[youtube]JVRsWAjvQSg[/youtube]
This is a very interesting discussion on the subject of Intelligent Design by Brown University’s Kenneth Miller. It’s just under two hours long, and if you have the time I highly recommend watching it. There is even a mention of Pastafarianism at around 90 minutes.
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An elaborate spoof on Intelligent Design, The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is neither too elaborate nor too spoofy to succeed in nailing the fallacies of ID. It's even wackier than Jonathan Swift's suggestion that the Irish eat their children as a way to keep them from being a burden, and it may offend just as many people, but Henderson, described elsewhere as a 25-year-old "out-of-work physics major," puts satire to the same serious use that Swift did. Oh, yes, it is very funny. -- Scientific American
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@Booty Apr 7th, 2007 at 9:45 am
There has been some dispute over whether his trolling was funny or not though, so some sparks are still flying.
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I can see both sides of that argument…
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everyone, we may have a new fundie. It’s been thin on that lately. It may be another drive-by but check out the responses of Kansas school board thread. It’s is ‘A firm believer in god’. Sounds potentially promising.
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@ Coleoptera
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“I can see both sides of that argument…”
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Ya – so can I! I’m one of the guilty ones who trots off and plays silly buggers. I don’t tend to trade personal insults, truth be said. I don’t seem to have to! I get banned quickly without that :(
Yes I’ve been banned from another bloody site – I was only trying to find out which words were wrong! Hell, if you can’t say shitehawk then what can you say :))
This was on a so called “Chaos/madness deity site – Cthulhu!” _ come on! What’s wrong with bringing a bit of madness to a site that worships madness?
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So far; xtians, Nazis, Aryan Nation (they were less than impressed!) face sucker etc – and still I get no points for my answers on Yahoo groups! I’m going to get a complex!
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@DutchPastaGuy
“That would not exclude the possibility of moving forward in time. ”
True, we do that all the time. And Einstein’s “twin paradox” makes it clear we can speed our travel into the future to any rate greater than normal, in principle anyway. Interestingly there doesn’t seem to be a way to slow our progress into the future where the world is moving slowly compared to our rate, at least with the Einstein Equations. (We can’t accelerate everything else, can we?)
I just saw that you are in physics, so I know this is nothing new to you, but maybe someone else will find it interesting. Meanwhile feel free to correct me if I am in error.
I read an article in discover a few years back that examined what it would be like to go far into the future, trillions, quadrillions, quintillions or brazilians of years into the future. The article was written before the discovery of accelerated expansion, I believe. At one point each matter particle is so far away from the next that they are to be considered the only particle in their universe, for they could not send a signal by light to the next particle, even if they had light.
“Bang” vs “whimper”? I guess it’s whimper.
If there’s something we don’t know here, it’s possible, I suppose, for the accelerated expansion to stop or reverse. Maybe even leading to the big crunch. I’m not familiar with the reasons why accelerated expansion began. It wasn’t supposed to be here all the time. Any thoughts?
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Hi Bill,
Sorry for that little mixup about joining the disciples list on the other thread. Your change of forum poster name made me confuse things.
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I know little about some of the things you ask about. Relativity does not play a big role in materials science:). One thing your wrote made me wonder though:
“Interestingly there doesn’t seem to be a way to slow our progress into the future where the world is moving slowly compared to our rate, at least with the Einstein Equations. (We can’t accelerate everything else, can we?)”
If you could accelerate everything else away, the effect would be the opposite of when the earth etc stood still and only you accelerated away in the other direction. How does relativity know for which one time should slow down? I mean, if we take the earth surface as reference, the person in the rocket would accelerate. But taking the rocket as reference is just as valid. So then the earth accelerates. Both are arbitrary I guess. So who wins, what determines that? Or are concepts like velocity and acceleration just too Newtonian? The equation I wrote down and the one you added are part of relativity that can still be seen in a classical way. I know little about it, but there is also a part to relativity in which there are now equivalents in classical physics. Maybe my question above is invalidated by that. Do you know?
