bit like "You exist" therefore so does God"
case closed!
The limitations of the scientific method and scientism
- Thread starter Quantum Quack
- Start date
case closed!
Quantum Quack
So in a thread about science you rely on meaningless word salad, which you, yourself, cannot be bothered to lay out in any comprehensible form. You are truly a Quantum Quack
Weaselly, too. You, sir, are a complete waste of time. Good Day!
Grumpy
So in a thread about science you rely on meaningless word salad, which you, yourself, cannot be bothered to lay out in any comprehensible form. You are truly a Quantum Quack
Weaselly, too. You, sir, are a complete waste of time. Good Day!
Grumpy
I can't understand most of the above. I think the biggest problem is 't=0'
I assume you mean zero time. What's that ? A period of no time ? That's circular. Time can never = zero, because if it did, it wouldn't be time.
So what is this stange animal called t=0 ? The present moment ? That, I suppose is another philosophical and scientific argument altogether - how long is the present ? We could spend years on that one. But we must assume some span of time, otherwise, what would we be talking about ? Can you, or anyone, really imagine zero time ? It's like saying spaceless space.
You would need to explain what what you mean by t=0 and in simple terms, before I can really think about the rest of what you said.
Not sure about this. I still have doubts. But reading further, I think Grumpy has commented too, so for brevity, I'll try to continue the issue on his post.
Well how about that ? I've always been confused about what a light cone was, but thanks to your above explanation, I'm now confident I understand fully. Thanks for that. Clear and succinct explanations are quite valuable to me.
Lakon
You are having problems understanding because what QQ has said is meaningless scientific words strung together in the same sentence(word salad), along with nuggets like "essentially it means that the distance between the surface of the Earth and the surface of the moon is zero", which is, essentially, nuts. I have tried to answer your questions to the best of my understanding of what science tells us, QQ only wants to troll people like me, Russ_Watters and Alphanumeric who do know a little about these subjects(unlike QQ). Don't waste any more time with his garbage, it'll only rot your brain.
Grumpy
You are having problems understanding because what QQ has said is meaningless scientific words strung together in the same sentence(word salad), along with nuggets like "essentially it means that the distance between the surface of the Earth and the surface of the moon is zero", which is, essentially, nuts. I have tried to answer your questions to the best of my understanding of what science tells us, QQ only wants to troll people like me, Russ_Watters and Alphanumeric who do know a little about these subjects(unlike QQ). Don't waste any more time with his garbage, it'll only rot your brain.
Grumpy
Lakon
The only radiation that is not made of photons that we can see on Earth are Cosmic rays. I notice QQ ignored the question, mainly as he doesn't have a clue. Cosmic rays are actually particles of matter that have been accelerated to near light speed and are the most energetic radiation we know of. There is one other form of radiation that is composed of particles, maybe he'll know that one. Hint, it has never been observed from Earth. And I do not count the debris of fission as radiation, it's not in the sense of astronomy.
Anything moving AT light speed experiences no passage of time, but the top speed of light means the photon takes time to travel through space from our frame of reference. The same time dilation happens if mass is accelerated to close to light speed, time passes slower and slower the closer it gets to that speed(if it has mass, it will never reach light speed), though the occupants of a space ship going that fast would experience time passing normally, unless they looked out the window(IE observed the difference between time's passage outside and inside their own frame). The photon is frozen in time between it's point of emission and it's point of absorption, to it they are one event, they are simply conduits of energy between two points, between those two points they are waves described by their wavelength and frequency. In Quantum Mechanics the position of a photon is a probability wave perpendicular to the direction of travel. It collapses to a single point when it is absorbed.
If photons were visible/detectable while travelling, space would be opaque, good thing it isn't.
The VISIBLE Universe is about 13.7 billion years in all directions from Earth. But since most of it is moving, it's all being seen as it was far in the past and we cannot see their present positions, estimates of the current size of the Universe range between 40 and 100 billion light years, depending on the weight you give to certain difficult measurements. It has not been pinned down further than that, it's an interesting question but it is really beyond our ability to determine accurately yet. And no, we don't have super-duper telescopes that can see everything in great detail further back than about 7 billion years(maybe more today or when the James Webb gets into orbit), we do get light to analyse from near the 13.5 billion year range(remember, time is a distance in space time), mostly from Quasars or starburst galaxies. Some of the furthest galaxies are only seen one photon at a time, it takes hours of our best stargazing to get enough to see any shape, but the photons themselves give you lots of information, even one at a time.
