The future is impossible
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The longer one practices physics, the more entrenched prevailing thought becomes. The "trap" of science is that eventually it becomes its very antithesis: a religion, one based upon perceived facts. The word "perceived" escapes notice, however, and the physicists become the acolytes of the "church" of science. Those acolytes then defend their religion to the death. Your new idea is heresy.
Have you read The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn? I think that you would like it.
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I'm not calling a conspiracy. Recent discoveries have led me to a questioning of fundamentals. Take the EM Drive for instance. The experiment has repeatedly shown that the drive is creating thrust from electromagnetic energy in a vacuum but that shouldn't be possible. I really goes against convention. The EM Drive is basically saying that a vacuum is not empty and there is something there for the EM Drive to push against. Since we might have gotten the concept of what's in the space around us wrong, what else have we gotten wrong?
if (Object.DividedByZero == true) { Universe.Implode(); } Meus ratio ex fortis machina. Simplicitatis de formae ac munus. -Foothill, 2016
I completely agree, all I'm saying is that faster than light travel doesn't make sense because speed of light travel is actually INSTANT. So, you are going to have to define what you mean by faster than light travel, because I don't know how you can get somewhere faster than instant.
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OK, let me come at this from a more philosophical angle. Which came first, energy or matter? AFAIK, current mainstream cosmology would have to say that energy came first, at least if you hold with the Big Bang Theory. You can convert energy to mass and vice-versa, but when you look closely enough matter is fundamentally a product of energy (think of what an atom truly is). So is the everyday material world even "real" then, if solid matter is merely an "illusion" created by tiny energy clusters sparsely distributed through vast quantities of empty space? Well, it's as real as real gets, from the experiential viewpoint, because there's no "more real" world that you can visit. However, that doesn't mean that matter is the foundation of reality itself, it's just the foundation of our experience of reality. But what is it that experiences this reality? There is one truly undeniable statement in philosophy, one statement that is more certainly true than anything else that can be said. It was famously stated by Descartes as "I think, therefore I am." In other words, the fact that I am able to contemplate being proves that, in fact, being is a thing and that I exist. Importantly, the only thing that we can be so certain that exists is consciousness. Consciousness is the only thing that experiences reality, and so in some sense reality is always defined in terms of consciousness (even for materialists, who have to deal with the sensory problem). You cannot, in good intellectual faith, ignore the question of consciousness if you seek an accurate understanding of reality. [I'm going to beat on Daniel Dennett a bit here because his book Consciousness Explained has become like a bible for naive materialists, so I have to deal with him in order to argue my case, because a lot of people think that the title of this book wasn't a lie.] But science ignores the question of consciousness all of the time, mainly because it's so hard. When scientists do consider it, many of them go with a tortured materialist explanation a la Daniel Dennett. But when they do so they have to wrestle with the problem of mind/body dualism (Idealism doesn't have this problem, but Dennett seems ignorant of that and considers an assault on mind/body dualism enough to dismiss all non-materialist views). More importantly, materialists have to explain how consciousness exists at all in a materialistic universe. The idea that consciousness is an emergent property of matter is mystical magical BS, the very thing that material
I've read up a little on the conscious angle. It's an interesting blend of physics an philosophy and I think I could attempt sum it up as "the universe exists the way I observe it because I am the one observing it that way." The point that I am trying to make with this sub-thread is that there could be some fundamental flaw in our current perception of physics but time has turned theory into doctrine and it has become nearly impossible to change direction due to the 100+ years of momentum that has built up behind it. To me, a lot more things make sense when you boil the entire universe down to three things: natural energy (the stuff that makes up particles), kinetic energy, and some still undefinable force that keeps the natural energy from existing everywhere simultaneously.
if (Object.DividedByZero == true) { Universe.Implode(); } Meus ratio ex fortis machina. Simplicitatis de formae ac munus. -Foothill, 2016
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I completely agree, all I'm saying is that faster than light travel doesn't make sense because speed of light travel is actually INSTANT. So, you are going to have to define what you mean by faster than light travel, because I don't know how you can get somewhere faster than instant.
