Einstein's paradox

@Yogi DMT,

I was reading last night that relativity has to be taken into account in the GPS satellite system. The velocity at which the satellites travel around the earth is such that if the time dilation effects were not allowed for, accuracy would be thrown out by some meters per day.

0 Replies

@Yogi DMT,

hey jeep-=i thought the idea of the warp drive was to warp space, not time. for instance if you had a roadmap folded like an accordion and didnt entirely open up all the folds, you could drive across a lot of space in half the time. so i thought it wouldnt hurt the human body. but what it might do to the mind is anybody's guess.

the other thing i thought i remembered was that if the twins were able to get back together and meet each other, they would become the same age again relative to each other by the time they found each other again...but i forgot why. one of the issues was i thought that there cant be any observer

0 Replies

@Yogi DMT,

actually, warp drives are strictly hollywood, unfortunately. I am a total skeptic when it comes to the idea of interstellar travel. We're gonna blow up the planet a long time before we work out how to leave it. An old but still good book on this is The Physics of Star Trek, by Lawrence Krauss.

As for the second point, I don't think that is true. Two people the same age (twins or not), one gets on the mythical starship and blasts off at ultra-high speeds for 10 years (earth time), when he gets back, only 3 years (say) have passed on his spaceship, so he really is 7 years younger.

Except, it ain't ever going to happen, well not in our life anyway, for the reasons in Para 1.

2 Replies

@jeeprs,

[QUOTE=jeeprs;159731] actually, warp drives are strictly hollywood, unfortunately. I am a total skeptic when it comes to the idea of interstellar travel. We're gonna blow up the planet a long time before we work out how to leave it. An old but still good book on this is The Physics of Star Trek, by Lawrence Krauss. .[/QUOTE]Perhaps a more recent and updated look at these topics is "The Physics of the Impossible" by Michio Kaku. His chapter "faster than light" has some interesting notions about warping space time, negative matter and energy, Alcubierre drives, and Einstein-Rosen bridges. Makes for interesting reading anyway.
[QUOTE=jeeprs;159731] As for the second point, I don't think that is true. Two people the same age (twins or not), one gets on the mythical starship and blasts off at ultra-high speeds for 10 years (earth time), when he gets back, only 3 years (say) have passed on his spaceship, so he really is 7 years younger. .[/QUOTE] Of course if one twin travels to Andromeda at close to the speed of light, and then later a few year later his twin follows him at the same speed they will in fact end up the same age. It depends on who is traveling.
[QUOTE=jeeprs;159731] Except, it ain't ever going to happen, well not in our life anyway, for the reasons in Para 1.[/QUOTE]"if at first an idea does not sound absurd, then there is no hope for it" Albert Einstein.

0 Replies

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;159731 wrote:

actually, warp drives are strictly hollywood, unfortunately. I am a total skeptic when it comes to the idea of interstellar travel. We're gonna blow up the planet a long time before we work out how to leave it. An old but still good book on this is The Physics of Star Trek, by Lawrence Krauss.

Well, the Einstein-Rosen bridge/wormhole idea for interstellar travel would not violate the theory of relativity-- subluminar speeds could be utilized while travelling through a 'fold' in space-time that would get you to your destination much quicker than moving beyond light speed via a straight line in space. The example of this method of travel in 2D is to take a piece of notebook paper with a start point and an end point on each far side...now if you fold it in half, and can move through a wormhole from point to point, instead of travelling along the piece of paper, you don't have to go very far at all.

Theoretically, this type of travel is entirely possible; there have been physics papers released that outline everything.

I agree with you that we humans probably will not make it to, what Michio Kaku calls a "Stage 1 civilization" that truly harnesses the power of its planet. We are too focused on death and destruction to utilize our technology in a useful manner...

Michio Kaku talks about the three types of civilizations here:

[youtube]6GooNhOIMY0[/youtube]

He's also got alot of other videos on similar topics, and unlike some "popular science" writers, he knows his stuff.

