if i could run faster than the speed of light...

Wasn’t there once a cowboy that could shoot faster than his shadow?
 
if he could possibly run that fast, he'd meet up with his previous self and vanish up his own arse hole. that would contravene newton's 4th law..... when the ---- hits the fan, the good get going.
 
I deleted the last few posts, @elsparko - this is a very interesting and mind provoking thread so let's not drag it down with crude toilet humour please.
It is a subject you may have guessed that I have an interest in as I love the complexity and mind challenging field that is quantum physics, if you really want your mind stretch then just ask and I'll add more input to keep the thread burning :)
 
pirate said:
Fascinating stuff this! Thanks particularly to Darkwood and Marconi...so, I guess wee Jenny's safe after all?
Click to expand...
After 40yrs of been interested in the cosmology, quantum physics and general sciences I have amassed quite a nerd level knowledge of how nature works ...
There exists only one greater challenge than the Theory of Everything (ToE) for man to understand and that is a woman's mind, I went for quantum because I want to at least have a chance to understand it in my lifetime.
 
darkwood said:
After 40yrs of been interested in the cosmology, quantum physics and general sciences I have amassed quite a nerd level knowledge of how nature works ...
There exists only one greater challenge than the Theory of Everything (ToE) for man to understand and that is a woman's mind, I went for quantum because I want to at least have a chance to understand it in my lifetime.
Click to expand...

A man was walking along a Florida beach and stumbled across an old lamp. He picked it up and rubbed it, and out popped a genie.

The genie said, "OK, You released me from the lamp, blah blah blah. This is the fourth time this month, and I'm getting a little sick of these wishes so you can forget about three... You only get one wish!"

The man sat, and thought about it for a while and said, "I've always wanted to go to Hawaii, but I'm scared to fly, and I get very seasick. Could you build me a bridge to Hawaii so I can drive over there to visit?"

The genie laughed and said, "That's impossible!!!

Think of the logistics of that! How would the supports ever reach the bottom of the Pacific? Think of how much concrete -- how much steel!! No, think of another wish."

The man said, "OK, I'll try to think of a really good wish."

Finally, he said, "I've been married and divorced four times. My wives always said that I don't care and that I'm insensitive.

So, I wish that I could understand women, know how they feel inside, and what they're thinking when they give me the silent treatment. Know why they're crying, know what they really want when they say "nothing,", know how to make them truly happy."

The genie said, "Do you want that bridge to be two lanes or four
 
How interesting...
Delete some crazy crap about toilet humour, pontificate (eloquently) about the higher level of quantum physics, and then make a joke about the mind of a woman?
...and that's not censorship?
Well...to be fair, I didn't see the deleted content, but I would hope we could all go with the flow from time to time...there are so many threads on here that go so massively off-topic that it's possibly a very difficult task to moderate...
I do believe that some have specialist knowledge that is outwith the ken of the average contributor, but suppressing views from those who have more humour than specialist knowledge is a questionable practice...
I am here to learn...
...but not to be censored except in the case of manifest transgression.
Just saying...
 
Just beginning to ponder if getting ahead of your self , will have any quantum consequences.
(at that speed it will be better to look over your
shoulder , than do any option that is not a straight line )
 
So many responses spring to mind, Static!
I'm always getting ahead of myself...to my discomfiture, obviously!
Engage brain before opening mouth is a good rule for me!
Better to remain silent, and be thought a fool...than to speak up, and prove it beyond doubt...
One day, I'll take my own advice, if I ever get to travel at the speed of light, because by then I'll have caught up with myself...ermmm...I think?
 
What is this run thing you speak of? Sounds like hard work...
 
pirate said:
How interesting...
Delete some crazy crap about toilet humour, pontificate (eloquently) about the higher level of quantum physics, and then make a joke about the mind of a woman?
...and that's not censorship?
Well...to be fair, I didn't see the deleted content, but I would hope we could all go with the flow from time to time...there are so many threads on here that go so massively off-topic that it's possibly a very difficult task to moderate...
I do believe that some have specialist knowledge that is outwith the ken of the average contributor, but suppressing views from those who have more humour than specialist knowledge is a questionable practice...
I am here to learn...
...but not to be censored except in the case of manifest transgression.
Just saying...
Click to expand...

