gads, even at ~lightspeed, she's seriously shortened her lifespan by the time she's back from
rigel.
am seriously reconsidering that hot-air balloon trip i've got booked to andromeda
www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einst...
99.9% the speed of light? Pussies! Get with the times.
www.eurekalert.org/pub_rele...
i quite like those condensates where the speed of light is slower than walking pace. so they swirl them, and as a result of the vortex, they are, quite literally, black holes. light can not escape.
with no serious gravity.
has anyone else ever wondered about the fact that, since light has an absolute top speed, in any direction, that that implies that there is an absolute zero?
which alters the implications of the TimeIsRelative experiment where they threw a plane up for a while (and compared the time on a clock it carried vs matching clock left behind at starting point). if you can now keep it up in the air for long enough to come back to the same point after circling the earth (ideally having started in the direction of the orbit and in the plane of the ecliptic) ("same point" e.g. being a balloon or ejected remote), then if time/speed IS genuinely relative, why, the net is 0. because despite the plane doing X00 miles an hour, it has done so in a circle so that the net relative speed is 0. so the two clocks should have the same time. and if they don't, well... maybe speed is not the right thing to look at, or is only a valid shortcut indication under some circumstances.
oh, and re "slowing light down", bear in mind that everything non-vacuum slows light down. 186etc top speed drops to 122 in ordinary window glass, for example, which is only 2 and a bit times faster than what this article quotes. considering refraction angles might be related to light speed (eg measured differences b/w water and glass), i'd be very interested to see what lightspeed is in the modern (spectacle) lens glasses.
which suggests that people who wear glasses are a little 'slow'
Posted by
Brock, around August 2005:
/me fashions a sharp stabbing implement from his glasses and waits it out in Bedford
It means, ACTUALLY (fuckball) that the opinion of people who wear glasses is generally more worthwhile, as they have had a little bit longer than all you "one lensers" to take in and appreciate the world around us. Reasoned and intelligent opinion is much easier and better formed gradually than all you lot's snappy 'instant' judgement.
Pffft.
That's crap. The information reaches your brains later than that in the non-speccy community. This means that if you needed to provide an opinion, for instance, based on said information at the same time as a non-speccy counterpart you would have had slightly less time to process it.
Although the argument could be that having had this disability for a while your brain would become adjusted to the need for having to make decisions quicker than your well-sighted peers. Proving that you actually do have the faster processing brain.
Posted by
Brock, around August 2005:
Bugger. It was worth a go.
Well. Cal's still a cunt, regardless.
Thats a bit harsh. I bet he's crying into his huge sacks of cash now.
Salty: Your little balloon-time-is-relative experiment (if I understand you correctly and my physics knowledge isn't too shit)- wouldn't the clock on the ground be travelling slower than the balloon. Much like the outside of a wheel travelling faster than the inside. So there should be a distortion... shouldn't there?
Posted by
Brock, around August 2005:
"Crying into his huge sacks"
*guffaw*
sul: there's a few ways of looking at it.
you could sort of invert zeno's paradox and say "well, speed is total distance travelled over time and since both objects arrived at the same point at the same time, their net speed difference was zero." which is cute but as specious as zeno's paradox.
but if you view speed as velocity, ie rate + direction, which you kinda have to do if you want to talk about relative speed (eg, two cars in opposite directions at 60mph: when they pass are they doing 0 or 120 relative to each other?), then the object which moves around the earth has a relative velocity that over time sums to zero. ie, the +ve contributions to total
time@velocity are picked up as it moves out and away and round, and the -ve contributions are picked up as it moves round and in and back, and the weighted contributions are equal and opposite (assuming constant speed and a (regularly) globular earth) relative to the object which is floating stationary at the same (original) height.
i am as hung over as hell and am just now addressing the first heart starter of the dog, so please construe any jumblings above with kindness and charity.
oh i just read your post again. no, i'm not talking about a clock on the ground and a clock in the air. in that case, yes, the two clocks would travel greater distances etc.
i was talking about two clocks taken to the same height and synched, then one stays at that height (eg balloon) while the other sets off around the earth.
possibly it would be the excitable twin. i dunno. i don't want to get genetics involved in this discussion. the whole nature vs nurture thing bothers me due to the fatuity of the mindset required to present it as a mutually exclusive dichotomy. also, what about the third twin? nobody ever thinks about HIM. he's suffering, a tortured twisting mass of forgotten humanity, neglected by all: both nature and nurture. oh the humanity.
The crowd goes wild as Salty fires the *whoosh* gun 25 feet above Sul's head.
I sort of get you though. Although I fear its one of those things that will rarely keep me up all night pondering.
Posted by
Brock, around August 2005:
We know what keeps you up all night pondering, Sul.
"Hmmmm. I wonder if I can get my whole load straight over my left shoulder and miss my chest altogether?"
*phut*
And many many more methods of self abuse. It's all about variety.
Shurely a "third twin" is a contradiction in terms?
So then Salty, read any John Gribbin books recently ;)
i had a variety once. took bloody forever to get the stains out.
who john gribbins and why should i care?
He's a guy that writes popular guides to science.