So, as you approach the speed of light, (say > 95%) does time speed up for those travelling inside or slow down? That could turn out to be a really long trip... It slows down, doesn't it? So does that mean the journey would appear to take years, when it actually took months, or does it just mean they don't age, or what, exactly?

As YOU approach the speed of light, those outside your frame appear to have time slowed down. Look up the Twin Paradox. It has all sorts of fun stuff involving time dialation.

So basically it's just a lie then. Time hasn't been changed or anything, because it only appears as though time is slower for them. I think Pagewizard makes the most sense of anybody in this thread. :p

...I think the only thing in this entire thread that my brain has been able to wrap itself around it JG's most recent post.

The rest just hurts. This spinoff from possibilities of achieving lightspeed travel into a ridiculous argument about friend14's unproven theory and the theory of relativity is moot. Key word: THEORY. Remember, everyone could be wrong. Everyone could be right. I just think that you guys can use the bandwidth better than this.

And my brain still hurts.

Relativistic effects have been observed. There is a particle called the muon which originate from the sun. It has a lifespan of mere microseconds. Classic physics says that they would die off before being even remotely close to Earth. Yet muons from the sun are detected here. The answer to that is Relativity. The reason why the muon makes it here before expiring is length contraction. To the muon, the journey from sun to earth is significantly smaller than what the observers outside the muon's frame see. I did the calculations of said muon while I was studying Relativity.

Actually, no. The assumption is that as the velocity increases, so does the mass. This is not true. When an object is being accelerated it does increase or decrease in length depending on the objects chemical make-up or state. Rather it increases or decreases in length is dependent on where exactly it's being accelerated at. If from the rear, it'll decrease in length. If from the front, it'll increase in length. This observation is currently misconstrude as an increase/decrease in mass. This simply is not true. These objects consits of smaller "objects" (atoms/particles/cells) that are always trying to act independantly of the larger object. Unfortunately, they are bonded to each other and thus how much they can act independantly is limited.

Example:
Take water in a bucket and place it up high somewhere. Say, on a rooftop? Turn it upside down. As it accelerates (due to gravity) each molecule of water is falling slightly faster then the one behind (or in this case above) it. Thus causeing the water (as taken as a whole) to stretch.

Take a brick and do the same thing and you'll notice little difference.

The molecules in the brick are held much more tighter then the water, thus they don't stretch as much. However, in neither instances did the mass of each change.

You can experment this with an array of assorted things of different states. Using different vestocities(sp?) of puddy is an excellent way to observe this.

My favorite way of testing this is to take some model railroad box cars, about 50 or so. Line them up and have a friend start a stopwatch when you pull on the lead car and stop it just as the last car achieves tention in the coupler and begins to move.

You can also see how everything stablizes again once you achieve a constant velocity. Then you can see the reverse happend when you bring the lead car to a sudden stop. Here too, their mass never changes, they simply take advantage of the "gaps" that exist in the system/object (in this case, all 50 cars as a whole).

Go read anything and everything you can find on Relativity. You'll quickly find that everything you have stated above will be unscrupulously debunked. The stated equation is true. YOUR MASS WILL INCREASE AS YOUR APPROACH C. These effects are observed. Your analogies of water and train cars do not fit with Relativity.

Actually...

"Muons are elementary particles that can be produced when primary cosmic rays hit the atmosphere of the Earth. The muons are created at an altitude of around 15 km and the lifetime of the muons is approximately 2.210^-6 s"

Muon's are created in conjunction with the atmosphere.

The lifespan of the muon at rest (meaning not moving through an atmosphere which contain the building blocks of which it is created) is ~2.210^-6 s. Who's to say that while moving through the atmosphere (which obviously contain a portion of the muon's building blocks), that it doesn't extend it's lifespan by replacing the decaying muon with atmospheric building blocks that created it in the first place? Keep in mind that while this thing is zooming through our atmosphere, it is being literally bombarded with atmospheric particles!

