Does space ever end?

spiney · Oct 1, 2006

Easy link: http://darwin.nap.edu/books/0309090512/html/34.html .

(keep clicking on "next page" .....).

Difficult link:

http://www.drchinese.com/Bells_Theorem.htm .

PaulR's "joke" was referirng to the epr paradox (to which Bell's Theorem was the answer):

http://www.roxanne.org/epr/einstein1.html .

We know Bell was right, because of Aspect's experiment:

http://www.roxanne.org/epr/experiment.html .

Russell Too · Oct 1, 2006

Begining or end, implies time; but which way does time flow, forwards or backwards.
We think we are going forwards but the end may be the begining, in which case we are going backwards towards the begining so there will be no end
Time can flow eitherway depending on your point of view;

Regards Russell.

PCD · Oct 1, 2006

T_G said:
I am confused now, you say "joke", so does it mean this is actually true??

HI T_G

I think the likes of you and me should keep out of this one - it is getting far too confusing as it is !

Regards to all, pcd.

Likvid · Oct 1, 2006

By compressing space in the way you travel between A and B you can travel information faster than light.

There is no possibility today to do it as it's just a theory.

Saturlight · Oct 2, 2006

I was listening to that Heather Cooper this morning and she said imagine numbers, counting from 1 upward and backward...

It'll never end, because numbers are infinite, like space. So there'll always be 38 trillion. But there's a 90 trillion, 234,000 trillion.

RCP · Oct 2, 2006

Well I have to say I've been reading this post and cracking up laughing over the debate of the pros and cons of space, time and speed.

Having spent many years watching Star Trek, UFO and other sci-fi programs I have no doubt in my mind that the speed of light will be exceeded in just the same way as every previous speed record was broken.

Take for example the speed of sound which was proved beyond reasonable doubt in the 1930's 1940's and 1950's (history isn't my strong point!) could not be exceeded using the technology available at the time -- Until it was!

Just because some scientist from years ago said it could not be broken is like blinkering your sight.

For example, If you had spoken to someone in the 1960's and told them that you would be making phone calls without the use of wires they would have told you to stop daydreaming! - It's technology that holds us back.

Just because we haven't discovered it yet doesn't mean it can't exist!!!

Think this is a cracking thread, well done to whoever started it

JTA · Oct 2, 2006

Likvid said:
By compressing space in the way you travel between A and B you can travel information faster than light.

this is nonsense. As I (and spiney) have said before : nothing can travel faster than light.
It is true that the distance you can travel in a given "unit of time" grows larger if you increase your speed, but you will still be well inside the lightspeed-limit.
And another point on this "faster than light information exchange" : you might say that at the speed of light itself, the distance you can travel becomes infinite, so the information you carry with you comes available to any place in the universe instantly.
This is NOT true, because you're forgetting the basic rule of relativity : the time shift is relative to the moving object only :
- from your point of view, travelling at the speed of light, it took 0 seconds to get your information from A to B, no matter the distance between these 2 points in the universe.
- however, for any observer on point A and B, it took you the amount of time you'd expect from any object moving at light speed. If A and B were seperated by 10 lightyears, your information would need 10 years to travel from point A to point B.

So there is no such thing as the instant exchange of information.

JTA · Oct 2, 2006

RCP said:
Just because some scientist from years ago said it could not be broken is like blinkering your sight.

For example, If you had spoken to someone in the 1960's and told them that you would be making phone calls without the use of wires they would have told you to stop daydreaming! - It's technology that holds us back.

Just because we haven't discovered it yet doesn't mean it can't exist!!!

not just some scientist, it's Einstein himself who put this rule into existance. The speed of light is not "just another speed limit", it's pretty basic to the whole fabric of our universe, and it is at the base of it's very existance being part of the energy-matter conversion process (yes, E = Mc2).

I too like to keep an open mind, and I know that today's heroes may well be tomorrow's fools when science at this leven is involved, but I do think that we've worked out the basics of the universe pretty well, it's the details we're all arguing about.

spiney · Oct 2, 2006

Yes, indeed so JTA., lightspeed is not an "arbitary" limit.

Special relativity arises from the requirement for the laws of physics to be the same for all observers. Ignoring that leads to logical contradictions and gibberish, so it's a requirement "built into" the universe (as JTA so nicely put it!). Once accepted, then the rest follows, you can pretty much derive the Lorenz transform equations from their "necessary form".

The most elegant - using simple maths - way of deriving the Lorenz equations is via Bondi's k calculus:

http://www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/System/8956/Bondi/intro.htm .

Unfortunately, Saturlight, there's not just one infinity, because there's the transfinite numbers:

http://www.buzzle.com/showImage.asp?image=272 .
http://www.c3.lanl.gov/mega-math/workbk/infinity/inhotel.html .

http://dbanach.com/infin.htm .

Likvid · Oct 2, 2006

JTA said:
this is nonsense. As I (and spiney) have said before : nothing can travel faster than light.
It is true that the distance you can travel in a given "unit of time" grows larger if you increase your speed, but you will still be well inside the lightspeed-limit.
And another point on this "faster than light information exchange" : you might say that at the speed of light itself, the distance you can travel becomes infinite, so the information you carry with you comes available to any place in the universe instantly.
This is NOT true, because you're forgetting the basic rule of relativity : the time shift is relative to the moving object only :
- from your point of view, travelling at the speed of light, it took 0 seconds to get your information from A to B, no matter the distance between these 2 points in the universe.
- however, for any observer on point A and B, it took you the amount of time you'd expect from any object moving at light speed. If A and B were seperated by 10 lightyears, your information would need 10 years to travel from point A to point B.

