Is Relativity Reality?

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ChildInAZoo
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Re: Is Relativity Reality?

Post by ChildInAZoo » Fri May 28, 2010 8:24 pm

mistermack wrote:I honestly couldn't make it any clearer. It's there, in the simplest language I can muster. I claimed that the RANGE of valid frames is reduced from infinity by the real-life limit of c. Nobody is talking about the NUMBER of valid frames at this point, just the RANGE.
Is it or is it not valid to choose a frame such that a particle would be moving at over c?
Technically, if one wants to produce a situation where one can produce meaningful physical results, one cannot produce a reference frame where a particle is moving faster than c (as measured against the coordinates). This still leaves a set of reference frames of denumerable cardinality.

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Re: Is Relativity Reality?

Post by ChildInAZoo » Fri May 28, 2010 8:26 pm

mistermack wrote:Just to prove that I have the patience of a saint, here we go again.
The Universe consists of one single particle in otherwise empty space.
The diagram below shows what I think is the maximum range of valid reference frames in the blue shaded volume of the sphere. Is that right, or can you choose a frame who's velocity relative to the particle is greater than 300,000 kps? ie, that falls outside the blue volume?

Image
You can't chose a meaningful reference frame in which the velocity of the particle is greater than the speed of light, but this doesn't have anything to do with the blue circle. That image is of a specific reference frame and one cannot encapsulate another reference frame within it.

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Re: Is Relativity Reality?

Post by mistermack » Fri May 28, 2010 8:30 pm

I give up. You're taking the mick.
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Re: Is Relativity Reality?

Post by newolder » Fri May 28, 2010 10:08 pm

mistermack wrote:Just to prove that I have the patience of a saint, here we go again.
The Universe consists of one single particle in otherwise empty space.
The diagram below shows what I think is the maximum range of valid reference frames in the blue shaded volume of the sphere. Is that right, or can you choose a frame who's velocity relative to the particle is greater than 300,000 kps? ie, that falls outside the blue volume?

Image
This is simpler:
Image
Source
The scope of a light cone is infinite, the scope of tachyons (B) is infinitely larger and there is no largest infinity (Cantor).
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Re: Is Relativity Reality?

Post by mistermack » Sat May 29, 2010 6:17 am

Newolder, if you're saying that particles exceeding c produces complete gibberish, then I agree completely. And people have said on this thread many times, no particle can move at c.
But try to get people to agree to the bleedin obvious consequence of that, that you can't choose a frame in which a particle would be moving at more than c, and people change the subject fast. I can't see what is so scary about the obvious.

Childinazoo nearly got there :
ChildInAZoo wrote: Technically, if one wants to produce a situation where one can produce meaningful physical results, one cannot produce a reference frame where a particle is moving faster than c (as measured against the coordinates).


But then he fudged it :
ChildInAZoo wrote: This still leaves a set of reference frames of denumerable cardinality.
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Re: Is Relativity Reality?

Post by Farsight » Sat May 29, 2010 7:52 am

Twiglet wrote:Alright farsight, you obtained the correct numerical answers. How about supplying the less trivial solution which speaks to the heart of mistermacks conceptual query. Consider an observer at rest. A particle moves in direction x at 2.7x10^8 m/s. The other moves in direction -x at 2.7x10^8m/s. Taking the frame of reference of either particle, calculate the speed of the other. That is a less trivial problem. It requires no trigonometry to calculate the answer.
Here we use the velocity addition formula s = (v+u)/(1+(vu/c²)), see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocity-addition_formula. Using natural units the observed speed s is

s = (.9+.9)/(1+(.9 * .9 / 1²))
s = (1.8) / (1 + (.81))
s = 1.8 / 1.81
s = .99c

There is an underlying trigonometry to it, but it starts getting complicated, and whenever I try to explain mathematical terms you don't listen. Just as you won't listen to mistermack, and throw up maths tests instead.

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Re: Is Relativity Reality?

Post by newolder » Sat May 29, 2010 10:20 am

mistermack wrote:Newolder, if you're saying that particles exceeding c produces complete gibberish, then I agree completely.
Not at all. The theory of the tachyon anti-telephone is well known. As yet, no instances of tachyons are found in nature.
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Re: Is Relativity Reality?