You can't just take a lab value and expect to be able to just insert that value where ever you see fit. There are too many unknown varibles to consider.

So you're saying that if we were to build a spaceship that could travel like 0.98C or something, the journey for the people inside could be mere seconds between great distances? And if we could get a ship to go 99.9999999% of C, then we could like travel to another galaxy in milliseconds?

Believe me, I have researched it long and hard. Again, I'll reiterate there is a great difference between what is observed and what is actually occuring in an event in any given system. This is what Relativity set out to explain in the first place! Some how, though, it just didn't work out very well in the end.

I question any Theory that is conditional...

(relativity is conditional due to it's posulates)

By my understanding of Relativity, yes. It would take an ASTRONOMICAL amount of energy for you to accelerate to such speeds, though.

But not infinite.

I hate you all for giving me more interesting things to read. I'm learning, and it's all your fault.

According to the Special Theory of Relativity, you have two answers.

To an outside observer: No

To an observer on the ship: Yes

According to the Theory of Velocital Physics, you have one answer. No.

But also, your not limited to less then 1c. Your only limited by the amount of "energy" in the universe.

What's so difficult to understand about that? To someone on Earth, your journey would take 4 years to reach Alpha Centauri. To you, it would take 4 milliseconds. So after 4 milliseconds are up, and your "jump" is done, you radio Houston again and BAM! It's four years later. Neat. Hey! It's kind of like a time machine that can only go into the future!

Kinda like life, except more irritating.

Accept that in actuallity, that's not how it works. You set your watch to someone's on Earth and since while at a constant velocity you will both exist in an inertial frame (meaning you will both have an inertial velocity of 0 relative to your frame of reference) you clocks will be exactly the same when you return.

(Erm, that is, if you had extremly accurate clocks and could achieve instantaous velocities. But don't let this confuse you. Bottom line, you both would of aged exactly the same. If it takes 4 years to get there and 4 years to get back, you both will of aged 8 years).

So, if you age, then Pagewizard wins. Who cares whether you travel at lightspeed or only 1,000 mph when you're cryogenically frozen for the whole trip? No aging.

No offense, but many people smarter than you have researched this longer and harder than you and have the math to prove it. To be honest everything you've said sounds like something you've come up with after reading some physics essays or the like. What are your credentials? Do you have any degrees?

How do you know that there is a great difference between what is observed and what is actually occuring? Logically, if you can only observe one thing you have no way of knowing that anything else is happening. There is no way that numbers (in any situation) are meaningless. You HAVE to do the math for your theories to have any credibility. Anyone can come up with a theory and some logical reason why their theory makes sense. Can you prove anything you've said?

I'm not even going to start on your 'theory', it almost certainly violates quantum mechanics even more than relativity already does. If you think relativity is the currently accepted theory, I think you're about 5 or 10 years out of date. Einstein's ideas conflict particularly with the idea of quantum entanglement, and quantum mechanics is the big 'thing' now. Unless you're challenging quantum mechanics too, in which case you have a lot of work to do. It's considered the most correct theory ever, second perhaps to the laws of thermodynamics.



However, I will address this analogy.

When addressing liquid motion, it is indeed useful to consider the motion of each molecule. The molecules of water are at different heights, and so will have different velocities to eachother, and so will appear to 'stretch' (until terminal velocity), as you said.
What's actually happening to the molecules is that they are spacing out.

You cannot apply this to special relativity. With the molecules in the clock, possibly. But most of the experiments confirming the postulation that mass increases as velocity does* have been done with electrons. The mass of the electron increases as it is accelerated near the speed of light. An electron is a lepton and leptons are fundemental particles. The water was 'stretching' because elements within the water were 'spacing out', but there is nothing within an electron. And the observation is not that it is 'stretching', but rather that it has gained mass. This suggests that mass and energy interchangable, energy can become mass and mass can become energy. This is what the equation E=mc^2 states, where m is relativistic mass.

