Some unrealized implications of Einstein's theory of relativity.

[halB]

Ok, let's assume nothing can move faster than C.

This gives rise to an important implication.

Let's create a mass M of some material. Let's stretch M out to 1/3 light year. Let's spin it about it's middle. The diameter is 1/3 light year. The circumference is a little over 1 light year. One could not move the inside of the circle 1/3 the speed of light, because that would mean the circumference would be moving faster than the speed of light.

HOWEVER, you could take this same mass, and move it linearly at 1/3 the speed of light with no problems. And one could spin it at 1/3 the speed of light if it the diameter was a little shorter.

Therefore, there is only one reason for this: Our assumption that nothing can move faster than the speed of light ALSO means that it is impossible to create a material with the tensile strength to be 1/3 a light year long without bending, flexing, or breaking. In fact, at the point where any part of M would be moving faster than the speed of light this piece M would have to break.

Of course, these sizes are merely for ease of illustration. If we can build something on a small scale that has the tensile strength necessary, we could invalidate this whole "can't travel faster than the speed of light" without having anything move faster than the speed of light!






Also, a side observation I came to while thinking of this. The closer something spins to the speed of light, the more its time slows down relative to ours. I wonder if this can't "bleed out." For instance, if the many rings of saturn were solid, but not attached to each other, and they were to all spin at 99% the speed of light in opposite directions, This would create zones were time was slowed down, but perhaps.... perhaps the spinning in opposite directions does something. I mean, for that space in between the rings, the combined velocity of ring X going one way counter to ring Y would be faster than the speed of light.

As in, if you're standing in the middle of the road, and two cars have a head on collision with you in the middle, each going 35 mph, the energy is equivalent to 70 mph. I know that this already occurs in particle colliders, but perhaps it being a ring will make a difference. After all, as we know from the top part of this post, spinning things in a circle IS different from linear action.

[Nanotech]

Re: Relativistic mass?

One could not move the inside of the circle 1/3 the speed of light, because that would mean the circumference would be moving faster than the speed of light.

HOWEVER, you could take this same mass, and move it linearly at 1/3 the speed of light with no problems. And one could spin it at 1/3 the speed of light if it the diameter was a little shorter.

I believe this would be impossible due to relativistic mass. Imagine two weights tied to the end of a string, like a bolas. Begin spinning them around your head. To keep them spinning in a circle, energy is required. This energy is a function of force applied, which in turn directly corresponds to the mass of the weights (linearly or quadratically, I cannot remember). Thus, the energy required by the system in a relativistic schema will increase unbounded, to infinity, as the relativistic mass of the weights increases ( relativistic mass = mass/sqrt(1-velocity^2/c^2) ). As the total system energy increases towards infinity, due to the fractional energy of the weights increasing towards infinity, we simply wouldn't be able to power such a creation if it could be held together.

Our assumption that nothing can move faster than the speed of light ALSO means that it is impossible to create a material with the tensile strength to be 1/3 a light year long without bending, flexing, or breaking. In fact, at the point where any part of M would be moving faster than the speed of light this piece M would have to break.

I'd find that quite a reasonable statement, actually. Tensile strength as I understand it (not a mechanical or materials guy, so I could be wrong) is based on the atomic bonds holding any given material together. As mass goes to infinity, so would force and energy, and therefore tensile stress. From that, I would think that any atomic structure with less-than-infinite bond energies would always be pulled apart in the end.

[legolas]

[Pyrate Jim]

If a moving clock goes slow, would a stationary clock go fast?

[legolas]

If a moving clock goes slow, would a stationary clock go fast?

only relative to one another: remember, space-time is inextricably linked. The clocks' differential experience of space (and the gravitational field) results in their differential experience of time. Each is experiencing the same amount of time and neither clock (or observer with said clock) feels sped up or slowed down. It is only through comparing the two that relative "time travel" is realized. Meanwhile, cosmological (or universal or overall) time is a constant.

And, btw Jim, I too am on the group w bench: I just had a disorderly conduct charge FOR SURFING dismissed for the nominal fee of $250. Even when you win you lose--$250 just to find out the c@#%$ucking cop was wrong.

but I digress... more physics anyone? Understanding that SPACE-TIME is a unified concept is a real brain buster sometimes--by no means am I any kind of expert. If any one would like to chime in to help clear up my explanations please do. Actually, I have a degree in biology and only dabble in cosmology and quantum physics as a personal interest.

