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Geek Culture / Special Relativity

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Dar13
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Posted: 12th Dec 2012 15:45
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Why are we still feeding the troll? Nothing you say will change what he thinks and all you're doing is wasting your time and electrons.

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Libervurto
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Posted: 12th Dec 2012 16:43 Edited at: 12th Dec 2012 16:45
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Quote: "That's why the medieval knights used swords and not lightsabers. Had lightsabers been introduced to them, they would have thrown them out due to reasons of unreliability."

You seem to forget that metalworking has been around for thousands of years. In the Archaic age they used such soft alloys of copper and bronze that would bend out of shape so easily that Greek soldiers would have to hammer their weapons and armour after every bout of fighting. Even when iron started to be used it was very brittle and would break often. So at any of these points you could've said that they were over-designing the sword, but they continued to develop the technology and ended up with incredibly sharp and strong steel weaponry.

Quote: "Science used to be trial and error"

It is, but the trials have gotten so advanced and expensive that it takes decades to test a theory. I heard a physicist say that if Peter Higgs does indeed get the Nobel Prize he will be the last living physicist to receive the award, because the time between new theories being developed and it being possible to test them will soon be longer than the average lifetime. Our theories are outstripping our technology! More science funding!

Quote: "I dislike things that I cannot understand."

Then you will never understand.

Shh... you're pretty.
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Insert Name Here
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Posted: 12th Dec 2012 21:33 Edited at: 12th Dec 2012 21:39
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Quote: "If there's one thing to say about all of this, it's that you shouldn't overthink physics."


I don't really know what's going on in this thread, some dude seems to be arguing that things he doesn't understand shouldn't exist, but I thought I need to point out that this is the most meaningless statement ever. Of course you shouldn't overthink physics, you shouldn't overthink anything, that's why it's called overthinking.

Reminds me of an old Fry and Laurie sketch where Fry is trying to convince Laurie to start smoking. Laurie says 'but too much is bad for you!' and Fry responds 'Well of course too much is bad for you, too much of anything is bad for you, that's why it's called too much'.

Edit: Oh hey Sep,
Quote: " I wouldn't know where to begin in regards to quantum physics and the likes."

It's really not as complicated (on a simple level) as it's reputed to be, at least to my limited understanding. Basically all you've got to get your head around is that that the motion of particles only follows straight lines due to probability, rather than any physical laws. Oh, and light can simultaneously exist as a wave and a particle.

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Neuro Fuzzy
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Posted: 12th Dec 2012 21:41
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Quote: "Why are we still feeding the troll? Nothing you say will change what he thinks and all you're doing is wasting your time and electrons."

inorite.

but I can't help myself.



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TheComet
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Posted: 13th Dec 2012 14:35
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Quote: "Yes, yes, classic thoughts on the nature of reality. But how do I know that the standards against which we compare what we observe, what we observe, and our very own logic are not all illusions? You may exist within a separate yet connected reality, a reality within my reality, or the same reality that I am in, but I can never know for sure unless I suddenly start accepting a lot more suggestions, in which case you might as well consider me misled. No matter what, there seems to be no absolute truth, science, or logic to anything."


You will never be "in reality" because reality itself is already an abstraction. If I cut off your 5 senses, where would reality be? Maybe you're just a brain floating in a glass bowl being fed information, you'll never know.

In order to work together we have to agree on certain things. For example, we both seem to agree that a TGC forum exists where we can communicate to each other using a language we both agree on. Sure, it's not reality, but it's all we have to work with. We'll never gain an understanding of what's happening outside, because we're in a closed system.

That's my 2 cents. Now, who wants to play a game I wrote in this projection of reality, where we seem to agree that a download link to said game could appear?

TheComet

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Fluffy Rabbit
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Posted: 13th Dec 2012 21:58 Edited at: 14th Dec 2012 10:14
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@TheComet-

Any game you make seems to be good, so I'm all for it.

@everyone-

I have been talking to other people on the internet about special relativity, and they seem quite passionate about it. They say that you cannot correctly obeserve anything because objects travelling near the speed of light distort spacetime. Sounds like more time cube stuff to me.

EDIT: Above link is to a site that may be NSFW, so proceed at your own risk.
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Libervurto
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Posted: 14th Dec 2012 00:41 Edited at: 14th Dec 2012 00:45
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Put a warning on that link FR, some of it breaks our AUP. I'm not sure whether that's acceptable or if you'll be asked to remove it entirely. What is this Time Cube thing anyway, is it like the flat earth society?

[edit] There's some pretty twisted stuff or there FR, I'd recommend removing it before a mod sees it.

Shh... you're pretty.
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Neuro Fuzzy
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Posted: 14th Dec 2012 02:24
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I started to feed the troll again and wrote a giant message, but caught myself.