* I realise that this style of statement is somewhat outdated, as special relativity offers two notations of mass, but relativistic mass is still useful as you can write equations for energy and momentum that are true in all reference frames


The reason the speed of light is the 'speed limit' of the Universe is because it is constant in all frames of reference.

I see you like analogies..

Imagine you're standing on top of a train, going at 20 m/s. You throw a ball, at 2 m/s. In terms of you, the ball is going at 2 m/s.
Someone else is standing on the ground. They see you, on the train going at 20 m/s, throwing the ball. In terms of them, the ball is going at 22 m/s.

All makes sense..

Now, imagine that you shine a torch, on top of the train. In terms of you, the light coming from that torch will be going at 3.0*10^8 m/s.
However, the person on the ground will also observe the speed of light from the torch as 3.0*10^8 m/s. (not 3.0*10^8 + 20).

Similarly if you shine it backwards, the speed of light is constant for all frames of reference.


As for the general topic of the thread...

You don't actually need to travel 'beyond' the speed of light. The effect of time dilation means that you will essentially be travelling 'into the future'. As soon as speeds approach 30 000 km/s, time dilation becomes a significant phenomenon, and the effect increases rapidly as velocity approaches the speed of light. Theoretically, if you were travelling at the speed of light, you'd be frozen in time to the rest of the Universe.
Global Positioning Systems have to correct for time dilation on their artificial sattelites.
The most dramatic gravitational time dilation occurs near a black hole. A clock falling towards the event horizon would appear to observers far away to slow down to a halt as it approached the horizon. A small and sturdy enough clock could conceivably cross the horizon, but to far away observers it would 'freeze' in time and be flattened out on the horizon.

This effect could possibly be used for space travel, as humans could circumnavigate the known Universe, about 15 billion light years, in a lifetime. Not that it would do much good for the rest of humanity, as the journey would still take 15 billion years for us.

The name of his theory doesn't use real words, I doubt his equations would use real numbers.

Freelancer, I believe relativity explains that if you, in a ship were travelling say 0.98C, it might take you years to reach another system, but to the people on Earth it would have taken hundreds of years. Or maybe just dozens.

In case you're interested, the formula for time dilation is:

Where T0 is the time measured by the stationary observer, and T1 is the time measured by the dude moving at velocity v


Edit: So, going at 0.98c.. For what people on Earth would observe as one year of 365 days, blokey in the space ship would observe as 72 days.

No offense meant, Friend14, but the number of incorrect homonyms and misspellings in your posts makes me question your credentials, in addition to the posts you've made. Are you a University student? Where are you doing your research?

Also:


And (although I don't really claim that Wikipedia is a trustworthy source), I can't help noticing this:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Element_115

Sorry, I don't mean for this to be a flame, but I don't feel that you've adequately responded with any real evidence or explanations to what other people have asked.

I actually read somewhere not too long ago that they discovered things that actually were travelling past the speed of light. I cant remember what or where I read it, but it was just that they found that faster-than-light travel WAS possible, but if it could be applied to propulsion, wasn't determinable yet.

Erm...don't objects DECREASE in length (or appear to or something) as they approach the speed of light, in addition to gaining mass, and the time stuff?

Because I'm not certain I'll answer that with something Friend14 said that made sense (logically, whether it makes sense in the "physics sense" i don't think i can answer either). He said that it depends on where the object is being accelerated from, the front or the rear. His thinking was that acceleration from the rear would decrease length while acceleration from the front would increase length. The reason I'm not sure if it applies is because of what Mort-Hog said: that a single molecule cannot increase or decrease in length due to it's simplicity while something like a clock or ship could because the molecules and such that make it up would be stretching from each other.

So I guess my (educated guess) answer is, it depends. Hope that helps.

Also, Friend14, my previous post was not meant as a flame. I hope you don't take offense. I, along with everyone else here, would like to know what credentials you have and what research you've done. We'd also like to see your math as well. I think we're all interested, even if some are skeptical.

