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Einstein says that only some things are relative, but other things are absolute. The speed of light is always 299,792,458 meters/second. It might not move in a "straight" line, but it always travels 299,792,458 meters/second.

For example, suppose I am traveling on a railroad flat car moving on a straight track at 80 Km/hr, and I throw a ball in the same direction as the train is moving at 40 Km/hr. An observer on the ground (perhaps using a radar gun similar to what police officers use) would measure the speed of the ball with respect to the ground as 120 Km/hr.

Now... suppose instead that the train is traveling at 180,000 Km/sec, or 3/5c, and I throw the ball at 240,000 Km/sec or 4/5c. If the problem took place in a "Newtonian" universe, then the observer on the ground would see the ball moving at 7/5c or 420,000 Km/sec. But in fact, both the train, the ball, and my arm are Lorentz contracted. The observer on the ground sees the ball moving at

Vobs = (Vtrain + Vball)/(1 + ( Vtrain * Vball)/(C**2))

or (3c/5 + 4c/5) / ( 1+ (3c/5 * 4c/5 )/c**2 = 7/5 / 37/25 = 35c/37

(One of the reasons why we use 3c/5, 4c/5 in these problems is that 3,4, and 5 form a Pythagorean triple. In some cases, that's helpful, but not in this one.


So the point of this discussion is that while some things are relative, not all things are relative; and one must be careful using the laws of physics as social metaphores.

Jeff

Thank you, Jeff. A few additional thoughts...

I disagree. In my universe, ALL THINGS ARE RELATIVE. If that is what Einstein said, then he is wrong about that. :-) NOTHING IS ABSOLUTE! Can something go faster than the speed of light? Sure it can. Just like something can go faster than the speed of sound. The thing going faster may change its properties. The same applies to temperature. Temperature change does not destroy anything, it just changes the properties. When you think about it, adaptation is a pretty neat trick. We define our physical universe within our limited ability to measure and observe, we arbitrarily set boundaries. Do those boundaries really exist? Of course, not. Everything exists within the boundaries of plus infinity and minus infinity. What is infinity? It is that which is beyond the human ability to imagine. I might add the qualifier - in this dimension. We have yet to explore that when something exceeds the parameters of this dimension, it may just jump the boundaries and easily continue to exist in another dimension. We need to explore whether something can exist in multiple dimensions at the same time. I believe it can. From that point, we will open up new frontiers.

Physical things and philosophical concepts are all relataive and subject to ratio and proportion relationships. I also disagree that social relationships should ignore physics. On the contrary, we need much, much, more logic in the realm of human interaction. For instance, Love is measurable. We can measure the feel good changes in the body that love produces. Love is beneficial to human health. So, rather than being a "nice" thing to do, loving your neighbor is beneficial to the human race. What fun! Keep on keeping on... Mary

Here is the problem with saying that something can go faster than the speed of light. All massive things are affected by their relative velocity. As they go faster, they get shorter in the direction they are traveling, and they become heavier. The equation that describes this is sqrt(1-(v/c)**2) . For values of v that are very small compared to c, this is 1.0. For example, if you drive 100 Km/hr, you will gain about 1 part in ten billion weight: if you weigh 50 Kgs at rest, you will weigh 50.0000000005 Kgs at 100 Km/hr. However, if you drive 240,000 Km/sec or 4/5 c, then you will effectively weigh 50 / sqrt (1-(16/25)) = 50 / sqrt(9/25) = 50 / (3/5) = 83 Kg.

And we observe this experimentally. Protons, which are very very small, suddenly wieght as much as fruit flies. We believe that this theory describes the real world.

And therein lies the problem. When something goes faster than the speed of light, then its effective mass becomes imaginary. You have a B.A. in mathematics from a prestigious university (Auburn? I think?), so do the math. We do not under stand the meaning of negative mass as we have never observed gravitational repulsion, and imaginary mass has no meaning either. Also, in order to go from slower than light to faster than light requires an infinite amount of energy, and that can't happen. So even if it is possible to go faster than the speed of light (and the equations are consistent - you can have a universe where nothing goes SLOWER than the speed of light), it is challenging to understand how something in our universe could interact with something in this other universe. Therefore, it will be really hard to develope experimental evidence that this other universe exists.

Now, if you are looking for a challenging mathematical exercise, one that is worthy of your talents and energies, try modifying Maxwell's equations to admit the existance of magnetic Monopoles.

HI Mary,

After reading the discussions about speed of light, etc, my brain is pretty much fired up and going in circles. Its times like this I wish I had paid attention in class and finished college! My hubby and I ponder these things and he has a better grasp of the math. What keeps occuring to me is, that we are perceiving, measuring, etc, with limited tools. By this I mean the physical senses and the devices we can build to detect things beyond our senses. These are still extremely limited when compared to the unanswered questions of the cosmos, physics, even the earths formation (maybe even philosophy).

Enough for now.

Cheers,
Louise

Edited by author 05-25-2005 05:17 PM
My dear Louise, how correct you are. We don't understand enough about the real universe to fashion tools for exploring it - yet. In our lifetimes, basic research has revealed completely new questions - never mind the answers. In 1958, I remember questioning my Physics professor: "electricity and magnetism rules don't make sense". Back then Quantum Mechanics was the black arts. Ok, so there's electricity, magnetism, gravity, and... what force sucks stuff into black holes... and... what are black holes anyway... and ESP is some sort of energy/force, isn't it? It's all related. There's an equation, but we don't know the variables - yet.

Why doesn't human culture advance like science? Why does a generation have to die to give up bad philosophy? Why do we keep hating and hurting each other on this small planet? A lot of things don't make sense.

Scientists say that one day we might not have to die.

It's fun to think. :-)

Edited by author 08-25-2006 11:26 PM
Of course we have tools for exploring the universe - consider a magnifying glass. It allows you to see things that are very small, such as the pores on a blade of grass or on the back of your hand. Microscopes and telescopes are also tools for observing the universe. So is, or was, Stonehege.

I once did an experiment with two balloons, a ruler, and some string (blow up the balloons, tie them to the ruler, one at each end. Balance the ruler so that it's level. Pop one of the ballons. The other balloon will go down. Proof that air has mass).

The problem is that increasing vision is increasingly expensive, and demanding not just money but also technology.

I wrote an essay on the subject of forces on atomic nucleii, refer to http://www.commercialventvac.com/~jeffs/ForcesOfTheUniverse.html