Speed of light

[loveofourlord]

Past states, eh? And time is an illusion?

way I look at time or what we call time is that, there is just a ever changing now, matter and energy such as ourelves moves around and changes it's positions, but ACTUAL time isn't real there is no past or present. it's not like there is a vhs where you can rewind, or go into the end of the movie, but a tv channel or such that is always playing, if I throw a ball to you, there isn't a time where I had the ball, all thats happened is the position of the ball has changed, but you have the false illusion of time, because you remember where the ball once was, your memories and such have created the false idea that there is a measurable past. our memories create the false idea that there is a past, or a future that is measurable or concrete. What we call time, is just movement we can measure.

Yeah It's a dumb idea, just something I've been thinking about for a while :> Probably completly wrong, but my own pet theory hehe, though not sure how to prove or disprove it, don't know the math to understand how it could be disproved.

 

[lesliedellow]

way I look at time or what we call time is that, there is just a ever changing now, matter and energy such as ourelves moves around and changes it's positions, but ACTUAL time isn't real there is no past or present. it's not like there is a vhs where you can rewind, or go into the end of the movie, but a tv channel or such that is always playing, if I throw a ball to you, there isn't a time where I had the ball, all thats happened is the position of the ball has changed, but you have the false illusion of time, because you remember where the ball once was, your memories and such have created the false idea that there is a measurable past. our memories create the false idea that there is a past, or a future that is measurable or concrete. What we call time, is just movement we can measure.

Yeah It's a dumb idea, just something I've been thinking about for a while :> Probably completly wrong, but my own pet theory hehe, though not sure how to prove or disprove it, don't know the math to understand how it could be disproved.

Get back to me when you have stopped using verbs in the past and future tenses.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Sorry I couldn't find the much longer article I read before but here's one example:

Quantized Galaxy Redshifts

If you have time, you can google for keywords: galaxy redshift quantized discrete.

Oh, I'd forgotten about that stuff - it was 30 years ago; far as I recall, the first couple of papers had statistical errors, and then it got complicated - the more data gathered, the less significant the original pattern, and then, depending on how the data was analysed and who analysed it, different patterns were found - or not found. I suspect statistical artifacts - if you look for patterns in large data sets, you'll find patterns - like bible codes. The interest pretty much died out years ago - didn't it ?

It is my opinion that galaxies would behave exactly like a quantum object or subatomic particle from a "far removed frame of reference" like an observer far outside our Universe and its effects.

Right, OK...

 

[loveofourlord]

Get back to me when you have stopped using verbs in the past and future tenses.

Events still play out as normal, there just isn't a past or future, I still throw a ball to you, just there is no point after I've thrown the ball that it's in my hand, because the ball is in a new place. And of course there will be tenses still used, it's how our minds and perecptions to the illusion of time think.

 

[tansy]

There have been some theoretical designs for time machines which could travel into the past, but hugely speculative. And there are the obvious logical problems involved, such as travelling back to a time before you were born, and shooting your mother, or (even worse) travelling back to an earler time in your life, shooting yourself, and then standing trial for murdering yourself.

Well, it certainly seems unlikely that we could actually travel back to the past. However, I do wonder if we could somehow see back into the past. After all, the light we see coming from a distant heavenly body, is apparently from the past, not the present.
Actually, that makes me kind of wonder...if we could somehow reflect with some kind of giant mirror thingy, what we are doing on earth at present, up to some distant place in the universe, and there were some kind of mirror thingy on that distant place, then by the time it got reflected back to earth, then the people living in the future could theoretically 'see' what we were doing now...if you follow my kind of weird and convoluted 'reasoning' (if one can call it that )

 

[tansy]

Ohhhh, you betcha Red Ryder! The more one studies anything, the more that particular 'anything' become linked to 'everything'.The easiest way to think of time is as the 'passing of events'. And the 'direction' of time is determined by entropy. (Just when you thought things couldn't get weirder!)

Look up "Planck Time" when you have half an hour or so to kill.

Will do, when I get a chance..thanks . I don't always have much TIME to pursue things LOL

 

[tansy]

The speed of light is a constant (in a vacuum), which is known as c. Light can be slowed down, for example light travels slower through gas or liquids. But nothing can move faster than c. The universal constant is the speed of light moving through a vacuum.

-CryptoLutheran

But wouldn't that be a theoretical vacuum? I thought it wasn't possible to have a true vacuum? At least if one tried to do it, whatever was containing it would just collapse...Unless there were actually some material strong enough to withstand the process..if you see what I mean.

