Ouroboros
Coincidentia oppositorum
Sorry. But no.
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Gravitational Waves. oh really?
- Thread starter Jonathan Ainsley Bain
- Start date
Jonathan Ainsley Bain
Logical Positivist
Yup, proving relativity wrong is like ripping apart a straw man.
Absolutely.
The tough part is putting it back together so that it works!
http://www.flight-light-and-spin.com/relativity-revised-summary.htm
Thief
Rogue Theologian
I'm guessing you don't believe in action for reaction
and that all motion is relative
freethinker44
Well-Known Member
Nope, if their mass and speed were equal it would be like hitting a wall at 60mph for each vehicle. One vehicle collides with the other at 60 and the other one collides at 60. You can't add the speeds. Even without the science, they covered this one on Mythbusters.
I don't have to. The first sentence indicates a fatal flaw and a fundamental misunderstanding of BOTH Galilean AND modern (i.e., special and general) relativity. It is impossible for two spaceships to be "unmoving" because motion, centuries before Einstein, was still understood in relative terms. Galileo showed that everything moves with respect to (i.e., relative to) other things and it is impossible to determine by means of experiments or experiments if one is actually stationary and whether another seemingly moving body is actually in motion (he showed there is no detectable uniform motion). The problem is that the logic employed wasn't sufficiently examined to determine its implications, and in Newtonian mechanics it was assumed that it was safe to assert all bodies could be said to move with respect to/relative to space. One can derive contradictions to this merely from Galilean relativity, and demonstrate that although we move in space, there cannot exist any "absolute space" which anything moves relative to. Thus whether something is "at rest" or in motion is determined entirely by a selection of a coordinate system with a particular orientation, or a reference frame.
Also, you've misunderstood time dilation. The two spaceships cannot themselves be affected by time dilation anymore than anything can other than via a comparison between or among observers. It is not an absolute property of anything, but a consequence of
1) a lack of a preferred reference frame
&
2) the constancy of the speed of light.
Time dilation and length contraction refer to how the observation of the duration of time intervals or of length is affected, such that two or more observers can all obtain differing values of measurements that are equally valid. It DOES NOT SAY and it is absurd to say that because two spaceships are travelling close to the speed of light they themselves are somehow affected by time dilation in some absolute sense. The whole point of special relativity here is there is no such absolute sense.
The idea is simple, and fails just as simply. The entire point of good versions of illustrations like yours is that they don't confuse the fundamental roles played. For example, signals propagate at finite velocities. A spaceship travelling near the speed of light will send a signal when it observes that it has passed C, but to the other spaceship the signal reaches C much later because by the time it reaches the second spaceship the first is long gone. To the observer at C, NEITHER spaceship sent a signal as they passed C, and thus the observer at C will have a clock that determines the signals reached C at a time that neither spaceship does, and both spaceships will disagree as to who sent a signal first.
Let's try again.
Consider an observer B stationary with respect to an observer A moving parallel at a constant rate in a vehicle. As I already went through this before, let’s say it’s a train car:
Note that the image given is from Bob's stationary perspective. He and Alice are directly across from one another at the instant the light source (spark from lightening) hits the front and rear of the train car from Bob's perspective, and thus from his perspective the two light waves propagate from the front and rear simultaneously:
This isn't what Alice sees. She is moving towards the light wave coming from the front of the train car, and away from the light wave coming from the rear. So to Alice, lightening hit the front first:
In the above picture, the light wave from the lightening has that hit the front of the car has reached Alice, and so she can now say that lightening hit the front of the train car, causing the spark. For her, though, lightening hasn't hit the rear of the train car at all. Bob has a better reason, though, for thinking the two sparks from the two lightening bolts occurred simultaneously:
He sees the two light waves reach the same position at the same time. So he saw the sparks from the lightening flash at the same time and meet at the same point travelling the same distance, thus the sparks (and the lightening) occurred simultaneously.
However, he is seeming them meet before Alice can even say there was a lightening bolt that struck the back of the train, let alone a spark that caused the light wave that she has seen.
Your situation is similar but adds the complexity of a reflector to get the triangle (and the generalization of it for time dilation). In your version we have something like this:
The light started from delta 0 and traveled straight up and down length l, giving us a time interval
But that's not what Bob observes, as he observes a different length and thus a different time interval as in the equations below:
If we solve the top equation for d and plug the result into the bottom equation we get one equation all in terms of Δt. We square it to obtain:
Δt is now related to Δt0 through an equation that tells us (thanks to the denominator) that the time interval for Bob is greater than that for Alice (Δt > Δt0)
Consider an observer B stationary with respect to an observer A moving parallel at a constant rate in a vehicle. As I already went through this before, let’s say it’s a train car:
Note that the image given is from Bob's stationary perspective. He and Alice are directly across from one another at the instant the light source (spark from lightening) hits the front and rear of the train car from Bob's perspective, and thus from his perspective the two light waves propagate from the front and rear simultaneously:
This isn't what Alice sees. She is moving towards the light wave coming from the front of the train car, and away from the light wave coming from the rear. So to Alice, lightening hit the front first:
In the above picture, the light wave from the lightening has that hit the front of the car has reached Alice, and so she can now say that lightening hit the front of the train car, causing the spark. For her, though, lightening hasn't hit the rear of the train car at all. Bob has a better reason, though, for thinking the two sparks from the two lightening bolts occurred simultaneously:
He sees the two light waves reach the same position at the same time. So he saw the sparks from the lightening flash at the same time and meet at the same point travelling the same distance, thus the sparks (and the lightening) occurred simultaneously.