Bob, according to Special Relativity, yeah, the objects get shorter in the direction of their motion. From the perspective of a "stationary" observer, anyway.

That's because Friend14 was trying to explain things with Classic Newtonian Physics, not Relativistic Physics.

When you apply a force to one point of a body, that point of the body will accelerate, and apply a force to the atoms around it, which will accelerate and apply a force to the atoms around it, which will accelerate and apply a forc... etc.

Therefore if you apply the force to one end of the body, it takes time for the acceleration effects to reach the atoms at the other end of the body. So when you push a body from behind, the front stays stationary for a short amount of time - result, the body contracts.
If you pull a body from the front, the rear stays stationary for a short time - result, the body expands.

However, when we're talking relativistic speeds, classical physics doesn't work, as it is an approximation for when the speeds of objects are very small (compared to c) and the relativistic effects are unnoticable. And to be fair to Newton, there wasn't any way to accelerate things to speeds where the relativistic effects would be noticable in his day.

Acutally, the problem is that Classical Newtonian Physics isn't completely accurate. If it had been, then we'd probably wouldn't be where we are now.

I earned my Bachelor in Science - Physics from the University of Alabama Huntsville. For the past two years, I have been working off/on on this theory with Dr. L. Niel Tharp (Physics Professor) of Gadsden State Community College. I work full time as an Engineering Advisor (for all Physics related problems/troubleshooting) at the Delphi Automotive Thermal & Interior plant in Gadsden Alabama (which is where I currently am and you can e-mail me at alan.g.samuel@delphi.com).

The Theory of Velocital Physics (first name I gave it, never got around to changing it) is essentially the holy grail Theory of Everything that Scientist have been looking for. As of yet, there has be nothing that I've ran accross that this theory can not explain. The single most biggest barrier that has to be broken down and understood before you can understand how the theory works is the non-existance of time. Once you come to the realization that time doesn't exist in any alterable form, it becomes very easy to understand.

Mort-Hog, you can't simply gain mass, and this includes electrons. There's two flaws in this application:

The first is that what your observing from you inertial frame is what's actually happening. My theory has several rules that acts as guidelines (the rules are also proven in the book that Dr. Tharp and I are writing revealing our findings). The rule states that an event can only be accurately observed from the same (or parallel) inertial frame as the event. This should be nothing new. There's an example in Relativity using a box car, two observers, and lightning striking the outside of the box car at the same time while it's moving. The observer out side (who is in the same inertial frame as the lightning strikes) sees the event as it truly is. The observer on the box car that is moving, however, sees/hears the lightning strike behind the car moments after seeing/hearing the lightning strike in front of the car. The only difference is that Relativity states that both observations are correct. This is very wrong. The above stated rule is correct.

The second is that an assumption is made that what is discovered in a laboratory will hold true in the rest of the universe. The problem with this is that in a laboratory you have almost complete control over all varibles. In the rest of the universe there are hundreds of possible varibles that you can't control that can effect the results (even varibles not yet discovered, potentially).

I thought M-theory was the Theory of Everything?

Edit: sorry if this question is stupid and out of place. I'm trying really really hard to understand, just give me some time.

Not yet. M-theory is still very new and still being tinkered with to see how it dances.

Edit: Don't worry, this is a good a place as any to ask. This line of discussion wasn't really going anywhere anyway. :-) But yes, if there's going to be a grand unified theory, then M-theory is currently our best candidate.

As I stated, it's an approximation that holds true at non-relativistic speeds.


You've still not [that I can see, at least] explained how the Theory of Relativity is wrong. It's all very well to say that "time cannot be altered therefore everything it says is wrong", but there is scientific evidence of time dilation. Trying to explain that away by claiming
1) that the experiment never took place (congratulations on not sounding like you're suggesting a government conspiracy there, btw), or
2) the atomic clocks were inaccurate
doesn't really cut it. If your theory can explain why time dilation occurs rather than flat-out claiming it doesn't and ignoring experimental data, then you might get a less hostile reception for your ideas.

