Origins TheologyForum for the discussion of Creation Science (Young/Old) vs Theistic Evolution. Discussion of Atheistic Evolution should be taken to the Discussion and Debate forums.
Huh? You seem to somehow read a different thread than the rest of us. The light speed limit is current state of science and is confirmed by all experiments and observations since more than 100 years.
Have you read this thread, and the link that you posted? There is no argument in favor of objects or information traveling faster than light. If you think you have one, please don't hesitate to post it. I'm very curious to hear of it since it would turn all current physics upside down.
This is quoted from the AIAA article I linked to:
These paradoxes are particularly difficult to reconcile with experience if objects are considered that move faster than the speed of light. For such objects some observers will note that an effect can precede a cause. Yet these paradoxes cannot be removed simply by hypothesizing that nothing moves faster-than-light. The General theory of Relativity does not exclude the possibility, nor does the Special Theory, and Quantum Mechanics may actually require it.
(Emphasis added.)
How did you make the assumption that the article I linked to contradicts the possibility of objects moving faster than light?
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How did you make the assumption that the article I linked to contradicts the possibility of objects moving faster than light?
Huh? What assumption are you talking about?
It might be some debate tactics to attack imaginary claims that no one made, but this won't work on an Internet forum where everyone can read what was posted. Please read the responses that you got here, and then read again the article that you posted. You'll find that what I really said,
"There is no argument in favor of objects or information traveling faster than light."
exactly describes our current state in this discussion. Neither your article nor any of your posts here contains a single argument in favor of your opinion. A debate without exchanging arguments however makes not much sense to me, so we can as well rest that case.
Even if I should agree with that view (which I still have reservations about), that is a far cry from saying that God changes ...
Normally we have three sources that tell us of God. The first Source is scripture, the second source is science (observing the world) and the third source are we ourselves (our built-in morale that was implanted by God). However there is also a 4th source and that is tradition. Tradition makes it difficult to accept some concepts of God, such as His change, because tradition dictates the concept of a spiritually immovable God.
Maybe God's character does not change. I don't know. Scripture tells us that His behavior towards humans drastically changes between 1200 AC and 400 AC. By 1200 He was very controlling and aggressive, after 400 he was withdrawn and merciful. Of course it's possible that the reason for this different behavior was not God's change, but something else. But what could it be? A change of character due to His experiences with humans seems the most plausible answer to me. Any alternative ideas?
After I linked you to that article at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, you asked me for an explanation of how this was possible, so I provided one and then Shernen gave a better one. I don’t understand how you can keep claiming this is the “current state of science” now that you’ve been presented with plenty of evidence that this isn’t the case.
I have not found your mentioned explanation, neither a bad one nor a better one. Can you point me to it?
I suppose you have not understood Shernen's and my responses, or the article that you linked. There is no evidence at all that the current state of science about the light speed limit is wrong. Your linked article seems to be meant as a beginner's intro into relativity paradoxes, and was abandoned after the first page. It obviously contains no example or argument for the possibility of an above light speed reference frame.
The article isn’t “abandoned after the first page”. Like most papers in professional journals, the full text of it isn’t publicly available, so it’s only possible for me to link to the first page of it here. It’s possible to access the full text of papers like these through most educational institutions, so I would have hoped that my inability to post a link to more than a preview of the article wouldn’t be interpreted to mean that the article is only one page long. But apparently not.
Paul, the claim that I have been addressing here is that reference frames faster than the speed of light are not allowed under “the current state of science”, as ClearSky put it. Shernen explained in his post that I quoted how this is possible if an object “starts” at above the speed of light, and I’ve shown that there are professional papers on this topic, so it clearly isn’t just something he and I made up. You aren’t even attempting to address what Shernen said in his post about the situations in which this is possible.
As I said, it isn’t possible for me to link to most professional papers in their entirety at a messageboard like this, and most populist writing about Relativity doesn’t go into these kinds of details. Considering those limitations, what other evidence about this could you possibly expect from Shernen or me?
EDIT: In response to ClearSky's request, here’s where I explained the way I understood this: http://christianforums.com/showpost....&postcount=119 And as I said, Shernen corrected a few of my points and explained this better in his reply to me in the following post.
