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Re: Page 90

Post by Razor One »

I'll try to put this into laypersons terms as much as possible.

Space and time are linked.

Movement through space is also movement through time and vice versa, movement through time is also movement through space.

This is true as all motion, all space and all time is relative. You can never truly be at a standstill except as defined relative to something else. You are only in a certain section of space as relative to all other sections of space and you only occupy a certain amount of time as relative to all other amounts of time.

Relativity shows us that the faster you move through space, the slower you move through time. The closer you approach the speed of light, the more time slows down.

To attain the speed of light, you would need infinite energy. The universe is a finite system despite its enormity. There is only so much energy and mass. Therefore, even if you were to gather all the energy and mass in the universe and utilise it towards accelerating towards C, you would still come up hopelessly short.

FTL and Causality are a huge problem for physicists. You can have one, the other but not both. Relativity is non-negotiable at this point.

To understand the conundrum, let us examine causality.

Causality generally goes from Cause to Effect.

Cause = I stub my toe.
Effect = I feel pain.

The existence of FTL would throw out the concept of cause and effect. Causality would be forever broken. This would allow a universe in which I could feel pain before ever stubbing my toe. What happens if I never stub my toe as a result of feeling the pain before it happened? Paradox.

Buy why does FTL break causality like a two dollar ming vase?

Remember back at the beginning when I stated that movement through space is movement through time? Ditto for anything going FTL. Going FTL means you're travelling backwards through time relative to an observer.

You could do a round trip and arrive before you left. Just being there messes with reality's mojo. Even if you catch yourself arriving before you leave and leave to preserve the flow of events... did you leave because you wanted to or did you leave becasue you arrived before you left? That's a paradox. The universe doesn't like paradoxes. It's allergic to them. Trust me on this, the universe and I are on pretty good terms with each other. Usually.

As for photons exceeding the speed of light, Recently disproven.

Now...

How does this vaguely relate to Outsider?

FTL and Causality can be possible under certain conditions... if you toss out relativity.

My mind is a bit fuzzy at the moment, but here goes.

Relativity basically postulates that there is no one 'special' place in the universe. One location is much like any other, and each location is relative to one another.

If you toss out relativity though, you can have special places of reference that would allow you theoretically to exceed the speed of light.

In the outsider 'verse, this region would be called Hyperspace.

If we assume that Hyperspace is a special reference frame for the rest of the universe at large, than we can have paradox free FTL.

The way we can break it down is like so.

Alex fires an FTL bullet at Fireblade (who will kill Alex should she survive). Being FTL, the bullet must take on the special reference frame.

Beryl sees Fireblade being shot by the bullet before Alex could logically have fired it and sends an FTL signal to Stillstorm to kill him.

Because the signal has to go FTL, it has to take on the special reference frame where Alex has already fired the bullet. It therefore cannot be recieved by Stillstorm before Alex fires the bullet, preventing a paradox, preserving Causality, going FTL and making Relativity its bitch.

You can find a much more technical and accurate explanation Here.

In the Outsider Universe, Hyperspace is the special reference frame that allows for FTL, stomps on Relativity, and allows for Causality.

In real life, there is no special reference frame that we are as yet aware of. We have yet to discover any kind of hyperspace. Relativity is ironclad at the moment and becoming more and more ironclad with every experiment that verifies the theory. Causality is too critical to bear letting go of. FTL is the red headed stepchild that has to be left out in the rain. It's harsh and unfair but it's the way our universe works.

As to my personal feelings on there being no FTL in this universe...

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Re: Page 90

Post by Ktrain »

Gosh that reminds me of my old roommate... Let's just hope that our fundamental understanding of reality is just scratching the surface of knowledge, more space for FTL science (fiction) to hide :)

I also your empathize with your feelings:
OUTSIDER UPDATE => HALF LIFE 3 CONFIRMED?

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Re: Page 90

Post by Trantor »

Mjolnir wrote:...
FTL travel and time travel are the same thing.
I agree 100% so far (as usually), at least for our 4-dimensional space at this time.

But maybe - maaayybee(!) - we will see some funny other things in the future.

And if not? Then we still have SF. ;)
sapere aude.