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True, there is no shorter distance then zero. To me, FTL is traveling in excess of 300,000 km/s.
if (Object.DividedByZero == true) { Universe.Implode(); } Meus ratio ex fortis machina. Simplicitatis de formae ac munus. -Foothill, 2016
Yeah but....you are. You are travelling infinitely fast from your perspective. If you are travelling at the speed of light, your rocket ship can instantly arrive anywhere in the universe INSTANTLY. I think that's what you are missing about the whole relativity thing. Pick the further thing in the universe you can think of. If you get your ship up to 99.99999% the speed of light, you will literally get there in a second.
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Yeah but....you are. You are travelling infinitely fast from your perspective. If you are travelling at the speed of light, your rocket ship can instantly arrive anywhere in the universe INSTANTLY. I think that's what you are missing about the whole relativity thing. Pick the further thing in the universe you can think of. If you get your ship up to 99.99999% the speed of light, you will literally get there in a second.
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True, there is no shorter distance then zero. To me, FTL is traveling in excess of 300,000 km/s.
if (Object.DividedByZero == true) { Universe.Implode(); } Meus ratio ex fortis machina. Simplicitatis de formae ac munus. -Foothill, 2016
Allow me to clarify for a second. You see an awesome star you want to visit. You look into the night sky, and you see a supernova exploding. You want front row seats to this event, so you jump into your speed of light ship to go look at it. You get there instantly, i.e. you have aged say 1 second, but when the ship stops at its destination you will have found that the supernova is gone. But how? You got there instantly! Well that's simple...it's because the light you were looking at from Earth was 20 billion light years old, so the star actually exploded 20 billion years ago. You got there instantly, but "instantly" near the star is 20 billion years later than the light you are seeing from earth. So if you don't believe in time travel, this is the fastest you can go. If the star exploded 20 billion years ago and it's now dead, you can't get to the star as it was 20 billion years ago. You can begin your journey now at infinite speed from your perspective and see how it looks NOW, 20 years after that supernova explosion that the light just got to you from. If you have an alternate proposition, such as multiverse theory, then I'm all game, it's possible. But you can't have no time travel and faster than light travel, it just doesn't make sense. If you explain a theory of how that would work where I can picture it working then I'm all for it being possible, but as you've laid it out, it won't work.
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Allow me to clarify for a second. You see an awesome star you want to visit. You look into the night sky, and you see a supernova exploding. You want front row seats to this event, so you jump into your speed of light ship to go look at it. You get there instantly, i.e. you have aged say 1 second, but when the ship stops at its destination you will have found that the supernova is gone. But how? You got there instantly! Well that's simple...it's because the light you were looking at from Earth was 20 billion light years old, so the star actually exploded 20 billion years ago. You got there instantly, but "instantly" near the star is 20 billion years later than the light you are seeing from earth. So if you don't believe in time travel, this is the fastest you can go. If the star exploded 20 billion years ago and it's now dead, you can't get to the star as it was 20 billion years ago. You can begin your journey now at infinite speed from your perspective and see how it looks NOW, 20 years after that supernova explosion that the light just got to you from. If you have an alternate proposition, such as multiverse theory, then I'm all game, it's possible. But you can't have no time travel and faster than light travel, it just doesn't make sense. If you explain a theory of how that would work where I can picture it working then I'm all for it being possible, but as you've laid it out, it won't work.
I get what you are say, of course the star won't be there, you're 20 billion years too late. I get that. I guess what my brain isn't getting the jump from faster than light to instantaneous travel. To me faster than light is just that, traveling faster than 300,000 km/s (I'm ignoring the limitations on speed here).
if (Object.DividedByZero == true) { Universe.Implode(); } Meus ratio ex fortis machina. Simplicitatis de formae ac munus. -Foothill, 2016
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I get what you are say, of course the star won't be there, you're 20 billion years too late. I get that. I guess what my brain isn't getting the jump from faster than light to instantaneous travel. To me faster than light is just that, traveling faster than 300,000 km/s (I'm ignoring the limitations on speed here).
if (Object.DividedByZero == true) { Universe.Implode(); } Meus ratio ex fortis machina. Simplicitatis de formae ac munus. -Foothill, 2016
Well then you're in luck - get up to close to the speed of light and you will get there instantly. If someone on earth is looking at you as you make your journey then it will look like you are moving at the 300,000km/s, but at that speed space in front of you is compressed so much that you get there instantly, and space behind you expands so much that 20 billion years will have passed on earth. Hence why "everything is relative" - there is no "absolute" frame of reference in the universe, everything changes in relation to everything else.