Basically, it seems that whenever experimental data is shown to conflict with your theory, you put your hands over your ears and say "LALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU! VARIABLES OUTSIDE OUR CONTROL - IN FACT, WE DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE VARIABLES ARE! THEY'RE UNDISCOVERED VARIABLES!"

That's not science. That's faith.

Except that the M-Theory predicts not 3 but 11 dimensions! Also, it doesn't accept the non-existance of time (it includes it as a 4th dimension).



You misunderstand. I was referring to even at the fundamental levels of Newtonian Physics. Forces, Work, Energy, they are all having to be revisted and revised now. Force, for instance is actually a "summery" (of sorts) of events. For example. Whenever you make a turn in your car, your head (and upper body) tends to move in the opposite direction of the curve. Classical Physics explains this as a Force acting on your body that is pushing outward away from the curve. This is fine for simplicty sake (and for the math involved). However, it doesn't accurately describe what is truly happening and gives the misconception that there is something in the universe called a "Force" (which also isn't true). What's actually happening is that as the wheels turn all molecules starting from the bottom of the car going up, begin moving in the direction of the curve. Since a car is very regid (in the molecular sense) this isn't noticable. What is noticalbe is that the molecules in your foot (and car) begin moving in the direction of the curve long before you head does. This is because we are far less regid then a car (especially with our joints). To sum it up, a "Force" is not causing your head to go towards the outside of the curve, your head is mearly "lagging" behind.




I didn't say everything is wrong. There's some of it that's not too far from the truth. If things would of worked out more nicely, Relativity would of served as a nice tool and building block for future theories (as well as served as a bridge of consitancy and reference).

There's no easy way to explain the non-existance of time (which is why we're dedicating an entire chapter to it). Bottom line, the three Fundamental Constants of Physics are Length, Mass, & Time. These fundamental Constants are Concepts us humans divised to give us meaning to these properties. Length to measure an object in 3-dimensions, Mass to measure how much of it there is, and time, to measure events over a period. They are nothing more or nothing less then this. The only reason they are constant is because they are man made concepts (just like numbers and math itself). They are not naturally occuring and do not exist in the universe. We (humans) had to create them and had to create them as constants to do day to day interactions (especially in market places in the early days) with other people. Time was one of the first. Used to estimate the amount of day light in a day. Heck, that's why we still use 24-hours even though it's not accurate! You can not just allow these concepts to change at whim. If you do, you can throw the entire art of science out the door completely. If you don't have constants, you have no basis of comparison.



Please don't make claims against me that are not true. I never said they never took place. I mearly stated that I have yet to get a hold of detailed reports from those experiments. The two statements are not identical and the second should not be read into for some hidden meaning (in fact I even pointed out that I didn't believe it was some government conspiracy).



If you'll re-read my post, I did not say this either. I explained that the frequencies are not stable during periods of acceleration (+/-). There has been little to no experimental data to even be able to ignore. And post any instance of time dilation and I can easily explain it using my Theory (see my previous posts for the muon experiment).



I said potentially unkown/undiscovered variables which is not entirely unlikely. Please don't take my words out of context. Other then that, again, I'll state that experimental data for the atomic-clock experiment is apparently hard to come by.



The sign of the closed minded skeptic. If all else fails, attack what you don't understand.

Actually, I like to think of myself as an open-minded sceptic. I'll accept your theory as a possibility if you can provide some basis for your claims.

Anyone can spout pseudo-science that sounds good. However, when you discredit an accepted theory with a reason you consistently fail to justify (namely that time doesn't exist), and try and push an alternative theory based on this reason, I think it's fair to at least try and give us an idea of why you think time doesn't exist.