0 Replies

@Yogi DMT,

Interesting dude. Looks like one of the cast of a sci fi show. I will have to add one of his books to my list. Some thoughts though. This wormhole travel would, I suspect, rely on being able to transform yourself into code and then reassemble yourself on the other side ('beam me up Scotty'). In other words, you wouldn't actually travel through it. You would go in one side, and out the other, without having traversed any distance in between. So what goes 'through' it is really only information. So you need to be able to encode yourself via an algorithm. I think we're a long way off from that at this time. And whether that ends up being a physical process still remains to be seen. (Cut to Twilight Zone theme.....)

2 Replies

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;159863 wrote:

Interesting dude. Looks like one of the cast of a sci fi show. I will have to add one of his books to my list. Some thoughts though. This wormhole travel would, I suspect, rely on being able to transform yourself into code and then reassemble yourself on the other side ('beam me up Scotty'). In other words, you wouldn't actually travel through it. You would go in one side, and out the other, without having traversed any distance in between. So what goes 'through' it is really only information. So you need to be able to encode yourself via an algorithm. I think we're a long way off from that at this time. And whether that ends up being a physical process still remains to be seen. (Cut to Twilight Zone theme.....)

Also a nice chapter on teleportation in Kaku's book in which he states that calcium atoms and cesium atoms have already been successfully teleported, also Bose Einstein condensates and quantum teleportation. Science Fiction sometimes becomes the science of the next generation.

0 Replies

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;159863 wrote:

Interesting dude. Looks like one of the cast of a sci fi show. I will have to add one of his books to my list. Some thoughts though. This wormhole travel would, I suspect, rely on being able to transform yourself into code and then reassemble yourself on the other side ('beam me up Scotty'). In other words, you wouldn't actually travel through it. You would go in one side, and out the other, without having traversed any distance in between. So what goes 'through' it is really only information. So you need to be able to encode yourself via an algorithm. I think we're a long way off from that at this time. And whether that ends up being a physical process still remains to be seen. (Cut to Twilight Zone theme.....)

all we really are is information, isnt it?

but why does there have to be a wormhole? why not just a fold in the space/time continuum? of course if we could never actually fold them ourselves, we would be dependent on only being able to take shortcuts wherever they already existed-but a wormhole would be the same thing, i should think...and either way, i wouldnt want to go through one of those things...no way! ill take the space shuttle any day.

and the thing about the aging and speed of light, maybe it was something like this: you eventually have to slow down to stop when you get where you are going, and then the time catches up with itself...you see what i mean? so that the effect isnt permanent, or can never be realized. i dont remember where i read that, it was years ago.

3 Replies

@salima,

jeeprs;159863 wrote:

In other words, you wouldn't actually travel through it. You would go in one side, and out the other, without having traversed any distance in between. So what goes 'through' it is really only information. So you need to be able to encode yourself via an algorithm. I think we're a long way off from that at this time. And whether that ends up being a physical process still remains to be seen. (Cut to Twilight Zone theme.....)

I'm not sure if this is entirely accurate, that only your 'information' travels through the wormhole, or that you don't actually travel any distance..you still would have to travel to the event horizon of the wormhole, and then out the other side. But you're right, we're a very long way off from ever utilizing something like this, and I doubt if we can make it far enough to do so.

salima;159977 wrote:

but why does there have to be a wormhole? why not just a fold in the space/time continuum? of course if we could never actually fold them ourselves, we would be dependent on only being able to take shortcuts wherever they already existed-but a wormhole would be the same thing, i should think...and either way, i wouldnt want to go through one of those things...no way! ill take the space shuttle any day.

and the thing about the aging and speed of light, maybe it was something like this: you eventually have to slow down to stop when you get where you are going, and then the time catches up with itself...you see what i mean? so that the effect isnt permanent, or can never be realized. i dont remember where i read that, it was years ago.

Theoretically, wormholes could be created with the right technology, and they are also naturally occurring.

As for aging and speed; basically the closer you travel to the speed of light, the slower time moves for you, relative to an outside observer. As Jeeprs mentioned, our satellites are programmed to take account of this effect, and have measured it. The person travelling close to light speed would not notice anything, unless he came back to his home planet and saw that everyone else had aged much more than he has.

