Shooting a bullet while traveling the speed of light

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
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Then it’s even more important to ask questions and more questions because it’s still not correct. The predominant theory precludes the existence of a person as an individual reality, not to mention the possibility of ever thoroughly investigating the Galaxy in which we exist. At the moment I think politics are more detrimental to ongoing discovery than any theory of reality, and philosophy cannot be separated from theologies like Relativity because it’s the underlying social philosophy that drives a theory and it’s study. Societies mirror and express the individuals who make up it’s communities and neighborhoods. Looking at the direction the US economy is heading seems hardly conducive to the development of an honest theology regarding reality as a whole. The most common and again IMHO harmful difficulties can be summed up in four words; Lying, Cheating, Stealing, Blaming.

It’s easy to summarily dismiss all that you don’t agree with. But dismissal of one theory does nothing to validate another.

The best theory I can think of as an alternative is the theory of ignorance stated thus: “I don’t know”!
And it’s very easy to validate.

And, I did not present my explanation as a “theory”, only as an idea. The title is: “An elegant explanation, without math, that works.”, not “a new theory of reality.”.

Last but not least. Did you really think that ass kissing silliness to be serious? I’d probably never suggest such a thing as numerology or that bizarre thing where numbers on your head = intellect.

Unless, of course, that’s all there is within one’s head…
:smiley:

-Tom

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The length of a second is indeed a defined quantity, but it is also a static value. In other words a second is considered a second, with all seconds being considered to be of the same value.

The whole point I am trying to make is that you cannot confine something such as the speed of light to a static state simply by employing static terms because the light is not going to cooperate.

On top of this, believing light to be in linear motion sets your thinking up in a manner comparable to playing poker with a marked deck of cards but not realizing you are being cheated.

The reason why the speed of light is fixed at exactly 299,792,458 meters per second is due to the fact that no one could decide on what the exact speed of light was, because it kept changing. At least the measurements kept changing.

But, it’s supposed to be constant isn’t it? So to fix that problem it was decided to standardize the speed of light and now it remains constant. At least on paper it remains constant.

And to be honest; 0.999999 is not the same as 1.0 and if you think it is I truly believe you are kidding yourself.

The basic idea of light having a linear speed is much the same as the idea of gravity having a linear speed, which suggests that light and gravity are in linear motion. This in itself limits and confounds one’s perspective of universe.

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Yes!!!

I win the internets!!!

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:p:p:p

Well played.

-FrL-

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Why do I keep reading this thread? It doesn’t get any better.

I will agree that 0.999999 does not equal 1.0, but you missed something when quoting Exapno Mapcase - that ~ after the 0.9999. That ~ represents “repeating infinitely”, which is an entirely different number than 0.999999.

Does that change your answer?

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Looks like I missed something eh? But then I seem to miss a lot of things.

Yes, ~ does make a difference in relation to 0.9999999~ or 0.3333333~ etc.

Now I have my reading glasses on let’s continue;

In terms of an infinite value, the infinite value is always equal to 1 (one).

So, what we have is a simultaneous infinity, which takes us far beyond the realm of linear considerations.

But this just might explain the point I have been attempting to make.

Whether you base the factor of time on a mechanical clock, an electric clock or an atomic clock you are still measuring time with a clock and denoting the value of time in terms of a linear duration.

So, the consensus is that the cesium driven clock provides us with a very accurate reference, but in doing so we are playing a game of let’s pretend.

The universe is neither static or linear in structure or function, but we smart folks believe we can still use our static terms to define universe.

This leaves us in a box, a very small box with very little light defining its thick exterior boundaries.

If we are to view the universe in terms of a dynamic state or condition where both past and future exist simultaneously, time is neither static or linear. In fact neither past or future are linearly sequenced, which certainly avoids a lot of unnecessary running back and forth. Consequently the idea of a quantum computer might not be such an impossible consideration, eh?

No one is going to fire a gun at the speed of light, because light is not in linear motion and has no linear speed.