So there is no such thing as the instant exchange of information.

Seems like you are stuck in time and only Einstein will rule the world in the future.

I guess you never heard of cheats and it's possible with masses of energy.

However we have no practical technique to do it today but the future seems bright.

By distorting space-time around the travelling ship, and in effect creates a region of space that moves with respect to the rest of space-time. Such a device requires the use of exotic matter, wormhole time machines, and a new family of time machines. Such a space/time ship would surf along the waves created. Or, it could travel in something called a Warp Bubble, which could be formed by contracting space in front of the ship and expanding it behind the ship and would thus enable the ship to actually travel faster than the speed of light.

This has been discussed in Dr.Bobbs Scientist magazine.

spiney · Oct 2, 2006

Unfortunately, Likvid, Einstein himself says you are wrong.

How mass-energy bends space-time is described in the "Einstein equation":

http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/NumRel/EinsteinEquations.html#intro .

Saturlight · Oct 2, 2006

Is it true the mass of a shoebox is equal to that of outer space, just mini fold? ;)

Likvid · Oct 2, 2006

spiney said:
Unfortunately, Likvid, Einstein himself says you are wrong.

How mass-energy bends space-time is described in the "Einstein equation":

http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/NumRel/EinsteinEquations.html#intro .

Maybe i shall contact the scientists who wrote the article in the magazine then and tell them Spiney says you are all wrong and see what their reaction will be?

Second you don't seem to know what i am sourcing to at all but talking about Einstein which is irrelevant in this case.

And who said Einsteins theory will be law in 500 years?

Have you ever heard of development in Physics?

spiney · Oct 2, 2006

Likvid said:
Seems like you are stuck in time and only Einstein will rule the world in the future.

It's you who invoked Einstein .....

A Star Trek "warp drive" is just not possible.

http://rucus.ru.ac.za/~wolfman/Essays/Trek/trektalk.html .

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1999/startrek-0331.html .

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/research/warp/warp.html .

Saturlight · Oct 2, 2006

Wasn't he autistic?

PaulR · Oct 2, 2006

Saturlight said:
Wasn't he autistic?

Say what?? Who???

spiney · Oct 2, 2006

http://home.att.net/~ascaris1/genius.html .

It's a recent claim. However, apparently, he did have about 17 brown suits, all exactly the same, so he didn't have to decide what to wear (in Roland Clark's biog). And he didn't do very well in his 1st degree, having to "cram" to pass!

Read 1st part of:

http://www.germanheritage.com/biographies/atol/einstein.html .

Also: http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/19980907140525data_trunc_sys.shtml

RCP · Oct 4, 2006

This thread is definately going off the rails ;)

Look, just because some scientist called Einstein invented the 1st principals of physics a few hundred years ago doesn't mean the rules can't be changed or improved.

If someone had asked him if we would be listening to music in the future, with a device using no moving parts, and not much bigger than a packet of cigarettes he would have laughed - This device more commonly known today as an Apple iPod or equivalent.

A better example would be the latest LCD televisions receiving visual footage without wires, from of all things a satellite orbiting Earth. Would Einstein have been able to provide details on this technology? No, of course he couldn't, so why do the laws of physics have to stop at what he said? Technology moves on...

Even in the 1970's mobile phones were just a dream!

Remember that many years ago (actually well before I was born) everyone thought the world was flat. Those that said there was more to the universe than a flat world were ridiculed and perhaps flogged to death!

The laws of physics are there to be broken!

Look over at Area 51 in the USA where technological wonders are tested to their limits.

As to the Star Trek "warp drive" not being possible, well it's currently not possible, only due to our current technological restraints, who knows what we will have achieved in another 500 years time? Perhaps a better mcdonalds burger...OK was kidding over the last comment

JTA · Oct 4, 2006

RCP said:
The laws of physics are there to be broken!

oh dear - is this thread still running

look,
1000 years ago, water was something you drank, bathed or swimmed in.
nowadays we know it's chemical composition and characteristics, but it's still plain old water.
You may refine your knowledge of a subject, but that subject will remain the same nevertheless.

You cannot break any law of physics, you must comply to them. You may refine your knowledge and find many uses from what you've found out, but you must stay within the boundaries of the laws within this universe.

If you drop an infinite amount of mass into space, you'll just succeed into creating a hole into it. You will not create a wormhole, you'll create a singularity. What happens inside the singularity is anybody's guess, all physical laws seem to break down at this point. Anything entering the singularity is crushed out of existance. The singularity will curve the space-time around it, into a bottomless pit. Yes, you've made a black hole.

A wormhole is some sort of "shortcut" between 2 points in space. There is nothing in the current laws of physics that allows this to exist, and this is not likely to change.

And about time travel : yes, it's proven that it is possible. You just need to put the whole of the universe into a spin. Needless to say that the auther didn't give any clue on how to do this - he even told that to his opinion "it would be very unlikely that this can be done". So what's the use of such a proof ?

The universe is as it is, if you don't like it, just try out another one, there's enough of them in M-space, each having their own set of physical laws. How do you get there ? To my opinion, it is very unlikely that this will be possible

I've said all I have to say on this subject.

Saturlight · Oct 5, 2006

"Einstein could have been completely wrong, for he was simply a mortal with a massive brain." DISCUSS.

Does space ever end?

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