[realityengineer]

Time is a measure of the interactions of substance within space.  Its passage is defined by the energy potential within localised space.

[MayoFlyFarmer]

i thought that if you had zero mass you could travel faster than light??

Are YOUR mice nude? []

[realityengineer]

well considering light [photons] do have zero mass, or are at least considered that way under current models, then you are infact saying light can travel faster than the speed of light.

[MayoFlyFarmer]

what if you had negative mass??

Are YOUR mice nude? []

[gsmollin]

Negative mass is repeled by positive mass, but positive mass is attracted to negative mass. So a positive mass would fall into a negative mass, which would fall away from the positive mass. It makes an interesting propulsion model. Nobody has seen any negative mass, however.

[DrN]

my head is starting to spin! how can positive mass be attracted to negative mass when it is in fact being repelled by the positive mass? Like the donkey and his carrot on a stick, always trying to reach it but constantly pushing it away. is negative mass antimatter? or is that something different entirely?

[MayoFlyFarmer]

is your head spinning faster than the speed of light?

Are YOUR mice nude? []

[neilep (OP)]

Isn't negative mass what a bunch of depressed catholics get up to ?

'Men are the same as women...just inside out !'

[realityengineer]

Where did you hear about the positive negative mass interactions?

[DrN]

quote:is your head spinning faster than the speed of light?

lol![]

not sure .... if it were would I be thinking thoughts I already thought of .... or ones I hadn't yet got round to thinking about?

[gsmollin]

quote:Originally posted by realityengineer

Where did you hear about the positive negative mass interactions?

I got it backwards. The negative mass has the anti-gravity, and repels the positive mass. But the positive mass has gravity, and attracts the negative mass. This pair would zoom off through the universe.

I read this in a book, "The New Physics", published by Cambridge University Press. It was in a chapter "The Renaissance of General Relativity", written by Clifford Will.

The negative mass concept comes about because of the negative sign of gravitational binding energy. The mass of a star or other compact object is always less than the mass of its constituent particles, if they were all placed at inifinity. As the star forms from the nebula, it must radiate its gravitational binding energy, and when it is done, it has less mass than the original nebula. The difference is the gravitational binding energy. Now it was postulated that if a compact mass shrank enough, it could lose enough gravitational binding energy to become a negative mass. This was debated for years, and a theorem of GR was proposed to prohibit this. It was proved by some mathematicians, and subsequently by GR theorists, using another method. So GR now prohibits negative mass, via the positive mass theorem.

[realityengineer]

so your saying that if negative mass existed, it would repel positive mass, but due to GR it doen't exist...

[gsmollin]

Yes, positive mass curves space towards it, and negative mass curves it away. However, much like the square root of -1, negative mass is not real.

[realityengineer]

doesn't exist in three dimensional space, got it.

[chimera]

quote:Originally posted by gsmollin

Time is a very peculiar dimension, is it not?
Einstein formalized this in the special theory of relativity. His four-dimensional world space is defined as x, y, z, and -ict.

But I wonder who ever said time has to be a 'whole' dimension? I can imagine reality having 'fractal' dimensions, meaning 1+1+1 plus time not equalling four, but maybe pi, for all we know. Maybe that's why pi is pi, because this universe is not truly 4 dimensional, but three-something-ish. It's sort of halfway between here and there, say.  Remember that in string theory they have 7 dimensions just 'rolled up', too.

Dunno, makes some weird sense, somehow. Systems with 'fixed' numbers generally don't work. There needs to be some 'tension' in the system, it seems. Some kind of imbalance.

[]

[MayoFlyFarmer]

oooooo.......   fun

Are YOUR mice nude? []

[chimera]

quote:Originally posted by MayoFlyFarmer



[1] oooooo.......   fun

[2] Are YOUR mice nude? []

[1] Oh, it gets much weirder than that. Remember electromagnetics does not only work in three dimensions, but also in one (1). This would seem a bit useless, but it means that theoretically you'd be allowed to switch single dimensions with others without a glitch. So if you had a shape like an icositetrahedron (24-cell, hyperdiamond) which is purely 4-dimensional, you could have a 'particle space' that could do the switcherola with 24 sides (8 by 3 model, known from quark fame) giving all kinds of hints of 7 dimensions 'rolled up', but failing to see it's actually 3 times 7 dimensions that you don't see all of the time. All this with slightly above industry-strength 'refresh rates', naturally.

It would also explain why some particle phenomena seem to happen 'elsewhere'. They do, in a sense.

The imperfect continuous translation from a 4 dimensional shape crammed into 3 leads to a surplus that we experience as time.

Sort of, but I think it's pretty close (seriously)

[2]Ofcourse, or I'd have a few pretty confused-looking snakes when I feed them. (just kidding).

[]

[chimera]

Now the polite thing to ask would be:

- have you taken your medicine recently? (don't have any, never worry)
or alternatively:
- do you have any supportive evidence for such far-fetched, apparent nonsense? (quite a bit, alas)

[]

[sharkeyandgeorge]

I thought super light paritcles like tacheons travelled faster than light how do they beat the rules?
also perhaps now is like a line with only one dimension so although it exists cannot be measured

i apologise for the spelling i know its atrosi atrro attro bad

[Ultima]

Tachyons are purely theoretical? Although Star Trek might want you to believe otherwise. Because something exists on paper in an equation doesn't mean it occurs in real life. On paper there as a miniscule (to the extreme) chance that if I run at a brick wall I will tunnel right on through un harmed... It's not going to happen, I've tried [].

http://physics.gmu.edu/~e-physics/bob/n.htm

wOw the world spins?