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

Discuss if i could run faster than the speed of light... in the Electricians Chat - Off Topic Chat area at ElectriciansForums.net

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 :)
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
 
You highlighted the 'makes us weigh less' not the term 'centrifugal', yes if you want to get to the nitty gritty then yes centrifugal force is a pseudo force but that does not mean it cannot be used to describe an effect as it still has valid meaning if used in the right context, it is merely a simplified way to express an effect in this case of a spinning object.
So are you arguing the relevance of the word 'centrifugal' which is not what was highlighted or that it was stated one would weigh less due to the rotation of the earth relative to that of a stationary earth?
You present a formula which for all intent and purposes give enough accuracy for most applications but it is a mean average approximation, the earth is not a sphere and mass distribution is not entirely equal either, we live on an oblate spheroid and if we were to calculate the weight of an object to a high precision then we would bring in many other calculations into the equation that effect weight, now yes I am been picky here as we are talking high precision not normally needed but rotational speed of the mass creating the gravity would be factored in as it does in deed effect the end result which is the weight of an object under its influence.

I'm a little confused from which angle you are coming in from so genuinely interested.

If all the other constants remained the same hypothetically (which they wouldn't) and you stopped the earth then compared to the rotating earth the gravitational force would be 0.034m/s additional (yes I had to look it up :cool:).. this would make you fractionally heavier in comparison which is the crooks of the matter Intoelectrics was making and myself in my responses.
 
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darkwood said:
You highlighted the 'makes us weigh less' not the term 'centrifugal', yes if you want to get to the nitty gritty then yes centrifugal force is a pseudo force but that does not mean it cannot be used to describe an effect as it still has valid meaning if used in the right context, it is merely a simplified way to express an effect in this case of a spinning object.
So are you arguing the relevance of the word 'centrifugal' which is not what was highlighted or that it was stated one would weigh less due to the rotation of the earth relative to that of a stationary earth?
You present a formula which for all intent and purposes give enough accuracy for most applications but it is a mean average approximation, the earth is not a sphere and mass distribution is not entirely equal either, we live on an oblate spheroid and if we were to calculate the weight of an object to a high precision then we would bring in many other calculations into the equation that effect weight, now yes I am been picky here as we are talking high precision not normally needed but rotational speed of the mass creating the gravity would be factored in as it does in deed effect the end result which is the weight of an object under its influence.

I'm a little confused from which angle you are coming in from so genuinely interested.

If all the other constants remained the same hypothetically (which they wouldn't) and you stopped the earth then compared to the rotating earth the gravitational force would be 0.034m/s additional (yes I had to look it up :cool:).. this would make you fractionally heavier in comparison which is the crooks of the matter Intoelectrics was making and myself in my responses.
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I was just about to reply to marconi. But you summed up my thoughts with this post.

Just to be clear to folk reading this thread. My initial response was a few casual remarks to telectrix's post, part of which was tongue in cheek.

But the general facts were accurate enough. The devil is in the detail we all know this and as darkwood explained in his excellent post, if we want to get really technical things can get very complicated and then many factors have to be considered.
 
marconi said:
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..
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I'm very aware of this, but does not account for inertia.
My initial response was to telectrix post where he said "if the earth stops rotating we will all be flung off" . I took it as a flippant statement and a bit of fun to which I responded with an equally flippant post and a bit of fun.
 
there's also the gravitational pull of the sun and the moon to be taken into account. after all, they pull millions of gallons of seawater up to about 30 ft.
 
Intoelectrics said:
I'm very aware of this, but does not account for inertia.
My initial response was to telectrix post where he said "if the earth stops rotating we will all be flung off" . I took it as a flippant statement and a bit of fun to which I responded with an equally flippant post and a bit of fun.
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it was maybe flippant, but consider.. due to the earth's rotation, we are travellin in space at approx. 1000 mph although relative to the earth stationary. now if the earth suddenly stopped 9 akin to the car you are in hitting a solid immoveable mass of concrete) you'd still be travelling at 1000 mph and so your body would continue, and be thrown off untill such time as air friction slowed you down enough for gravity to take over and you'd be roughly deposited in Tokyo.or even worse, America, ultimately, dependent on your aerodynamics, you could end up where you started but yesterday.:D:D:D.
 
@telectrix ... theoretically stopping the world would be mass extinction event, the g force would wipe out nearly all life instantly near the equator, the atmospheric mass would initially see winds of 1000mph at the equator slowing down as ground resistance and air drag acted on it then we got all the secondary effects miles high tsunamis, massive earthquakes, mega volcanic eruption etc, tbh getting your insides turned inside out by the initial G force would be a blessing considering what came after... can't think of a silver lining tbh well except Justin Beiber would also be out of the equation.
 
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This is what I am addressing: 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.


