found most strikeing the principal of how people must be prepared to understand something before they do , and how the prejudices and preconceved notions of a scientist can be both a conduit for discovery or a dam against understanding.
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Do all the ones that there are , if it is possible , sharpening up a phony might make its phonyness more evident. If it is real, it may have information hidden in it.
I'm for that. Where might I read on this sharpening of older films technology?
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http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/technology/planet_imaging.cfm > interesting
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/topnav/subjects/technology/Photography_and_Imaging.html > close
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/26mar_visar.htm > Here it is!
The NASA researchers--using their expertise and equipment for analyzing satellite video--have created a new crime-fighting software tool called VISAR. Short for Video Image Stabilization and Registration, VISAR transforms dark, jittery images captured by security systems and video cameras in police cars into clear, stable images that can reveal clues about crimes. This new technology is expected to benefit medical research and improve home entertainment, too.