Post by Twiglet » Sat May 29, 2010 11:11 am

Farsight wrote:
Twiglet wrote:Alright farsight, you obtained the correct numerical answers. How about supplying the less trivial solution which speaks to the heart of mistermacks conceptual query. Consider an observer at rest. A particle moves in direction x at 2.7x10^8 m/s. The other moves in direction -x at 2.7x10^8m/s. Taking the frame of reference of either particle, calculate the speed of the other. That is a less trivial problem. It requires no trigonometry to calculate the answer.
Here we use the velocity addition formula s = (v+u)/(1+(vu/c²)), see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocity-addition_formula. Using natural units the observed speed s is

s = (.9+.9)/(1+(.9 * .9 / 1²))
s = (1.8) / (1 + (.81))
s = 1.8 / 1.81
s = .99c

There is an underlying trigonometry to it, but it starts getting complicated, and whenever I try to explain mathematical terms you don't listen. Just as you won't listen to mistermack, and throw up maths tests instead.
Look at what the figures are telling you, what that equation is telling you..... that no matter how fast those particles are moving away from each other, they never reach c relative to one another, even though in classical terms, their speed should exceed it.

No matter how much energy is put into accelerating those particles they can never reach c.

You can perform the calculation if the particles are moving at an angle to each other if you like, it won't affect the nature of the result, just complicate the calculation.

You don't need to define the terms farsight, they are very well defined already. This is an established and tested theory.

We're not doing anything complicated here, just plugging numbers into equations that are easily referenced to see what the results look like. Looking at those results provides an insight into what the theory predicts.

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Re: Is Relativity Reality?

Post by colubridae » Sat May 29, 2010 11:20 am

Twiglet wrote:
Farsight wrote:
Twiglet wrote:Alright farsight, you obtained the correct numerical answers. How about supplying the less trivial solution which speaks to the heart of mistermacks conceptual query. Consider an observer at rest. A particle moves in direction x at 2.7x10^8 m/s. The other moves in direction -x at 2.7x10^8m/s. Taking the frame of reference of either particle, calculate the speed of the other. That is a less trivial problem. It requires no trigonometry to calculate the answer.
Here we use the velocity addition formula s = (v+u)/(1+(vu/c²)), see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocity-addition_formula. Using natural units the observed speed s is

s = (.9+.9)/(1+(.9 * .9 / 1²))
s = (1.8) / (1 + (.81))
s = 1.8 / 1.81
s = .99c

There is an underlying trigonometry to it, but it starts getting complicated, and whenever I try to explain mathematical terms you don't listen. Just as you won't listen to mistermack, and throw up maths tests instead.
Look at what the figures are telling you, what that equation is telling you..... that no matter how fast those particles are moving away from each other, they never reach c relative to one another, even though in classical terms, their speed should exceed it.

No matter how much energy is put into accelerating those particles they can never reach c.



You can perform the calculation if the particles are moving at an angle to each other if you like, it won't affect the nature of the result, just complicate the calculation.

You don't need to define the terms farsight, they are very well defined already. This is an established and tested theory.

We're not doing anything complicated here, just plugging numbers into equations that are easily referenced to see what the results look like. Looking at those results provides an insight into what the theory predicts.
Farsight this is how good science is done using maths. not your earth water fire air babble.


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Re: Is Relativity Reality?

Post by ChildInAZoo » Sat May 29, 2010 1:28 pm

mistermack wrote:But then he fudged it :
Do you know what a set of denumerable cardinality is? I should have used different language. Just because we are constrained to maintain a certain speed for a given particle, we can still construct an infinite number of frames in which this will be true. How is this so hard to understand?

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Re: Is Relativity Reality?

Post by mistermack » Sat May 29, 2010 3:29 pm

ChildInAZoo wrote: Do you know what a set of denumerable cardinality is? I should have used different language. Just because we are constrained to maintain a certain speed for a given particle, we can still construct an infinite number of frames in which this will be true. How is this so hard to understand?
Because 1) Were talking about the range of frames not the number, and
2) It's not even true.
You should surely understand by now that if you divide by infinity, you get zero.
So you get an infinite number of nothing.
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Re: Is Relativity Reality?

Post by ChildInAZoo » Sat May 29, 2010 4:16 pm

mistermack wrote:
ChildInAZoo wrote: Do you know what a set of denumerable cardinality is? I should have used different language. Just because we are constrained to maintain a certain speed for a given particle, we can still construct an infinite number of frames in which this will be true. How is this so hard to understand?
Because 1) Were talking about the range of frames not the number, and
What do you mean by "the range of frames"?
2) It's not even true.
You should surely understand by now that if you divide by infinity, you get zero.
So you get an infinite number of nothing.
Hunh? Where is anyone dividing by zero? There is an infinite set of frames that we can use to describe the motion of a particle. One proper subset of this set is the set of all frames in which we can get a description of the particle that is physically meaningful according to Special relativity. This latter subset has an infinite number of elements. This is easy to prove, since we can easily imagine that we can set an arbitrary speed for the parictle in one direction that is between 0 kps and 1 kps. There are an infinite number of real numbers between 0 and 1, so we can construct an infinite number of frames associated with the speeds between 0 kps and 1 kps.