I’m afraid I also have few ideas about the future of the universe. Stars will deplete their fuel and if the expansion continues, the place will become pretty empty, dark and cold I guess. Maybe the unverse will turn into a giant Bose-Einstein condensate if it expands and cools far enough?
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@DutchPastaGuy
I have had occasion to wrestle with some of these notions. Initially i regarded the twin paradox as a problem. Usually presented there are twins on earth and one is shot into space at a high velocity, returning many years later to find his brother much older than he. One might ask, if all velocity is relative, why shouldn’t we consider the earth brother as departing from the brother shot into space, and thus the conclusion should be symmetric? A paradox, because it cannot be that a is younger than b and at the same time b be younger than a.
But, accelaration is not relative. Who accelerated away from who, is agreed to by those of either framework.
In special relativity, this is not a concern because the objects in consideration never get together to compare their clocks. It takes acceleration for objects of different speeds to get together again and compare. The twin paradox requires a turn around at some point for the twin brother to get home and match speeds.
I read a book by herman bondi on this paradox at one time and he was able to convince me at the time, although I do not remember the proof , that einstein’s time equations were generateable from two assumptions: that the speed of light was constant and that here was no medium (like an aeither) (like sound is to air) for them to go through. I wish I could remember those derivations, but remember they were not difficult (said by a guy who has trouble with double intregrations)
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@Bill
Thanks for an interesting reply, but I’m afraid I’ll need another class.
What if we leave most of the acceleration out of it? One brother blasts of in a rocket that propells him to great velocity in a short time, then the engine stops. So the brothers live at different but constant velocities for a few years, therefore aging at different paces. Then there is another short burst of the engines to return the one in the rocket back to earth, again at constant speed after the rocket has turned around. So almost all of the accumulated time difference between the brothers arises from a situation without acceleration. Then we get the previous question again: who ages quicker?
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Also: I see a problem in determining the time difference after the one brother gets back to earth. If the reference was the earth, the brother in the rocket moved at velocity v and then returned with velocity -v. If the reference system was moving at velocity v, then the brother in the rocket first stood still from that point of view, then moved at speed -2v while the brother on earth was moving at -v the whole time. The square roots in the equations we came up with are not linear operators, so I guess they won’t happen to yield the same answer (too lazy to do the actual calculation for an example case) for the two scenarios?
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Or is the pace at which time difference accumulates not determined just by a single snapshot in time (our two equations do seem to suggest so), does the history of previous acceleration etc. play into it? In that case concentrating the acceleration into short time intervals would make no difference I guess?
If the situation is not determined by a single snapshot, is it perhaps similar to entropy? That is also not a property of a system of atoms at one particular time, but rather of a time-averaged ensemble. Which makes it much more difficult to handle. Is the twin paradox governed by a similarly messy situation?
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Finally: relax about double integrals. I’m sure you retained more from your math classes than me. Never use those standard integrals and mathematical tricks anymore, so practically all of it faded away in just a couple of years after learning it.
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@ anyone who cares – I was reading back and there was some question about me being a Wiccan. Although I certainly say very Wiccan-like things, I am not a Wiccan. While I fully respect anyone who chooses to practice Wicca, it’s not for me. I went to the U.U. Church for my childrens’ sake. I needed them to be exposed to other religious schools of thought besides the drivel (fundamentalist Christianity), that their father (my ex) was trying to instill in them. Now I don’t go to any church except right here. If there was a physical CoFSM nearby, I’d be there! That being said, I love nature and the Cosmos, and find my Creator there.
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The impression I get, living in DC, is that Bush has confused the rest of the politicians by being a better manipulator then they are and playing to a crazier audiance. I don’t think they are used to feeling gamed by the system and its definately lit a fire under the career congressmen to have the GOP idealogy swing hard right without allowing for dissent from people playing the moderate game. (IE Tom Delay’s “the hammer” act in which he twisted arms to get the votes he wanted).