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Last edited by Aggie; 23rd March 2008 at 01:41 PM.
EDIT: Here’s where I explained the way I understood this: http://christianforums.com/showpost....&postcount=119 And as I said, Shernen corrected a few of my points and explained this better in his reply to me in the following post.
But Shenren, Paul365 and I already answered on your post and explained your error. Your assumption of acceleration energy is wrong. The light speed barrier is based on the Lorenz Transformation and not on acceleration energy.
But Shenren, Paul365 and I already answered on your post and explained your error. Your assumption of acceleration energy is wrong. The light speed barrier is based on the Lorenz Transformation and not on acceleration energy.
Shernen corrected me about the reason why an object can’t accelerate past the speed of light, and I already acknowledged that. However, he also agreed with the main point that my argument was based on: if an object is already traveling above the speed of light, there’s nothing in either theory of Relativity which says that isn’t possible.
Originally Posted by shernren
Either that, or you can start at over the speed of light. You can't accelerate past the speed of light, but if you spontaneously create a particle that comes into existence already moving faster than light, it can go as "fast" as you like - although the physical meaning of familiar properties like mass, energy, momentum etc. start becoming a bit fuzzy.
It’s really strange how you and Paul are just noticing that Shernen corrected some of my points, and are ignoring the fact that he’s agreeing with the most important part of my argument. The reason why it isn’t possible to accelerate an object past the speed of light isn’t important for what I’m saying. All that matters is whether reference frames faster than the speed of light are possible at all—Shernen is saying that they are—since that is what would determine whether God is able to view the universe from this point of view.
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Last edited by Aggie; 23rd March 2008 at 02:07 PM.
I’m not claiming that there’s some “hidden” part of Special Relativity that only experts know about; what I’ve read is that the equations for it that everyone agrees on allow for objects to move faster than light under the circumstances that Shernen described. The problem is, the equations themselves aren’t something I’m particularly familiar with. Although the articles I’ve read about this were fairly technical, they still described the concepts in physical (rather than mathematical) terms. So if you make an argument about this based on the equations, I’m not going to be able to address it directly.
What I’ve noticed, and have already pointed out, is that whenever this topic is described in a professional context, the possibility of objects moving faster than light is allowed for. The way in which this is described as being possible is similar to how Shernen explained it. Whenever it’s described as being impossible, however, it’s always in a populist article that doesn’t even attempt to address the sort of thing that Shernen was describing. Based on this, it’s pretty clear which articles are leaving something out.
Shernen might be able to explain how the equations work for objects moving faster than light, but that isn’t something I know how to do. I’d like to discuss this in a more general context. What do you have to say about the explanation Shernen gave of how this is possible if an object “starts” at above the speed of light, which I assume is similar to what’s explained in the part of the AIAA article that isn’t publicly available? Do you think the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics doesn’t understand Relativity properly?
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Shernen corrected me about the reason why an object can’t accelerate past the speed of light, and I already acknowledged that. However, he also agreed with the main point that my argument was based on: if an object is already traveling above the speed of light, there’s nothing in either theory of Relativity which says that isn’t possible.
No. Look at the formula of the Lorenz transformation:
Do you see the 5th formula from above? That's the Lorentz factor. When you instantaneously create an object at 1000 times the speed of light, you see that the Lorentz factor will become the inverse square root of a negative number, which is an imaginary quantity. So we will get imaginary space and time coordinates of that object. Which means that this object can not exist in our universe for any reference frame that has a speed difference greater than c to that object.
Note that this does not imply an absolute light speed limit. Some speeds, for instance the speed of expanding space, can greatly exceed the light speed. There are also speculations of hypothetical particles called "tachyons" that violate Special relativity and travel faster than the speed of light. However no one has found tachyons so far. Therefore Special Relativity is assumed to apply to our universe. This means that material objects and information can't exceed the speed of light, and also implies a causality barrier, an event horizon. You can see this barrier in the diagonal lines of the world line animation on the above page. Events beyond the event horizon of a certain reference frame don't exist in that frame.
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