So, forming hypothesis is NOT scientific anymore? I figured the basis for scientific discovery was on guessing first, and then testing the hypothesis. Since I'm sure the majority of us don't have access to our own particle accelerators to test our ideas then we are all ignorant. Very good point Jonathan. And even still, publications can scew the evidence. It's happened before, what with the Catholic church in the medieval ages. (Also note I am a strong Catholic.)
Maybe. Did I miss something? Last I heard, E=mc2 and mass dilation prohibit anything with mass from reaching the speed of light.
I myself consider that motion and events are the effect of particles (up to really big objects) affecting each other, and we, humans, see that as movement. Time to me is just a measuring system based on the relation of one thing with another or others, made up very long ago to make our lives easier. Say you travel from one town to another, and someone says it took you 4 days. From there comes towns' distance per 4 days. There you go - what is considered as speed. To me gravity does not affect time, instead it affects how fast particles affect each other and therefor how fast motion, events occur. (3 affects in one sentence, rather negative if it were in a book...) To me physics is just like a language between humans and the universe. Just how humans interpret everything. Considering that equations, theories have been proven wrong, or not accurate enough, before, so might the concept of time be wrong. In my opinion that is still to be proven true or false and i doubt that will be anywhere in the near future. Gravity affects everything, even light (gravitational field must be very strong of course). How could that be so if light has no mass? I would say it does but it is extremely small. Or gravity is a universal force that pulls everything, which would mean that eventually everything goes back into a small dot and then probably a new BANG-like event. What we consider as science was once just words, nothing more. Luckily this discourse is making everything clearer to me, even if it isn't what is considered "real" by the majority.
The effect of gravity on light (photons) is "observed" even though light has no mass because the actual effect is on space itself. Light continues to move in a straight path, but where gravity is strong enough space itself is warped and light then appears to be affected by gravity. When light is bent around a star, for example, it is really the path of the light through space that is bent. That's my understanding.
1)We don't have to directly observe a particle to infer its existence, we could theoretically observe its effects (you can infer a bear from bear crap, sans a bear). Tachyons are theoretical to the extent that we don't even have crap to observe if you excuse the language. From what I understand at this point it's all numbers on paper for now. 2)Hypothesizing is scientific, yes. Pulling random ideas out of our arses and saying "I feel this is true, therefore it is" is NOT. What exactly is your hypothesis and how do you plan on testing it? 3)You don't need a particle accelerator to demonstrate that the Earth is spherical do you? Because ancient people proved it by putting sticks in the mud and then measuring the lengths of their shadows relative to geographical location. Aristotle made a crude measurement of the Earth's circumference using his bare eyes and pure intellect, so no excuses... 4)The Catholic church didn't skew the evidence, it supressed it, threatened people, burned books, people, and put them under house arrest. Skewing is a poor choice of words. No one here reads only one periodical, no one I know would dare advocate it, so that's a moot point anyway... 5)Gravity affects time, that's a fact, your opinions on it really don't matter. Unless you define time is some way that is different from everyone else's your point is wrong at the fundamental level. Light has intrinsic mass, and the universe would theoretically collapse into a big CRUNCH, but as it turns out evidence shows the universe to be expanding at an exponential rate. This has been known for at least half a century now and is taught in elementary schools. Please read Stephen Hawking, he explains it much better than I can. And if science isn't considered "real" by the majority, how does the majority determine what's real? Observation, testability, falsifiability? The same stuff science does every day? The same stuff we have done since infancy, why we know fire is hot and why we expect the sun to rise tomorrow (not based on faith). The majority used to believe in flat earths too---and a random poll in modern countries still show that a large percentage of people still can't answer the question "does the sun circle the Earth?" That is supreme and shocking ignorance.
A friend of mine used to visit Saskatchewan, where the plains are so wide and barren that he claimed you can see the curvature of the Earth just by looking straight ahead. Don't know if he was actually observing peaks and valleys (I've never been to that province) or if the naked eye can observe something like that just by looking at a distant point, but it's a cool hypothesis.
