The laws of physics - thrown out the window

Discussion in 'Science Fiction' started by Valery Faye, Aug 4, 2015.

  1. Adrian Perron

    Adrian Perron New Member

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    @Masterspeler my stance is that i believe the light speed barrier is a myth. To calculate velocity of an object, the speed of light, or c, is used in the equation. Thus when you determine the speed, it is already assumed that it cannot go faster than light and if the velocity does in fact go faster than light, then it is assumed the variables are wrong . Not the equation.

    For this reason and a few others i still hold out hope she believe that ftl is quite plausible even today.

    Yes small objects like atoms work on different principles than large objects like planets. But electrons and neutrons and protons are held together by negative and positive attraction which moves at a definitive speed like light and won't hold together at light speeds.

    Gravity also is presumed to propogate at or near light speed as well.
     
  2. Aaron DC

    Aaron DC Contributor Contributor

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    v = d / t

    There is no c or speed of light in that equation.
     
  3. Adrian Perron

    Adrian Perron New Member

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    @Aaron DC That's the most basic way to interpret something that is moving across a distance of volume. Not to judge a relative objects actual speed ect. You can't just look through a telescope and determine an objects velocity with that formula especially when calculating acceleration and speeds near light.
     
  4. Masterspeler

    Masterspeler Active Member

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    @Adrian Perron I never liked that equation but there's a lot of things that are just assumed in physics. The problem is that the math is lagging a bit. Math is a tool, and the analogy is that we're trying to rebuild a jet engine using a mallet and a monkey wrench. You might "fix" it, but it won't be right.

    As far as the forces that bind matter, its not bi polar charge, You have the weak and strong forces, and going further you have the charges of quarks, red, green, blue, that together nullify, similar to how + and - cancel out. It's one of the things I'm researching now, and may yield something interesting. That's if I dont get too bitter with academia.
     
  5. Aaron DC

    Aaron DC Contributor Contributor

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    Are strings still in? Read back in the day it was the only way to get funding?
     
  6. Masterspeler

    Masterspeler Active Member

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    What kind of strings?
     
  7. Aaron DC

    Aaron DC Contributor Contributor

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    The super, propagating kind.
     
  8. Masterspeler

    Masterspeler Active Member

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    Honestly, I stopped following what is in and not. Last I heard that string theory in general is out of favor for who knows what.
     
  9. Chinspinner

    Chinspinner Contributor Contributor

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    The problem with string theory is that it is an equation written to answer a question. It cannot be experimentally tested. I mean, this is your job, you know all this. But surely someone writing pretty equations that link everything together in a nice grouping of digits on a whiteboard is a monumental waste of time if we can never verify it is true? It is a cul-de-sac we have been stuck in too long.
     
  10. Masterspeler

    Masterspeler Active Member

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    I dont know if that's true. Gravity is still a theory. A professor once put it this way,"If you step over a manhole cover, you will fall, but how do we know that one time, just once, certain conditions would be met, planets in aligment, and you step over the hole, and you dont fall!"

    So nothing can be truly verified, but I get were you're going. Electrons aren't seen, but we still use Bohr's atomic model and orbitals to explain the p d q energy levels. That was done strictly in calculations and will never be something we could test out and see. Yes, it works in certain practical aspects but it might fall apart for others.

    I am working on my theory that is all numbers and formulas. Well, just one formula, so it could be that formula. Either way, it will be a long time until it can be tested. The same with a lot of Gauss' work (or Euclid's algorhythm or Chinese Remainder Theorem in certain applications) that was deemed useless and a waste of time until the 20th century when computers became cheap and widespread. That's when so many theorems became vital in computer sciences.

    So string theory might seem a waste of time, but it may prove instrumental to some field even if not for physics. Mankind is still a child, so before we can explain how 2+2=3, this child-species needs to understand why 2+2=4

    AB
     
  11. Chinspinner

    Chinspinner Contributor Contributor

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    Yes, but that professor was referring to a vanishingly unlikely confluence of circumstances related to quantum mechanics. Gravity has been experimentally tested: Newton was proved correct by the missions to the moon.