Everything works according to newtonian physics, eh? QUICK! GO TELL THE SCIENTISTS! Maybe you can get funding and write a paper showing every physicist how everything they've done in the last hundred years is wrong, and that the experimental verifications of what they did was all coincidence!

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Benjamin
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Posted: 14th Dec 2012 09:11
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I've just realized he's trolling all of us.

You're signature has been erased by a mod
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Fluffy Rabbit
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Posted: 14th Dec 2012 10:18
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You people think I'm trolling? You just take what all of the scientists say for granted without thinking for yourselves. Then you come on here and start saying that everything you believe contradicts what I'm saying, therefore I must be trolling. Open your eyes! Special relativity is far less believable on the surface than time-tested Newtonian physics.
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Neuro Fuzzy
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Posted: 14th Dec 2012 13:24
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Quote: "You just take what all of the scientists say for granted without thinking for yourselves."

Kind of silly to say, since physicists are very hard on themselves in terms of discarding theories if they don't match up with experiment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tests_of_special_relativity

So, I don't understand what you're asserting, scientifically. What should we observe to be different based on what you're saying? If special relativity is false, are you saying we can observe light to travel at a speed other than c? Are you saying that we can observe objects (particles, atoms) travelling faster than c? Are you saying that light doesn't interfere with itself? Are you saying that electricity and magnetism is explainable through Newtonian particles?

I can assume that if you don't like special relativity then you absolutely hate quantum mechanics. Nonetheless, how do you explain reflection experiments (I can't find a wikipedia page on the phenomenon, but according to Feynman [I plan to verify it myself eventually, but now stupid old me is still verifying special relativity ;] on http://vega.org.uk/video/subseries/8 as you black out specific parts of a mirror, you can get reflections to occur at odd angles [violating snell's law], as predicted by quantum mechanics) and the wave-like nature of light? (Even though we observe light arriving in packets! You can see this through a photomultiplier tube in a very, very dark room http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photomultiplier) How do you explain black-body radiation in a Newtonian way (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackbody_radiation)?

I'm not trying to insult you (so far in this post, at least), I'm just saying that you have to come up with something. You have to say, "the results of this experiment is wrong". If the results are the same through and through, if you can't find an experiment that disagrees with the predicted results of modern theories, then for all physicists care you've reinvented the same theory. At best maybe they would add the "fluffy rabbit" interpretation for their tool belt, to try to use for future predictions in case your identical theory was easier to work with.

Quote: "If a young retarded brain damaged child cannot instantly, completely and fully understand a theory, then it is NO GOOD."

Ah, you should start teaching physics to cats and dogs then!

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The Zoq2
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Posted: 14th Dec 2012 14:56
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Quote: "You people think I'm trolling? You just take what all of the scientists say for granted without thinking for yourselves. Then you come on here and start saying that everything you believe contradicts what I'm saying, therefore I must be trolling. Open your eyes! Special relativity is far less believable on the surface than time-tested Newtonian physics."
So, everything that a common person dosnt understand isn't true?
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Fluffy Rabbit
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Posted: 14th Dec 2012 15:05
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Quote: "If special relativity is false, are you saying we can observe light to travel at a speed other than c?"

Yes. Through some mediums, light slows down. Other times, light is emitted from a fast moving object. C is just the speed it moves relative to its origin in a vacuum.
Quote: "Are you saying that we can observe objects (particles, atoms) travelling faster than c?"

Yes, just don't factor in the speed of light. velocity=distance/time
Quote: "Are you saying that light doesn't interfere with itself?"

I'm not quite sure what you mean, there.
Quote: "Are you saying that electricity and magnetism is explainable through Newtonian particles?"

Yes. Well, I don't know about magnetism. Electricity, at least.

Quote: "I can assume that if you don't like special relativity then you absolutely hate quantum mechanics."

I'm not even going to bother debating quantum mechanics. When math gets that complex, you're off in the deep end.

Quote: "Ah, you should start teaching physics to cats and dogs then!"

Cats and dogs already understand physics better than most scientists.

Quote: "So, everything that a common person dosnt understand isn't true?"

I didn't say that. All I'm saying is that people need to use a little common sense.
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Matty H
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Posted: 14th Dec 2012 16:04
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Quote: "C is just the speed it moves relative to its origin in a vacuum"


The problem with this is it is just not true, so your common sense is letting you down.

You need to find someone who has set up a reproducible experiment showing what you say is true, you will find this difficult because there is not one.

When scientists devise experiments and spend thousands of hours testing these things you should not just dismiss the results because you just don't 'feel' like they are correct.

C being constant no matter how fast you are going is at the very heart of the theory, and it's been proved many times. My common sense tells me to believe what we see with our own eyes, I'm sorry yours does not.