What I am discussing with you is the statement the OP made that the force acting on 'us' or mass m decreases because the earth of mass M is rotating about its axis once a day. Taking the statement further, it means that as the rate of rotation of the Earth increases more and more then the weight of us (mass m) decreases further and further until eventually the force is very small or zero. The gravitational interaction force is always a pull not a push so in the spherical context of the earth and us the force is centripetal meaning moving or tending to move towards a centre - M and m are being pulled to be together. The centripetal force never becomes negative or acting to push M and m apart viz a centrifugal force.

The force of gravity between M and m is a force of interaction. The pull M exerts on m is exactly the same as the pull m exerts on M. This force is what is commonly called the weight of the object and it depends on the size of the two masses and their distance apart according to;

W is proportional to M x m/rsquared.

So the closer the objects are together the stronger the force. And the bigger product of their respective masses the greater is the force they exert on each other. The direction of this force is along the straight line which joins the masses. This means that any acceleration of m or M will be along this line too. Nowhere in this is there an angular velocity term to describe the physics suggested by the OP in mathematics that the force of interaction is a function of M, m, r and Q(the rate of rotation of the Earth about its North-South axis).

We now consider the application of the OPs statement to a man (m) standing on the earth; let us say at the equator. He is not moving relative to the surface of the earth but he is moving in an orbit whose axis is North-South. He completes one revolution every 24 hour. Knowing the radius of the Earth at the equator where is is standing one can work out his orbital speed as V = Q x 2 x pi x r. Even though it seems to him he is stationary he is actually following a circular path. Newton's First Law states that an object will remain at rest or in uniform motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an external force. It may be seen as a statement about inertia, that objects will remain in their state of motion unless a force acts to change the motion. The change of direction is perpendicular to its orbital path - that is in the radial direction. This constant change of direction is an acceleration - a centripetal acceleration.

The centripetal acceleration A = Vsquared/r

Mass m has this centripetal acceleration because there is a centripetal force which causes it. This centripetal force is the resultant force or net force acting on mass m.

So what are the forces acting on the man m standing stationary on the equator? As mentioned before there is his weight W. If this was the only force then the man would accelerate and move at increasing speed towards the centre of mass of the Earth. He does not move radially because the earth beneath him is solid and so the earth provides a force of reaction U equal and opposite to his weight which is upwards. If the Earth was not spinning then W - U = 0.

But the earth is spinning and the man m is experiencing a radial or centripetal acceleration A. So, the resultant force on M is W - U = A. For constant masses M and m, and constant radius r, the weight W is constant. Thus, the force of reaction U reduces when the man m is rotating about the N-S axis. If the Earth spun faster he would 'feel lighter' ie less upwards force on the soles of his feet but his weight and the force W remain unchanged. If he was to run in the direction of rotation of the earth around the equator ie have some speed relative to the earth, he could only do this if U decreased further - so the faster he goes the lighter he feels. If he was to run in the opposite direction to the spinning earth then U would increase (he would start to feel heavier) until he was stationary in space. Any further increase in pace from then on in this counter direction would result in U decreasing again and him feeling lighter (but NOT WEIGHING LESS).
 
@marconi - You didn't get the context it was written in or my reply to yours, I/we are not disagreeing with you just pointing out from the position it was written, I fully understand and agree with every word you have written except the last point which I'll come back to, you are approaching the subject from the opposite side and I am trying to explain that even though centrifugal force is a pseudo science it is still commonly used in applied physics to represent the effect you go deeper into .
When measuring a fixed mass like weighing yourself that is subject to other forces like been on a roller coaster or in a lift your weight will increase or decrease in correlation to the acceleration or decelerating forces you are subject to while your mass remains fixed we acknowledge this as a change in weight, all you have done is broken down the difference in weight and mass to its core values and explained which acting forces are changing and why, this still does not change what is happening in that we are getting lighter of heavier as a result of various forces acting on our mass, the term weight is the outcome of the forces acting on your mass relative to a fixed frame reference, this is why I disagree only with your final point in that you say 'feeling' lighter , no this in my opinion is a wrong statement to make although I understand why you say it and in the right context it would be a valuable point but for our discussion weight does change and is measurable therefore our perception of weight has changed and is true, explaining what causes that change does not change what weight is and how we perceive it.

PS enjoyable debate btw :gradcap:
 
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way above my head this, but you've still not proved that the earth is not flat. :mad::mad::mad:
 
Sorry tel, to simplify it then, if you tilt your ice cream cone further and further then your ice cream is going to fall on the floor, we are just explaining why it doesn't float.:)

Don't get me started on flatearthers or flattards as I call them, I try to keep that subject within youtube where you got the deeply religious Southern and Mid states of the USA where they seem to have a vast reservoir of conspiracists and nutjobs, many of whom are looking to get confirmation the words in the holy book are true - cognitive dissonance at its best.
 
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