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Re: Page 90

Post by dfacto »

That's a paradox. The universe doesn't like paradoxes. It's allergic to them. Trust me on this, the universe and I are on pretty good terms with each other. Usually.
This is what interests me though. Is there proof? Does it even matter? Would things just get totally off the wall crazy, but not actually impact anything but our perception of reality?

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Re: Page 90

Post by Cy83r »

Wait wait wait! Okay, so faster-than-light equals negative time, got it. But what does negative time look like? I can't remember where, but I recall reading a book or paper that elucidated on the origin and end of the universe, big bang, big crunch, all of that. The author wrote that, assuming there was a big crunch, the math seems to say that once spatial dimensions hit zero any further compression, which the math IIRC says there is further compression, turned into positive expansion.

So, if space and time are intimately related, then would it not be properly intuitive to guess that things traveling FTL experience time at a speed increasing from a standstill? Imagine from the view of spectators watching the first interstellar jump, the ship compresses and its crew slow to a crawl as they rapidly approach c before, suddenly, the ship jumps away from Sol and the crew begin to speed up and perhaps move at an accelerated pace all while their ship seems to move backwards at faster-than-light speeds. Though I'm pretty sure the actual crew don't notice any of this, or perhaps they see the outside universe the same way they are seen (again, assuming I recall my book-readings correctly).

Would this be a correct layman's interpretation of the data so far?

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Re: Page 90

Post by Razor One »

The following statement is true.
The previous statement is false.

If the second line is true, the first line is false, meaning the second line cannot be true.

Paradox.

The problem of arriving before you've left means that you've violated causality. You can't arrive before you leave.

In a universe where causality has no place, things do indeed get off the wall crazy.

With causality intact, things proceed from cause to effect.

With causality broken, effects can precede causes and causes can happen without effect.

Pick up a can of coke. It's empty now because you were having been going to drink it. But you haven't yet. Yet it's empty.

Look up in the sky. The sun turned into a red giant. Why? It exhausted its nuclear fuel long before it was supposed to because you threw causality out of the window. The effect of it expanding into a red giant has preceeded the cause of it running low on nuclear fuel.

Rockets suddenly explode on the pad before they've been fueled up. The cemetary where you lay flowers by your dear grandfathers grave suddenly has a headstone with your name on it.

Future alien civilisations invade Earth because humans from the future engaged in a brutal war of genocide against them on the basis that humanity broke free of their tyrannical rule and engaged in a brutal war of genocide to avenge their tyranny.

A world without causality makes no sense, not any kind of sense that we can make head or tail of. Effects can happen without causes. Causes can happen with no effect.

Try and Light a fire. Nothing happens. Your cause has no effect.
A flame spontaneously bursts into life somewhere. Your effect has no cause.

You were born and grew up. But I travelled back in time and killed your mother before you were born. Yet still you live with memories of your mother raising you, because causality is gone. The cause of killing your mother had no effect in removing you from time or changing the universe.

Something closer to home.

Cause: You wrote:
dfacto wrote: This is what interests me though. Is there proof? Does it even matter? Would things just get totally off the wall crazy, but not actually impact anything but our perception of reality?
Effect: This post.

Now imagine this post popped up before you wrote that, even quoting what you hadn't even written yet.

Now imagine that you didn't even register here in the first place. You never registered here. Let's imagine you never even heard of Outsider or had never logged on to the internet.

Who am I quoting? There is no cause. Just effect.

Cause and effect allow space and time to work in just the way you know and are familiar with. Without it, Science becomes impossible, to say nothing of SCIENCE! You can't make predictions, you can't make observations, you cannot draw conclusions. In a universe with cause and effect, if you mix Hydrogen and Oxygen together, you get a reaction. Without it, you may get no reaction at all, or a reaction before you've mixed them. Just think of all the horrific things that would do to your body chemistry alone.

So yes, causality is extremely important. Things just don't go off the wall crazy, they go completely bonkers, they make Event Horizon look like a pleasant summer trip, you get cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria!

**quick refresh**
Cy83r wrote:Wait wait wait! Okay, so faster-than-light equals negative time, got it. But what does negative time look like? I can't remember where, but I recall reading a book or paper that elucidated on the origin and end of the universe, big bang, big crunch, all of that. The author wrote that, assuming there was a big crunch, the math seems to say that once spatial dimensions hit zero any further compression, which the math IIRC says there is further compression, turned into positive expansion.