If it's Math you seek, that's fine. A lot of this Theory is Conceptual Clarification. For instance, it accepts that it is OK to use Force to summerize what's occuring in event such as it does. It would take a very long time to calculate the motion of each molecule in the system. The same for Work and Energy.



As I mentioned before it's not easy to describe the non-existance of Time (as an intity). Unlike Force, it doesn't have a smaller make-up that describes it. Other then the above description I gave, there's not much more I can say. You asking me to prove that something doesn't exist. That's like asking an Athiest to prove that God doesn't exist. The only thing I can say is that, since time-dilation is the only real proff science currently has that time exists, all I can tell you is that this theory is able to disprove all instance of time-dilation by explaining what's really happening (or at least pose theoretical explanations. Such as with the Muon experiments. If there were more data on the time-dilation experiments it would a lot easier). The Twin Paradox is probably the easiest to disprove. That Paradox boils down to two things. One, that what is observed from Earth is different that what is actually happening (due to the increasing delay in time that it takes the light to reach earth). Two, because the results actually come out to where both brothers are the same age. The thing I love about the paradox is that if you up the speed of this ship to something pass 1c, the brother that took the trip can actually watch himself return moments after he does. It's not that he's existing two places at once, it's mearly the fact that the light reflecting off the ship was traveling slower then he was.

What exactly are you looking for in an explination? I can plug numbers in for the varibles all day. If you want hard evidence, it's not going to really happend until we can actually travel at, near, or exceed the speed of light so that we can once and for all close the book on this chapter of science. But as it is right now, funding for lightspeed (or near) has dropped significantly over the years as more and more people come to simply accept time-dilation and the like. We should be doing the opposite and funding/developing technology to get us to those speeds so we can run tests at those velocities.

But apparently you're writing a book on it, so you must know something about it. Why don't you try to tell us instead of telling us how hard it is to describe?


He's asking you to disprove it. You go on and on about how time doesn't exist, but you can't seem to prove that it does not exist.


Athiests don't believe in God. By this anology, you don't believe in time.

Now about your credentials. Apparently you're writing a book with a community college professor and you didn't even spell his name correctly. Since you can't seem to explain why time doesn't exist, I'm half tempted to e-mail him and ask.

If time doesn't exist, what stops everything happening at the same time? Your attempt to explain it only muddies the waters, and I suspect you don't mean what I'm interpreting your statements as. Do you mean that time is constant, and if event x happens t seconds after event y in a particular reference frame, then x happens t seconds after y in ALL frames of reference? Or do you mean the value of t is merely our interpretation and event x and event y occur at the same time, but we perceive one as happening after the other?

I already did. I really have no personal interest in whether Friend14 is being truthful--because we all know that he isn't--but I felt it necessary to at least alert Dr. Tharp of this thread in case his reputation is being maligned.

I believe they mispelled his name on that page, but I could be mistaken. I've never really paid a lot of attention. Neil is the common spelling in the south.



The events happend in a series (just like you'd expect) which we measure as periods. This is how we measure (and what we call) time.

You only need to consern youself with reference frames if the event your measureing occurs within another inertial frame of reference.

Let me see if I can put it another way.

"The Earth Rotates"

Simple enough statement, wouldn't you say? It tells us that the Earth Rotates, which is a true statement. But it doesn't give us any numbers that we can use in calculations. Enter the Fundamental Constants of Physics. We use Length to measure the circumference of the Earth. This tells us how far a point would have to travel before it make one revolution. We then use the fact that's rotating (which is a series of events) and assign a period to it. We end the 'period' once it has made one complete revolution. With now have a number for the length in which the point travels and a number for the period in which it takes to get there. From this we can determine a 'rate' (or a dx/dt if you prefer).

Time is no more real then Length or Mass. Things have Length and things have Mass, but Length and Mass don't exist as intities of their own. The same with time. Things happend over a period of time. But time inself is not an intity of it's own. Make sense?

How does that explain there is no time? All you've said is that it exists but is not an entity in itself. What does that mean?