A lot of the noise you hear are people who don’t like feeling gamed yelling and screaming about it, which doesn’t mean they’re wrong. The religeous stuff is supposed to be largely symbolic but the social conservatives seem to be getting tired of just receiving pep rallies and tried to get the big prize. So they overstepped their bounds, they are breaking up the GOP alliance which is GOOD as the Jesus-Republican alliance was annoying the crap out of me, as they actaully were getting a lot more stuff accomplished then people thought they were.
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To: Wench Beth
Mar 26th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
“To St. Jimmy… then please come over and slap some freakin’ sense into the Democrats, too! I don’t think they’re all like that, but unfortunately everything you see on the news caters to the Bible-thumpers.”
I see this view a lot but it is important to remember that this is the case because christian conservatives are very reliable voters and are organized, moreso then any underlying tendancies present in the government and they are also organized consumers too so threaten to withhold money and influence from dissenters. Washington DC is a lot more secular then the rest of the country, and no one really cares about what religion someone is if they aren’t a political appointee (ie participating in state sponsored theatre). I’ve heard lifestyle doesn’t necessessarily preclude you from a security clearance as long as you are honest as they are concerned only with blackmail. I know married swingers who work in defense contracting.
If people who are more liberal start voting more frequently, then we’ll move away from the bible dogma. Its just the politicians have little faith that university educated middle class people are at all reliable voters. I didn’t make the system but it’s not going to change until there are compromises between the political actors and the voters and that means statistical voting results, such as voters between the age of 18-30 would be a start, need to increase and we need to punish politicians who take stances that are coded for fundamentalists.
The 2006 elections seemed to go off a lot more smoothly then in 2004 but there was also a lot of groundwork that happened before the midterms. The opposition took their job a lot more seriously then in 2004, as during the first election none of the democratic and left’s leadership seemed to care much and had already ceeded the election the the republicans and I felt really bad for Kerry as I think he tried but my god his support team??!!! (All the efforts seemed to have been made by students which is rediculous as what were the consultants doing?)
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@DutchPastaGuy
I believe the only way out of the paradox is to note that one of the twins is undergoing acceleration. You tried to minimize it but still going from v to -v where v is some interesting large value compared to light is not a ’short burst’.
Note that as a twin leaves the planet observation of each twin one by the other with an impossibly powerful telescope reveals to both that the other has slowed down and turned ultra blue. Coming back, through the same telescopes they will appear to be speeded up to each other and turning very red (I hope i didn’t mix up the colors). There seems to be a symmetry that suggests that if one ages less than the other, it happens with respect to each frame of reference. But both can’t be younger than the other.
The only way then to break the symmetry is to note that one of the characters is changing inertial frames of reference but the other is staying in the same frame of reference.
I believe then that you can’t ignore the time dilitation with respect to acceleration if you are going to get them back together again.
I’m going to try to figure out how Bondi generated the time dilitation formula by a simple thought experiment.
The other interesting way to see that you cannot exceed the speed of light is to note that nomatter what speed you are going you will still measure lights speed as the familiar constant. Not only will you never catch up to a photon, you will also never even start. This limit of the speed of light is only for things in the same area roughly. Things far away, like near the edge of the observable universe can move faster than light with respect to us, because of expansion. I guess expansion is not considered a regular kind of velocity. Some have speculated that 99.99999999 (or more) of the universe is beyond anything we could ever send a light ray too or get a light ray from because expansion has put it out of reach. I don’t know how to square this with the reports that we are able to see back to within a few million years of the big bang. Or how we could have gotten far enough away to see something 13.7 billion years later.
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@DutchPastaGuy
Upon re-reading what you posted, you may be saying the same thing.
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@ bill and DPG- what a fascinating discussion guys! I have a question that may be really stupid (OK not stupid just ignorant – I’m an Animal Science person so I just don’t know) but ANYWAY, does it make any difference in what direction the rocket travels? I don’t know if it’s possible to out-accelerate the Earth in the direction it’s already moving, but is it possible to move at different angles away from the planet, thus changing relative velocities?
