One factor not mentioned by Cecil. That’s the “time” factor. What if “time” really does not exist but is merely an invention by H. Sapiens to measure the interval between tow events?
If you’ve been around since 1999 you should know better than to leave off a link to the column so everyone can follow along. I’m guessing you’re referring to If I fire a gun while near light speed, will the bullet EXCEED light speed?.
As for your question, excuse me while I get a ten-foot-pole to touch it.
It doesn’t matter what philosopical theory you smoke your weed to. The physcial mesurements stay the same as per Einstein regardless.
Speaking strictly for myself, I was been aware of “time” long before the first incident in which I had to have my car towed, let alone the second time (which would be necessary to have an “interval between tow events” as you put it).
Do you realize that this question is
logically the same as dividing zero by zero?
If a given quantity (like time) can be repeatedly and consistently measured by our instruments, and if along with other measured quantities it satisfies equations in our mathematical models (like Relativity), then that strongly suggests it’s objectively real, and not a mere invention of the human mind.
Maybe he first registered in 1999 in your reference frame, but he’s really a newbie in his.
If we’re measuring it, it exists, right? So I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here.
If time doesn’t exist, there wouldn’t be an interval between tow events. Your suggestion is meaningless.
What if distance doesn’t really exist, and it’s just something we invented to explain how far apart things are?
Time is as real as rocks. You might as well ask if space is real, as Mangetout points out; time is an aspect of spacetime and just as objectively real as the three space dimensions are. That’s how relativity treats time, and since treating it that way makes verifiable predictions (such as time running slightly faster at high altitudes and low velocities), until a theory with better predictions comes along it makes sense to treat time as being the way relativity says it is.
Actually, without time, there is no space. Space and time are intertwined.
Here’s a simple math word problem. Oh, and a caveat. When something travels the speed of light, it experiences no time:
A photon, traveling the speed of light (Duh!) starts out at Star “A” and looks at his watch and notices it is 12:00pm. The photon travels to Star “B”, looks at his watch and notices it is still 12:00pm. If light travels at 186,282.397 miles per second, and it took zero seconds for the photon to move from Star “A” to Star “B”, how far apart are the two stars?
Take your time. Use a calculator.
Did you get that the two stars are right next to each other? When things travel at the speed of light, there is no time, and no space.
I just read a new theory by Penrose (of the Penrose tile fame). It now appears that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating and there will be no “big crunch”. However, Penrose believes he’s discovered proof that the big bang has happened repeatedly. If the Universe isn’t going to contract into a big crunch, how will it be re-birthed through another big bang?
Penrose postulates that as the Universe expands, matter will become so tenuous that it will lose its mass. (Mass is believed to be not an inherit property of matter, but generated via the Higgs field). If matter loses all of its mass, it will start to move at the speed of light. When something moves at the speed of light, there is no space.
Therefore, the whole universe is now packed into an infinitely tight volume, just perfect for another big bang.
They are any distance apart. Literally any.
Inside a photon’s reference frame time doesn’t exist. Outside of its reference frame it does. 100,000,000 photons from the Big Bang hit your body every second. (Source: Marcus Chown.) They’ve traveled 13.7 billion light years. Time elapsed? For them, zero. By our perspective, 13.7 billion years. Similar for any other distance, large or small.
That’s also why you don’t want to talk about photons in the same way you talk about particles with mass, but I’ll leave that for the pros.
Could you please supply a link to an explanation of this theory? It sounds like something weird enough to be right.
Penrose claims to have glimpsed universe before Big Bang
According to my son, Penrose is correct in that if all matter loses its mass, it’ll move at the speed of light. If all matter moves at the speed of light, time and space will cease to exist and to those particles, and this would be the same condition as the start of the big bang. Maybe…
Just a tiny little problem of how matter loses its mass. This isn’t quite as weird as it sounds since it is possible that mass is not necessarily an intrinsic property of matter, but so far, Penrose doesn’t really have an explanation.
A quick synopsis is also available from the Economist: Cosmology, Going Around in Circles.
Actually, to a photon’s reference frame, neither time or space exist. To a photon, there simply is no such concept as distance. Plus, photons don’t wear watches.
It’s something one of my physics teachers came up with to help us understand the connection between time and space. It was suppose to help us to shake the false ideas we got about physics from watching too much Star Trek.
When traveling at sub-light speeds, only the spatial dimension in the direction of travel changes. Does the collapse of space in one dimension at the speed of light mean there’s no space?
Wait wait wait! Star Trek got something from science wrong? You can’t make me believe that.
At least please tell me most aliens are smokin’ hot and wear very little clothing.
You seem to be equating space and distance. That’s acceptable as casual English usage, but not if you’re talking space as in space-time. Distance is a property of space-time, but only a property. Photons are certainly subject to other properties of space-time, starting with gravity, even from an internal reference frame.
Of course most aliens are smokin’ hot - silicon chains need a whole lot more thermal energy to be flexible.
And it is only us ultra cool carbon life-forms that need to wrap up to maintain functioning temperature.
Si