If time runs slower the faster you go.How much faster dose it go if you are in one spot in space not moveing? As opposed to being on this planet.

Now here is a neat thought.

I don't think you could ever be motionless in space, you're always going to be moving relative to something, and then it goes to perception, am I moving or is the galaxy?, with all the gravities tugging in every direction imaginable I just don't think you could ever be motionless, for even a second.

But that would be an interesting concept to have checked out.

Yet another of my pet theorys explains this (I have way too much time on my hands).

If at the speed of light personal time stops, at actual stop the opposite is true, personal time goes infinatly fast (the rest of the universe appears to stop).

Getting to actual stop is more complicated than canceling out the motion of Earth's rotation and revolution, the spinning of the galaxy, the movement of the galactic cluster, and all the other larger motions. The very atoms of our boddies have their own vibrations and spins (movements). So coming to a complete stop is impossible, or nearly so.

Movement is entirely subjective. It depends upon the frame of reference. If the entire universe is spinning, there's no way for us to know, unless we get outside of it and compare it to something [we believe to be] stationary. There really is no such thing as "not moving".

Yes, I agree with both of you, you can never stop moving. BUT! Theory time...

When we are alive, our atoms and such are always moving so in that sense it is impossible to completely stop. At absolute zero I guess everything would stop but that seems an impossible temperature to achieve so we'll just forget it. But when we die, can it not be said that we are motionless? Nothing inside us is moving and relative to many things the body is not moving either. So... Death > No motion > Eternity?

Everything vibrates, even decaying matter.

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Originally posted by ThetaReactor:
Movement is entirely subjective. It depends upon the frame of reference. If the entire universe is spinning, there's no way for us to know, unless we get outside of it and compare it to something [we believe to be] stationary. There really is no such thing as "not moving".

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Damn, beat to the punch again. I really should check in here more often.

Yeah, it all depends on the frame of refinance. When I was taking physics at Cal [Berkeley] the section on relativity kept me awake for days just trying to get a grasp on things.

The way everything changes with that frame of reference curdles rational [ahem] thought. I finally did get a grasp on it, though.

Years later I had the same trouble when I tried learning about chromodynamic theory by myself [to sum that up in a very rough nutshell for those who don't know: chromodynamic theory is where you really see that mass=energy]. Fun stuff, though, once you get past the blocks your brain throw up because it goes against what it was taught was rational thinking.

Now, before I side tracked there, I was going to say:

The way the frame of reference thing applies to the original question is this: If you were in one spot not moving [ignoring the whole 'can't have no motion' thingy], you wouldn't be able to know if you were motionless while everything around you sped past, or if you were speeding past everything else.

There. A lot to write for just having wanted to write that couple of lines.

Damn. You really shouldn't have gotten me thinking about the whole "movement is never absolute" thing.

Let us assume a few things:

Our galaxy is spinning clockwise.

The speed of light in a vacuum is constant.

Okay. Lets imagine a star, half way out the radius of the galaxy. This star is throwing out light in every direction, but we're only concerned with a ray going tangent to the rotation of the galaxy, and the ray going directly opposite that. (If the galaxy were a wheel, these rays are parallel to the road.) For simplicity, we'll say that if we're looking down upon the galaxy, that this star is in the northern half of it, with one ray shooting out to the left, and another to the right.

We're in an observation post on some asteroid in the middle of nowhere, just sitting, flying along with the spin of the galaxy, motionless in relation to the galaxy as a whole. Let's look at the ray flying left from the star. It's moving against the spin of the galaxy. We examine it, and say its speed, relative to our "fixed" galaxy, is c. Now let's look at the ray flying out to the right of the star. This one is moving in the same direction as the galactic spin. In order for us to record the same speed for this ray, it must actually move faster than the other ray! Its speed must be c plus the tangent velocity of the galactic spin! Lightspeed just became a variable.

Please show me the flaws in my logic, as I'm not sure if I can stand being up all night trying to wrap my brain around this...

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Originally posted by Prometheus:
Yet another of my pet theorys explains this (I have way too much time on my hands).

If at the speed of light personal time stops, at actual stop the opposite is true, personal time goes infinatly fast (the rest of the universe appears to stop).

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This idea i like.The reason i posted this one was i thought it could be used to our advantage some how.Imagine a computer that is preforming infinatly fast.however i am now going to have to think how to get something to stop.

Can we assume that light is independent of all other forces? The only thing that effects light is gravity and matter (to slow it down). Your theory is like when you're driving in a car and you turn the head lights on, shouldn't the light then be going at the speed of the car plus the speed of light? And we all know that isn't true.

quote:

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Originally posted by ThetaReactor:
Damn. You really shouldn't have gotten me thinking about the whole "movement is never absolute" thing.