No, he sees us as we were, we see him as he was. If Mr Alien was 10 light years away, any signal you sent would take 10 years to get there, if he answered immediately it would be another ten years before you got his reply. You are each ten years in the past of the other(as seen by the other), you both see the other as being in your past(as seen by you, in each of your separate frames of reference). Now substitute 10 thousand(or any other number)at each place there is a 10 or ten and read the sentence again. The past is long gone here, we can still see it if we look out into space. Not OUR past, but THEIR past. And their past is long gone where they are, but they can see our past by looking over here.
What QQ has posted is pretty much non-sense, word salad. The photon has no mass, it is a packet of electro-magnetic energy, it has no mass(and no mass perspective, whatever he meant by that)and has been measured to travel through a distance at a very precise speed(in vacuum), the speed of photons(IE light). Spend more time on physorg. You will learn lots over there, QQ is well named(as am I, for that matter).
Grumpy
Thanks for the info on cosmic rays. I wikied it, and now know more. As to QQ ignoring the question, maybe he missed it. Or maybe he doesn't know. Nothing wrong in not knowing - it's fun finding out.
As to the rest, see my next post .. hopefully, if I can work out what I'm trying to say ..
Ahh.... so I launch a new domain on the topic of a photon challenge and currently all 16 domains of a hosting reseller account I maintain are offline due to hacking. Federal IT forensics will work out whether it is mere coincidence or not. Some IP addresses were not masked as good as they usually are....
timing is impeccable.... thanks.
timing is impeccable.... thanks.
Like most thing associated with this issue and other similar it gets down to the very basics where you find the problems.
The question is : What exactly is t=0 when used in SRT?
To quote a few posters over the years responding to this issue.
t=0 is an arbitrary chosen zero point on a time line.
example: Past__________________>.<__________________Future
t=0 is a point on a time line that has no duration. Zero duration.
this begs the question:
How can anything exist if there is no time for it to exist in?
However the light cones that demonstrate a Hyper surface of the present moment has dimension even though at the t=0 [ center of the light cone ] there is no durction for that hyper surface to exist in.
Now we are talking about t=0 [ no duration ] and t= 0 as part of a span of time.
As the t= 0 that is often used is a part of a span of time [ eternity] the hyper surface can exist with dimension.
So therefore t= 0 must include Delta t=>0 [ duration greater than zero for the hyper surface to exist.
There is a need to understand that it is implied that at t= 0 that it is a point on a time line where time duration is greater than zero for that t=o of zero duration [the moment you click your stop watch] to be valid]
Please let me know if the above it word salad to you.
View attachment 6147
Last edited:
Lakon
Oops, I answered the wrong question.
But remember light travels at 186,000 miles per second(300,000 k/s), a light year is many times the size of our solar system out to Neptune, the Oort cloud is about a light year in diameter, the nearest star over 4 ly away. Seeing a light year's movement on a galaxy a billion light years away is well beyond the ability of any telescope we have yet to conceive. We can get a pretty good idea of the width of a galaxy at that distance, but as QQ will undoubtedly point out, you are seeing that galaxy as it was a billion years ago, it isn't where you see it, nor does it look like what you are seeing in the present. But the spectrum of light it emits will tell you it's speed, it's composition, the elements it has formed, the amount of certain gasses and dusts. And the observations you make allows you to compare and contrast with the 100s of billions of other galaxies. And galaxies are big, the smallest ones are 10 thousand ly across, the largest are millions.
Grumpy
Yes, I understand all the above. And I understand (and as you say, as QQ pointed out) we are seeing back a bilion years ago.
But I'm still having doubts about it, and still can't bring myself around to the conclusion that even a tiny .. one iota of a difference in relative position from one galaxy to another, cannot be visually detected, particularly as;
- we laud the power, sophistication, accuracy and abiliies of our telescopes - particularly the newer ones that leave even the recent ones in the horse and buggy era
- I look at google sky. In certain areas one can zoom in, and zoom in, and zoom in further, and little pinpricks open up to be vast and glorious galaxies .. and zoom in further still to get a fine detail of the objects in that galaxy .. and continue to look further until it seems (and I think it's stated somewhere there) that I'm looking at virtually the edge of the know universe .. or something like that. Now, I would safely assume that none of this information has been made up - and that it's all a result of observarion through telescopes.
- Interestingly, a search of 'Expansion of space' in Wiki defaults to 'Metric expansion of space' and therein, I read;
Metric expansion is a key feature of Big Bang cosmology and is modeled mathematically with the FLRW metric.
So again no evidence other than mathematical modelling. Which continues to make me think .. "wait a minute, they have all these billion dollar instruments .. they can see atoms, they can see to the end of the universe .. yet they can't see a tiny shift in the realtive position of one galaxy to another due to expansion? Particularly as they say it is moving at some appreciable portion of light speed ? "
I still find it hard to believe.
