sounds like even the geeky nerds can still be haters....or should I say h4t3r5Encryptshun wrote:Now, counterpoint.
Back then, breaking the sound barrier was not something that was theoretically prohibited. Propeller tip speeds reached the sound barrier before a plane did and this caused undesirable turbulence and shockwaves to occur. While solved by the move to jet turbines, there were many engineering problems with high rates of speed from an aerodynamic perspective that made it difficult to control the aircraft. The speed of sound was never thought of as a physical limitation. Only an engineering limitation.MinisterofDOOM wrote:We thought Mach was an impenetrable physics barrier back in the '40s. Now we've got supercruise jets that lope along at nearly Mach 2 without much effort.
Our collective understanding of physics has increased a lot over the past couple centuries, but we still don't understand everything. It may not be as simple a solution as surpassing the sound barrier was, but I have we'll eventually find a way "around" the problems with FTL travel.
LOL!Encryptshun wrote:Philosoraptor says:
"If light could travel faster,
would it?"
My understanding is that there are a number of organizations trying to find a way to communicate via neutrino transmissions. If possible, it'd eliminate one major obstacle towards interstellar travel/colonization.C-Kwik wrote:That said, supposing the data is correct, it does not serve any practical purpose for FTL travel. We are made up of atoms, not neutrinos. FTL travel by a specific particle does not automatically imply FTL travel by all other particles. Not saying its not possible if the data is correct, but its a huge leap to jump to such a conclusion without even understanding how the neutrinos would be traveling faster than light first.
If Neutrinos are constrained to the speed of light, it would still take 4.3 years to reach the next solar system. If the results the research group observed are an accurate indication of a natural speed of neutrinos, it will get there 0.0000002469% faster.IBCoupe wrote:My understanding is that there are a number of organizations trying to find a way to communicate via neutrino transmissions. If possible, it'd eliminate one major obstacle towards interstellar travel/colonization.
Well, that beats my back up plan: two cups with a really long string.C-Kwik wrote:If Neutrinos are constrained to the speed of light, it would still take 4.3 years to reach the next solar system. If the results the research group observed are an accurate indication of a natural speed of neutrinos, it will get there 0.0000002469% faster.IBCoupe wrote:My understanding is that there are a number of organizations trying to find a way to communicate via neutrino transmissions. If possible, it'd eliminate one major obstacle towards interstellar travel/colonization.
That said, I would love to see neutrino based cell phones. No more signal degradation from being indoors or on the other side of the planet.
Encryptshun wrote:which is still better than two girls, one cup.
Other man-made devices achieved this long, long before the propeller. Pretty neat. Wanna take a "crack" at what they were?C-Kwik wrote:Propeller tip speeds reached the sound barrier before a plane did and this caused undesirable turbulence and shockwaves to occur.
Yo, check out my new whip, dawg.AZhitman wrote:Other man-made devices achieved this long, long before the propeller. Pretty neat. Wanna take a "crack" at what they were?C-Kwik wrote:Propeller tip speeds reached the sound barrier before a plane did and this caused undesirable turbulence and shockwaves to occur.
Um, no. Not a good thing.C-Kwik wrote:That said, I would love to see neutrino based cell phones. No more signal degradation from being indoors or on the other side of the planet.
It appears that the faster-than-light neutrino results, announced last September by the OPERA collaboration in Italy, was due to a mistake after all. A bad connection between a GPS unit and a computer may be to blame.
Physicists had detected neutrinos travelling from the CERN laboratory in Geneva to the Gran Sasso laboratory near L'Aquila that appeared to make the trip in about 60 nanoseconds less than light speed. Many other physicists suspected that the result was due to some kind of error, given that it seems at odds with Einstein's special theory of relativity, which says nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. That theory has been vindicated by many experiments over the decades.
According to sources familiar with the experiment, the 60 nanoseconds discrepancy appears to come from a bad connection between a fiber optic cable that connects to the GPS receiver used to correct the timing of the neutrinos' flight and an electronic card in a computer. After tightening the connection and then measuring the time it takes data to travel the length of the fiber, researchers found that the data arrive 60 nanoseconds earlier than assumed. Since this time is subtracted from the overall time of flight, it appears to explain the early arrival of the neutrinos. New data, however, will be needed to confirm this hypothesis.
Problem is you are trying to describe a relativistic problem using Newtonian physics. I didn't study this in depth, but my understanding is that at slower speeds (non-relativistic), the relativity equations describing gravity reduce to the Newtonian equations for gravity.stebo0728 wrote:This whole speed of light speed limit thing, I dont buy it, at least completely. Light, afterall, is affected by gravity, requiring it to have mass right?
Actually, you have it backwards. A photon's rest mass is considered to be zero. Again, not something I studied much, but the equation for the mass at a given velocity vs an object's rest mass concludes that a photon's mass is zero at any speed. I'm also not sure anyone says light has mass anyways. It has momentum, which is a function of the frequency of the light, which is actually a function of the photon's energy. And this is where the photon is important and why we view light as a particle. Light energy is quantized and a photon is used to describe that quanta of energy.stebo0728 wrote:I mean a photon has mass, which it somehow only has at rest? Does it react differently with the Higgs field at rest, than it does in motion? Why do we even say its massless in motion, just to get around the FTL arguemnt, to make it work?