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Re: Is Relativity Reality?

Post by pcCoder » Sat May 29, 2010 5:44 pm

Some explanations of relativity are not very satisfying IMO. For example one I've read was, imagine a clock ticking up starting at zero. Now imagine it is moving away from you at c/2. Because of this, it will appear to you as an observer to take more time to change from 0 to 1. Well this makes sense when you take into consideration that after 1 second it will be far away so you will have to wait for that light to get back to you. But this type of explanation seems to suggest that it is all just an illusion, that if you let this clock move around for a bit and then come back to you, it is still in perfect sync with yours. But there have been experiments with atomic clocks starting in sync but out of sync when brought back together that show it is not an illusion but a very real affect. I also dislike some of them because they seem to suggest that their is no objective reality and that it is dependent on the observer, where I tend to believe that there is an objective reality, even if we do not currently know what it is or ever will, regardless of any observer, that the best way to get the closest approximation of it is to try to be in the same frame of reference with an event as it happens, and if not, being able to know how to compensate for the differing frames of reference.

I tend to like the train example at the start of the thread. "Common sense" tells me that if a person can run from the back of a train to the front in 30 seconds, then if I put that train in orbit at nearly the speed of light, and with a telescope take a photo of the train as it passes every time, (and make conditions survivable for the person), then that person should still be able to run from the back to the front in 30 seconds to an outside observer, or several hundred telescope images. But common sense is not always the reality of things.

Because the effect is real, it seems that there must be some force that somehow causes this. I wonder if we will ever know it happens. I tend to rather think of relativity in terms of rate change instead of time (really just another way of saying the same thing, I just think it is an easier way to think of it). Instead of saying that time is slower in a high speed train relative to the outside, I say that rate change is slower relative to the outside. The rates that things happen even on the atomic levels are slower, so things happen slower, but to one on the high speed train, since they also experience the same slowing of rates in their brain chemistry, it will appear to them that they are still fine and that it only took them 30 seconds to run from one end to another or 3 minutes to make a sandwich, while the outside observer it appears to take much much longer. They will also age slower, atomic clocks cesium atoms will oscillate slower, etc, relative to the outside.

I've wondered what it is that actually causes this. Why does speed differences, gravity, differences, etc, have this effect? Is there some force or drag effect that happens, perhaps affecting the very makeup of matter, quarks, strings, whatever, that cause changes at higher speed or higher gravity relative to lower speed or lower gravity?

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Re: Is Relativity Reality?

Post by mistermack » Sat May 29, 2010 7:25 pm

ChildInAZoo wrote: What do you mean by "the range of frames"?

You said it yourself :
ChildInAZoo wrote: You can't chose a meaningful reference frame in which the velocity of the particle is greater than the speed of light
ChildInAZoo wrote: Where is anyone dividing by zero?
Nowhere.
ChildInAZoo wrote: There are an infinite number of real numbers between 0 and 1
Yes, and each one is identical to the preceding one. An infinity of nonsense, as I'm sure you well know.

In the real world of matter and energy, it's highly unlikely that you can have ifinitely small increments in velocity. It's far more likely that you would get incredibly small quantum increases. But if you know different, your prize awaits. You're throwing infinity around like confetti, as if you understand it, which you don't. ( because nobody does ).
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Re: Is Relativity Reality?

Post by colubridae » Sat May 29, 2010 7:48 pm

mistermack wrote:
ChildInAZoo wrote: What do you mean by "the range of frames"?

You said it yourself :
ChildInAZoo wrote: You can't chose a meaningful reference frame in which the velocity of the particle is greater than the speed of light
ChildInAZoo wrote: Where is anyone dividing by zero?
Nowhere.
ChildInAZoo wrote: There are an infinite number of real numbers between 0 and 1
Yes, and each one is identical to the preceding one. An infinity of nonsense, as I'm sure you well know.
:funny: :funny: :funny: :funny:

Each number is identical to the preceeding one??? :coffeespray:
mistermack wrote:In the real world of matter and energy, it's highly unlikely that you can have ifinitely small increments in velocity. It's far more likely that you would get incredibly small quantum increases. But if you know different, your prize awaits. You're throwing infinity around like confetti, as if you understand it, which you don't. ( because nobody does ). :funny:
.
:pawiz:

Just to remind you farsight.. mistermack is one of the guys who supports and 'understands' your stuff... :levi:
:hilarious: :hilarious:
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