This Looks Like The Right Place

One of the things that I find puzzling about the internet/usegroups is the need for so many to put down other folks. I even catch myself doing it, from time to time.

Group dynamics? Perhaps.

After seeing so many fundamental changes in physics just in my life time, I am not too eager to accept much as being the final word on any topic.

In the same week, two organizations in separate studies issued edicts regarding the use of caffeinated products by diabetics. Yep, they revealed completely opposite opinions.

With knowledge being as spontaneous and fluid as it is, is it worth offending another person over? Not to me.

Ed Cregger

discussion.

But not a good example of infinity, cut it and it has two surfaces. I see it as two surfaces joined with a twist. I know exactly how a topologist describes it. I am not trying to explain mathmatics.

Time changes with all gravity, not just high gravity, just so small we cannot measure it. Clearly you have not grasped the meaning of infinate.

Some of us have though several times in our lives.

1) the first time I messed up a loop and knew the crash was inevitable...time dialted and slowed.

2) Filling a fuel tank...just when it starts to seem bottomless time speeds up and the tank is full.

3) first time I took a nose dive out of a tree ( 7 y/o ) it took a year to think "This is going to hurt"

Like the speed of sound the C is not a constant and is subject to outside influences. That we are currently unable to measure these changes does not mean they do not. I'm of the opinion (fwiw) that C is not a "Limit" as such. Rather it is like the speed of sound...we just haven't figured how to go that fast yet.

So, how fast is the light going relative to me? ;^)

1C always.

From 'flyrcalot' to Paul McIntosh:

Bear in mind that the 'ether' of the old theorists was assumed to be static and immobile, like a rigid lattice. The Michelson-Morley (note spelling) null result proved the non-existance of a laterally-flowing 'ether wind', ergo, no 'ether' period. The MM experiment was geared to look for a lateral flow only, not a VERTICAL flow, and rightly rejected the notion of a 'rigid lattice'. So, in not investigating the possibility of a vertical flow, could it be that the baby was thrown out with the bathwater? Remember that General Relativity's description of gravity is just that-- a downstream _description of effects_ (i.e., 'curvature of space' and the 'ball on the rubber sheet' analogy). GR does not address the _cause_ of those effects. Could the cause of gravity be a vertical flow *into* a gravitating mass?

If such were the case, the MM null result would be consistent with a vertical, entrained flow and would in fact be expected.

GR is brilliantly conceived and has been proven correct over and over. But it is an edifice of *desriptions of effects*, not _explanations of causation_ . GR's equations are based on the "space-as-void" paradigm.. and the math describes gravity just fine, up to a point. But the explanation of the _cause_ of gravity eludes all the math, as Einstein learned during the last 30 years of his life.

Could it be that Uncle Albert, in his weddedness to the 'void-space' paradigm and MIS-interpetation of the MM null result, denied himself his most cherished prize- the unification of gravity in the Unified Field Theory?

The 'language of mathematics' can "prove" whatever pre-held premise one wishes it to prove. And it 'works' quite well in the void-space regime, up to a point, just as it did in Ptolemy's geocentrism, "proving" the earth is the fixed center of the universe. Could it be that the 'void-space' premise is the modern equivalent of Ptolemaic geocentrism? Bill(oc)

I think it's 1c, actually. C is symbol for coulomb(s), the SI unit of electrical charge.

It isn't expanding _into_ anything. It's just expanding.

No, not into nothingness. It's the nothingness _itself_ that is expanding.

I don't understand the question.

Perhaps not. Whether or not our brains can cope is immaterial. The universe is the way it is. IMO, quantum physics is far more bizarre than anything cosmology has to offer, but it too has been proven correct time and time again over the past 70 years. As Niels Bohr said, "Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it."

But in this case there are goldfish who can conceptualize algebra. They have names like Newton, Einstein, Hawking, Morrison, Feynman, Hubbel, and so on.

Could be, but I don't see how that effects anything.

That's your prerogative. Fortunately for us, the Wright brothers chose not to give up on the problem and stick to building bicycles just as others choose not to give up on the problems of cosmology. I'm not bright enough to figure out the answers on my own, but I can at least try to understand the answers that others have found.

And on the 100th anniversary of the "year of Einstein", I think we should all be glad he didn't just give up on the problem as well.

OK, I'm done trying to explain cosmology in this NG (something for which I'm sure you're all grateful). If anybody really wants to pursue the subject further, I can recommend some reading -- starting with "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking. Any decent library should have it, or you can get your own copy:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Grant, if you want to impress us, derive the equations. Otherwise get off your exalted pedestal.