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I've read up a little on the conscious angle. It's an interesting blend of physics an philosophy and I think I could attempt sum it up as "the universe exists the way I observe it because I am the one observing it that way." The point that I am trying to make with this sub-thread is that there could be some fundamental flaw in our current perception of physics but time has turned theory into doctrine and it has become nearly impossible to change direction due to the 100+ years of momentum that has built up behind it. To me, a lot more things make sense when you boil the entire universe down to three things: natural energy (the stuff that makes up particles), kinetic energy, and some still undefinable force that keeps the natural energy from existing everywhere simultaneously.
if (Object.DividedByZero == true) { Universe.Implode(); } Meus ratio ex fortis machina. Simplicitatis de formae ac munus. -Foothill, 2016
If you haven't done so already, you should read The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn. It's about exactly what you're saying about science and resistance to new ideas.
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Well then you're in luck - get up to close to the speed of light and you will get there instantly. If someone on earth is looking at you as you make your journey then it will look like you are moving at the 300,000km/s, but at that speed space in front of you is compressed so much that you get there instantly, and space behind you expands so much that 20 billion years will have passed on earth. Hence why "everything is relative" - there is no "absolute" frame of reference in the universe, everything changes in relation to everything else.
As interesting as this discussion has been, it's almost quitting time here so I'm off to enjoy the weekend. Have a pleasant evening.
if (Object.DividedByZero == true) { Universe.Implode(); } Meus ratio ex fortis machina. Simplicitatis de formae ac munus. -Foothill, 2016
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As interesting as this discussion has been, it's almost quitting time here so I'm off to enjoy the weekend. Have a pleasant evening.
if (Object.DividedByZero == true) { Universe.Implode(); } Meus ratio ex fortis machina. Simplicitatis de formae ac munus. -Foothill, 2016
You too! I should correct a previous statement - I meant to say time is compressed/expanded in front/behind you not space. That's what they are talking about when they refer to "time dilation" in relativity.
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Yea, you have to be jovial while exploring lines of thought that run counter to established beliefs. If you want proof that time travel is impossible, thank history. Do you think for a second that if time travel were possible somebody would have already traveled back in time and assassinated Hitler in the trenches of France during WWI? We're human and I am certain some American would have done it just to prove that it could be done. :laugh: I also don't think that black holes exist or at least not in the way that we currently think that they do. The point is that we use math to describe the universe but it doesn't work in reverse. While Hawking is a brilliant mathematician, just because you can prove something exists on paper does not mean that it exists in reality. I find it far more probable that the phenomenon that we think are black holes are really just the dead cores of the very first stars. Since black holes where accepted in mainstream physics, some people have gone to great lengths to try and prove it and thereby preventing other avenues of thought. I see them as very large bodies of normal matter with large proportions of radioactive material. The radioactivity will keep them very hot for a long time, continuously spewing radiation into space but other then that they behave like any other celestial object. Until we get close enough to one to take real-time measurements, it is still an educated guess either way.
if (Object.DividedByZero == true) { Universe.Implode(); } Meus ratio ex fortis machina. Simplicitatis de formae ac munus. -Foothill, 2016
Foothill wrote:
We're human and I am certain some American would have done it just to prove that it could be done. :laugh:
Who said Hitler is not the result of that time-travelling?
Foothill wrote:
I also don't think that black holes exist or at least not in the way that we currently think that they do. The point is that we use math to describe the universe but it doesn't work in reverse. While Hawking is a brilliant mathematician, just because you can prove something exists on paper does not mean that it exists in reality. I find it far more probable that the phenomenon that we think are black holes are really just the dead cores of the very first stars.
The simpeler explanation is the more probably one. Doesn't sound as exciting though.