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@Rowdy
Nope, the direction of travel has no impact, only relative velocities.
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@Rowdy Wench
This is the interesting part. The earth is not moving. Or to put it more precisely it is just as reasonable to treat our system as still (the Milky Way) and everything else as moving as to pick some other galaxy as still and us moving. Thus the principle of ‘relativity’. Einstein preferred to call it the principle of invarience. He might of had a hint as to how the term ‘relativity’ would be used to justify other things he had nothing to say about.
So, to answer your question, the direction does not matter, with reference to Einstein.
Kind of interesting, huh?
Oops, just saw Jingles post. I agree.
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@ bill and Jingles – Thanks guys! This really is fascinating. I have read an enormous amount of science fiction and so even though I have no formal training in this I am very interested in how it all works. Einstein had tremendous vision and insight into our universe and how it works. Thanks for the discussion – I’m enjoying it!
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This post may turn out to be largish :)
@Coleoptera Apr 7th, 2007 at 9:59 am
” You would expect that if evolutionary theory was true that the 46 chromosomes in humans would be a result of chromosomal fusion. This was demonstrated almost 2 years ago but few people, myself formally included, have heard of this result despite its implications for ID.”
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Don’t you just love their ignorance? I know I do when having an …err…umm .”discussion” with them.
My favorite is the irreducible eye argument :) I just love an opportunity to throw up Walter Gehring’s research findings on Hox genes. Especially the Pax6 Hox gene and it’s homologues. Pax6 homologues are responsible for the gene transcription cascades that direct the sequence of eye development in all eukaryotic organisms. A short simple direct explanation by Gehring himself is given at
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/04/4/text_pop/l_044_01.html
Or one of his papers:
New perspectives on eye development and the evolution of eyes and photoreceptors.
Gehring WJ
http://www.ihop-net.org/UniPub/iHOP/pm/11798843.html?pmid=15653558
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Gehring is a brilliant scientist and was widely tipped to take out a Nobel this year (the two guys that got it were just as well deserving :)
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There is so much refuting evidence against ID to choose from, making it hard to pick a favourite, but my other choice (being that I’m familiar with the concepts) is from the ever brilliant Talk Origins website.
That is the evidence presented that we share some same “junk DNA†sequences and “genetic mistake†sequences with our closest primate ancestors.
“Plagiarized Errors and Molecular Genetics: Another argument in the evolution-creation controversyâ€
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/molgen/
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Must say that I practically worship the Talk Origins website :)))
You are no doubt familiar with this site Coleoptera .
So much specific info so easily available!
For anyone unfamiliar with this site, it provides a comprehensive background to each of the fundamental IDiot claims, it then goes on to a well written (OK for the layman) professional refutation one by one , each article referencing solid research findings. On some topics responses from the Idiots to the Talk Origin articles are included and dealt with.
It’s an absolute goldmine for anyone discussing these claims with the Idiots.
RAmen
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This post may turn out to be largish :)
@Coleoptera Apr 7th, 2007 at 9:59 am
†You would expect that if evolutionary theory was true that the 46 chromosomes in humans would be a result of chromosomal fusion. This was demonstrated almost 2 years ago but few people, myself formally included, have heard of this result despite its implications for ID.â€
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Don’t you just love their ignorance? I know I do when having an …err…umm .â€discussion†with them.
My favorite is the irreducible eye argument :) I just love an opportunity to throw up Walter Gehring’s research findings on Hox genes. Especially the Pax6 Hox gene and it’s homologues. Pax6 homologues are responsible for the gene transcription cascades that direct the sequence of eye development in all eukaryotic organisms. A short simple direct explanation by Gehring himself is given at
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/04/4/text_pop/l_044_01.html
Or one of his papers:
New perspectives on eye development and the evolution of eyes and photoreceptors.