Thank You -Paul

Then, how come it can't escape a black hole?

Its far more complec than that, and there are many models of the 'way things are' that produce results not inconsistent with the data, trouble is none of them are consistent across all the data.

The nature of the worldviews being explored is truly weird. If there is a single underlying mathematical reality, its one where space and time are just arbitrary ways of looking at it, that's for sure.

I think it was either Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett who remarked that 'the basic trouble with understanding nature, is we are still trying to do it in a language designed by one ape to tell another where the best banana was'

Really, thats about the most simple way of describing the problem facing moden physics, I have come across yet...

No. Space is something. Space has properties of dimension, area, and volume. Those properties also imply properties of inside and outside. Space also implies existence.

Take all those properties away, and you have the nothing that space is expanding inside of.

They can cope with it rather better than a finite space with nothing outside it, it would seem.

Good choice.

Pete

Because it isn't quite like that.

Let's say that it takes longer then infinite time at a finite speed to escape a black hole.

Almost everyone likes some kind of music. Let us say you are at a concert. Makes no difference if it is the NY Met, the Boston Symphony or a Travis Trit concert in Branson. Lets say someone behind you is tapping their foot loudly thruout the concert. But they have no musical sense and are tapping out of time. Also humming along out of key or singing part time but they only know a few of the words, again out of key. Any of you would consider such a person a boorish lout. You would be angry and probably bitch to the person and if she persisted bitch to the management. You would rightly be offended as music has a beauty that this person is spoiling. Their behavior is plainly offensive.

To someone who appreciates the beauty of math to hear someone make ignorant, boorish comments like "a mobius strip has two sides as I can prove by cutting it in half" is just as offensive. People like this should be shown the door and told to shut up until they can behave like adults and not be such boors. They are fully as offensive as those who decide to behave poorly in the concert. If they wish to shit in their own pants they should do it in private.

Physics is not finished in terms of trying to understand the universe. Perhaps it never will be finished. But as time goes on we understand more and more. The best idea we have today happens to be string theory in most educated peoples minds. String theory has accomplished a great deal. It tells us why we have exactly three physically large dimensions. All of both quantum mechanics and relativity can now be derived directly from string theory. It also has not answered all questions. For instance it does not provide Planks constant or the rest mass of a proton. As the mathematics is better understood it may provide these things. Or it may not and we may have to move on to another idea. It is a pure mathematical theory. Any replacement also will be pure mathematics.

The MM experiments of course have also been done with one leg in the vertical dimension relative to earth with exactly the same result. Any orientation argument is pure nonsense

Light travels at c in a black hole just as elsewhere. It does not escape because the g field is so high that the light inside the escape limit travels in a curve with a radius less then that of the escape limit and is thus bent too much to ever escape.

"flyrcalot" SNIP

Or more simply "Space isn't just curved it's down right bent out of any shape we can comprehend at the moment" The shortest distance between two points IS NOT A STRAIGHT LINE! The shortest distance between two points is when you bring them together. I can concieve that idea but I doubt that I'll ever have the math to make it happen.

I'm not trying to impress, but I was hoping to educate -- apparently in vain. I already said I'm not bright enough to find the answers myself, and will freely admit I can't derive all of "the equations".

From 'flyrcalot':

offensive.

Heh. That feeling IS familiar, with the 'void-space paradigm' (VSP) and the popular 'raisin bread' analogy to illustrate spatial expansion. Under the VSP, the bread has only raisins and no dough, just "nothingness", pure void, between the raisins. So how can 'nothingness' be undergoing expansion as evidenced by the cosmological redshift (not just the Doppler recession component, but the _cosmological_ component)?

The 'Void-Spacers' are confronted with overwhelming evidence that space is most profoundly 'Something'. But to maintain their premise, they resort to ad hockery such as 'dark matter', dark energy, 'quintessence', curled-up 'extra dimensions' and 'strings' (strings of What, pray tell?). And of course there's the "messenger particles"- a whole menagerie of various '-otons', '-itons' and '-onons' necessary to carry radiation across the 'Void'. This is a latter-day version of the imps and angels of medeival religionists. And it's the modern equivalent to geocentrism.

That's being a little harsh on the Void-Spacers, don't you think?

True, because the vertical arm of the apparatus undergos Lorentzian foreshortening, exactly cancelling any phase shift- again yielding null result.

But gravity, by its abundance of effects, clearly demonstrates an accelerating, omnidirectional 'reverse starburst' FLOW into a gravitating mass. And GR's 'curvature' brilliantly (but abstractly) describes the _acceleration rate_ of this flow. Bill(oc)