Foothill wrote:
I see them as very large bodies of normal matter with large proportions of radioactive material. The radioactivity will keep them very hot for a long time, continuously spewing radiation into space but other then that they behave like any other celestial object. Until we get close enough to one to take real-time measurements, it is still an educated guess either way.
In that case, I'll rather go for the romantic view that there is an entire universe inside every black hole :)
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^][](X-Clacks-Overhead: GNU Terry Pratchett)
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Yeah but....you are. You are travelling infinitely fast from your perspective. If you are travelling at the speed of light, your rocket ship can instantly arrive anywhere in the universe INSTANTLY. I think that's what you are missing about the whole relativity thing. Pick the further thing in the universe you can think of. If you get your ship up to 99.99999% the speed of light, you will literally get there in a second.
Mike Marynowski wrote:
Pick the further thing in the universe you can think of. If you get your ship up to 99.99999% the speed of light, you will literally get there in a second.
So, if you go slower than light, you travel further than light itself travels in a second? I'm going to re-read this thread later on again, I must have missed some things :thumbsup:
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^][](X-Clacks-Overhead: GNU Terry Pratchett)
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Phase velocity can exceed the speed of light - it may be exploitable, but for sending information and not any physical objects. It all comes down to the relativistic mass of any object with mass. As it approaches the speed of light its mass approached infinity - so acceleration becomes impossible. An interesting caveat to that could be that as anything with any mass approaches c, they all approach the same mass. Which causes all sorts of conflicts, logically - and one might as well accelerate an entire planet as accelerate a grain of sand as they'll take the same effort in the end. Special relativity does bend the brain, a bit.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
W∴ Balboos wrote:
as anything with any mass approaches c, they all approach the same mass
The problem here is that you are treating infinity as a quantity, which leads to all sorts of paradoxical things. Infinity is a concept not a number, it has no quantity that can be compared to some other quantity. This is why mathematicians talk about approaching infinity rather than infinity itself as a number. Besides, before the object approached "infinite" mass, the universe would collapse around it and destroy everything anyway, because gravity. You would destroy the universe before you approached the speed of light, even leaving aside the fact that you used up most of the energy in the universe in the process.
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W∴ Balboos wrote:
as anything with any mass approaches c, they all approach the same mass
The problem here is that you are treating infinity as a quantity, which leads to all sorts of paradoxical things. Infinity is a concept not a number, it has no quantity that can be compared to some other quantity. This is why mathematicians talk about approaching infinity rather than infinity itself as a number. Besides, before the object approached "infinite" mass, the universe would collapse around it and destroy everything anyway, because gravity. You would destroy the universe before you approached the speed of light, even leaving aside the fact that you used up most of the energy in the universe in the process.
I did say approach, and besides that, these are both approaching the same order of infinities (Alephs). The universe wouldn't collapse around it - if for no other reason than that the information about it's mass would still be constrained to traveling at c. Anything else moving at 'c', therefore, may never know of the event unless it's heading more-or-less towards it. Or - if I were politically motivated I'd say: you've no experimental proof - but one doesn't present politics in the Lounge.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
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I did say approach, and besides that, these are both approaching the same order of infinities (Alephs). The universe wouldn't collapse around it - if for no other reason than that the information about it's mass would still be constrained to traveling at c. Anything else moving at 'c', therefore, may never know of the event unless it's heading more-or-less towards it. Or - if I were politically motivated I'd say: you've no experimental proof - but one doesn't present politics in the Lounge.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
I'm not clear on how bringing set theory into it changes things. The initial energy required for acceleration would be much greater for the planet than for the grain of sand, so that is still going to carry forward as you approach infinity, right? It would amount to the same energy in both cases if you actually reached infinity, but of course you never would. Also, I'm not clear about how that mass is going to effect (or not) the rest of the universe. Are you saying that there would be no gravitational force exerted on the surrounding universe as a near-infinite bit of mass passed by? Is the gravity somehow localized? Let me guess, relative to the object travelling at c? So would the spaceship crush itself then? I'm sure I'm missing something, but I can't help but see near-infinite mass as near-infinite gravity, and gravity on that scale seems like it would have an effect on something. And, experimental proof of what? We're talking about thought experiments.
