ryans analogy: Consider water in a pond. The molecules interact via a coulomb force which propogates at c. However if you drop a rock in a pond, the ripples (the disturbance) travels at a speed which is a function of the surface tension of the water and the density. The 2 speeds are different. However for gravitational fields it so happens that these 2 phenomena have the same propogation rate. can be extrapolated to a similar analogy: a human observer is restrained by the surface tension of spacetime, that is c, and that things can move faster than c, but not to a human observer in spacetime? comments please....
Why has nobody answered this? Is it ridiculous? Nonsensical? Probably, but please tell me why. Thanks. Any comments are welcome.
Ans yayacatfight, I don't know about the others but I took your post to be addressed to ryans. Besides I think the answer is ging to be out of my realm.
Maybe this is better put this way: Let's say eyes do not exist. Humans do not detect light. Our keenest sense is hearing. Do we conclude that nothing goes faster than 300 m/s in the universe? Does anyone really believe in the cosmic speed limit of c imposed by Einstein?
Originally posted by yayacatfight Let's say eyes do not exist. Humans do not detect light. Our keenest sense is hearing. Do we conclude that nothing goes faster than 300 m/s in the universe? No... there are plenty of things we can measure that do go over 300 m/s. Besides that, we'd just build a light detector, and measure that way. We detect things we can't physically sense all the time. Does anyone really believe in the cosmic speed limit of c imposed by Einstein? Yes, for the same reason I know my speed limit when running is way under 20mph... it has NEVER been observed by ANYBODY. Now lets pick some mad-up particle that does go faster than c. If we don't observe it, it probably doesn't interact with us in any way, which means it might as well not exist. Until we find something going faster than c, there is no reason to doubt it.
now that i think about it, there may be many an infinite number of distinctly different types of senses that are beyond our realm of imagination...if nobody had eyes they wouldn't imagine that light existed rite?:bugeye:
I am not sure I even understand my own question, but this is where I was going: The human brain, the most complicated organ to evolve thus far on planet earth, is dependent on the human eye for most of its information. The human eye is dependent on light for its information. The fact that humans perceive light to be the cosmic speed limit is simply a restraint of this bias.
We are aware of all sorts of phenomena and forces that we can't directly perceive. Humans can't detect a magnetic field with any of our sense organs, but obviously we are aware that magnetic fields exist.
No, the fact that we happen to use light as a means of our primary sense is just coincidental to the fact that light travels at the ultimate speed limit. The two have no connection.
Think outside the box! What I meant was more like things such as telepathetic communication, or what they call the 'sixth sense'. Who knows if it actually exists or not?
And how come you're so certain that light is indeed the cosmic speed limit? What about the Big Bang? Didn't the universe supposedly expand much faster then the speed of light???:bugeye:
Yep jimbo99999, ANS: Initally according to what I have read this is true. Also (although they have created custom mathematics to account for it by Relativity), our observation of material being ejected from Quasars (explosions) far exceeds v = c. It isn't a great leap to visulaize that v = c is not a limit for self propelled objects.
If telepathy existed, it would have to operate based on some sort of detectable force, phenomena, particle, or whatever.
c is the universal speed limit for objects with mass. This is because as you approach c, you are increasing your energy (of yourself as a particle). As E=mc^2, if your energy increases, your mass increases. F=ma, if your mass increases, a greater force is required to accelerate at the same rate. However, in effect, you would need more energy than is present in the universe to reach lightspeed. If an object could be described perfectly, then a signal describing the object could travel faster than c. However, signals sent faster then c attenuate very quickly
Illusion geodesic, ANS: You certainly could be right but not necessarily so. The apparent change in mass can also be explained as a change in energy transfer efficiency. Just as your car gets better gas milage at 50 mph than it does at 120 mph any change in energy transfer via relavistic velocity between an energy source and the acceleratated object could decrease and that would produce the same illusion but there would be no mass change other than a direct translation of velocity (kenetic energy) into mass mathematically. In such a case energy conservation is maintained. That is only a decreasing part of the energy goes into accelerating the object while an increasing part goes into space. Simular to the field around a electric coil.
This arguement requires a universal reference frame for energy to be conserved. Since Einstein's equations conserve energy, require no universal reference frame and agree with experiment to n decimal places, I call you a nut case and Einstein a genius.
Names ryans, Seems name calling is easier and quicker than seeking the truth. I call that stupid appeal to authority not science and has nothing to do with nut case vs genius. I notice you didn't deny the illusion is possible either. Only if one assumes Relativity valid is there any problem with the solution. That doesn't make alternatives impossible but indeed much more logical and likely. Since earth is in motion and coils have fields stored in space. Which is at a rest reference to the coil and its energy source. How do you justify your own objection to a rest reference relative to the energy source in the example I just gave? Indeed "Red Shift" where light is the driving energy even with its unique invariance in velocity, shows a loss of energy with relavistic velocity between it and my solar sail example. So you speak with forked tounge sir. "Verierly, verierly I say to thee, yee who look but cannot not see"
In a universe composed of nothing except the Earth and the vacuum, how can you tell if you are in motion. Faraday's law of induction, does it matter if the coil moves or the magnetic field is changing. It is all relative sir!! The only authority I appeal to is that of the truth, and the truth is that motion is relative. Is there a unique position on earth Mac that velocity and time are absolute. I think not. Does the Sun rise at the same time everywhere on Earth, of course it doesn't, it's all relative. Ye Man of little Knowledge and fledging age, go forth in ignorance to construct thy universe that abounds in dogma and constraint, for thee will never free thy mind to unveil the true beuty of the Cosmos.
