Mod Idea: Simulating surfaces -> Borg Technology -> Twinkie Physics -> Worldviews

[capnq]

As a side note I recently heard that there is strong evidence to support the fact that C is not as constant as we once thought. Apparently the speed of light has been slowing down slightly over the Last several billion years.

Where did you read this?

This may not be what he's thinking of, but it was the most likely candidate Google pulled up: Speed of Light, Other Constants May Change {link}

This also reminded me of another theory, that the gravitational constant G may also decrease over time. Here's a link which mentions that: Interview with Paul Dirac {link}

[Suicide Junkie]

With those FTL energy packets thing;
Imagine a giant ringworld, with a circumference of one light second. So a little smaller than the orbit of the moon.
Put one of those spinning emergency lights in the middle.
Set the light to spin ten times per second.
The spot of light hitting the ringworld will also go around ten times per second.

Now, that ringworld was one light second in circumference, so that spot of light was moving 10 light seconds each second, or 10 times the speed!

No laws of physics broken, no info of physical object moves faster than light.

With the energy pulses thing, you use a bunch of lasers to interfere with each other, and the pattern shifts faster than light.
Its like you had a big crowd of people on the ringworld, and had them stand up to do "the wave" like it was a giant sports arena as the light goes by. Then tell 'em to keep it up and turn off the light. Then unroll the ringworld into a beam.
"The wave" is still moving 10x the speed of light, but really, the movement is an illusion.

[ December 07, 2002, 19:29: Message edited by: Suicide Junkie ]

[dogscoff]

but the spot of light is not a physical object that's moving. it's just our perception of it that maks it look like a single moving object...

[QuarianRex]

Originally posted by dogscoff:

quote:

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As a side note I recently heard that there is strong evidence to support the fact that C is not as constant as we once thought. Apparently the speed of light has been slowing down slightly over the Last several billion years.

Where did you read this? I only ask because a "C slowing down" theory has been put forward as an argument for creationism. I don't know if that was something made up for that purpose or something they had borrowed from real science. I don't suppose I'd ever find the webpage again, but I read a really funny argument about this theory between a creationist and someone who actually understood science.

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I actually saw this as a story on a science news show (or somesuch). Apparently researchers were able to pick up light from a star several billion light years away (and therefore from several billion years ago) and discovered that it was moving faster than C.

It had nothing to do with creationism. In fact, you are the first person from whom I have ever heard of the connection.

Personally I don't see how it could be used to support the Eden paradigm since it would have a negligible effect on our time frame.

Do you remember what the gist of the argument was?

Shang:

We were working under the assumption of instant (and survivable) acceleration of said twinkie. Mainly because the theoretical effects of of acceleration to lightspeed have been fairly well documented and we armchair physicists don't want to break out the calculators (or break a sweat). Besides, the interesting thing is what happens after lightspeed.

[Suicide Junkie]

but the spot of light is not a physical object that's moving. it's just our perception of it that maks it look like a single moving object...

Exactly my point. Its an illusion.

[Kamog]

I actually saw this as a story on a science news show (or somesuch). Apparently researchers were able to pick up light from a star several billion light years away (and therefore from several billion years ago) and discovered that it was moving faster than C.

I wonder how they were able to figure that out. Do you mean that the STAR was moving faster than c, or was the LIGHT from the star moving faster than c? If the light was moving faster than c, was it still moving that fast when it reached us?

[jimbob]

Not being a physicist or anything, but I think we're talking about the universal expansion constant. I think Einstein first proposed it, but was so disgusted with the idea that the constants of the universe would change over time, that he discarded it. However observational evidence has brought the idea back into vogue. It's either the fabric of space-time is slowly changing it's rate of expansion, or there is a type of "anti-gravity" energy that is capable of driving matter apart. Roll it in with dark matter, and you've got one whacky universe!

[Cheeze]

Perhaps time has a half-life. It can't be much different than the half-life of a twinkie.

[KirbyEF]

This thread is like a tweekie....

Substance on the outside and a creamy filly on the inside.

The preverbale "cake and eat it too..." occurs here.

KirbyEF

[PvK]

Originally posted by QuarianRex:

quote:

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Originally posted by PvK:

For example, if we hook up a drive capable of what would be ten times the speed of light to a Twinkie, and send it five light-years away and back (ten light-years total distance), we'll see it re-appear in ten years time, and history will not be changed, but the Twinkie will only have aged one year. No humpback whales will be saved.

PvK

I have got to disagree here (I know I'm jumping in a little late but what the heck). If equiping a twinkie with a drive system capable of 10x the speed of light it would travel 10 light years in only one year of our subjective time.
[/QB]

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That's where I think you're mistaken/backwards, if you Subscribe to quantum theory. According to QT, in no frame of reference is any physical object allowed to be accelerated to the speed of light. Instead, it will seem to age less quickly, from the stationary frame of reference. So, from Earth, the Twinkie seems to have taken at least ten years to make the trip, but the Calendar clock included as a free gift inside the Twinkie package only shows one year elapsed.

This is assuming that said drive system is capable of instantaneous acceleration and deceleration and so negating the turnaround time at the half-way point.

Yes, more or less. Actually, say "nearly-instantaneous". (I believe quantum theory does NOT have anything to say about instantaneous changes in speed, or things which actually do move faster than light - it just says that pushing something to accelerate it up to the speed of light and beyond, starts affecting time between the frames of reference, instead.)

The subjective effects of the twinkie are the true unknown. If they are the same as light speed then no time will have passed (subjectively) yet 10 lightyears will have been crossed and one year would have passed in the world.

I really strongly agree with the first sentence - what would really happen to the Twinkie. As was pointed out in an earlier post from the peanut gallery, the Twinkie will probably have big problems under massive acceleration, but that's probably best left to Twinkie-ologists. There are whole web sites (well, at least one) devoted to the effects (or phenomenal lack therof) of all sorts of conditions on Twinkies.

As I wrote above, QT has nothing to say about anything moving faster than or at the speed of light. What it does say, is that objects that are accelerated up to the speed of light, will never reach it, because the closer they get, the greater the time effect relative to other frames of reference. From their own perspective, they seem to accelerate as if there were no speed limit, but when they check the clocks they left at home, they will show more time has passed than the clocks they brought with them.

This is the most likely explanation since we have detected forms of radiation that move faster than the speed of light (for the life of me I can't remember what it's called, though I do have it written down somewhere) and they don't show any evidence of time warping properties.

Tachyons are particles that travel faster than the speed of light. There have also been experiments in recent years that seem to have managed to send signals faster than light, but as far as I know, this is not necessarily movement, but cause and effect, which may involve forces and particles which we don't understand. It's quite hard to detect or measure faster-than-light objects and effects, when all of our equipment uses sub-light particles and effects.

As a side note I recently heard that there is strong evidence to support the fact that C is not as constant as we once thought. Apparently the speed of light has been slowing down slightly over the Last several billion years.

Interesting huh?

Yes, it's interesting. However I tend to think modern physicists, as with physicists and philosophers throughout human history, are still extremely overconfident about the degree to which they really understand what's going on at the fringe of their theory and cosmology. I'm not really convinced that they know what they're talking about when they claim to be measuring speeds of light and relativistic effects.

PvK