how fast does light think light travels?(physics question)

[NUTTZ]

Originally posted by Otto
What would happen if you could go faster than the SOL and why doesn't the Universe allow it?   Basically, if you went faster than the SOL you'd go BACK in time.  

 Think of Time moving out from you like the ripples on a pond at the SOL.  If you were to blast off through Space going ever faster you'd begin to 'catch up' with Time as it moved away from you.  When you reach the SOL you're moving as fast as Time and it would stop.   You and Time would be moving at the same speed.

If you went faster than the SOL you'd go past your 'present' time and reach a 'past' time.   That's the big 'No, No' and why it's not allowed.

OK, now you have me confused. Why would traveling FASTER than SOL be a No-No? because you would go back in time and invert back past the point in time you were born? therfor you will " disappear", or cease to exist? Asuming this is what you ment. But wasn't it stated that Time stands still for the people traveling at the SOL? So the time AROUND them would be an earlier date Not them. So why did Einstein say you could only travel forward in time.  And what would be the difference in time traveling faster than SOL? Like 1 sec at SOL = 1 billion years "outside " time?


I think I personally would rather travel forward in time than back in time anyways.

P.S. I THought SOL was 186,000 miles per sec. I saw it posted at 300,000 miles per sec. And I also though ( correct me if I'm wrong, you know you will) Einstein said SOL squared Time stops.


NUTTZ

[Bodhi]

Originally posted by Nash

Does light ever disolve into nothingness? Can it get absorbed and dissipate? Or mutate into some other kind of energy?

The black holes of this universe are thought to be the most powerful force in existence....  and yes, more powerful then light...

BTW Nash, how are you feeling?

FYI, we are burying my brother this spring... time to put it beyond us.

Hope your journey is going well.
Keep up the good work my friend.  I wish you the best

[Holden McGroin]

Originally posted by lasersailor184
Remember, just because we haven't found anything that goes faster then the speed of light, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Plus you're wrong about the photon on the sun, the babe and in your eye.

Nothing can exist in more then one point in space at one time.  The photon won't percieve being in the 3 places at the same time because it travels with a velocity.

But time does not pass for a photon.  Therefore, all things happen simultaneously for the photon.  Therfore, from the time reference of the photon, which is simultaneaty (sp) it is in two places at the same time.

While it might not seem like it's moving, it won't realize it's on the bikini until 8 minutes after it realizes it's on the surface of the sun. [/B]

If memory serves me in the quantum world of Feynmen, the photon travels all possible paths to get to where it is going (and of course it is already there) so that means it is everywhere simultaneously.

[Sixpence]

I know nothing of the subject, and I probably won't understand the answer to the question i'm going to ask, but I was told that matter emits light? If that is so, is the light that emits from ourselves travel out as time? So if we traveled at the speed of light we would not age? Or not move in time? I'm lost on what you guys are talking about so I thought I would ask and add to my confusion.

[Holden McGroin]

Some matter emits light, not all.  

It is a strong theory that most of the matter in the universe is dark matter, invisible to any of our detection, and different from objects which do not emit light such as planets.  Only a portion of matter achieves star status and begins to shine.

The faster one travels, the slower the time passes.  If we were to travel around the universe at near light speed we age only a few years and return to an earth long after our civilization is gone, perhaps long after all life on Earth has died out.

If we were to travel at the speed of light, time would not pass for our frame of reference.  Outside our frame, it would pass normally relative to observers watching us pass by.  

However theory holds that we cannot travel at the speed of light. No matter how fast we go, we can always shine a light out in front of us that travels away from us at the speed of light.  

That same beam observed by a stationary observer we just passed would be travelling at C according to him.  So we must necessarily be travelling slower than our own headlight beams which according to the stationary observer are travelling at C.

[mietla]

Guys,
Obviously those are very advanced topics and there is very few people in this world who really understand it. Many can manipulate the mathematics of it, but a clear understanding if difficult.

If you are genuinely interested in this stuff, there is a wonderfull little book written by R.P.Feynman. He was not only one of the greatest physicists ever, but also a great teacher. His very unique skill was the ability to teach complex things and explain them in a way that anyone can understand.

The book is titled "QED. A Strange theory of light and matter". It's a pretty small book and it explains a plethora of phemomena. From light reflection, refraction, diffraction and interference, throught the optics of a lens, to the elementary particles, quarks and Quantum Chromo Dynamics (QCD).