1 Reply

@salima,

salima;159977 wrote:

and the thing about the aging and speed of light, maybe it was something like this: you eventually have to slow down to stop when you get where you are going, and then the time catches up with itself...you see what i mean? so that the effect isnt permanent, or can never be realized. i dont remember where i read that, it was years ago.

It's not that you're moving too fast for time to catch up. It's that the actual physical processes happening around you slow down, therefore time has, in truth slowed down. There's a reason Newtonian physics no longer work at the speed of light.

I recommend reading "Einstein for Beginners." It's a book on relativity written in a commonsense way with thought experiments to show you what's happening. Fascinating and easy to read.

salima;159977 wrote:

all we really are is information, isnt it?

That's a separate and much more interesting question. Are we the physical makeup and processes of our body or do we have a soul? Can the soul be transferred?

0 Replies

@Pangloss,

Pangloss;160018 wrote:

As for aging and speed; basically the closer you travel to the speed of light, the slower time moves for you, relative to an outside observer. As Jeeprs mentioned, our satellites are programmed to take account of this effect, and have measured it. The person travelling close to light speed would not notice anything, unless he came back to his home planet and saw that everyone else had aged much more than he has.

Imo time in itself does not exist, the lack of gravity will distort our way of messuring time.
It's like saying the rocking of a boat or heat distorts time, when messuring with a pendulum clock (look at "search for longitude")

0 Replies

@salima,

salima;159977 wrote:

all we really are is information, isnt it?

hmmm. For information to exist, mustn't there be somebody or something to be informed by it? There was another thread a few months back DNA and the Code of Life during which we discussed whether information exists anywhere outside living systems. So it would seem conceivable that a being could be 'digitized' or turned into a string of binary code but I don't really know if it will ever be possible. The amount of information encoded in the DNA, and the way in which it is all co-ordinated by biological processes, is unthinkably huge. Probably trillions of terabytes (or exabytes, or zetabytes, whatever the next order of magnitude is.)

Seems easy on Star Trek, though......

1 Reply

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;160139 wrote:

hmmm. For information to exist, mustn't there be somebody or something to be informed by it? There was another thread a few months back DNA and the Code of Life during which we discussed whether information exists anywhere outside living systems.

It depends on how you define "information". I don't think information necessarily refers to decipherable data. That would be "code", like what is used for computer programming. Information is just data, and data can be meaningless...but I guess you're right, if no observer existed, then maybe there's no data/information as we understand it...the very concept might only exist in the minds of intelligent observers/data collectors.

2 Replies

@Pangloss,

Pangloss;160145 wrote:

It depends on how you define "information". I don't think information necessarily refers to decipherable data. That would be "code", like what is used for computer programming. Information is just data, and data can be meaningless...but I guess you're right, if no observer existed, then maybe there's no data/information as we understand it...the very concept might only exist in the minds of intelligent observers/data collectors.

Outside of the information encoded in DNA and RNA, where in the Universe does 'information' exist? Have a look at Hubert P Yockey, Information Theory, Evolution, and the Origin of Life (Cambridge Uni Press 2005)

1 Reply

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;160152 wrote:

Outside of the information encoded in DNA and RNA, where in the Universe does 'information' exist? Have a look at Hubert P Yockey, Information Theory, Evolution, and the Origin of Life (Cambridge Uni Press 2005)

Well, there is some type of "data" or "information" ascertainable from the molecular structure of any substance...the periodic table of the elements was constructed from this information, right? I mean, nature "knows" that Carbon has 6 protons, we didn't put that data there. But there's a difference between this type of information and genetic code. I'm wondering about your distinction. "Code" implies an intelligent designer, while I don't think that "information" does.