 

[timewerx]

Oh, I'd forgotten about that stuff - it was 30 years ago; far as I recall, the first couple of papers had statistical errors, and then it got complicated - the more data gathered, the less significant the original pattern, and then, depending on how the data was analysed and who analysed it, different patterns were found - or not found. I suspect statistical artifacts - if you look for patterns in large data sets, you'll find patterns - like bible codes. The interest pretty much died out years ago - didn't it ?

Right, OK...

This article would explain it better:

Red Shift Riddles

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

This article would explain it better:

Red Shift Riddles

Not really - and a 'creation science' web site isn't a reliable source of astrophysical information.

 

[lesliedellow]

But wouldn't that be a theoretical vacuum? I thought it wasn't possible to have a true vacuum? At least if one tried to do it, whatever was containing it would just collapse...Unless there were actually some material strong enough to withstand the process..if you see what I mean.

The density of the universe is estimated to be the equivalent to the mass of one proton per cubic metre, which is a pretty meagre provision to start with (at the risk of major understatement). But most of that mass is tied up in stars and galaxies, which makes the density of inter galactic space, or even inter stellar space, far less than one proton per cubic metre.

So, although a total vacuum may, in theory, not be possible, in practice inter galactic space is as close to it as to make no difference.

 

[tansy]

The density of the universe is estimated to be the equivalent to the mass of one proton per cubic metre, which is a pretty meagre provision to start with (at the risk of major understatement). But most of that mass is tied up in stars and galaxies, which makes the density of inter galactic space, or even inter stellar space, far less than one proton per cubic metre.

So, although a total vacuum may, in theory, not be possible, in practice inter galactic space is as close to it as to make no difference.

But what if dark matter and dark energy exist, not mention neutrinos? ? Surely those things would fill up the 'gaps'? OK, maybe those things wouldn't make much difference in practice, however, I would imagine that the universe is completely filled up with matter and energy of some sort?

 

[lesliedellow]

I would imagine that the universe is completely filled up with matter and energy of some sort?

Well it isn't. If astronauts stepped outside of the International Space Station without wearing pressure suits, every blood vessel in their bodies would burst.

Come to think of it, the International Space Station woulddn't stay in orbit for long, if there was friction with some sort of ether.

 

[tansy]

Well it isn't. If astronauts stepped outside of the International Space Station without wearing pressure suits, every blood vessel in their bodies would burst.

Yes, but surely that's to do with density or something. Like if you go deep-sea diving, the pressure has bad effects on you. Would have thought it was a question of degree. I don't know, just thinking about it. I do realise that there must be lots of things at play to be taken account of.

 

[lesliedellow]

Yes, but surely that's to do with density or something. Like if you go deep-sea diving, the pressure has bad effects on you. Would have thought it was a question of degree. I don't know, just thinking about it. I do realise that there must be lots of things at play to be taken account of.

The only thing to be found outside of the ISS is the extremely thin remnants of the Earth's atmosphere. Anything beyond that would have been sucked into the gravitational field of the Sun, or one of the planets, long ago.

 

[tansy]

The only thing to be found outside of the ISS is the extremely thin remnants of the Earth's atmosphere. Anything beyond that would have been sucked into the gravitational field of the Sun, or one of the planets, long ago.

Hm, OK, hadn't thought of that

 

[paul becke]

Even if it is the case that consciousness cannot be accounted for in terms of energy and matter, that still does not excuse the nonsense which gets talked about quantum mechanics.

'Newtonian mechanics gets used for the very good reason that is an excellent approximation to quantum mechanics in the everyday world, and the mathematics is a whole lot simpler.'

That is wrong, Leslie. Newtonian mechanics gets used purely because it, alone, is applicable to the everyday world - things at the 'human level', i.e. that we can see. Mutatis mutandis, quantum mechanics gets used for precisely the same reason : because it is applicable to the more arcane, microscopic, material world.

However, another astonishing discovery is that, at least some of the phenomena hitherto thought to be unique to QM, would also be observable at the mechanistic level of Newtonian physics. I can't cite my source for that, but if/when I come across it again, I'll find somehere to post it on this board or PM you.

You seem to admire Newtonian mechanics because the thinking required is entirely linear and unambiguous ; while the paradoxical phenomena of QM, such as wave-particle duality, entanglement and non-locality are the very stuff of QM.

Are you aware that it is the most tested (and successful) theory ever, and not just because it is the last-comer. Something like 80 % of our industrial production is said to rely on it. However, it has actually also been proven that it can never be superseded, i.e. never be improved upon. It is the ultimate paradigm - again, in practical terms only at the smallest most fundamental level. The guys who had the best handle on its mysterious nature (inevitable since, surely the interface with the Holy Spirit), apart from Wigner and one or two others, seem to have been two of the the earliest pioneers, the father/founder of QM, Max Planck, whom I quoted (not Wigner, for all his empirically-based refinement of the metaphysics), and Niels Bohr. To read Bohr's quotes on Wikiquote is a delight for anyone who is fed up to the teeth with the obdurate atheist madness, with their insane scientism.