Gehring WJ
http://www.ihop-net.org/UniPub/iHOP/pm/11798843.html?pmid=15653558
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Gehring is a brilliant scientist and was widely tipped to take out a Nobel this year (the two guys that got it were just as well deserving :) What can I say….I’m a big fan
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There is so much refuting evidence against ID to choose from, making it hard to pick a favourite, but my other choice (being that I’m familiar with the concepts) is from the ever brilliant Talk Origins website.
That is the evidence presented that we share some same “junk DNA†sequences and “genetic mistake†sequences with our closest primate ancestors.
“Plagiarized Errors and Molecular Genetics: Another argument in the evolution-creation controversyâ€
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/molgen/
.
Must say I practically worship the Talk Origins website :))
You are no doubt familiar with this site Coleoptera .
So much specific info so easily available!
For anyone unfamiliar with this site, it provides a comprehensive background to each of the fundamental IDiot claims, it then goes on to a well written (OK for the layman) professional refutation one by one , each article referencing solid research findings. On some topics responses from the Idiots to the Talk Origin articles are included and dealt with.
It’s an absolute goldmine for anyone discussing these claims with the Idiots.
RAmen
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Another mostly aimed at Coleoptera
Wondering if you’ve previously come across this interesting article :))
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“Transgendered Sea Anemone Denounced As ‘Abomination’ By Clergy”
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29260
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Re Thumper (now Wench Thumper)…I miss his/her/ it’s (wabbit’s) posts :(
they rarely fail to make me laugh :))
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small thing i know, and i’m by no means a physicist. but isn’t velocity speed applied in a direction? happy to be corrected though…
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@Bill, in response to you post of 6.46 pm
I don’t know how the acceleration bit plays into it. I never considered that one before actually, always happy up to now just to look at the equations of relative mass and time from a constant velocity point of view. But it must have some effect that goes beyond the period in which the acceleration takes place I guess. Suppose one brother accelerates to a third of the speed of light in an hour and travels at that velocity for 10 years. Then in two hours his ship turns around and he flies back at constant speed for 10 years. As you point out, during the constant velocity years, there is symmetry, so I think the acceleration periods are at the root of it, and the 1 hour/10 year ratio makes me think it must go beyond just what happens during the period when acceleration takes place, that there is some lasting influence that goes on even after the acceleration has stopped again. But I’m not sure, and I know too little to make statements about it with any degree of certainty.
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I did open up a calculator to determine some numbers for a situation where the earth is the reference system and one where the reference system is moving at the constant travel speed (travelling away from earth) of the rocket with brother 1. I looked at the situation where the constant velocity is one third of the speed of light.
Seen from the ‘fixed’ earth, the denominator in the equation of relative speed is 0.943, both for the brother travelling away from and back to earth.
Seen from the system that moves at one third of the speed of light, brother two is idle during the first half and the brother on earth moves at one third the speed of light, so the denominator for the first half is again 0.943 but for brother 1 now. After brother 2’s ships turns around, the denominator for him is 0.745, for bother 1 it is still 0.943 of course. Now, no matter what signs you asign to which of the brothers (not even thinking about who ages fastest here) you’ll not get the same answer for both reference situations no matter how you add up, subtract, or average the lot. This was my problem with the square root not being a lineair operator. This of course neglects the acceleration periods which must be all-important. But let’s consider a non-correct hypothetical situation in which the acceleration periods don’t matter. Any thoughts on which of the two scenarions would then determine the scope (forget the sign for now) of the time difference between the two brothers?
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Ok, as I don’t know the stuff enough and must take refuge in assumptions that I know are incorrect (leave out acceleration), I will probably make this one my last iteration in this interesting discussion. Beyond my knowledge and understanding from this point on.