    As I see it, the trend towards Theoretical Physics, it concerns me because it can provide answers, many of them, many equations that fill the gaps in our understanding. But if we cannot test and verify them we are throwing the scientific method out of the window. Maths just becomes a pseudo-religion.
     
  12. Masterspeler

    Masterspeler Active Member

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    Math is not and should not be a religion. I agree physics is very much so a religion, but not all of the theories are wastes of time. Math is based on rigurous proofs. Yes, its all about politics in math, but they still have to have proofs. At least for now, give it time, they might hand wave math too...
     
  13. daemon

    daemon Contributor Contributor

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    Imagine that Watney and the ship are out in space and they are not moving relative to each other. Watney pokes a hole in his suit, points it away from the ship, and opens it. He is now accelerating toward the ship by a tiny amount. After one second, he closes the hole in his suit. He is no longer accelerating toward the ship. However, by spending a second accelerating toward it, he added a tiny bit to his velocity in the direction of the ship. Therefore, he is now moving very slowly toward the ship. He will not stop moving toward it until he reaches it, he propels himself in a different direction, or the ship propels itself in a different direction.

    This illustrates the difference between motion in space and the motion we are used to. We live in a world of friction and air resistance. We "know" from experience that you have to keep pushing an object to keep it in motion, and the heavier the object, the harder you need to push it. But in space, any amount of force changes the velocity of any object, and it continues to move at its new velocity until another force acts on it.
     
    Last edited: Oct 30, 2015
  14. Aaron DC

    Aaron DC Contributor Contributor

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    Which makes changing direction very frustraaaaaaaaaating.
     
  15. Lew

    Lew Contributor Contributor

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    Hate to rain on your parade, but the reason nothing can travel faster than light is that everything already does, in the direction of time. It is the physical movement in space that is illusionary, the projection of another's timeline onto my spaceplane. He is not moving at a different speed, but in a slightly different angle beta, so that v=c*sin(beta). When his timeline is 90 degrees to mine, I perceive him to be traveling at c. Actually, I don't see him at all, I can see him asymptotically approaching c, but the Doppler shift is approaching infinity, and it is taking almost an infinite amount of time to get the second look at him to determine velocity. At 90 degrees it is infinite. He can go past 90 degrees, but then he becomes retrograde to my time. Is this what an anti-particle is? Not sure.

    And time dilation is just Doppler shift, which is why both observers think each other's clock is running slower/faster: time is measured by two successive clicks along the time line, and an observer in another timeline we see a longer/shorter interval depending on whether the body is closing or approaching: not the classic Doppler, but the relativistic Doppler.

    BTW, cos (beta)=sqrt(1-sin^2(beta))=sqrt[1-(v/c)^2], which may look familiar to the physically inclined

    matter travels in a specific direction at c, while light propagates in all directions. So if you want to envision a light emitting object, picture a point on the surface of a bubble expanding in four directions at c. If four is to hard, use three, it still applies. The point at which the light was originally emitted remains fixed in four space, regardless of what direction the point was traveling... it can't outrun its own light, and other observers can't see what direction (speed WRT them) he was travelling by observing his light. His light is c to him, and c to all other observers.
     
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  16. tonguetied

    tonguetied Contributor Contributor

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    Daemon you just restated my post, IMO. If you didn't see the movie you may not fully understand my problem with that scene. In the movie Watney punctures his suit and is bounced around in his escape pod before gaining directional control. Watney then rapidly approaches the other astronaut for rescue. It is that rapid movement that I am bothered by, I think it would be almost imperceptible. Then to make it worse his initial movement is not aligned with the spaceship he is trying to reach so the time frame to reach the other astronaut is fairly short. I wish they had him put on a suit equipped with space walk control jets, I think they simply did the air out of the suit thing to make the moment more dramatic and to also make us forget that they blew a door off the main ship to allow escaping air from the ship to slow down some more in order to save fuel, IIRC; another Newtonian-it-ain't-going-to-happen event, IMO. Plus they used Watney's plan to come up with the whole door blasting bit. I almost think the reaction of blowing the door itself off the ship might have more effect in slowing the ship down than the low pressure air escaping.