Oh yes, it's possible. The ancient Greeks had a number of reasons for believing that the Earth was round (and at the time of Columbus most educated people knew it was, globes existed in his time). In theory, the higher up you go in terms of altitude (like a mountain top) the more curved the surface of the Earth appears. It's interesting to note that many earth and fertility goddesses are often depicted with round bodies. 1)One way was observing the shift in the apprent location of the north star relative to your geographic location (that's how Aristotle calculated the circumference of the Earth). 2)Watching ships leave and arrive at a port, we see the sails first and last instead of seeing the whole ship. 3)During a lunar eclipse, the shadow cast onto the Moon is not a line or eclipse but a circle, if the Earth was flat that would be impossible. There were other feats to be sure, but some of the ancients were actually very clever and had relatively simple means for deduction. BTW in 1676 Danish astronomer Ole Christensen Roemer observed that farther objects seemed to conduct light slightly slower than nearer ones. He demonstrated that light speed had a measureable limit. He estimated a little low (140,000 miles per second), but that's damn good considering the telescope was a relatively new invention and this was before computers or calculators! That's why the articles make me cringe, it's like they blame Einstein for the speed limit of light, the man didn't make the universe the way it is! ><
I don't remember anything about universe's expansion from elementary school (for a good reason, it is too complex for most children to understand). I first heard about it in high school. Religion is anything but good - it hinders and stops everything that really matters. Thinking that because of religion there was 1000 year or so cap in the development of science, I wonder what humanity would be like if religion never existed. One is certain: we would be at least 1000 years more advanced. Flat earth - that is what I mean, maybe time, space, dimensions (the way our universe is explained) are our flat earth right now. What irritates me the most is the attitude towards modern science, that this is how things are and you shouldn't think any other way. It should be something like this: do not take this as absolute truth, consider it as what is known to this point and keep in mind that one day it may all be proven wrong. I am not ignorant, I just don't blindly believe what I was told or taught in school or anywhere, I think about it, I try to picture it in my mind. If someone writes a seemingly good point then I will consider it and if I get new ideas I'll write it down for others to comment on. This thread seems to be going a little off the track...
I think something most people are missing out on, but some people are touching on is spacetime. Mass and energy are inversely linked, and so (in my understanding) are space and time. Time dilation occurs at near light speed, and increases the closer c one gets - for those who don't know, a day at near c could be years to an observer not travelling at those speeds. So theoretically, light experiences no time, and anything with a speed greater than c, must be travelling backwards through time,or have imaginary time. Which is difficult to beleive. Or they could have negative or imaginary mass (a concept I don't like). Look at four-momentum. There are theories of many dimensions (above 20 in some cases) which try to incorporate all theories, including FTL particles. Gravity is so much weaker then EM, so there is a theory that it extends from another dimension (I don't mean light the Twilight Zone or whatever, I mean multidemensional spacetime). What if these FTL particles were only projections from another dimension, whose laws allowed travel at those speeds, or possibly which experienced different time? And Steerpike is right about light bending through space - that's why black holes are black. From my basic understanding of universal constants, even if the 'constants' were changing with the expanding universe, the interation between them would remain similar to what we have now, if not the same. And they wouldn't just switch between states. However, I think there machines were a bit off.
Just two observations: 1) This thread has gone a little silly. Especially the anti-Religion sentiment earlier. 2) While human error is obviously a big possibility in this, we have to remember that we are dealing with the work of men and woman probably far more intelligent and knowledgeable in their combined field than anyone on this forum, and using every precaution against error. What I'm saying is wait.
Your liberal use of the term bigotry to deride my rather innocuous comment is quite harsh. I suspect this says more about how you think than what my 2cents purport about me. No need to be so defensive. I do not bite or mean offense.
I'll leave the thread alone now before it gets any worse. Overall I think we conducted ourselves rather nicely, no one got too nasty, no one mentioned Hitler, yet... There may be hope for humanity yet. O__o But yes, the folks at CERN are pros, let's put faith in them and see what turns up in half a year. If there are FTL particles, I want a timeline on how it will take before I can pilot a warp capabale starship. @_@ No BS, I want to be first in line for the interstellar expedition...
Ther eare current theories on Warp travel, on of which is the physically possible Alcubierre Drive, but "the energy equivalent of 10^67 grams might be required to transport a small spaceship across the Milky Way galaxy. This is orders of magnitude greater than the mass of the universe." I think we're a long way off harnessing FTL travel, if it is ever possible. ---------- Post added at 09:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:08 PM ---------- Ther eare current theories on Warp travel, on of which is the physically possible Alcubierre Drive, but "the energy equivalent of 10^67 grams might be required to transport a small spaceship across the Milky Way galaxy. This is orders of magnitude greater than the mass of the universe." I think we're a long way off harnessing FTL travel, if it is ever possible.