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@Navigator Spider
“small thing i know, and i’m by no means a physicist. but isn’t velocity speed applied in a direction? happy to be corrected though…”
Pity you say you’re not a phycisist (and previous posts seemed to suggest you do know your stuff quite well in that area), as Bill and I are pushing the limits of what we know and were hoping you would bail us out :)
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I don’t think the direction could play a part, that only the magnitude plays a a part. Look at the equation of relative velocity. It has the square of the velocity in it. Any minus sign would disappear even if you took it into consideration initially.
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@Navigator Spider… It’s fun, isn’t it? That lovely feeling you get when your brain explodes from too many calculations is a wonderful, wonderful experience.
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Incidentally, this is me being really anal and nitpicky, but way back in this discussion, someone was talking about relativistic mass (the apparent increase in the mass of the body moving at relativistic speeds).
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These days, physicists are trying to phase out that method of looking at it, preferring people to instead use time dilation and length contractions. I know it’s a little potatoes/potartoes but if we ever get into an argument about relativity, it’s good to be up to date.
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@DPG
Very much appreciated the relativity explanation…I actually understood most of it which is more a reflection on the explanation then the wabbit understanding.
@Alchemist
Buona Mattina!!!…”Hell, I know I bit to start with – ’twas fun :) (I loved the bit about what did the priest do to me :) )”…ahhhh memories…TLM did get a bit “mad” didn’t he…I must confess that eliciting the ole “I’m gonna find ya and kill ya” response is gratifying…and believe me I know…
@DAmP John
Is it wrong to think of Wench Thumper when I see this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjLEITUtTOc …it’s so very wrong…and you know its wrong…
@Coleoptera
Yes…last time you were here I was the fundy wabbit troll…I’m still a troll I guess but not a fundy…I was just kidding about being a fundy…ages ago you asked me “what did my girlfriend being a former lingerie model have to do with love?”…I said…”plenty”…I was just kidding about that to…
@Wenchy
Hello…I’m sick!…I’ve been infected with a pathogen of unknown type (possibly myxomatosis)…all I can do is lay about watching TV and whimpering…what I’m trying to say is…I can’t think of anything funny to say…I’ll try and think of something tomorrow…if I make it through the night…
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Night all…
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#Wench Nikkiee, Hey! I almost understand what you’re talking about. I am reading Richard Dawkins’ “The Ancestor’s Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution” right now. It’s fascinating. I’ve always believed in evolution, but I am gaining a deeper understanding about how it actually works. I have to read it slowly and stopp to really think about what he’s saying so I understand it, yet it does make sense to me. Mind you, this subject is leagues away from my formal education. I did take anatomy and physiology, neurology, kinesiology, and basic chemistry, (among other subjects) however, and I got glimpses of the magnificence of homo sapiens (and all life.) When I learned about mitochondria and how they were once free-standing organisms, I began to get a glimpse into the incredibly slow, complicated process of evolution. I also thought at the time, “There must be a God.” I still think there must be a Creator. I don’t think the Creator as an anthropomorphic figure in white robes, however. For me, the Creator is the Cosmos itself.
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Hi Saucy :)
“the Creator is the Cosmos itself.”
Think so too Saucy….spot on
“I did take anatomy and physiology, neurology, kinesiology, and basic chemistry”
Check this out (I just posted a link there giving more info on the technique used in the research…RNAi…my favourite…mostly :))
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http://richarddawkins.net/article,814,Selfish-genes-may-drive-out-disease,Melissa-Lee-Phillips#30625
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@Wench Thumper
“Hello…I’m sick!…I’ve been infected with a pathogen of unknown type (possibly myxomatosis)…all I can do is lay about watching TV and whimpering…what I’m trying to say is…I can’t think of anything funny to say…I’ll try and think of something tomorrow…if I make it through the night…”
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Oh no! You weren’t dipping into too many of those choccy’s you were meant to be delivering were you? Or that spare bottle of whatsitsname :) Your don’t need be funny for your posts to be interesting Wench Thumper. (IMHO) But I certainly have more fun with your humour :))
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@Wench Thumper – morning/evening mate :)
You’re sick? I’ve got a bad case of “EnglandCricketitis” – possibly fatal :(
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Evnin Wench Nikkiee :) You asked earlier if we get to play again on some thread – the answer is all too familiar for English sport :( Yes! If we win every remaining game, increase our run rate and pray for a miracle (ie – not a hope).