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Fluffy Rabbit
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Posted: 14th Dec 2012 17:20 Edited at: 14th Dec 2012 17:21
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Quote: "When scientists devise experiments and spend thousands of hours testing these things you should not just dismiss the results because you just don't 'feel' like they are correct."

I am neither the first nor the last to bash special relativity.

Quote: "C being constant no matter how fast you are going is at the very heart of the theory, and it's been proved many times. My common sense tells me to believe what we see with our own eyes, I'm sorry yours does not."

First of all, I can't actually see photons with my eyes (at least not how you're describing). I see Newtonian physics with my own eyes.

Secondly, imagine you are in a space ship. Imagine you are going very, very fast. Imagine there is a light bulb. Is the light going to lag behind the ship? No, of course not! Just like sound, the light is going to keep up with the ship's momentum, along with everything else on board the ship. Sound moves at a set speed, but when you go faster than that speed, you don't outrun it. Light works in a very similar way. Just like everything else, it has momentum and velocity. Photons are made out of solid matter.
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The Zoq2
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Posted: 14th Dec 2012 17:51
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Quote: "with my eyes"


Quote: " I don't know about magnetism"


So... magnetism is magic?
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Zotoaster
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Posted: 14th Dec 2012 19:49
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Fluffy Rabbit,

You are basically describing exactly what Einstein did to discover relativity. He challenged the current understanding of science, and by some careful thought, deduced relativity. It was up to experimentalists to prove his predictions, and they worked.

If you think about it carefully, it makes sense, just not to our "common sense" notion of reality. We are not built to understand the world as it is, we are built to make useful representations of the world in our heads so that we may use that information to survive. That doesn't make any of that information true - you have to break out of the bubble of your own perceptions and understand that the universe doesn't have to conform to our expectations.

Watch this video and get back to me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev9zrt__lec

"everyone forgets a semi-colon sometimes." - Phaelax
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Insert Name Here
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Posted: 14th Dec 2012 21:41
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Quote: "Sound moves at a set speed, but when you go faster than that speed, you don't outrun it."


Actually that's not true, sorry. When jet pilots break the speed of sound, and then slow down, they hear the sound they made coming up behind them.

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Matty H
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Posted: 14th Dec 2012 21:41
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Quote: "I can't actually see photons with my eyes"


No, but you can see the results of experiments, that's what I meant.

Thanks for the link Zotoaster.

The video starts with the premise that light travels at a constant speed and then describes the consequences, these consequences have been tested and verified but I don't think that is enough for Fluffy Rabbit?

It should be noted that Einstein was not the one that discovered light travelled at a constant speed, he just followed through with the consequences.

Here is a passage from the book 'why does E=MC2':

Quote: "What did Faraday's benchtop measurements, coupled with Maxwell's mathematical genius, predict for the speed of the electromagnetic waves? This is one of the key moments of our story. It is a wonderful example of why physics is a beautiful, powerful, and profound subject: Maxwell's waves travel at 299,792,458 meters per second. Astonishingly, this is the speed of light - Maxwell had stumbled across an explanation of light itself.
...
The existence in nature of this special speed, a single, unchanging, 299,792,458 meters per second, will lead us in the next chapter, just as it lead Einstein, to jettison the notion of absolute time. "


So don't blame Einstein completely, you must also dismiss Faraday and Maxwell. You are then on really shaky ground

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Neuro Fuzzy
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Posted: 14th Dec 2012 21:52
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Quote: "Cats and dogs already understand physics better than most scientists."

Not sure how to respond to something that idiotic. Animals who regularly die from swallowing sticks, are better at physics than the ones who build computers and skyscrapers.

I can't do this. Goodbye.

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Libervurto
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Posted: 14th Dec 2012 21:57 Edited at: 14th Dec 2012 22:05
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@Zoto
That video is one of the better explanations I've seen, there's a good number of examples, which is always helpful.

It makes me think that nothing actually moves in the way you'd expect but instead contorts space-time to create a path of least resistance, like if you placed a marble on a table cloth you could control the marble's velocity by pulling and twisting the cloth.

Thinking about it, it would have to be more like a wave, so firing an engine would produce high energy out the rear of the craft which would be like dropping a stone in water behind a paper boat, the boat then rides the ripples away from the stone, but then the stone settles and doesn't produce any more waves.

This might be a good thread to ask a question that's bothered me for some time: What is movement? How do objects move? If moving from one place to another requires movement through incremental points then surely there's some microscopic level where particles move instantaneously between one point and another: they do not travel across the gap. This leads me to believe that the universe is like a 3D pixel array, where properties are transferred between a grid of cells rather than anything actually moving. Oh crap it's the Matrix!