So, if space and time are intimately related, then would it not be properly intuitive to guess that things traveling FTL experience time at a speed increasing from a standstill? Imagine from the view of spectators watching the first interstellar jump, the ship compresses and its crew slow to a crawl as they rapidly approach c before, suddenly, the ship jumps away from Sol and the crew begin to speed up and perhaps move at an accelerated pace all while their ship seems to move backwards at faster-than-light speeds. Though I'm pretty sure the actual crew don't notice any of this, or perhaps they see the outside universe the same way they are seen (again, assuming I recall my book-readings correctly).

Would this be a correct layman's interpretation of the data so far?
I'm running on two hours of sleep here and there are spiders are crawling on my hands, but I'll try to answer this as best I can currently.

I'll assume in this scenario you're not throwing out relativity, but causality.

In which case you'll need to repair the scenario somewhat. Relativity absolutely prohibits accelarating up to and beyond C. It is impossible. It requires infinite energy. So long as you maintain relativity in the example, the ship cannot by definition attain or exceed the speed of light.

A ship travelling faster than light would be effectively unobservable except after the fact... before it technically left. You would be seeing ships arriving before they leave and then seeing any incident light they shed arriving long after they arrived themselves and preferably after their earlier selves left to go on the journey they arrived on before they left.

So uh...

We have Starship A.

Starship fA is the ship after it has left and arrived before it leaves.
Starship pA is the ship before it leaves

Starship fA arrives before Starship pA leaves. A light trail from fA is seen arriving going backwards along its journey in FTL tracing back all the way until Starship pA leaves.

From the perspective of a traveller going faster than light...

The only incident light you would be able to see would be directly ahead of you. Anything off to the sides you'd just blow on by. Light trying to catch up to you never would. This would create a tunnel like effect. Darkness all around you, light ahead of you.

However, since you're travelling FTL, the compression of light would probably roast you. Actually, I have no idea what it would do to you. Asking what happens when you strike an STL object at FTL has no sane answer. If you must have one, your starship turns into pumpkins. Or a flower pot and a sperm whale. Whichever works.

The one key thing I will advise when it comes to physics is to throw intuition out the window. Relativity, quantum mechanics and a whole slew of cutting edge physics is very much counter-intuitive in all their forms. Entanglement scares the bejeesus out of some physicists while what exactly lies in the center of a black hole others.

As good start to the headscratching on counter-intuitivity, ask yourself a question.

What is mass?

No, not weight. Weight is the result of gravity acting on mass. What exactly is mass?

I recently learned a few head explodingly counter-intuitive things about mass recently.

An object with potential or kinetic energy has more mass than object without potential or kinentic energy.

If mass is a property of matter, how is it possible for kinetic and potential energies to increase the mass of an object relative to objects without that extra property?

In laymans terms, I have a coke can on the ground. I have an identical coke can on my desk. The coke can on my desk is a meter higher than the coke can on the ground. Physics tells us that the coke can on the desk has more mass than the coke can on the ground because of the extra potential energy it has.

Likewise, if I were to throw yet another coke can, it would have more mass than the coke can at rest on the ground because it has extra kinetic energy.

I've changed nothing with respect to the physical makeup of all three cans. The only property that has changed is that energy has been added, kinetic or potential.

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And that's one of the least mind blowing things about physics lately. With any luck they'll nail Higgs arse to the wall.

And now I'm off to catch one hour of sleep before I must arise and head out to Uni. Ugh.
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Re: Page 90

Post by Arioch »

Cy83r wrote:Okay, so faster-than-light equals negative time, got it. But what does negative time look like?
It doesn't look like anything, because it doesn't (and can't) exist.

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Re: Page 90

Post by Cy83r »

No, my point is that you're assuming: a) there is not a way around the lightspeed barrier by ignoring mass... somehow (tachyons with their imaginary mass, maybe, if they exist and if they can be caught without negating their needed properties); and, more importantly, b) that negative time implies time travel.

Also, I think I may have figured a way around an FTL object meeting and STL object. Since the traveler's energy is so high there might be a very good chance that the FTL object proceeds to quantum tunnel through whatever it hits. The only problem is that this implies that tachyons and similar particles won't be very easy to catch, if at all; let alone detect.