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“….I must confess that eliciting the ole “I’m gonna find ya and kill ya†response is gratifying…and believe me I know…”
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Ya – you know you’re on target when you get a death threat :) For some reason I believe you do know.
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Wench Thumper, You poor litle wabbit. Have another carrot, that should make you feel better soon.
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@Red DutchPasta Kidd Apr 9th, 2007 at 8:25 am
“Have another carrot, that should make you feel better soon.”
For the pot you mean?
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Warning to the wabbit…do not bend over in front of Red DutchPasta Kidd.
She has constantly mentioned her taste for wabbit stew and has been drooling about you
ever since you arrived. :))
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Wench Nikkiee, I meant no such thing. I was simply referring to the traditional fondness for carrots of wabbits. It is not nice being ill you know…
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(I did have some deer tonight, in a red wine sauce, absolutly delicious!I mean Bambi is cute and very tasty too!)
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@DutchPastaGuy
Hi again.
I think to bring me up to speed maybe you can tell me the formula you’re using. It can’t be
tv/t0=sgrt(1-v^2/c^2) because there the negative velocity would be the same as the positive. So, if it’s not too much trouble can you show me the equation. I’m not familiar with it.
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@ bill and DPG – I’ve always thought that relative velocities had more to do with how fast you are traveling relative to the speed of light…I am having a hard time getting my head around this, but it’s very interesting!
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@Bill
Actually I was using the equation you quote. So when looking at it from earth, brother one first moves away at velocity of 1/3 the speed of light and then moves back at also 1/3 the speed of light. I had assumed that time was passing at the same lower pace for the brother aboard the rocket on both legs of the trip when seen by the brother on earth. Is that wrong?
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For the other scenario I assumed the reference system to be moving at 1/3 c away from earth. So the rocket is standing still on the first half of the trip, moving at -2/3 c for the second half. This gave me another problematiic thought. What if the rocket was moving at 2/3 c, as would be the reference system? On the way back the rocket would be moving back at 4/3 c, so > c? What is wrong there?
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As you can see: I’ve reached beyond the limits of my knowledge of relativity.
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@ DPG/bill – I love this discussion but just for now my brain is full! I’ll be back later… :)
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@ DPG/bill – I love this discussion but just for now my brain is full! I’ll be back later… :)
Didn’t post the first time…
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@DutchPastaGuy
I thought it was this: Moving away is 1/3 c and coming back is -1/3 c relative to earth frame and travellers frame. See what I mean?
Note that if the astronaut is coming back at the same speed that he went on, it should take him the same amount of his time to come back as it did to go, for when he’s stopped at say alpha centauri, if alpha centarui is roughly 0 velocity with respect to the earth, he could measure the distance back and it should be the same distance he measure before he started. You have him coming back twice as fast as when he left but going in the opposite direction.
Velocities aren’t additive. For instance, if I am going away from earth at 2/3 the speed of light and then fire a life pod in the direction I am going at 2/3 c with respect to my ship, then the velocity of the life pod measured from earth is not 4/3 c but is instead faster than 2/3 c but not quite the speed of light. I would guess that it would be 8/9 C but its purely a guess, adding 2/3s of the 1/3 c remaining. I think this might be similar to the problem you are bothered by.
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@Dutchpastaguy
P.S. So the situation is symmetric in both directions without considering the inertial frame change of the traveller.
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@Bill
“You have him coming back twice as fast as when he left but going in the opposite direction.”
Not exactly. From the earth reference point he would fly away and back at the same pace, from the moving reference point he would have 0 velocity on his way out, -2v on his way back in my original thinking. Your info that velocity isn’t additive is very useful, as I was stuck in Newtonian vector adding here. That did cause me to get greater velocities on the return trip whenever the brother travelled at more than half the speed of light. It also caused the two parts to take different times. So thanks, your post is helpful.