This was not a censorship response it was more about stopping the thread going off course, nothing said warranted anything more like an infraction and I don't have any direct issue with what was posted but we do take posts down sometimes when they drag the level down, from experience this usually sends threads into the ground as people react and start playing the same fiddle losing the original level of conversation, I do find it a strange reaction of yours and the passion you put into your post given you didn't see the posts removed.
PS the posts on the woman's mind was just a quip based on a response from Richard Feyman a leading American physicist which I should have made clear, I enjoy humour even close to the bone stuff but like I said I only trimmed the thread to keep it on track, my quip was part of a longer thread which was on subject.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
darkwood said:
I deleted the last few posts, @elsparko - this is a very interesting and mind provoking thread so let's not drag it down with crude toilet humour please.
It is a subject you may have guessed that I have an interest in as I love the complexity and mind challenging field that is quantum physics, if you really want your mind stretch then just ask and I'll add more input to keep the thread burning :)
Click to expand...
what happens at the singularity in a black hole? if you were going faster than the gravity could pancake you could you survive?
 
@elsparko
If you want to involve our understanding of physics and how we accept it works then the answer would be totally different to hypothetical scenarios that you present, in answer your atomic structure would have been pulled into it's subatomical particles long before you got anywhere near the singularity and your speed would not be exceeding any limits you prescribe.
 
I used to be addicted to time travel, but that’s all in the past now. Now I just listen to Queen to lighten the mood.


What has always baffled me for yonks is when you spin your head round like a disk at light speed, it moves in a rotational motion. The faster it spins, the faster it moves. But something else is happening or not happening depending on your point of view. As you're moving linearly towards the centre of your head, its motion is slowing down. And as you keep moving towards the centre, you're moving even more slowly. Until you reach the exact centre where the pattern shows your head is not rotating at all. And it doesn't matter how fast that head is spinning, its exact centre never moves. The problem does not stop here, because the outside of your head is turning faster than the inside of your head and the closer you get to the centre of rotation the slower is the rotation, which tends to zero. So as you stand in the middle of the rotation the centre of your brain, if you have one, tends to zero. So my question is, how can it be that the outside of my brain can come up with so many good ideas when in the centre there is nothing going on at all?:D
 
Your incorrect kam' if you are discussing the macro level then the very centre of your brain is still rotating about its axis .. you go down to the atomic level then all kinds of crazy calculations are needed.
 
havent a chinese company found a way to split particles and use them to transmit information almost instantly? quantum entanglement

another thing i want to bring up is the teleporter on star trek, how i see no problem with rebuilding a biological being , how do they transmit the consciousness of the teleportee?
 
Quantum entanglement is a very complicated subject and cannot be addressed with general logic as part of an enquisitive question, it requires a deeper understanding to comprehend the theory and why it is difficult to take in, Brian Cox made that error in one of his TV lectures by slipping into one of his own theories as oppose to what science tells us.

Quantum entanglement brings in space/time and the whole question of how our universe really works and because this counters your basic logical mind it really takes years of studying to alter your observational mind and to accept an alternative concept.

A particle been in 2 places at once and directly influence each other regardless of distance seems totally illogical but logic has to be sidetracked to appreciating the quantum world and trying to understand it.
 
darkwood said:
Quantum entanglement is a very complicated subject and cannot be addressed with general logic as part of an enquisitive question, it requires a deeper understanding to comprehend the theory and why it is difficult to take in, Brian Cox made that error in one of his TV lectures by slipping into one of his own theories as oppose to what science tells us.

Quantum entanglement brings in space/time and the whole question of how our universe really works and because this counters your basic logical mind it really takes years of studying to alter your observational mind and to accept an alternative concept.

A particle been in 2 places at once and directly influence each other regardless of distance seems totally illogical but logic has to be sidetracked to appreciating the quantum world and trying to understand it.
Click to expand...
isnt that what they are also doing at cern along with the god particle malarky?

when confronted with theories such as these i just look up at night and think how illogical this entire thing already is, many a night ive kept myself awake pondering what was the cause of the first effect that we call the "big bang" and how did it come to where i am now

i get vertigo looking at the milky way but at the same time i cant look away
 
The big bang is a massive misconception in our day to day thinking, there was no sound as such that is just a biological development billions of years later by the evolution to feel differences in pressure waves, there was a great expansion as we still have recorded evidence to show that in the background radiation, remember light is radiation too so just like light in out visual range then all the spectrum of the electromagnetic radiation can supply us with so much more info than we can visually see, the 'big bang' so far is the only model to explain our observations but we can only get to a few atto seconds of the beginning and in quantum terms that leaves so much room for theories so we still do not kn0w and may never.
You must also remember as most mix this up is there are scientific established theories and scientific progressive thories, the estblished ones are as strong if not stronger than scientific laws, the progressive theories are to be taken with a pinch of salt.
 