However, he is seeming them meet before Alice can even say there was a lightening bolt that struck the back of the train, let alone a spark that caused the light wave that she has seen.
Your situation is similar but adds the complexity of a reflector to get the triangle (and the generalization of it for time dilation). In your version we have something like this:
The light started from delta 0 and traveled straight up and down length l, giving us a time interval
But that's not what Bob observes, as he observes a different length and thus a different time interval as in the equations below:
If we solve the top equation for d and plug the result into the bottom equation we get one equation all in terms of Δt. We square it to obtain:
Δt is now related to Δt0 through an equation that tells us (thanks to the denominator) that the time interval for Bob is greater than that for Alice (Δt > Δt0)
Thief
Rogue Theologian
did they really?
so 60mph into a stationary item is the same as.....
another 60mph head on?
and you really believe mythbusters get it right everytime?
I got news for you.....I've done 60 to 0.....and walked away......
and I know .....if that other vehicle had been head on instead of just pulling out in front.......
no one would be going anywhere but the grave
and speed is relative.
What? you can't see this in your head?.......really?
place yourself in a seat on a train, not stopping at the up coming station
you move past a train in the station.....it was sitting still...
later, pass another train as it moves in the other direction on the other track.....
now think!!!!!
at the station .....the idle train
on the open track.....the other train moving in the opposite direction.....
and they look the same to you?
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freethinker44
Well-Known Member
Yes, a 60mph collision with a wall is identical to a 60mph head on collision of objects with equal mass.
You're adding speeds together. Try adding velocities instead. One car is going 60mph, the other is going -60mph, because it's in the opposite direction it's a negative value.
They cancel out, not double.
Ouroboros
Coincidentia oppositorum
I think that you're supposed to work with the forces, like F=mv.
And in the case of speed of light, it's really comes down to energy. Velocity is kinetic energy. Adding energy to light doesn't increase its speed but its energy, which is increase in frequency and decrease in wavelength. E=h*f and c=(lambda)*f.
Edit. Doh!
It should be F=ma
As pointed out in later posts
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freethinker44
Well-Known Member
F=ma, momentum (P)=mv. You're right we should be talking in terms of force, not speed or velocity, I was just trying to explain in the same terms it was stated in to avoid the inevitable facepalm of, "I get what you're saying but I'm talking about speed not force."
And yet another misrepresentation of my post.
Your misunderstandings of relativity are noted.
Relevance?
That is the crux of what relativity is about.
Ouroboros
Coincidentia oppositorum
I think we all (as humans) fall into the trap of thinking of velocity being something we can easily add up. It works in most cases, in general, in normal life. But not at high speeds. (It's like many 1st year students in algebra make the mistake of adding a/b+c/d to (a+c)/(b+d).)
If I'm going on a train, throwing a ball forward, then the balls speed in relation to the ground is train speed + ball speed. If I throw it to the back of the train, the ball speed in relation to the ground is train speed - ball speed. It works because we can omit mass and force and all other considerations, and it seems natural to our observations in life.
But, as both you and I pointed out, when we're getting up in higher speeds, we have to add the proper things, like force and energy, and speed (velocity) doesn't apply as we think anymore. Our "normal" or intuitive sense of reality breaks down.
It's a fact, as far as all thousands of experiments confirm, that light speed doesn't change. It can change energy, which will change frequency and wavelength, but the speed (freq * wavelen) stays the same. If this wasn't true, we'd have problems with spectrography, comparing magnitudes of star, and much more in astronomy. If light can change speed willy-nilly, basically a huge amount of astronomical science would be worthless.
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Ouroboros
Coincidentia oppositorum
I just realized something else.
The constancy of speed of light is necessary for us to be able to have a comprehensible experience of things.
Imagine if the light could travel in different speeds. I'm looking at a box. Some of the light is going in 300,000 km/s, some at double speed, some in half. It doesn't affect my experience much, but imagine if some light goes in 1 mm/hr or something. It would mean that I would get images of that box now, a couple of seconds from, and all the way to hours later, of the same situation. And not only from the box, but from all things around me. It would become a blur of current and past motions and experiences all jumbled up in a big cacophony of light. The only way we can see a thing, as it was experienced right now, in this moment, and not experience that moment with light hours from now, is because all the light, all the colors, from that exposure/reflection is close to simultaneous and hits the eye close to simultaneous as well (reflections and refractions disregarded). So, light has to travel at a constant speed for the world to make sense to us.
--edit
Thinking about it a bit more, I think the speed of sound waves are also constant in uniform medium. If the air density is such and such, then all sound waves move in the same speed, regardless of amplitude, frequency, or wavelength. The speed is the same for them all.
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Thief
Rogue Theologian
I have never heard of anyone else ever making consideration as follows....
a wave of light carries a certain amount of energy.
when the speed of light is obtained the mass therein is filled with energy to it's full ability
no greater content can be dealt.
oh!...if a mass COULD hold more energy after full acceleration.......WARP SPEED!
may Star Trek go on forever!
Thief
Rogue Theologian
so you can see the pivot point I made.....post147
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Thief
Rogue Theologian
I thought it was Latin......ooops.....
Ouroboros
Coincidentia oppositorum
Light doesn't have mass.
Space warping is somethibng different. It's a clever way of sidetracking the limitations. It's already been done with super-sonic torpedoes for water. You break the barrier by creating a bubble, pushed the medium around you. So technically, a space warping ship is travelling below the speed limit inside the bubble.