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  3. Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology
  4. Why must c be an absolute "speed limit"?
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Why must c be an absolute "speed limit"?

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Offline opportunity

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Re: Why must c be an absolute "speed limit"?
« Reply #20 on: 21/02/2018 14:37:43 »
Newton offered formulas for gravity.

Einstein offered relativity for "objects" and time.

Dirac offered what is very little understood, the increase of energy with bodies moving closer together in a field influence.

Many then sought particle and anti-particle obliteration to accommodate for Dirac's ideas regarding energy.

The search is then, as that unfolded, "energy equivelenace" which pre-supooses it seems an equation to balance everything?

What are we looking for exactly? A correct and useful way to more efficenitly use travel through space?
« Last Edit: 21/02/2018 14:39:53 by opportunity »
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Offline Colin2B

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Re: Why must c be an absolute "speed limit"?
« Reply #21 on: 21/02/2018 14:42:44 »
Quote from: opportunity on 21/02/2018 12:01:29
I thought the gravitational well is currently held by the Planck scale?
I don’t understand your comment, or your 3 subsequent posts below.
Nothing in the planck constant or length implies a speed limit, that comes from Maxwell’s equations not Planck.
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Re: Why must c be an absolute "speed limit"?
« Reply #22 on: 21/02/2018 14:46:15 »
Quote from: Colin2B on 21/02/2018 14:42:44
Quote from: opportunity on 21/02/2018 12:01:29
I thought the gravitational well is currently held by the Planck scale?
I don’t understand your comment, or your 3 subsequent posts below.
Nothing in the planck constant or length implies a speed limit, that comes from Maxwell’s equations not Planck.

You'll have to help me here. Quanta is an atomic phenomena. I'm like you, "how does that work on the Planck scale"?
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Re: Why must c be an absolute "speed limit"?
« Reply #23 on: 21/02/2018 17:45:29 »
Quote from: opportunity on 21/02/2018 14:46:15
"how does that work on the Planck scale"?
Nothing on the Planck length or constant implies a speed limit. Need to look elsewhere eg Maxwell
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Re: Why must c be an absolute "speed limit"?
« Reply #24 on: 21/02/2018 21:06:09 »
Quote from: geordief
How much faster than c  do or can  (information bearing ?)  processes seem to happen outside a gravitational well for an observer inside it?
It depends on your frame of reference.

If you manage to position yourself close to the event horizon of a supermassive black hole (without getting scattered into an accretion disk), time is slowed dramatically, and events outside the galaxy could appear to be happening much faster than the speed of light. It just depends on how close you can get to the event horizon.

And that's ok, because in General Relativity, everything is Relative to your frame of reference (including your local speed of light in a vacuum, which is always c).

Quote from: opportunity
On the small scale there's is a volcano of energy available on the Planck scale, and on the large scale we can't work out where all the forces comply?
A development quite independent of the Plank scale is String Theory.

In this hypothesis, the universe consists of more dimensions than our familiar 4 dimensional spacetime - as many as 10 dimensions, in some versions.

The reason we don't see these extra dimensions is because they are "rolled up" really small. So you really can't travel very far along these dimensions before you end up where you started.

If correct, these rolled up dimensions would have a major impact on the world around us - if we imagine subatomic particles as waves, only waves that have an integer number of wavelengths along these dimensions could be stable; all others would interfere with themselves and collapse. This would affect fundamental aspects of our universe, including the speed of light.

But for now, string theory is just a hypothesis - it has managed to reproduce Einstein's General Relativity (apparently including the fact that gravitational disturbances travel at the speed of light), but has not yet reproduced Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism, or the Standard Model of subatomic particles.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstring_theory#Extra_dimensions
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Re: Why must c be an absolute "speed limit"?
« Reply #25 on: 21/02/2018 22:15:53 »
String theory isn't simple enough to be correct. Quantum mechanics is simple and self contained. As is special relativity. Once you start having to expand the complexity to try to make sense of a theory then you are obviously on the wrong course. The blindingly obvious is being missed somewhere.
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Re: Why must c be an absolute "speed limit"?
« Reply #26 on: 22/02/2018 00:09:24 »
Quote from: jeffreyH on 21/02/2018 22:15:53
String theory isn't simple enough to be correct. Quantum mechanics is simple and self contained. As is special relativity. Once you start having to expand the complexity to try to make sense of a theory then you are obviously on the wrong course. The blindingly obvious is being missed somewhere.

Completely agree.

If there is an elegant solution available, it more than likely will make quantum mechanics and relativity crystal clear. Considering how to avoid string theory also means re-addressing the same questions that lead to string theory yet with different answers.
« Last Edit: 22/02/2018 00:42:27 by opportunity »
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Re: Why must c be an absolute "speed limit"?
« Reply #27 on: 22/02/2018 12:12:12 »
It is always worth revisiting the history of science. Reading the biographies of the science pioneers can give a better insight into the development of ideas and theories. It will never be easy to overturn a mainstream theory without a well grounded understanding of the background of its development. Also an understanding of the mathematics is a necessity.
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Re: Why must c be an absolute "speed limit"?
« Reply #28 on: 22/02/2018 17:05:31 »
No one mentioned the fact that energy is transferred at c, therefore the faster an object moves, the more time required to accelerate the object. Time dilation prevents an object from reaching c.
It is the same reason for the (obsolete) increase in relativistic mass.
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Re: Why must c be an absolute "speed limit"?
« Reply #29 on: 22/02/2018 18:23:38 »
Quote from: puppypower on 22/02/2018 13:49:29
Maybe I need show how it is broken, but I run the risk of  censor due to misunderstanding.
No problem, show us in New Theories
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