Lakon
You are having problems understanding because what QQ has said is meaningless scientific words strung together in the same sentence(word salad), along with nuggets like "essentially it means that the distance between the surface of the Earth and the surface of the moon is zero", which is, essentially, nuts. I have tried to answer your questions to the best of my understanding of what science tells us, QQ only wants to troll people like me, Russ_Watters and Alphanumeric who do know a little about these subjects(unlike QQ). Don't waste any more time with his garbage, it'll only rot your brain.
Grumpy
Maybe you could show how clever you are by explaining how quantum entanglement effects work? and still resort to using 4 dimensional space to do it with.
How is it that two half particles can stay "connected" instantaneously across large distances?
or are you just simply going to accept it as true, like you do about light transiting space?
What ARE you talking about ? I for one, have NO IDEA what you are talking about, but it seems you are implying something big and sinister. Get a grip. This is an insignificant discussion about science / doubt, etc. Do you not suppose that the internet is full of them ?
and good for you... you have prompted and interesting set of questions about why they can't take a look at a galaxy 1 million years after it's original sighting...
they will say that they can't because what we are seeing is not only time but distance that is directly related to time.
so every time they wish to find the galaxy it has to be in it's original position [ more or less ] therefore distance to earth is the same [ and so is time needed for those photons to Transit]
time and distance are directly relational in Minkowski/Einstein space.
if time = 0 [duration] then (distance) d = 0
if t= 1 ly [duration] then d= 1 ly (5878625 million miles)
and you are further right I feel in asking why a galaxy at red shift moving at relativistic velocity can not be detected to change position.
of course it is insignificant... but not for the reason you are probably thinking of.
Regarding my post, I am just indicating the recent circumstance that concur and coincide.
I launch a domain for the photon challenge. in ten minutes it is taken down due to hacking. Along with 16 other domains. My hosting server is in Sydney and their IT staff are working on it in conjunction with the security firm I employ to maintain the sites against these sorts of things.
The hacking was incredibly sophisticated and very professional [USA based] and involved shutting down the security site prior to attacking mine. [all in ten minutes after launching the domain] and after announcing I would do so with a $1 million dollar potential prize to be awarded to any one able to prove that a photon transits space.
Nothing sinister involved of course just routine... blah! smells like a duck , tastes like duck walks like a duck : is a duck....
It's all wrong. t=0 doesn't signify zero duration, a surface is an abstraction and therefore does not exist, and this is not what the lightcone signifies. Other than that, your conclusions are all wrong.
@Aqueous Id,
well tell me what value is distance if t= zero duration in Minkowski/Einstein space time...
or said another way:
if t=0 duration what does d [ distance ] equal?
A point on a line is what dimension - how big is the point?
A point on a time line that is labeled t = 0 is how much time?
If the t = 0 used actually had duration it would include a delta sign if I am not mistaken.
ie. delta t=0 sub(a),sub(b)
here is a more descriptive light cone diagram:
base image c/o wiki
well tell me what value is distance if t= zero duration in Minkowski/Einstein space time...
or said another way:
if t=0 duration what does d [ distance ] equal?
A point on a line is what dimension - how big is the point?
A point on a time line that is labeled t = 0 is how much time?
If the t = 0 used actually had duration it would include a delta sign if I am not mistaken.
ie. delta t=0 sub(a),sub(b)
here is a more descriptive light cone diagram:
base image c/o wiki
Lakon
Dude, our telescopes are orders of magnitude better than they were in the 60s, but we still can't see a quarter on the moon, which is right next door compared to 13.7 billion years. And that's about the size of the galaxies we see back then. Even ten billion years gives us fuzzy pictures of galaxies. Most of the information gleaned from those distances is by analyzing the light they emit. Occasionally we get lucky and a galaxy cluster is between us and the object beyond 10 billion years and we get this...
The blue in this photo is visual data from Hubble of the galaxy cluster, the red is 3mm microwave that started out as blue light from a starburst galaxy approximately 13 billion years ago that has passed through the cluster and been focused near us by the mass of the cluster bending the space the light is transiting(or transited several billion years ago, rather). It is a shortcut for laymen to say that mass bends light, but light actually follows a straight line through bent space(as per General Relativity). As in this diagram
and that allows us a better view, further away. Again, spectroscopic analysis of the light tells us the most about these sources, their shape often cannot be seen or their component parts be separated. This is especially true for Quasars, their glare blanks out any other signals like a planet is hidden in the glare of a star. Scientists are trying to work visual magic to remove the distortion of a lensed galaxy to get a closeup of something so far away, but it will mostly be guesswork at this point(computer animation, we need your geeks!). So, no, our telescopes cannot see a change of even light years at those distances, though I think someone has gotten a real motion measurement on Andromeda, some Australian guy, I think. We can even see single stars in that galaxy, but it is kinda close.