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I know I’m a bit late to the party but I just found this site… so here I go “a-ranting”…:stuck_out_tongue:
I completely understand what David is trying to say.
And I have a few simple questions and statements.
First is that any measurements taken on earth are subject to the velocity of earth. (through the universe) Anyone know that figure exactly? And if not then how can you specify the speed of light and relate that speed to any other frame of reference?
Second, the original equation that started this thread was w = (u + v)/(1 + uv/c^2) trying to prove that w does not equal u+v. But my problem with that equation is that if u=the speed of one object and v=the speed of a second object then what does the speed of light have to do with the equation? That would be like saying that you have to divide the speed of a jet shooting bullets by the speed of sound. It simply doesn’t have anything to do with the objects of the equation. And the reason that the speed of light doesn’t have anything to do with the equation is that if two objects were traveling at .99999~ the speed of light, they would seem to each other to be at “rest”. So if one tried to move away from the other of course it would be able to and there would be a difference of speed. Which would mean that one was going faster than the other. At which time the faster object would exceed the speed of light. (since it is only acting as a speed limit sign on the roadside.)
Watch out for the Classical Physics Cops!
:smiley:

And quoting answers from a classical physics book isn’t actually answering the question. Especially when it’s most likely an unanswerable question. (like how fast is that photon?) It’s just stating someone else’s theories and assuming that they are the “law”.

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Oh, so that’s what happened to my other sock…

Stranger

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Here and I thought that the stars were just pinholes in the curtain of night and the grapefruit-sized sun spun around the earth. I guess it turns out that in every question about the workings of the universe there is an implied level of simplicity that suits the individual’s current understanding and will always be infinitely more simple than reality and truly only applicable to perception. Any mechanisms need only rely on accurate reproducable expectation. And remember kids, Never fire guns on spaceships!

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Preach it, brother!

Now show your math. :smiley:

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Only if he wants partial credit…:stuck_out_tongue:

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I don’t understand this philosophy.

Does not the moon affect me (tides, et. al) even if I remain ignorant of it’s existance?

Let’s say I’m chained up in the basement. The moon’s gravity affects me, even if I am unaware of it.

I can be killed by an object I never knew existed, nor see. (Be it a meteorite, a virus, (a person I never met) driving drunk, whatever.)

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Congratulations! You have just triumphantly proven that, if the Special Theory of Relativity were false, it would not be true.

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siggma’s problem is a philosophical one, not a scientific one. How do we know that Relativity is true? We don’t. What we do know is that it works.

Science is about approaching the answer. We’re never 100% certain that everything is accurate.

For example, everyone took Newtonian space as being factual, until someone came along and showed that it didn’t work in certain circumstances. So now we use Einsteinian space. Maybe, someday, someone else will find circumstances when Einstein’s theories don’t work, and then figure out what does. But, until then, we might as well stick with what works

So what if space is really fluidic. Does your fluidic model allow us to make calculations that are better than the ones we already make with Einstein’s? If not, they are useless.

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Actually the “math” is implied by the whole idea of relativity. Because like I said, if two objects (in a vacuum) were traveling at the same speed, it wouldn’t matter how fast they were going, they would seem to each other to be at rest. Which to them would equal 0. So what if they were traveling at almost the speed of light and one of them decide to go faster? To each other they would simply accelerate from what they reason to be 0 to whatever they want. Because it’s not just their brains that are at rest, their atoms are at rest also. And in a vacuum it takes 0 energy to be traveling at a constant speed if you already have momentum. (and no resistance) So only a slight amount of energy would be needed to go faster. (not an infinite amount)
And momentum is not actual mass, it is potential mass. Only if you collide with something with different momentum (and vector) than you does your momentum become increased mass.
So the math would be: 0+1=1
Anyone can throw a baseball at over 1000 mph. (East) And it doesn’t take superman to do it. And if it hit someone else it would only raise a slight bump.
(relatively speaking)
:wink:

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The amount of acceleration will differ from frame of reference to frame of reference. From the frame of reference according to which they were already going at the speed of light, the accelerating partner will accelerate only a very tiny amount compared to the amount by which that partner accelerates from the frame of reference according to which they were at rest.*

The measure of the amount of energy expended to accelerate is (I think) the same in both frames of reference–that is why in Relativity the closer something is towards the speed of light, the more energy it takes to accelerate any particular amount.