Let us assume a few things:

Our galaxy is spinning clockwise.

The speed of light in a vacuum is constant.

Okay. Lets imagine a star, half way out the radius of the galaxy. This star is throwing out light in every direction, but we're only concerned with a ray going tangent to the rotation of the galaxy, and the ray going directly opposite that. (If the galaxy were a wheel, these rays are parallel to the road.) For simplicity, we'll say that if we're looking down upon the galaxy, that this star is in the northern half of it, with one ray shooting out to the left, and another to the right.

We're in an observation post on some asteroid in the middle of nowhere, just sitting, flying along with the spin of the galaxy, motionless in relation to the galaxy as a whole. Let's look at the ray flying left from the star. It's moving against the spin of the galaxy. We examine it, and say its speed, relative to our "fixed" galaxy, is [b]c. Now let's look at the ray flying out to the right of the star. This one is moving in the same direction as the galactic spin. In order for us to record the same speed for this ray, it must actually move faster than the other ray! Its speed must be c plus the tangent velocity of the galactic spin! Light speed just became a variable.

Please show me the flaws in my logic, as I'm not sure if I can stand being up all night trying to wrap my brain around this...[/B]

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Ok.

Unless I have grossly overestimated you, you know the answer yourself, but for some reason aren't allowing your brain to make the path needed to retrieve it.

First may I just say �Damn you� for making ME think

I had got most of the way through a few different explanations, only to see a flaw or that it didn�t really address the question.

Then I had a page or so of something and my damn computer crashed! I knew I should have been backing up what I was writing [for some damn reason this computer � which I�ve only had a few months � crashes several times in a session. I mean, I know Windows sucks and all, but sheesh, this is just silly. I plan to take it to work, wipe the drive and install the latest of what I want].

On the brighter side, I think I finally have a way to answer you � and you still should see the answer before I get there.


I believe your flaw is in the way you were looking at the system as a whole.

[We�ll consider light a particle for this thought experiment.]

Now, [Using your set up] we�re above a galaxy, motionless with respect to its rotation [Galaxocentric orbit?].

Based on what I understand of your set up, there are a couple of things in this set up that you are assuming, but didn�t state. You are assuming [I assume]:

1.) That you are looking straight �down� at a point in the galaxy that is directly below your position.

2.) That the initial set up has the two stars starting at an equal distance from your point of observation. Then moves tangent and against the direction of rotation, but travel [their respective direction] at the same speed

3.) That you have two particles, one form each star. And that each particle leaves their respective star at the same time [as observed by you. Remember: there is no such thing as simultaneity; all depends on the observer and the frame of reference].


[These assumptions don�t need to be true for what I�m going to say: It just makes the thought experiment neater and easier to keep track of things].

So, now:

You measure the speed of light from the one going against the rotation, and call it C.

You measure the speed of light coming from the other star [tangent to rotation].

It, too will measure [/I]C[/I].

Now, I give you:Your logic flaw:

Your assumption has two particles leaving at the same time. To come to the conclusion that you did, you then must have assumed that the particles arrive at your point of observation at the same time.

If you are observing two particles that leave at the same time, the one going against the direction of rotation will arrive before the one tangent to the direction of rotation.

You will measure them both at the same speed [C].

But the one against rotation will be blue shifted in it�s spectrum [frequency],and the one tangent will be red shifted.

It�s just like if you were standing on a street and there two trains; one coming towards you, the other away. They are both blowing their whistle the whole time [because they�re annoying little sh*ts].

You will hear the classic Doppler of each.

Yet the speed at which the sound is traveling is the same for both trains; despite the fact that one is traveling against the direction of the earth�s rotation and the other is going tangent to it.


{Whew!} And that only took me two hours to do. What with all the false starts and the crashed computer

I think, though, that I�ve got it down right.

What says you?

Just thinking about how far it is to get to another planet just annoys me. I want people to have physical contact with aliens before i die, lol im only 14 but still. Light travels at 186,000 miles per a second, and some distant galaxies are over a million light years away?? So it would basically take 578534400000000 human years just to get one Light year??? Maybe i did my math wrong or im confused.........

Concerning the no motion = infinite time idea, in order for you to assume absolutely no motion, it must be true for all reference points, so nothing else can move, either. in that respect, your statement is a truism or a circular logic; if nothing's moving, of course everything appears to stop.

kinda funny how light works. It will stretch or shrink its wavelength to maintain its constant speed, c. makes me think that maybe we're looking at things all backwards; perhaps it's not the velocity of a particle that determines the time it takes to get from point A to point B, but rather the relativistic amount of space between point A and point B.

Then again, that probably ends in another truism, or something.

