Speed of Light and Energy...?

[dj357]

Despite your intense irritation with me I have another game to play, if you’re up for it.
It’s called ‘Dark Matter’

Let me know of you are interested and I will start the game.

no. and I'm far from a kid, but thanks for the condescension.

[colubridae]

Despite your intense irritation with me I have another game to play, if you’re up for it.
It’s called ‘Dark Matter’

Let me know of you are interested and I will start the game.

no. and I'm far from a kid, but thanks for the condescension.

Ok.
Adult.



let me know if you change your mind.

[Tigger]

[dj357]

[hackenslash]

So, has the above brought you to any kind of answer about why the speed of light is the same regardless of inertial frame? I avoided answering the question directly, but there should be enough info to work it out now.

[colubridae]

1 You stopped that interminable whining about ‘I don’t like time as a dimension’. Nobody likes it. It's definitely not intuitive. Anyone who thinks it is intuitive is an idiot. Suck it up like the rest of us…

I just realised the bit about ‘intuitive’ could be construed as a sideswipe against hackenslash.

This is not what was intended.

I admire hackenslash’s posts greatly and his knowledge is far superior to mine.

What he said was “SR is intuitive compared to QM etc.”. A viewpoint which I agree with wholeheartedly and take to be a piece of illustrative whimsy along the lines of:-

“if you think Australians are gross wait till you meet a New Zealander”.

Hope I’ve not caused any offence.

[hackenslash]

None here.

[dj357]

So, has the above brought you to any kind of answer about why the speed of light is the same regardless of inertial frame? I avoided answering the question directly, but there should be enough info to work it out now.

no, i still can't formulate a direct answer

[hackenslash]

So, has the above brought you to any kind of answer about why the speed of light is the same regardless of inertial frame? I avoided answering the question directly, but there should be enough info to work it out now.

no, i still can't formulate a direct answer

The answer is in the last exchange of posts between myself and oddmanout, and it is almost direct in the way it's expressed.

Not wanting to harp on, but it truly is an excellent question, and goes straight to the heart of what's actually going on.

[Loki_999]

Hold on... why do we accept light speed to be the constant? E=mc2, and our theories point to it being light being the constant.

So, why not mass being the constant? Why not when we travel fast our mass changes? Sure, to us when traveling fast we measure the same mass because our frame of reference (or whatever you want to call it) tells us we have the same mass as we had before, and our instruments register the same mass.... but can we be sure?

(ok, this is a bit for fun, i think i know at least one answer to this relating to simple real world observation)

[Tigger]

[hackenslash]

Hold on... why do we accept light speed to be the constant? E=mc2, and our theories point to it being light being the constant.

So, why not mass being the constant? Why not when we travel fast our mass changes? Sure, to us when traveling fast we measure the same mass because our frame of reference (or whatever you want to call it) tells us we have the same mass as we had before, and our instruments register the same mass.... but can we be sure?

(ok, this is a bit for fun, i think i know at least one answer to this relating to simple real world observation)

Our mass does change when we travel fast. E=mc2, remember. Kinetic energy is still energy. That's another reason for the lightspeed barrier, because the increase in mass means that more energy is required for further acceleration. By the time you get to just shy of the speed of light, mass gets close to infinity, meaning that an infinite amount of energy is required to get the rest of the way. This is why light speed is impossible for any body with rest mass.

[colubridae]

Hold on... why do we accept light speed to be the constant? E=mc2, and our theories point to it being light being the constant.

So, why not mass being the constant? Why not when we travel fast our mass changes? Sure, to us when traveling fast we measure the same mass because our frame of reference (or whatever you want to call it) tells us we have the same mass as we had before, and our instruments register the same mass.... but can we be sure?

(ok, this is a bit for fun, i think i know at least one answer to this relating to simple real world observation)

[oddmanout]

Hold on... why do we accept light speed to be the constant? E=mc2, and our theories point to it being light being the constant.

So, why not mass being the constant? Why not when we travel fast our mass changes? Sure, to us when traveling fast we measure the same mass because our frame of reference (or whatever you want to call it) tells us we have the same mass as we had before, and our instruments register the same mass.... but can we be sure?

(ok, this is a bit for fun, i think i know at least one answer to this relating to simple real world observation)

The constant, c, is in this equation equivalent to any other constant determining the difference between two units of measurement; just like there is a constant for transforming 1 pound into 1 kilogram (1 pound = 0.45359237.. kilograms). The single, important factor that this small equation tells us, is that matter and energy is one and the same; the difference is the energy which is required to 1) turn energy into matter (which is enormous; a factor of c^2) and 2) turn matter into energy (which reveals the true potential of the "frozen" energy stored in matter).

That's why we have nuclear fusion reactors and (regrettably) atom bombs, but conversely why we will (hopefully) have nuclear fission reactors (like the sun) in the future.

[hackenslash]

That's why we have nuclear fusion fission reactors and (regrettably) atom bombs, but conversely why we will (hopefully) have nuclear fission fusion reactors (like the sun) in the future.