I totally forgot:
The only real way to travel time is to sling shot a warbird at warp 9.9 around the sun. But only when you need whales to satisfy a semi-sentient autonomous space probe.

[halB]

Just being proximate to something that is moving close to the speed of light is not sufficient--you must be moving close to the speed of light yourself (relative to something that is not moving) to experience a time dilation effect. I think....

I was wondering if it could "bleed through." I mean, at some scale, there must be an effect on a neighboring region of space-time.

I also thought of this, should probably put it in a new thread. Light is traveling at the speed of light. Therefore, to light, there should be no time. Light does not seem to have a mass, which allows it to travel so fast. So, it seems that having mass is necessary to either have your time slow down, or to experience time at all. In otherwords, there should be a "time" particle. I shall call it the atmahn particle.

edit: and I would like to thank you all for your help. I am not only trying to archive my ideas for posterity, but I also am trying to understand space-time fully, as well as proving the speed of light is not a limit.

[cockerpunk]

the reason why all these "if im a on a ship going the speed of light and i walk forward, arn't i going faster then the speed of light?" issues are dumb is becuase everyone fails to take into account enstines other predicitions of relativity - that space is then relative if time is relative, becuase they are essentially the same thing - spacetime.

[legolas]

the reason why all these "if im a on a ship going the speed of light and i walk forward, arn't i going faster then the speed of light?" issues are dumb is becuase everyone fails to take into account enstines other predicitions of relativity - that space is then relative if time is relative, becuase they are essentially the same thing - spacetime.

restingsquared--quite a large multiplier.

The following article is very helpful in explaining photons and mass:

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/ParticleAndNuclear/photon_mass.html

What I am trying to get at here is that although it would be a pleasant symmetry to have an "atmahn" time-particle, it is not justifiable. Particles all transmit force that have observable effects on ordinary matter. If time was a traditional elementary particle of quantum mechanics, we would have observable effects of this particle on regular matter. Time is an artifact of the human observer and its speeding up or slowing down is a paradox of the space-time which we are trying to describe.

Interestingly enough, in the science of Noetics, they are developing the theory of an atman particle that is responsible for the inexplicable influences that the mind exerts.

[Pyrate Jim]

Time is an artifact of the human observer and its speeding up or slowing down is a paradox of the space-time which we are trying to describe.

Now you sound like Wittgenstein. Function follows form.
The Human brain was designed evolutionally, it can only conceive what it was developed to perceive. (It's as if the human brain were designed as a hammer, and the best hammer ever produced. To accurately perceive the Universe, you have to use screws and no hammer of any quality will install a screw that holds things together.)

My earlier question concerning clocks was a satirical comment on the Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction. Everyone is led to believe that it only works one direction. Granted the effects are at their most extreme and only noticeable at each end of the scale, but the scale goes both up and down from the Human point of perception.
Negative three is the square root of nine just as much as our "normal" perception of three.
The math does not possess a specific direction in time, no matter how much we would like it to.

According to theory, a massless particle emitted as the moment of the big bang (assuming there was one) would travel at the forefront of spacetime, never meeting an obstacle since there could not be anything in "front" of it.
That photon would still be travelling along at the speed of light, and at that speed it's internal clock would be at zero relative to anything moving slower (like us). So that photon still "knows" the universe as it was when it was emitted.
Riding along on that photon was what inspired Einsteins' General Theory of Relativity to begin with. The speed of light is always measured the same, how fast you travel along it determines it's duration.
Human perception is at neither end of the scale, so moving faster would slow down relative time and moving slower would speed it up.

Heisenberg & Born with their so-called "Copenhagen Interpretation" or Feinemanns' Sum-Over-Histories or Von Neumanns' proxy waves all reduce to that simple:

Time is an artifact of the human observer and its speeding up or slowing down is a paradox of the space-time which we are trying to describe.

[legolas]

My earlier question concerning clocks was a satirical comment on the Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction.

I shoulda known.

I hope all the comparisons of my simplistic reduction to Wittgenstein and Heisenberg & Born were a compliment. Either way, the comparison to such history is flattering.

any more thoughts halB?

[IronCore]

How about that Alcubierre metric does that show any promise?