Meta:

I think you misinterpreted my setup, but your argument still holds. I'm simply overthinking things, and making scenarios that aren't physically sound.

xXDH2KXx:

I'm not sure what you're getting at. If light travels at 186,000 mi/sec, then a light year is 5,865,696,000,000 miles. No relation to human years whatsoever. It would take a million human years to travel a million light years if one were in a ship traveling at the speed of light.

But of course the mass of your ship would be infinitely large and thus require an infinite amount of energy to propel it at that speed and then time would effectively stop...

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Originally posted by Frey Grimrod:
But of course the mass of your ship would be infinitely large and thus require an infinite amount of energy to propel it at that speed and then time would effectively stop...

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So what happens to mass the slower you go or stop.Dose it become infinitely small?

I would supose so. That's an interesing take on things.

Perhaps we should try e-mailing Stephen Hawkings and get his opinion.

this may be somewhat more philosophical, but assuming that all things from elementary particles on up are actually made up of interactions of a single force (borrowing from supersymmetry) and you were to stop those interactions from matter on down to quanta then you would become that force which would supercede all other 'forces'. So in effect, you would become everything in the universe and time would cease to exist.

quote:

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Originally posted by ThetaReactor:
Meta:

I think you misinterpreted my setup, but your argument still holds. I'm simply overthinking things, and making scenarios that aren't physically sound.

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Not after all the time I put into visulizung and thinkg and re-thinking and re-visualizing [throw in a computer crash somewhere], so No. I don't think so.

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Ummm, I just re-read your post [again, but this time I'm not as loopy from being up so long ].

Damn it, I did read it wrong: You're talking about one star, and two rays goin off in opposite directions [one with and one against the direction of rotation].

Well, I'm not going for another headache.

Let's suffice it to say thatyes: You are over thinking it.

Basically, they would both measure C, but the frequencies would be shifted.

Don't bloody ask me why for chips sake!

Can't you just accept that once you get to the speed of light, you don't go no more fasterer?

Of course, I guess it could also be argued [with an argument that is loaded with its own fatal flaws] that your problem was that you measured the ray that went against the direction of rotation first.

When, knowing you can't get any faster than C, you measure the other on first.

Then when you measure the one going against the direction of rotation you would find that it was going at C minus speed of rotation.

There, your turn for headache :P

Dammit.

Light cheats.

Although you can never compleaty stop time would go faster, but not that much,

Newbie here...
I stopped studying physics after year 10... so chances are I have no idea what I'm talking about...

But theoretically... wouldn't it be possible to tell when you'd stopped moving by measuring the passage of time?

Well, if you really break it down, to stop moving, everything must stop moving. The only place that really happens is when time is stopped. So really, to stop moving is to stop time.

This was a theory of mine from long ago, "movment and time cant exist at the same time" i figured that it takes time to move no matter how far but you cut something into infinate peices so it would take forever to move, it was only resently i saw my flaw while studing the quatum theorie and that is the quanta,

CTR

oww! my head!

and the problem i see with genitals theroy is tha say you have a line 1 inch long (3cm?)
and on this line you have 1,000,000,000,000........ points inbetween each point it takes x amount of time to get from a--->b---->c etc so no matter how small and minute the points movement is possible (which is how this theroy was explianed to me the first time or at leasst thats how it came across

Reading through these articles i notice something. Everyone here believe's in the existance of something they call "impossable". In my book "impossable" is just a word for something that we have no idea how to do yet in essance impossable should be a slap in the face of anyone who truly believes in a cause, theory, or idea!!!

Meta,
I believe that your original comment still holds true. Regardless of the velocity of the light source, the light eminating from that source will not travel faster than C. The only difference that could be observed from a remote fixed position relative to the movement of the galaxy is as you described. There will be phase shift, that is, the light moving away from you will appear to be stretched or "red shifted", while the light coming towards you will appear to be compressed or "blue shifted". But the actual velocity of the light particles or waves remains unchanged. Once again, the speed of light is ONLY relative to it's source regardless of how it may logically appear. It this was not the case there would not be any phase shift because any variation in C would be negated by any apparent frequency change. You can't have it both ways! Since phase shift has been demonstrated to be an apparant reality, that reality would tend to rule out a variable C. Eh? Or is there a flaw here too?
I don't think there is, but I was incorrect once before.

[This message has been edited by Ursus (edited 10-14-2002).]

[This message has been edited by Ursus (edited 10-14-2002).]

Whachoo tink Meta? Any comments?

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Originally posted by dark prophet:
Reading through these articles i notice something. Everyone here believe's in the existance of something they call "impossable". In my book "impossable" is just a word for something that we have no idea how to do yet in essance impossable should be a slap in the face of anyone who truly believes in a cause, theory, or idea!!!

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Okay prophet, if you want to come chat and criticize the big boys... go back to elementary and learn how to spell.

-- No offense