This is an experimentally verified result. GPS would not work unless it were true.

*IANAPhysicist so if I’m wrong, I hope someone will correct me here.

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Yes, relative to each other they would have zero velocity. No matter how fast they are going with respect to some other party, with respect to each other they are at rest.

It’s true that for two objects at rest with respect to each other, it wouldn’t take any more energy than you would classically expect to accelerate one with respect to the other. You have to be careful with terminology here; the thing is, just saying that something is “traveling at speed X” is a meaningless statement. When you say they’re both traveling at “almost the speed of light,” you can only mean that with respect to some third frame of reference.

So the question is, if one of your objects then accelerates with respect to its companion, what does this third observer see? In classical mechanics, you would just take the original velocity of the objects and add the new relative velocity between them, and this would be the speed your third party measures. So, if the two objects were originally traveling at .9c relative to the third observer, and then one of them accelerates (in the same direction) so that the two objects are now traveling at .9c with respect to each other, we’d expect the third observer to see the second object at a speed of 1.8c, right?

Nope, not even close: this is where our classical assumptions about mechanics break down in the face of reality. The trick is that these things are all relative, meaning that different observers in different frames of reference may not agree on things like speed or acceleration.

In this case, as an observer in that frame of reference, you would not observe either of your two objects to exceed the speed of light, even though the classical method of simply adding the velocities would seem to indicate that you should. Instead you would have to take relativity into account to make an accurate prediction about what the third party would observe.

In other words, relativity is necessary to explain some of the discrepancies between what classical mechanics predicts and what actually happens in the universe.

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IANAPhysicist either… (would someone please check my math! I don’t know how to apply the Lorentz factor twice!)

Letters X and Y are travelling at .9c relative to letter Z. Letter A looks at Letter B and sees her at rest. Letter A shows letter B her new watch and letter B sees a watch running normally.

Letter C observes this exchange through his telescope. He sees letter A’s watch ticking slowly. Each tick seems to take 2.3 seconds. He also sees letter A’s watch as an oval that is .44 the length in the direction of travel as compared to the perpendicular height. The watch sortof looks like a zero (0).

Letter A then accelerates to .9c relative to B. B looks through her telescope and sees letter A’s watch running slowly. Each tick seems to take 2.3 seconds. The watch also looks like a zero (0).

Meanwhile, letter C tracks letter A and her watch as she accelerates slowly away from letter B. Does letter C see letter A accelerating at 1.8c? No, he sees letter A now faster than .9c but less than c (maybe .94c). The watch now ticks even slower (maybe 5.3 seconds per tick). And the watch looks to be the same height but now squished thinner (maybe .2).

Letter B looks around and sees letter C. She sees him receding at .9c, squished .44 in width and his watch is ticking at 2.3 seconds per tick.

Letter A catches sight of letter C. She sees a really squished letter C receding at .94c with a scrunched watch of .2 width ticking slowly every 5.3 seconds.

All the letters are looking at each other and thinking how silly the other letters look.

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MY GOD!! After all these centuries of research, you have discovered something overlooked by the greatest minds in physics!!

Look dude. From our relatively stationary frame of reference, a second is a second and a meter is a meter. It doesn’t shrink or slow down until we start to approach relativistic speeds. In which case it doesn’t change FOR US, just relative to an outside observer.
I brough this up before, but why do people always shoot a bullet while traveling at the speed of light instead of asking the much easier question of why the speed of the photon’s from their moving car’s headlights aren’t traveling at c + 55mph?

I think the answer has something to do with increasing the frequency of the light (IOW red shifting) in front of the car so that it doesn’t actually travel faster than c.

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or ask it like Steven Wright. If you’re driving at the speed of light, and you turn on your headlights, what would happen? (IANAStevenWright, so if you want to correct the actual wordage, feel free)