The universe as we know it.

You all got it wrong. You're completely looking at this on the wrong level entirely, including you John.

The answer is: I wouldn't try to figure it out, I would hire someone to figure it out for me. It's more time and cost efficient.

TrollFaceDancing.gif


Now go back to it. PS:

wayn3 said:
Just like the light takes 8 minutes to arrive at the earth. Thats a piece of info I assumed to be common knowledge.
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Didn't know that. But then again what most of us consider common knowledge most others wouldn't.

Keep it going guys, I'm actually learning a lot. More-so on the "thinking about shit differently" rather than actual "this is the right answer". Keep it rollin', it sounds like me debating with Mattseh over how certain things could be optimized :P
 


I don't know shit about this subject, but the stick thing seems wrong.

You already spent a fuck of a lot longer than 8 minutes getting the end of the stick to be a foot away from the sun. Whether it travelled there near the speed of light and you did it in 8.5 minutes, or whether it was a construction job that took years, getting the end of the stick in place did not break any laws of physics.

So when you nudge it a foot, the molecules are only moving a foot from their start position, not 57 million kilometres. It seems reasonable that this theoretical stick can poke the sun instantaneously without breaking any laws.
 
Chianti said:
I don't know shit about this subject, but the stick thing seems wrong.

You already spent a fuck of a lot longer than 8 minutes getting the end of the stick to be a foot away from the sun. Whether it travelled there near the speed of light and you did it in 8.5 minutes, or whether it was a construction job that took years, getting the end of the stick in place did not break any laws of physics.

So when you nudge it a foot, the molecules are only moving a foot from their start position, not 57 million kilometres. It seems reasonable that this theoretical stick can poke the sun instantaneously without breaking any laws.
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Ok then. When does the molecule that is 37 million kilometres away from you get informed of the push?
 
Inter-Atom compression? Like a bunch of beach balls in a line being pushed?

So essentially you're saying that the 800 billion-long string of atoms making up the short stick doesn't "give" enough for us to notice every time we push it one inch... But when dealing with a string of atoms 12 googolplex long the "give" is noticeable. I guess I could buy that... But only if the material making up that stick is an all-important factor...

(i.e. A Balsa-wood stick 8-light-minutes long "gives" so much there is no movement at the other end, ever, and meanwhile a Diamond stick 8-light-minutes long gives so little that it really is almost instantaneous on the other end.)
 
lukep said:
Inter-Atom compression? Like a bunch of beach balls in a line being pushed?

So essentially you're saying that the 800 billion-long string of atoms making up the short stick doesn't "give" enough for us to notice every time we push it one inch... But when dealing with a string of atoms 12 googolplex long the "give" is noticeable. I guess I could buy that... But only if the material making up that stick is an all-important factor...

(i.e. A Balsa-wood stick 8-light-minutes long "gives" so much there is no movement at the other end, ever, and meanwhile a Diamond stick 8-light-minutes long gives so little that it really is almost instantaneous on the other end.)
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Im not saying that the material stays compressed after you push it. Thats not going to happen. Ive just tried to describe how the push propagates through the stick, which takes time. Since we have already established that nothing can travel faster than light, by explaining that the molecules have to bump into each other in order to move the "stick" forward, it should become clear that the earliest a molecule at light minute 4 feels the push is after about 4 minutes. Material doesnt matter at all.
 
papajohn56 said:
wat? force does not depend on mass, and light's direction can be changed. you're trying to use Newton's laws...on a relativistic question. Stop it. I think I just answered my own question in the above post.

Strong gravity bends light *all the time*.
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It's my understanding that gravity is the result of mass bending space time - and the warped space time gives the illusion of bending light. Is this not correct?

Similarly, light falls into a black hole because space time is collapsing so light follows that path, but the path of light never actually bends... it just follows a straight path through what space time it is passing through.

I'm a laymen at this, but I've been reading science for a long ass time and would love to know why what I just said is wrong from you Papajohn.
 
zimok said:
It's my understanding that gravity is the result of mass bending space time - and the warped space time gives the illusion of bending light. Is this not correct?

Similarly, light falls into a black hole because space time is collapsing so light follows that path, but the path of light never actually bends... it just follows a straight path through what space time it is passing through.

I'm a laymen at this, but I've been reading science for a long ass time and would love to know why what I just said is wrong from you Papajohn.
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You didnt make any big mistakes
 
wayn3 said:
You didnt make any big mistakes
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Would you explain? I'm here to learn.

The word illusion might of been the wrong choice, but my meaning was that light always travels in a straight path on the medium its traveling in.

So if the medium(space time) is bent, then light traveling on that medium gets bent in the process.
 
zimok said:
Would you explain? I'm here to learn.
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I dont know whats left to explain. General relativity is a very math heavy topic. I cant make some funny examples with space ships and lasers up.

Especially the black hole or the big bang thing. What happens there is singularities which is nothing more than a flaw in the mathematical theory describing the physical process. A "singularity" is more like a physicist saying "we dont really know whats up because the model blows" than a physical event.

If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask them, but if you want me to explain general relativity, ill have to pass. Its a 4th year theoretical physics only lecture for a reason. Even the images people use to illustrate that cant even scratch the surface.
 
greenleaves said:
100 light years.

The laser fired by 'behind craft' is 1 light year away. But the other craft is traveling at 99% the speed of light. So in 1 light year when the laser reaches the place where the 'ahead spacecraft' was, the ahead spacecraft will have already traveled another .99 light years. 1 light year latter; it will be .98, another light year latter .97 and so forth.

Of course, this is assuming you could 'point' a beam of light under the mentioned conditions.

Warning: I'm ignorant on the topic and this is just my best guess.
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Wait, so am I right or wrong and why?
 
> Material doesnt matter at all

Well, it does a bit. In my mind, the theoretical stick was perfectly rigid (not being affected by gravity, etc), whereas yours needs to be made of some real-world material to properly illustrate your point (which I get now, thank you).
 
wayn3 said:
Stephen Hawking didnt do a PhD on condensed matter :(.

You approach the problem the wrong way. Your terrestrial stick subject to relativity just as much as the long stick is. Its just such a small object that you dont observe the impact. If your stick went from east to west coast, the movement would surely not be "instantaneous". Definitely not faster than the time it takes for light to travel that same distance.
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If you were to have a stick that goes from the earth to 1 inch off the surface of the sun, ignoring gravity, if you pushed the stick exactly with a 100% parallel force towards the sun for that 1", the push would make it reach the sun. It wouldn't lose anything due to friction at all, but the time it takes for it to reach the sun would not be faster than light of course - the speed of phonon propagation is actually the speed of sound within the lattice, so whatever the stick's material is, the speed of sound determines how fast it reaches.
 
papajohn56 said:
If you were to have a stick that goes from the earth to 1 inch off the surface of the sun, ignoring gravity, if you pushed the stick exactly with a 100% parallel force towards the sun for that 1", the push would make it reach the sun. It wouldn't lose anything due to friction at all, but the time it takes for it to reach the sun would not be faster than light of course - the speed of phonon propagation is actually the speed of sound within the lattice, so whatever the stick's material is, the speed of sound determines how fast it reaches.
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I was going to say the same thing, but you beat me to it.
 
Seen this before, amazing video none the less. I just still cant comprehend how small the earth actually is. Mind = blown.
 
wayn3, do we have any empirical evidence for the existence of a multiverse?

If not, why are we wasting time writing and reading papers and doing research about it?
 
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