I guess I shoud look up the equation that governs the total velocity under relativity some time. But later.
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@DutchPastaGuy
O.K. I see what your doing. From earth’s perspect that treats it’s own speed as 0 it sees the traveller going away at v and coming back at minus v.
For the traveller you are having him judging his speed with respest to his original relative speed of 0. And so I see how you get to 0 and -2v. But that’s not where the symmetry argument comes from and I think it would give you some odd velocities for v>.5c
When he starts he notes that the earth is moving away from him at v and then when he turns around, the earth is moving towards him at -v. So from each twins perspective they observe the other as moving away and then returning at the same measured velocity, v and -v.
Sorry to keep pushing this but I want to make sure that I really understand and am not missing something,
I think your -2v does show a difference, but I’m not sure you can use relativity on that number. The symmetry does break down because the earth travels at 0 with repect to itself for both parts of the astronauts trip but the astronaut frame does change. But change in velocity is acceleration. Note also that if his destination were a black hole, by coming close enough to it he could whip around and reverse direction without feeling any G’s at all. There are other problems with such a manuver. If you are that close to a black hole, the parts of your body near the black hole are pulled with more force than the parts further away from the hole, leading to serious discomfort. :-)
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@ bill – “If you are that close to a black hole, the parts of your body near the black hole are pulled with more force than the parts further away from the hole, leading to serious discomfort.” Wasn’t that the basis for the medieval torture device, the rack? Did they know more back then than they let on?
Just playing with that -popped into my head. But if you guys are going to start talking about black holes now I need some pain meds! My head will hurt for days… :)
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@Bill
“For the traveller you are having him judging his speed with respest to his original relative speed of 0. And so I see how you get to 0 and -2v. But that’s not where the symmetry argument comes from and I think it would give you some odd velocities for v>.5c”
Exactly, that’s where my problem for v>0.5 c came from. I can complicate things further by bringing in triplets of brothers. Two blast of at 2/3 c, after some years one of them turns around and flies back at -2/3 c, while the first one flies on at +2/3 c.
In the case of the two brothers you pointed out how they see each other always separating/closing in at velocity 2/3c. So you worked around the 0 to -2v problem. But now with the third brother travelling on, one of them is on a reference system that should see the brother on earth at -2/3c. So at what speed does he see the one that turned around? I think the need for that equation that governs how to add velocities in relativity is popping up again.
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@Rowdy Wench
Yep,
But on the other hand the rack and black holes are at least less painful than yoga, and much more meditative, if you can ignore the screaming.
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I think my brain just went into a black hole :(
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@ bill – “But on the other hand the rack and black holes are at least less painful than yoga, and much more meditative, if you can ignore the screaming.” Wahahahaha! Just got done with a bit of yoga and Pilates myself. My abs are still telling me about it!
@ Booty – Yeah, these guys have been having quite the discussion!
I still need to eat lunch…and then go to the barn. Catch you all later!
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@DPG and Rowdy Wench
Some hold that from our perspective nothing actually falls into a black hole. Note that as an object falls towards a black hole it takes longer and longer for the light to get to us because it is being retarded by the black hole’s gravity. So we see an object falling towards the event horizon of a black hole forever, the light from it’s wavelength stretches more and more. So from our perspective an object never gets to the event horizon of a black hole, it is always just approaching it. It that’s the case, there is nothing inside.
The event horizon of a black hole is the balancing point where light cannot escape because the gravitational pull is strong enough to keep light from leaving. There is another interesting feature of black hole, just outside the event horizon is a place where light rays orbit the black hole indefinitely. It’s called a photon sphere and it’s radius is 1.5 times the radius of the event horizon.
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@ bill – By FSM we live in a fascinating universe! I love all this stuff. But, must run…I’m such an addict! :)
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My brain hurts……yarrrr
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