There are many misconceptions in science made by the general public due mainly to sci-fi movies and poor terminology (or rather mis-interpreted terminology) The "big bang" is a classic example, the current model suggests that the universe began from a single point "singularity" and this point began to expand extremely rapidly. This is what the term - big bang - describes, but it was not an explosion per-say. This is the moment ( if you can actually term it that way) that space, time and the entire universe came into existence. But even this can be confusing because we can then ask "where did the singularity come from, and why did it suddenly start to expand?" The late Professor Hawking theorized that the universe began from "nothing". This in itself is mind blowing, counter intuitive and still way out for discussion. But what we must understand is that the current "laws of nature" were born at the same time as the universe was. What governed before, or even if there was a before as we understand it, is and most likely never to be known.

As Darkwood has mentioned previously, this thread is based on a sci-fi premise. Our current understanding and theories of science explicitly state that FTL (faster than light) is not possible, at least by any form of mass and most likely any form of information.

We can therefore come up with fun ideas about what would happen if you could go faster than light.

My take is that, based on time dilation and space contraction (from current scientific theories) once you achieve the speed of light time and space contract to zero. Thus there is nowhere to run and no time to do it.

Like Darkwood I'm passionate about cosmology and astrophysics there are some excellent forums on the inter-web where questions like these can be discussed in great detail and are very informative. :)
 
darkwood said:
...particle been in 2 places at once and directly influence each other regardless of distance seems totally illogical but logic has to be sidetracked to appreciating the quantum world and trying to understand it.
Click to expand...
My understanding was improved by discovering ,
Q Bit computer modeling was more RF (radio-wave based) Resonance ..and statistical answers .
A bit like that washing machine with Fuzzy logic !
 
Einstein did the unthinkable, he change the very way we look at space and time, simple thought experiments seem to break the laws of physics so he changed the whole model itself to fit the answer.
If I stand on a train going at 100mph and turn its headlights on then logic would suggest the light must be travelling at the speed of light + 100mph, it was thought experiments like this that niggled Einstein because they defied the laws of physics that seemed to otherwise work very well for us, he made the leap of suggesting that if the light is capped at its known value then one of the other values in the equation must be a variable, obviously now we know the answer but in those days imagine trying to tell people that time does not flow the same for everything it was a crazy notion and took many yrs for him to resolve due to believe it or not 'his poor maths skills' and a basic error he made, took him yrs to see the error but once he realised it it changed physics forever and mankinds future.
 
darkwood said:
Einstein did the unthinkable, he change the very way we look at space and time, simple thought experiments seem to break the laws of physics so he changed the whole model itself to fit the answer.
If I stand on a train going at 100mph and turn its headlights on then logic would suggest the light must be travelling at the speed of light + 100mph, it was thought experiments like this that niggled Einstein because they defied the laws of physics that seemed to otherwise work very well for us, he made the leap of suggesting that if the light is capped at its known value then one of the other values in the equation must be a variable, obviously now we know the answer but in those days imagine trying to tell people that time does not flow the same for everything it was a crazy notion and took many yrs for him to resolve due to believe it or not 'his poor maths skills' and a basic error he made, took him yrs to see the error but once he realised it it changed physics forever and mankinds future.
Click to expand...
Though he admits to making errors (after all he was human) I think its a fable that his math skills were poor. He may not have been as proficient as some of his peers but he was far from being "poor" at math. He was already doing calculus and algebra at the age of 15 far in advance of his years. In his school he excelled in math and physics but struggle with biology and a few other subjects.
I agree though that his theory which turned physics on its head was probably the greatest revelation in the history of mankind. I've studied quite a lot over the years on GR & SR (general & special relativity) and it still blows my mind. :)
 
but what has this relativity theory changed? the earth still orbits the sun, along with other lumps composed of various substances, there's no definite proof that aliens have visited, the moon is still made of cheese, and if the earth stopped rotating, we'd all be flung into outer space.
 
