Why doesn't the bible mention dinosaurs?

[lloydie]

That's because humanity has a large guilt complex built in that likes us to think that we are somehow evil, inferior and small.

In reality, we are by far the most successful animal ever to inhabit this planet, and the chances of us EVER going extinct before the end of the Universe is slim. Space travel, which should be a real reality in a couple of hundred years, gives us the opportunity to live forever.

Nature isn't a force, it doesn't have a personality, the adjustments that they are talking about will be fixed by greater production of food and resources.

I'm not saying that the argument I quoted is necessarily correct, we will never know but I do have some affinity with it. You are quite right about the human guilt complex; it is probably what influenced religious teachings in the first place. However, although I live in hope I think space travel will not be the saviour; travelling at the speed of light is theoretically impossible and given the unimaginable distances involved it is accepted that anything less than this will not lead to colonisation elsewhere. I'm certainly no physicist and could be wrong but taking the pessimistic view means we should enjoy it now!

Why do you say Guilt is innate? Any evidence for this? Is there a Guilt gene? Or is this just a wild assumption?

 

[nijinsky's fetlocks]

I'm not saying that the argument I quoted is necessarily correct, we will never know but I do have some affinity with it. You are quite right about the human guilt complex; it is probably what influenced religious teachings in the first place. However, although I live in hope I think space travel will not be the saviour; travelling at the speed of light is theoretically impossible and given the unimaginable distances involved it is accepted that anything less than this will not lead to colonisation elsewhere. I'm certainly no physicist and could be wrong but taking the pessimistic view means we should enjoy it now!

Why do you say Guilt is innate? Any evidence for this? Is there a Guilt gene? Or is this just a wild assumption?

My money is on the 'wild assumption' ticket.
Unless you are unfortunate enough to be brainwashed into the Catholic faith,in which case it is inculcated by indoctrination long before you are old enough to even have a scooby what it is you have supposedly done wrong in the first place.
A basic rule of thumb being that if you have actually enjoyed doing something recently,it is probably a mortal sin,and you will burn in hell unless you light a candle,say a few hail Mary's,and wank the priest off,in which case your soul is magically cleansed,as if touched by some holy Stain Devil.

 

[mancityvstoke]

How does light travel at the speed of light?

That's a very, very good question. You're entering a world of hurt with it though.

The first thing to wrap you head around, is Einstein's famous mass-energy equation, E=mc^2. People always pronounce this as "energy = mass multiplied by the speed of light squared". This is somewhat incorrect, a more accurate version would be "energy = mass multiplied by c squared".

c isn't really the speed of light in a vacuum, it is the Universal speed limit. Light just happens to travel at the Universal speed limit which is where the confusion comes into play.

I say that "light happens to travel" at c, and that's a bit inaccurate. What I mean, is that light HAS to travel at c due to the way that light is made, so to speak.

e=mc^2 states that the faster an object travels, the more mass it builds, thus the more energy is needed to make it go faster.
Think of it as a bullet. If I threw a bullet at your head, it would most likely bounce straight off of you. This is because the energy that I put into the throw doesn't add much weight to it and not enough to break your skull. However, if I shoot it out of a gun, it has much more energy in it, travels much faster, therefore weighs more, therefore hurts more.
If you drop a bowling ball from 1cm above your foot, it won't hurt that bad. If you drop it from 1 mile above it, it will hurt like a woman because the gravity of the Earth is pulling it down, thus giving it more energy, thus more mass and weight.

Same principle applies in space. The easy way to remember it is more energy = more speed = more mass. Heavier things require more energy to move.

Now that that is hopefully clear, we must examine light itself. You see, light is a form of electromagnetic radiation and is made up of photons. Photons are a special type of beast in that they are "massless particles". This is important.

Just as heavy things need lots of energy to move because of their mass, things without mass need no energy to speed up. In fact, the concept of acceleration doesn't exist for light, as c is the only possible speed that it can travel in a vacuum.

Therefore, light (the illuminating thing) travels at c because it is light (as in it has zero mass). Any other massless particle should also travel at c.

(I was going to do the math and actually show WHY relativity dictates that massless particles such as light must travel at c, but it's a bit dense and I'm not sure if anyone would have any interest in it. I'll explain it the best that I can if somebody wants)

thanks for shedding some massless light on that. (seriously)

 

[Damocles]

This is because the energy that I put into the throw doesn't add much weight to it and not enough to break your skull. However, if I shoot it out of a gun, it has much more energy in it, travels much faster, therefore weighs more, therefore hurts more.
If you drop a bowling ball from 1cm above your foot, it won't hurt that bad. If you drop it from 1 mile above it, it will hurt like a woman because the gravity of the Earth is pulling it down, thus giving it more energy, thus more mass and weight.