Shh... you're pretty.
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Fluffy Rabbit
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Posted: 15th Dec 2012 09:58
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In a video game, objects are defined as existing in specific places. They can change places at any speed, at any time. There is no distortion except when they get so far from the origin that accurate numbers can no longer be attained, therefore the game is broken up into smaller areas which are sometimes known as "levels". If that which we call reality is comparable to such a video game, then Einstein couldn't have been further from the truth. That is all.
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Neuro Fuzzy
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Posted: 15th Dec 2012 10:04
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Fluffy Rabbit's law of floating point inaccuracy. I can see it in the textbooks now.

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The Zoq2
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Posted: 15th Dec 2012 10:08
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Sooooo now the world is a videogame?
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Fluffy Rabbit
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Posted: 15th Dec 2012 10:25
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Video games are nothing more than a simplification of reality, just as physics can be simulated with pen and paper.

If you can prove that the speed of light is the same to all observers, then Einstein's theories might seem a little more rational. Still, light takes a while to reach your eyes, so who knows what speed it's actually travelling?
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TheComet
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Posted: 15th Dec 2012 10:42
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You can measure exactly how fast it travels...

TheComet

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Fluffy Rabbit
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Posted: 15th Dec 2012 13:11
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@TheComet-

The first experiments that lead to the idea that the speed of light appears the same to all observers were really screwed up.
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Dar13
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Posted: 15th Dec 2012 15:53
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And we're still feeding the troll. Why do you guys continue with this?

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Zotoaster
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Posted: 15th Dec 2012 19:09
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Quote: "And we're still feeding the troll. Why do you guys continue with this?"


Gives us something to feel nostalgic about in the future


Quote: "Video games are nothing more than a simplification of reality, just as physics can be simulated with pen and paper."


Physics intends to decipher reality. Video games aren't meant to do that. They're just for fun.

"everyone forgets a semi-colon sometimes." - Phaelax
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Diggsey
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Posted: 15th Dec 2012 19:52 Edited at: 15th Dec 2012 19:53
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Quote: "The first experiments that lead to the idea that the speed of light appears the same to all observers were really screwed up."


Actually it's quite easy to understand. If you accept that the earth revolves around the sun, then you must also accept that the earth moves quite fast relative to the sun. At the moment the earth is travelling at about 29.8 kilometers per second in one direction. In 6 months it will be travelling in the opposite direction at the same speed.

Now all you have to do is measure the speed of light from some external source (let's say a distant star or galaxy) at 6 month intervals.

If there existed some absolute frame of reference like in a video game, then as the earth goes towards the light, we would measure it as going much faster than when we are travelling away from the light.

This experiment and many related ones have been done many times, and they all show that the speed of light in a vacuum is always constant. Therefore, there cannot be an absolute frame of reference, hence all frames are relative, hence relativity...

The logic is very simple, I don't need to take the science on trust, I can see it for myself. There's also the small fact that lots of modern technology (eg. GPS) shouldn't work according to Newtonian physics, which seems to me to be a fairly strong indication that's it's not the whole story!

[b]
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TheComet
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Posted: 18th Dec 2012 23:28
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This thread.



TheComet

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bitJericho
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Posted: 19th Dec 2012 02:35 Edited at: 19th Dec 2012 02:55
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Hey rabbit, how do you explain red shifting of galaxies that are far away from us? They are red because they are moving quickly away from us but due to the universal speed limit, the light must still travel at the same speed, and so instead of changing the speed at which it travels it changes the frequency (color). Similar to the Doppler effect that happens to sound. Sound also has a speed limit depending on the medium it travels in, so sound changes pitch to the observer. Light changes pitch as well to the observer. If you were to live in one of those faraway galaxies, you would not see the red shift, but the red shift would be visible if you looked back at our galaxy!

Another example, sound travels faster in water than air. If you ring a bell under water and you are listening at a distance, it might take 1 second to reach you. On land, it might take longer. Now, if both on land and on water reached you at the same time, the only variable that changes then is time right? This is what happens to light. We know this to be true because we've tested the speed of light in a vacuum at various speeds and it's *always* the same speed no matter how fast the object emitting the light is moving. Therefore, time speed changes depending on how fast you're moving.

But wait, why are galaxies red shifted away from us? They aren't moving at a constant speed away from us, they are moving at a constant *acceleration* away from us. So the doppler affect applies.

How do we know they are accelerating and not moving at a constant speed away from us? Because galaxies far away from us are red shifted less than galaxies even farther away, exponentially.

Quote: "Finally with the third point of light we have our number! We can now judge the lengths between points because we have two other lengths to compare with. Numbers are no longer just greater than one, they have a definite value.
If we continue to add points to the system nothing new is added because we already have the reference point we needed."


Hmm perhaps that's why we have 3 (known) spacial dimensions? If we had 4 spacial dimensions though you would say we needed 4 points to calculate any point in space.

Visit my blog http://www.canales.me.
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