All that using a single "recipe" of QED. Even Pauli's exclusion principle and Heisenberg's uncertaintity principle cease to be an arbitrary, capricious weird and unintuitive laws, they simply follow as a consequence of QED principles.

What is most amazing though, is that the book is written in such a way that almost anyone can comprehend it, and after reading it being struck with ...

"Of course, why didn't I discover it. It was in plain sight".

Another entry level books

"The fourth dimension" - Rudy Rucker (not really physics, but a great introdunction to n-dimensional thinking)

"In search of Schodinger's Cat" - John Gribbin.

[Holden McGroin]

"6 Easy Pieces", "6 Not So Easy Pieces", and for fun, "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman"  are also excellent reads, and for those truely ambitious, "Feynman: Lectures on Physics" three volumes of mind benders.

But if you are going to read about special and general relativity, Albert himself wrote an explanation in layman's terms called "Relativity: The Special and General Theory".  It is a relatively easy read (smirk)

[mietla]

Another awesome book by Feynman is "The lost lecture". It is a CD with actual recording of Feynman's lecture (at CalTech), discovered in his office after his death.  The CD comes with a transcript, and notes.

The short story is, that he finished one of his lectures early, and having an exra hour, he just popped with this "extra" topic to keep the audience busy.

The topic is pretty simple "Orbits of the Planets". Feynman is proving that all the allowed orbits in a gravitational field have to be conic sections (elipse, parabola or hyperbola).

Seems simple, anyone with any knowlege of calculus and Newton's laws can do it, but...

Feyman is "virtually" moving 350 years to the time of Kepler. All he uses in his proof is Keplers laws (which are not really laws, just observations based on Tycho de Brahe data), and Euclidian geometry. Nothing more.

Now, try that for a brain teaser...

[NUKE]

Here is a question for you guys:

Consider human "A" and Human "B" each had a lifespan of 1 million heartbeats, each heart beating at the exact same rate.

Human A is traveling at the speed of light while human B is on Earth as normal.

Which person would live "longer" ? Time is measured by motion, yet both A and B should live the exact same "period" relative to their heartbeats..... is that correct?

[mietla]

The basic principle of relativity is, that (unless you are accelerating) it is impossible for you to detect whether you are moving or not. This means, that even other observers perceive your time as slowing down, you can't detect it. For you the time goes by as it always has.

It is not the measurement issue, it is the spacetime dilation issue. It is undetectable in principle.

The instrument you use to measure time is irrelevant, heartbeat, grandfather's clock, atomic processes, everything will slow down in sync.

[Holden McGroin]

One of the truely bizarre consequenses, is that if I am travelling with a constant velocity through interstellar space and pass by  you who is stationary, it is just as valid for you to believe you are the one with high velocity and I am standing still.

Both observers see the time in their frame of reference as normal, and the time in the other frame slowed.  And both are fundamentally correct.

As Albert said, "It's all how you look at it."

April 19 Vandenberg AFB a Delta launches with 'Gravity Probe B' to test the General Theory.

[lasersailor184]

Holden, so far you've only said that a photon doesn't experience time.

You haven't said why or how...

[Nash]

Originally posted by Bodhi
BTW Nash, how are you feeling?

FYI, we are burying my brother this spring... time to put it beyond us.

Hope your journey is going well.
Keep up the good work my friend.  I wish you the best

Thanks Bodhi. I'm doing just swimmingly, living the life of a normie, but actually enjoying it this time around.

It's very sad about your brother. Though I'm happy to hear that you're able to put it behind you.

I wouldn't have said something like this before my own little ordeal, but I'm more convinced than ever that your brother lives on. Somehow, and somewhere. Threads like this just make me more convinced of it.

Thanks bud.

[AKIron]

If indeed space/time is curved as some have supposed, it would seem to me that you need only a powerful/sensitive enough "telescope" to be able to see any and every point in time there has ever been.

[mietla]

Originally posted by AKIron
If indeed space/time is curved as some have supposed, it would seem to me that you need only a powerful/sensitive enough "telescope" to be able to see any and every point in time there has ever been.

Sure. Optical systems have well defined resolution barrier, so do any other systems bases on other principles.

But if you could design a system with a resolution high enough for the current radius of the Universe curvature, you could see a fat butt of someone looking into a fancy telescope away from you.

And that would be .... YOU.