0 Replies

@Yogi DMT,

The thing it that the information in the genetic code makes something happen. It causes things to form ('morphe'). There is a distinction between patterns and codes. Patterns occur in nature, but they don't cause anything to happen. The patterns of a snowflake or crystal have no causal power, whereas DNA/RNA carries information that has real and obvious consequences. Sure there is the periodic table, which consists of information, because us humans have organised it into the tabular format. But matter itself does not carry information in the sense of being 'formally causative'. DNA is actually like an operating system in this respect. It is like the 'Life OS'.

(This is not an ID or creationist argument, by the way, and Yockey, whose book I mentioned, devotes a whole chapter to saying that he does not support ID. But ID makes use of this argument. And it is a strong argument. But it is also quite tangential to the OP.)

---------- Post added 05-05-2010 at 09:49 AM ----------

Incidentally, Yockey's book does indeed work with a formal definition of information, based on the work of Shannon who defined a lot of information theory.

0 Replies

@jeeprs,

jeeprs;147801 wrote:

Light always travels at the same speed.
.

Hi Jeeprs,

Nice to meet you.

Light only travels at the same speed in a vacuum. It can slow down to 34mph in a pure carbon environment. Einstein died before becoming aware of this.

Thank you and thrive well sir.

Mark.

---------- Post added 05-16-2010 at 12:03 AM ----------

YumClock;148004 wrote:

If this was to happen, one watch would have to exceed the speed of light. Einstein's theories state that nothing can exceed the speed of light, and relativity is observed at speeds near this.

Perhaps your thought of visual delay is related to theories of the event horizon of a black hole.

Time actually slows down. At extreme speeds, space curves, and time curves along with it. As the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, an uncurved portion of space will reach a point in time before the curved portion of space, and thus the uncurved portion of space will be older.

Hi Yumclock,

Nice to meet you,

Light is matter (photonic) it has particles within that precede the action thereof. So the infinitessimally small particles which make up a photon go through trillions upon trillions of immeasurable motions before the proton moves a millimetre. Light is not the fastest thing out there. nor are the variables within.
Einstein's theories aren't always that well thought out.

Live long and prosper.

Mark...

2 Replies

@mark noble,

mark noble;164737 wrote:

Hi Jeeprs, ,,,,
Light only travels at the same speed in a vacuum. It can slow down to 34mph in a pure carbon environment. Einstein died before becoming aware of this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light
From the discussion part of article which clarifies the misleading impression about the variable speed of light.
[QUOTE] When light enters materials, its energy is absorbed. In the case of transparent materials, this energy is quickly re-radiated. However, this absorption and re-radiation introduces a delay. As light propagates through dielectric material it undergoes continuous absorption and re-radiation. Therefore the speed of light in a medium is said to be less than c, which should be read as the speed of energy propagation at the macroscopic level. At an atomic level, electromagnetic waves always travel at c in the empty space between atoms. Two factors influence this slowing: stronger absorption leading to shorter path length between each re-radiation cycle, and longer delays. The slowing is therefore the result of these two factors[/QUOTE]

0 Replies

@Pangloss,

Pangloss;160145 wrote:

It depends on how you define "information". I don't think information necessarily refers to decipherable data. That would be "code", like what is used for computer programming. Information is just data, and data can be meaningless...but I guess you're right, if no observer existed, then maybe there's no data/information as we understand it...the very concept might only exist in the minds of intelligent observers/data collectors.

I would imagine that if "information" were defined in such a way that it would turn out that all we are is information, then it would be true that all we are is information. Of course, the same thing would be true if if "scrambled eggs" were defined in such a way that it would turn out that all we are is scrambled eggs. It is simply remarkable how we can create facts simply by definition. Isn't it?

0 Replies

@mark noble,

mark noble;164737 wrote:

Light is matter (photonic) it has particles within that precede the action thereof. So the infinitessimally small particles which make up a photon go through trillions upon trillions of immeasurable motions before the proton moves a millimetre. Light is not the fastest thing out there. nor are the variables within.
Einstein's theories aren't always that well thought out.

If light is matter, does it have mass? If it is purely partcle based where does coloured light come from?
What particles make up a photon? Do these particles have mass?
What is faster than light?

1 Reply

Einstein's paradox

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know