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I'm not clear on how bringing set theory into it changes things. The initial energy required for acceleration would be much greater for the planet than for the grain of sand, so that is still going to carry forward as you approach infinity, right? It would amount to the same energy in both cases if you actually reached infinity, but of course you never would. Also, I'm not clear about how that mass is going to effect (or not) the rest of the universe. Are you saying that there would be no gravitational force exerted on the surrounding universe as a near-infinite bit of mass passed by? Is the gravity somehow localized? Let me guess, relative to the object travelling at c? So would the spaceship crush itself then? I'm sure I'm missing something, but I can't help but see near-infinite mass as near-infinite gravity, and gravity on that scale seems like it would have an effect on something. And, experimental proof of what? We're talking about thought experiments.
The set theory view is to narrow – they infinities are of the same order of magnitude (infinity-wise). Now, be they a grain of sand or a planet, they rapidly converge, asymptotically in mass as the sand would accelerate much faster (at first) until it’s mass was the same as the planet. Catch-up. The energy required for acceleration of either is "within experimental error", the same. (You know - infinit vs. infinity+1) And I didn’t say “space ship” or any other specific object traveling at ‘c’. Take, for example, any light in the universe – which is part of the universe – and would always be out of reach of the gravitational waves (if they travel at ‘c’). Unless you consider a universe containing just light is not a universe. The ‘experimental proof’ was a jab at those saying there’s no ‘experimental proof’ for climate change – but what experiment would the propose? So that’s why I said it had a political scent to it. Now, I’ve had to spell it out – which is what I tried to avoid, before – I brought a ray of darkness into the Lounge.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
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Mike Marynowski wrote:
Pick the further thing in the universe you can think of. If you get your ship up to 99.99999% the speed of light, you will literally get there in a second.
So, if you go slower than light, you travel further than light itself travels in a second? I'm going to re-read this thread later on again, I must have missed some things :thumbsup:
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^][](X-Clacks-Overhead: GNU Terry Pratchett)
Haha...the closer to the speed of light you go, the slower time becomes in your frame of reference. Very close to speed of light travel will get you anywhere in the universe instantly from your perspective because of time dilation. The faster you go from Earth to say Planet X, the more "slow motion" you look to someone observing you from Earth or Planet X, and the more sped up everything on Earth and Planet X looks to you. When you move at the speed of light relative to something, from your perspective you get there instantly, and that thing ages the amount of light-time away it is.
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The set theory view is to narrow – they infinities are of the same order of magnitude (infinity-wise). Now, be they a grain of sand or a planet, they rapidly converge, asymptotically in mass as the sand would accelerate much faster (at first) until it’s mass was the same as the planet. Catch-up. The energy required for acceleration of either is "within experimental error", the same. (You know - infinit vs. infinity+1) And I didn’t say “space ship” or any other specific object traveling at ‘c’. Take, for example, any light in the universe – which is part of the universe – and would always be out of reach of the gravitational waves (if they travel at ‘c’). Unless you consider a universe containing just light is not a universe. The ‘experimental proof’ was a jab at those saying there’s no ‘experimental proof’ for climate change – but what experiment would the propose? So that’s why I said it had a political scent to it. Now, I’ve had to spell it out – which is what I tried to avoid, before – I brought a ray of darkness into the Lounge.
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
W∴ Balboos wrote:
You know - infinit vs. infinity+1
This kind of arithmetic with infinity is exactly what bugs me, that's treating it as a quantity, the problem being that you have to actually reach infinity before you can add 1 to it. But never mind, that's a small point and it's purely academic. I get what you mean that at some point it would take almost exactly the same amount of energy to get both objects up to the same velocity.
W∴ Balboos wrote:
Take, for example, any light in the universe – which is part of the universe – and would always be out of reach of the gravitational waves
Well, photons don't have mass right? Gravity can affect light but light can't produce gravity AFAIK. I thought we were taking about accelerating matter. Obviously light doesn't take on infinite mass at the speed of light, we don't need an experiment to know that, we'd be able to tell :) Anyway, it's interesting to think about, but we are obviously never going to do interstellar travel by accelerating mass through space. It seems we would have to manipulate space somehow.