The mass objects like bullets and bowling balls will gain at non-relativistic speeds is absolutely negligible.

I see you are unfamiliar with analogies for the sake of simplification.

 

[Skashion]

I see you are unfamiliar with analogies for the sake of simplification.

Apologies, I will refrain from questioning your simplified analogies in future.

 

[BulgarianPride]

I'm not saying that the argument I quoted is necessarily correct, we will never know but I do have some affinity with it. You are quite right about the human guilt complex; it is probably what influenced religious teachings in the first place. However, although I live in hope I think space travel will not be the saviour; travelling at the speed of light is theoretically impossible and given the unimaginable distances involved it is accepted that anything less than this will not lead to colonisation elsewhere. I'm certainly no physicist and could be wrong but taking the pessimistic view means we should enjoy it now!

The impossibility of travelling beyond the speed of light is something that I disagree with. Just to be clear, I have no scientific basis for thinking this, just a faith in humanity and an understanding of how science progresses.

Travelling above c is only impossible because the faster an object travels, the more mass it acquires, therefore the more energy is needed to speed it up. At speeds nearing c, the mass is almost infinite, so we need an impossible amount of energy.

If we could find a way to turn the added mass into energy, we'd be all set. Bosons turn energy into mass, so why not?

This fantasy apart, we could use energy sources in the future that would bend the fabric of spacetime, thus shortening the distance we have to travel. There's also wormhole technology, or even massive sleeper ships to carry humanity off into the stars.

We've been in space for around 60 years and now have geosynchronous satellites, satellites in the furthest reaches of our galaxy, robots on other planets, men stepping on the Moon and soon to come, Mars. We have solar sails, ion engines and other new forms of propulsion. 60 years that took us. Imagine what we can do in 50,000 years.

Do you mean our solar system?

 

[SkyBlueFlux]

I'm fascinated by wormholes, would love to get my teeth into them when I get out of University. To jump from place to place by bending space-time. Well... then we'd master our Universe surely?

I also heard of a hypothetical particle called the tachyon. Apparently it has 'imaginary mass' so therefore it can travel faster than light. In fact, 'c' is it's LOWER speed limit. Strange, I'd be lying if I said I knew how it worked, I just saw it on a documentary.

Shows you though that there's hope of travelling faster than the almighty 'c'. We simply need to acquire more knowledge, which is always possible.

However, although I live in hope I think space travel will not be the saviour; travelling at the speed of light is theoretically impossible and given the unimaginable distances involved it is accepted that anything less than this will not lead to colonisation elsewhere. I'm certainly no physicist and could be wrong but taking the pessimistic view means we should enjoy it now!

Where is this accepted? It doesn't even make logical sense. If we can't travel at c, even travelling at 0.9c would be useless, what because the journey would take 10% longer?

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell that kind of depends really.

It's all about your frame of reference. Lets say, you travel to a nearby planet that's 100 light years away at a speed extremely close to 'c'. That's 200 light years round trip.

Well according to special relativity, you would go off. To everyone on Earth you will be gone for 200(ish) years. Everybody you know would die and the buildings will have crumbled away.

Then you come back from your fantastic voyage and you find to your dismay everybody is dead. You however, have been to a place 100 light years away, come back, and you've aged... but not by a lot. Maybe a few days.

It's anti intuitive but technically travelling at 'c' or at least very very close allows us in our own frame of reference to reach great distances. Everybody around us though would age as normal. So the difference between 0.9c and c is actually hugely significant.

(Please note I'm not trying to pull you up and act all arsey, just giving people who are interested a bit of extra information.

 

[BulgarianPride]

I'm fascinated by wormholes, would love to get my teeth into them when I get out of University. To jump from place to place by bending space-time. Well... then we'd master our Universe surely?

I also heard of a hypothetical particle called the tachyon. Apparently it has 'imaginary mass' so therefore it can travel faster than light. In fact, 'c' is it's LOWER speed limit. Strange, I'd be lying if I said I knew how it worked, I just saw it on a documentary.

Shows you though that there's hope of travelling faster than the almighty 'c'. We simply need to acquire more knowledge, which is always possible.

Where is this accepted? It doesn't even make logical sense. If we can't travel at c, even travelling at 0.9c would be useless, what because the journey would take 10% longer?