You have to think in terms of space time. Its not something we can observe easily, but my physics text provides 2 simple analogies. The first is to picture two people heading to the south pole from 2 different locations. Both are heading south, and from their own frame of reference, they would appear to be going parallel, but from the outside we see that that are converging. The other example is to imagine two objects falling towards earth that start at the same height but perhaps a few meters apart. Again, they would appear to be going parallel to each other, but in reality, they are converging such that they would meet at the center of the planet. This convergence to a point is what gives us our gravitational "forces" that we can observe. But what it actually is is a bending of space time. Objects of higher mass cause a larger bending effect. Light doesn't bend space time, but is affected by the bend in space time as it passes through it.stebo0728 wrote:Not to mention, gravitational lensing occurs when photons are in motion, if they are massless in motion then how is gravity affecting them? The theory needs a bit of tweaking, perhaps there's another inverse coefficient missing that would account for reallllly small mass holders moving at light speed?
Unification of QED and Relativity, etc., is one of the goals of M theory ... the latest version of string theory.stebo0728 wrote:And do you really believe quantum dynamics and newtonian dynamics are seperate? I realize, for productivity sake, we handle them seperately, but I believe that is only due to the absence of a working unifying theory. In reality the 2 worlds are the same, and the unifying theory would theoretically effect both worlds, making newtonian physics more complicated probably, but also possibly making quantum physics a bit less fuzzy.
I don't know much about dark matter, but Wikipedia indicates it does not absorb or emit light. I suspect that means that it does not absorb it either otherwise we may be able to see direct evidence of its existence. I'd probably read over the page on wikipedia to get a better understanding before making any assumptions about it.stebo0728 wrote:Also, so dark matter, sitting in pockets around the universe. Question: does dark matter absorb or reflect light passing into it? If it reflects, how do we differentiate an object being observed as being positioned straight ahead from an object's reflection being observed from the dark matter? Or to extrapolate that question, realistically dark matter would not perfectly absorb or reflect, but somewhere in between, causing some sort of distortion, which I assume we are not in any position to predict such distortion as we dont know what dark matter consists of. Maybe light accelerates or decelerates when passing through dark matter or dark energy? I realize these are all unknowns, but they are pretty significant unknowns.
I don't think there is an issue of separation between quantum physics and Newtonian physics. The big divide is between quantum physics and general relativity where these two can not be unified currently. The difference between quantum and Newtonian physics is that Newtonian physics occurs at a larger scale where the quantized values that occur at sub-atomic levels only appear to us as the limits of statistical probabilities.stebo0728 wrote:And do you really believe quantum dynamics and newtonian dynamics are seperate? I realize, for productivity sake, we handle them seperately, but I believe that is only due to the absence of a working unifying theory. In reality the 2 worlds are the same, and the unifying theory would theoretically effect both worlds, making newtonian physics more complicated probably, but also possibly making quantum physics a bit less fuzzy.
My point there was only to say you should understand it better in order to try and make better hypothesis about what its effects are. More specifically with regards to your comment about light, since it appears that dark matter does not have any effect on light, your previous hypothesis would be incorrect.stebo0728 wrote:Dark matter is hugely unknown. Its something that "has to exist" to account for what the rest of known theory says about the composition of the universe. My questions above are really currently unknown. Any info on wiki would be current theory, and thats cool and all, but still some of the nuances of how it behaves, whats it actually IS, and what not, is still up for grabs, and answers to those questions could have small insignificant, or huge effects on other aspects of current universe theory.
We're pretty much on the same page here. If we do unify all the theories though, I think we'll just have a better understanding of the interactions of the physical world and perhaps some ability to manipulate it more for very specific applications.stebo0728 wrote:I understand what you mean about marrying relativity and newtonian theory. My point was that, once we join the two, newtonian theory would be exacted more, when necessary. Usually when figuring large scale motion or whatnot, quantum issues are ignored anyway because they have little perceivable effect on results, a body might end up 2 microns off from where you calculated it, but who cares. BUT, if we ever need more exacting calculations, they would then be available.
I've speculated the same thing myself, but the processing power for that would probably be impractical anyways. It would probably be limited to small and specific interactions. Not so sure we can predict the future though. At best, we might be able to theorize an outcome at quantum levels, but since we have to know the initial conditions to base it on and measuring the state of certain things without affecting the state (Heisenberg uncertainty principle), there might be no way to predict a real outcome. The other question that one might ask is how long would it take to even make such a prediction? If it takes longer to make that prediction than would occur naturally, it would only be a corroboration of the result.stebo0728 wrote:Interestingly, this could possibly lead to one day having computer models that can rather closely predict future results, in areas you might never imagine possible. Things that appear chaotic or random now, may end up calculated by highly precise computer calculations. I've often postulated, that were someone able to calculate particle motion at the quantum level, they might just be able to tell the future. Possibly even decision made by a human brain.