@Intoelectrics I was meaning in the context of his standing, he was a theoretical physicist foremost and found the mathematics more a burdening task, he would often have his assistants help out on this side of his theoretical work, there is some old debate as to how much his first wife herself a mathematician helped out in the development of his early theories, there is evidence on both side of this debate as to how much she input but I truly believe if it wasn't for her he may not have developed some of his theories as they would often support each other and rise off it.
Yes I agree in our measure of maths he was a genius as shown by his formulas but in his own mind he classed it as his achilles heal hence I put it in apostrophes to highlight the irony in his thinking, I wasn't stated he was poor at maths but yes it does read out with a bit of ambiguity.
 
thats why whenever i say "big bang" i use the 2 little fellas at the start and end

how much do you want to bet that if someone figures out how to harness a suns energy that it will be turned into a weapon.
 
The only issue with nuclear fusion as a energy source is the temperatures needed to maintain it (millions of degrees), this probably would not see it turned into any practical kind of weapon but it may but used to supply infinite power to future weapons like ground based lasers or rail guns where power supply is a limiting factor to the technology so in that sense then yes.
 
elsparko said:
thats why whenever i say "big bang" i use the 2 little fellas at the start and end

how much do you want to bet that if someone figures out how to harness a suns energy that it will be turned into a weapon.
Click to expand...
it could be. a reflector dish in orbit, concentrating the sun's rays ( like a magnifying glass setting fire to dry grass, we all done it as kids ). track gps location of target and fry it.
 
telectrix said:
it could be. a reflector dish in orbit, concentrating the sun's rays ( like a magnifying glass setting fire to dry grass, we all done it as kids ). track gps location of target and fry it.
Click to expand...
hitler wanted to build a parabolic mirror on the moon to fry entire cities on earth
 
darkwood said:
@Intoelectrics I was meaning in the context of his standing, he was a theoretical physicist foremost and found the mathematics more a burdening task, he would often have his assistants help out on this side of his theoretical work, there is some old debate as to how much his first wife herself a mathematician helped out in the development of his early theories, there is evidence on both side of this debate as to how much she input but I truly believe if it wasn't for her he may not have developed some of his theories as they would often support each other and rise off it.
Yes I agree in our measure of maths he was a genius as shown by his formulas but in his own mind he classed it as his achilles heal hence I put it in apostrophes to highlight the irony in his thinking, I wasn't stated he was poor at maths but yes it does read out with a bit of ambiguity.
Click to expand...
I figured you would know this already, (my apologies for miss interpreting your post) its obvious you know are passionate about this subject. My post wasn't intended as a criticism of your post but rather just to point out to those who don't know much about Einstein that it is a miss-conception that he was hopeless at math.
 
telectrix said:
but what has this relativity theory changed? the earth still orbits the sun, along with other lumps composed of various substances, there's no definite proof that aliens have visited, the moon is still made of cheese, and if the earth stopped rotating, we'd all be flung into outer space.
Click to expand...

More than most realize, people go about their daily lives unaware that without the understanding of Einstein's theory of relativity much of the technology we rely on would not be possible.

I often suspect there are aliens among us, you only have to look at Donald Trump and Simon Cowel :p

Actually the Earth's rotation makes us weigh slightly less than we would if it didn't spin, centrifugal force lifting us off the surface of the Earth. We would be slung into space if the Earth lost its gravity. :)
 
Intoelectrics said:
I figured you would know this already, (my apologies for miss interpreting your post) its obvious you know are passionate about this subject. My post wasn't intended as a criticism of your post but rather just to point out to those who don't know much about Einstein that it is a miss-conception that he was hopeless at math.
Click to expand...
No apologies needed, I made an ambiguous comment tbh so should have worded it better, yes you are correct about the misconception and probably down to people like myself posting ambiguous comments :oops:.
 
Re #76 - Actually the Earth's rotation makes us weigh slightly less than we would if it didn't spin, centrifugal force lifting us off the surface of the Earth.

You might want to think again on what you wrote above, remembering that the weight W of an object with mass m in the Earth's gravitational field is W= G Mm/rsquared

where M is the mass of the earth, G the Gravitational constant and r is distance between the centres of mass of M and m..
 
@marconi
He is actually correct but the spin of the earth is so slow relative to its size that we couldn't perceive it, at the equator the effect would be 0.35% diminishing the further away from the equator you ventured.
Your formula is correct but is only applicable if other forces are not acting on the subject matter, the rotation of the earth does in fact counter the gravitational effect of the earth at the equator and is why it has a bulge of approx 20miles but on the scale of things this is not much. We do not account for inertia when calculating gravity on earth as it is most of the time too small to be relevant.
 
Centrifugal forces do not exist. Think on the centripetal force acting an a mass m rotating about the centre of mass of the Earth M in an orbit of radius r.
 

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