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OK, in very simplistic terms (and I'll probably be crucified for simplifying things so far, but you wanted it simple), let us look at the relation of time and length.If you are travelling by motor car, and it takes to 5 minutes to travel between two towns that are 5 miles apart, then you are travelling at 50mph.Now, if it takes you 4 minutes to travel between those two towns, then you have a number of possibilities:1) you have sped up to 75mph.2) the towns have moved closer together, and are now only 4 miles apart.3) your clock is slow, and time has stretched out, so that what was 5 minutes is now only 4 minutes.If one now says that your car is not capable of going faster than 60mph, then we can discount the first possibility; so one is left with the other two possibilities. Either the owns have moved closer together, or time has stretched out.As it happens, depending on your perspective, you may claim one to be true or that the other is true. OK, the speed limit on your car is not actually 60mph, but actually 186,000 miles per second; but as you get close to that speed, the people inside the car will see the towns moving closer together, whereas people on the outside will claim that the clocks the people inside the car are using are running slow (but it is not just mechanical clocks, but all aspects of time, from human ageing to the rates of chemical reactions, or any way in which one can measure time).
you're making a strange set of assumptions. Firstly, who says light can travel at the maximum possible speed for anything?
Second, if my car were to speed up (the first selection), then that does not necessarily validate one or both of the others. You're using the theory I'm inquiring about as an explanation. Just because I'm moving faster does not mean I see things moving closer together, it just means they get closer faster (simultaneously, things behind me would move away faster), so it would not look like they were moving closer together. (Likewise, moving the towns closer together would not increase my speed).
Also, what's the idea behind that if you approach the speed of light, you become infinitely dense? And how does E=MCC work?
I got confused reading that! []
First of all, the speed of light is not constant, light slows down (shown by black holes and how they can bend light towards them or make it change direction), but yet it is still used as a constant.
I consider that a very biased opinion. Please support it. If you can say that for light, you can really say that for anything. I always travel at the same speed, sometimes there's just stuff in my way.
..just because nothing faster has been measured, it's considered the maximum speed? That's terrible rationalization! (No offense).
Okay, so if I concede (good work on that.. it's hard to get me to concede anything) that at infinite mass, whatever you're pushing can't be accelerated, and I assume for now that the speed of light is the maximum speed of anything, that still doesn't mean that anything traveling at the speed of light has infinite mass, because multiple factors determine whether or not something can be accelerated.
Okay, so E is the amount of energy an object contains when it's not moving? Or its potential energy, or what?Wait, when you split an atom, aren't all the particles inside it just separated from eachother? I was under the (apparently false) impression that the energy released was the energy from the bonds being broken.
Quote from: RobotGymnast on 01/03/2008 18:17:38Okay, so if I concede (good work on that.. it's hard to get me to concede anything) that at infinite mass, whatever you're pushing can't be accelerated, and I assume for now that the speed of light is the maximum speed of anything, that still doesn't mean that anything traveling at the speed of light has infinite mass, because multiple factors determine whether or not something can be acceleratedNo - if something cannot be accelerated, the no matter what multiplicity of forces you have, you cannot accelerate it. No matter how many forces you have, the key issue is that the sum of all those forces represents a nett force acting on the object, and it remains that no matter what nett force applies to the object, you cannot make it accelerate once it has reached the speed of light.
Okay, so if I concede (good work on that.. it's hard to get me to concede anything) that at infinite mass, whatever you're pushing can't be accelerated, and I assume for now that the speed of light is the maximum speed of anything, that still doesn't mean that anything traveling at the speed of light has infinite mass, because multiple factors determine whether or not something can be accelerated
possible acceleration = yes;if mass is infinite OR maximum speed attained OR [other conditions]then possible acceleration = no;
Quote from: RobotGymnast on 01/03/2008 18:17:38Okay, so E is the amount of energy an object contains when it's not moving? Or its potential energy, or what?Wait, when you split an atom, aren't all the particles inside it just separated from eachother? I was under the (apparently false) impression that the energy released was the energy from the bonds being broken.No, there is a measurable difference in the mass of the whole from the mass of the parts (it is a very small difference, but it is there). One can debate whether the mass comes from the mass contributed by the bonds, or a change in mass of the constituent parts themselves (I believe the consensus is the former, but for the purpose of the issue at hand, the difference does not matter).I believe there are now a number of different experiments that can show that mass is not always conserved, but when mass changes, there is a change in energy that reflects the increase or decrease in mass.
Sorry, I should've been more clear. I'll explain what I meant in pseudocode..Code: [Select]possible acceleration = yes;if mass is infinite OR maximum speed attained OR [other conditions]then possible acceleration = no;the ORs are inclusive. I just meant that because one condition is true, it doesn't mean the others are true as well.
But how does raising something to infinite mass make it move at infinite speed? Or are you saying that if something has infinite mass, it has the potential to move at the maximum speed?Also, if the maximum speed is a finite number, shouldn't things below infinite mass be able to attain it? And what about photons? They travel at the speed of light, they define the speed of light; are they infinitely dense?And isn't it possible that certain things have a maximum speed point, where others have different ones?So you're saying that something of infinite mass has the capability to travel at the maximum speed, but if something accelerates towards the maximum speed, does its mass increase? Does that mean that the supposed singularity of a black hole travels at the speed of light?Thanks