Consequently, the best theoretical physicists are able to use the many paradoxes as staging-posts and springboards from which to relaunch the intervening, linear logic of their empirical research. QM is fretted through with mysteries as opaque and repugnant to reason as the paradoxes we know as the mysteries of the Christian faith, but here's the thing - they have been tested and proven empirically.

Came across this a short while ago :

What great physicists have said about immateriality and consciousness | Uncommon Descent

Bornagain77's post no 1 is characteristically informative. He has synthesised an enormous amount of information on physics and indeed other sciences, all of which he collates to give a coherent and rather wonderful picture.

 

[lesliedellow]

That is wrong, Leslie. Newtonian mechanics gets used purely because it, alone, is applicable to the everyday world - things at the 'human level', i.e. that we can see. Mutatis mutandis, quantum mechanics gets used for precisely the same reason : because it is applicable to the more arcane, microscopic, material world.

It is not wrong. Quantum Mechanics is universally applicable, but since vectors in infinite dimensional Hilbert Space are not something encountered in every high school cirriculum, Newtonian mechanicsis used wherever possible, because it is simpler and more convenient.

However, it has actually also been proven that it can never be superseded, i.e. never be improved upon. It is the ultimate paradigm - again, in practical terms only at the smallest most fundamental level.

That is arrant nonsense. It is not exactly a secret that General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are incompatible. They cannot both be right, and they are almost certainly both wrong. Like Newtonian Mechanics before them, they are approximations to the truth.

 

[Archie the Preacher]

It is not wrong. Quantum Mechanics is universally applicable, but since vectors in infinite dimensional Hilbert Space are not something encountered in every high school cirriculum, Newtonian mechanicsis used wherever possible, because it is simpler and more convenient.

The Newtonian understanding of gravity and subjects associated is not wrong. However, it is limited to the velocities and gravitational limits of the Earth. Einstein's Relativity did not "overturn" Newton's findings as is commonly described, but rather 'expanded' the findings to a greater spectrum of circumstances - higher velocities, greater distances and greater gravitational fields.

I would suggest Quantum Mechanics is not universally acceptable, but is largely limited to the very small aspects of reality. This of course is an over simplification, as 'uncertainty' applies to large things as much as small things; but the percentage involved makes it virtually unobservable in the macro. (Certainly to common human experience.) Without doubt, Newtonian Mechanics is both simpler and more convenient and had the advantage of being more 'obvious' to most of us.

It is not exactly a secret that General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are incompatible. They cannot both be right, and they are almost certainly both wrong. Like Newtonian Mechanics before them, they are approximations to the truth.

The 'screwy' thing about both General Relativity and Quantum mechanics is they are both right (as far as we can tell) and they contradict one another in certain applications. Relativity works very well in the macro, while QM works very well in the micro. Both have avoided falsification in numerous experiments.

However, as Leslie points out, they are incompatible. My own thought is not they are 'wrong' but incomplete; they 'lack' something. (No, I don't know what they lack.) I think it very possible that 'lack' will be determined in time, but it may be a bit before that happens. I doubt either or both will ever be completely discarded.

 

[lesliedellow]

I would suggest Quantum Mechanics is not universally acceptable

I am not sure what you mean by "acceptable". You would be crazy to use it in preference to Newtonian mechanics at the macroscopic level, but it is certainly theoretically applicable there.

However, as Leslie points out, they are incompatible. My own thought is not they are 'wrong' but incomplete; they 'lack' something. (No, I don't know what they lack.) I think it very possible that 'lack' will be determined in time, but it may be a bit before that happens. I doubt either or both will ever be completely discarded.

The attempt to reconcile General Relativity with Quantum Mechabnics is what both string theory and loop quantum gravity are attempts at.

 

[Archie the Preacher]

I am not sure what you mean by "acceptable". You would be crazy to use it in preference to Newtonian mechanics at the macroscopic level, but it is certainly theoretically applicable there.

I rather doubt the word 'universally'. It is most acceptable and reliable - as much modern electronic equipment attest - but is reasonably ignored in terms of astronomical observations and measurements.

By the same token, General Relativity is both acceptable and reliable in the macrocosm, but not so valuable in the microcosm. So General Relativity is not 'universally' accepted in the same manner.

The attempt to reconcile General Relativity with Quantum Mechabnics is what both string theory and loop quantum gravity are attempts at.

Correct.

I am looking eagerly to the time when the reconciliation is accomplished.