Grumpy
Dude, our telescopes are orders of magnitude better than they were in the 60s, but we still can't see a quarter on the moon, which is right next door compared to 13.7 billion years. And that's about the size of the galaxies we see back then. Even ten billion years gives us fuzzy pictures of galaxies. Most of the information gleaned from those distances is by analyzing the light they emit. Occasionally we get lucky and a galaxy cluster is between us and the object beyond 10 billion years and we get this...
The blue in this photo is visual data from Hubble of the galaxy cluster, the red is 3mm microwave that started out as blue light from a starburst galaxy approximately 13 billion years ago that has passed through the cluster and been focused near us by the mass of the cluster bending the space the light is transiting(or transited several billion years ago, rather). It is a shortcut for laymen to say that mass bends light, but light actually follows a straight line through bent space(as per General Relativity). As in this diagram
and that allows us a better view, further away. Again, spectroscopic analysis of the light tells us the most about these sources, their shape often cannot be seen or their component parts be separated. This is especially true for Quasars, their glare blanks out any other signals like a planet is hidden in the glare of a star. Scientists are trying to work visual magic to remove the distortion of a lensed galaxy to get a closeup of something so far away, but it will mostly be guesswork at this point(computer animation, we need your geeks!). So, no, our telescopes cannot see a change of even light years at those distances, though I think someone has gotten a real motion measurement on Andromeda, some Australian guy, I think. We can even see single stars in that galaxy, but it is kinda close.
Grumpy
Aqueous Id
The light cone is a two D representation of a three D conception of a four D reality that is spacetime. It shows some aspects of reality(time and light speed), but totally distorts others(space, dropping two whole dimensions)just like the rubber sheet concept does with gravity(in that case a two D representation of three D space where time is a tangential factor not in consideration). I don't think QQ gets it. The light cone is only a graph, it does not in any way represent the Universe, just a couple of aspects of it. T=0 is simply now, wait, no...now, dang. Hold on, here it comes...now, @$#%&^$*. We(the whole Universe)only exist in the now(to put it in Zen Speak). The past does not exist(though we can still see it) and the future has yet to happen(though by looking at the past, we can foresee a course of future events a little). I've given up QQ as a lost cause. You can lead a horse to water...
Grumpy
The light cone is a two D representation of a three D conception of a four D reality that is spacetime. It shows some aspects of reality(time and light speed), but totally distorts others(space, dropping two whole dimensions)just like the rubber sheet concept does with gravity(in that case a two D representation of three D space where time is a tangential factor not in consideration). I don't think QQ gets it. The light cone is only a graph, it does not in any way represent the Universe, just a couple of aspects of it. T=0 is simply now, wait, no...now, dang. Hold on, here it comes...now, @$#%&^$*. We(the whole Universe)only exist in the now(to put it in Zen Speak). The past does not exist(though we can still see it) and the future has yet to happen(though by looking at the past, we can foresee a course of future events a little). I've given up QQ as a lost cause. You can lead a horse to water...
Grumpy
so how much time does t=0 refer to?
brilliant pics btw... [never said GR was wrong - only the interpretation of 'c' that needs a look at.] You will find that GR will still be as good as it is now except probably better in application than now. I don't know GR to get into it, but I do know that the light data should be interchangeable whether light transits or not...** possibly minor adjustments may be needed but GR should stay relatively intact as a theory.
e.g.
E=mc^2 for example still stays valid. It is only in the interpretation of 'c^2' that should make any difference.
'c' is still 'c' but applies to mass and not transit time/distance.
The question:
How much energy is in transit at any given t=0?
Gives you a clue as to where we are putting the energy that should be inside the mass instead.
Essentially I am putting forward the proposition that by using a photon model that uses "transiting across space Photons" we are possibly incorrectly extrapolating what is happening inside mass on to the outside space.
So ask yourself the simple question:
According to what we believe about the transiting photon [ em, light energy] how much energy is in transit universally at any given moment?
you will probably come to realize that all the energy in the mass of the universe is actually modeled on the outside of the mass instead of inside it. [because you believe a photon transits the vacuum]
Last edited:
@ Grumpy, I've had a few friends read over this thread and they seem to understand what I am saying with out a problem. So whats up?