    This brings me back to the thread title topic, again ignoring the FTL discussion. We, general public, liked the air escaping from the suit as a propulsion method because we can relate it to an inflated balloon let go to fly around the room. Weight of the air filled balloon, not much, pressure of releasing air - significant in comparison, thus balloon flies like crazy around the room. As a kid I remember being taught how strong an ant is, lifts twenty times its own weight kind of thing, and then a movie was made, I believe it was "Them" where giant ants are roaming in the sewers and we accept their power as possible because of what we were taught. However as little kids the issues of scaling something up by several orders of magnitude is not really understood and I think this holds true for most adults as well. Those ants wouldn't be able to move on those little skinny legs - unless they, the ant bodies, were filled with helium gas. One of my current peeves is how weatherman still tell us a rainbow is formed when the sun shines through a raindrop. They make it sound like a single raindrop, it must be one gigantic raindrop like maybe the size of a cloud. I guess it is easier to say it that way but it is troublesome that experts in the field use misleading terminology for simplicity's sake.
     
  17. Masterspeler

    Masterspeler Active Member

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    @Lew no, antiparticles are not reverse shifted particles. And motion is more complex that just doppler shifting. Relativity has some merits to it, and other things that are hokey. I dont know how many people have taken courses or studied modern physics and above but I used to complain about it before I sat down and did the homework. At that time all I had was gut, and impression which wasnt enough to make any precise hypohesis. One must know the doctrine one will disprove thoroughly, and this brings me to a question.

    How many of us here know physics at that level? I know a lot of physics, but I'm safe to say I know very little off the top of my head. So all I go by and try to convey is a mathematical rigour that physics sometimes lacks. Proofs in math are verifyable by anyone regardless of personal likes.

    It may be me, but I get the feeling there is a lot of confrontational behavior here, but I may be wrong, because tone can and too often gets lost in posts. Add to that a formula or non literary explanation and it muddies intent. Are we arguing here? And at what levels?

    AB
     
  18. Lew

    Lew Contributor Contributor

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  19. Lew

    Lew Contributor Contributor

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    Sorry, Masterspieler, I presented papers on this subject a few years ago at several meetings of the American Association of Physics Teachers... interesting forum as I am neither a physicist nor a teacher. (communications system engineer for the Navy, with MS in aero engr). My presentation received good reviews, and I worked for several years with Dr. Brehme to adapt his work to mine, as we are very close, down to using identical angular definitions. And this is in the hopper for publication with a draft completed, as soon as current fictional WIP is finished. And yes, time dilation is Doppler, which is why both observers see each other's clocks running slow. Special relativity, with my presentation, is both easy to visualize, and could be taught at the high school level as it requires no more than trig.
     
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  20. Masterspeler

    Masterspeler Active Member

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    OK, this makes it easier then lol. So you know Lorenz eq and such for both time dilation and length contraction. One of the big flaws I have noticed was with simultaneity. Im out of it now (surgery) so Im beyond brief, but i will go into more details as recovery goes on.

    AB
     
  21. Lew

    Lew Contributor Contributor

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    I'll let you recover! Hope all is going well.
     
  22. carac598

    carac598 New Member

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    I thought of this idea too before I read this reply, just here backing it up as a solid one.

    I've read a bit about string theory, which uses multiple dimensions.

    This video is very interesting, explaining how to imagine multiple dementions. It's a two -parter with the interesting stuff more in the second part:
     
  23. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Reading this, my brain presented me with the little diagram of the tesseract, from A Wrinkle in Time.
     
  24. newjerseyrunner

    newjerseyrunner Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2022

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    I love that book!

    I imagined Square being plucked from Flatland by Sphere.
     
  25. Radrook

    Radrook Banned Contributor

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    Maybe by having the ship travel in the Tachyon dimension where nothing moves slower than light.
    https://www.universetoday.com/84363/tachyon/
     

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