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell that kind of depends really.

It's all about your frame of reference. Lets say, you travel to a nearby planet that's 100 light years away at a speed extremely close to 'c'. That's 200 light years round trip.

Well according to special relativity, you would go off. To everyone on Earth you will be gone for 200(ish) years. Everybody you know would die and the buildings will have crumbled away.

Then you come back from your fantastic voyage and you find to your dismay everybody is dead. You however, have been to a place 100 light years away, come back, and you've aged... but not by a lot. Maybe a few days.

It's anti intuitive but technically travelling at 'c' or at least very very close allows us in our own frame of reference to reach great distances. Everybody around us though would age as normal. So the difference between 0.9c and c is actually hugely significant.

(Please note I'm not trying to pull you up and act all arsey, just giving people who are interested a bit of extra information.

Would't he be 200 years older? His time slows down relative to us, but for him 2 years is 2 years, so if it takes 200 years for light to go there and come back, he would age 200 years.

Edit: I may be a bit confused on relativistic effects, haven't done any of this stuff in about 5 years.

 

[JoeMercer'sWay]

I'm fascinated by wormholes, would love to get my teeth into them when I get out of University. To jump from place to place by bending space-time. Well... then we'd master our Universe surely?

I also heard of a hypothetical particle called the tachyon. Apparently it has 'imaginary mass' so therefore it can travel faster than light. In fact, 'c' is it's LOWER speed limit. Strange, I'd be lying if I said I knew how it worked, I just saw it on a documentary.

Shows you though that there's hope of travelling faster than the almighty 'c'. We simply need to acquire more knowledge, which is always possible.



Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell that kind of depends really.

It's all about your frame of reference. Lets say, you travel to a nearby planet that's 100 light years away at a speed extremely close to 'c'. That's 200 light years round trip.

Well according to special relativity, you would go off. To everyone on Earth you will be gone for 200(ish) years. Everybody you know would die and the buildings will have crumbled away.

Then you come back from your fantastic voyage and you find to your dismay everybody is dead. You however, have been to a place 100 light years away, come back, and you've aged... but not by a lot. Maybe a few days.

It's anti intuitive but technically travelling at 'c' or at least very very close allows us in our own frame of reference to reach great distances. Everybody around us though would age as normal. So the difference between 0.9c and c is actually hugely significant.

(Please note I'm not trying to pull you up and act all arsey, just giving people who are interested a bit of extra information.

Would't he be 200 years older? His time slows down relative to us, but for him 2 years is 2 years, so if it takes 200 years for light to go there and come back, he would age 200 years.

go and watch Alien lol.

 

[SkyBlueFlux]

I'm fascinated by wormholes, would love to get my teeth into them when I get out of University. To jump from place to place by bending space-time. Well... then we'd master our Universe surely?

I also heard of a hypothetical particle called the tachyon. Apparently it has 'imaginary mass' so therefore it can travel faster than light. In fact, 'c' is it's LOWER speed limit. Strange, I'd be lying if I said I knew how it worked, I just saw it on a documentary.

Shows you though that there's hope of travelling faster than the almighty 'c'. We simply need to acquire more knowledge, which is always possible.



Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell that kind of depends really.

It's all about your frame of reference. Lets say, you travel to a nearby planet that's 100 light years away at a speed extremely close to 'c'. That's 200 light years round trip.

Well according to special relativity, you would go off. To everyone on Earth you will be gone for 200(ish) years. Everybody you know would die and the buildings will have crumbled away.

Then you come back from your fantastic voyage and you find to your dismay everybody is dead. You however, have been to a place 100 light years away, come back, and you've aged... but not by a lot. Maybe a few days.

It's anti intuitive but technically travelling at 'c' or at least very very close allows us in our own frame of reference to reach great distances. Everybody around us though would age as normal. So the difference between 0.9c and c is actually hugely significant.

(Please note I'm not trying to pull you up and act all arsey, just giving people who are interested a bit of extra information.

Would't he be 200 years older? His time slows down relative to us, but for him 2 years is 2 years, so if it takes 200 years for light to go there and come back, he would age 200 years.

Well one thing I neglected to mention (which I probably should have) is that, to him, he wouldn't be strictly travelling 200 light years. He's travelling so fast his direction is subject to length contraction.

so to him the distance he travels will be a lot shorter.

To himself, he will feel just a small amount older.

To us he would be 200 years older but miraculously still breathing.