Edit: an object higher up a gravity well has more mass than one lower down? That makes some sense, though that makes it seem like weight and mass are tied together in some... perhaps geometric function? Objects in motion having more energy and thus mass has been something of a modern-day no-brainer for a while though.

Lastly, we always have spacetime shortcuts like wormholes to investigate, which, as far as I'm still aware, don't violate relativity (which is still incomplete, by the way) or causality (which still makes sense from a fourth or fifth dimensional perspective even when broken, or perhaps causality looks insane from those higher viewpoints). Hell, broken causality made an excellent game about time travel warfare called Achron. Not to mention that I have a couple RPG plots that abuse causality. So, perhaps the ideas of relativity and causality are what's broken, they don't [completely] accurately portray the truth of how the universe works in its entirety, it just explains things on our mundane level.

P.S. And another thing, and this is far out so not very important to answer, don't we sort of violate causality just by trying to predict others' actions and respond accordingly? The cause of a preemptive action is technically the probability of a future event occurring, even if based on current observations, you are still making a hypothetical leap into a future where this possibility exists and then acting on it.
Last edited by Cy83r on Thu Jul 28, 2011 8:56 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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Re: Page 90

Post by dfacto »

Razor One wrote:With causality broken, effects can precede causes and causes can happen without effect.

Pick up a can of coke. It's empty now because you were having been going to drink it. But you haven't yet. Yet it's empty.

Look up in the sky. The sun turned into a red giant. Why? It exhausted its nuclear fuel long before it was supposed to because you threw causality out of the window. The effect of it expanding into a red giant has preceeded the cause of it running low on nuclear fuel.

Rockets suddenly explode on the pad before they've been fueled up. The cemetary where you lay flowers by your dear grandfathers grave suddenly has a headstone with your name on it.

Future alien civilisations invade Earth because humans from the future engaged in a brutal war of genocide against them on the basis that humanity broke free of their tyrannical rule and engaged in a brutal war of genocide to avenge their tyranny.

A world without causality makes no sense, not any kind of sense that we can make head or tail of. Effects can happen without causes. Causes can happen with no effect.
And my question is, "so what?"

Just because it makes no sense doesn't necessarily mean anything at all (Hi quantum mechanics, you sick twisted hellscape you), other than that we're in for some seriously bonkers stuff. Is there some physical roadblock to causality violations (other than FTL seeming to be impossible)? Maybe we haven't observed paradoxes simply due to lack of contact with FTL capable civilizations? Maybe one day we'll colonize other solar systems before constructing the colony ships, but will that just be us scratching our heads or will the universe bear any effect from the paradox?

If I had to guess though it's a moot point and FTL is just not going to happen.
Okay, so faster-than-light equals negative time, got it. But what does negative time look like?
I doubt you could perceive anything beyond the scope of our 3d space-time. An FTL ship would probably just disappear.

But... if it had to look like something, then for sure like this

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Re: Page 90

Post by Karst45 »

NOMAD wrote:hehe, I really hope Dec 21, 2012 doesn't happen. Looking forward to seeing what is coming next.
If you base your assumption (like most media did) that because the Mayan Calender end that it also mean the end of the world, rest assured, it wont happen because Mayan calendar, like all their believe, is based on the circle. On other word, there is no end to the Mayan calender.

All that is know is that the Mayan did observe something important in the past, important enough for them to Mark it on the stone. They did that because, in their believe that everything is cycling, they tough that this particular even would come again.

So something important will happen, the end of the world? probably not, though lots of people will panic because of the misinformation that most media are using to instigate fear (you fight the terrorist but your actually Terrorizing your own population. can you feel the irony?)

So that mostly it, dont fear the end of the world, but you still can sell those survival kit / bunker some sucker will buy them anyway ;)
Cy83r wrote:So, in conclusion: dammit, let me think we at least have a chance at it until the hard numbers get back in the next several decades! Psychic powers have been dead and buried for almost the last two decades, don't take away my FTL drives just yet, we aren't even on Mars.
Well i wouldn't worry about that. it been show (maybe as a joke but still) that it would be mathematically impossible for ANYTHING heavier than air, to fly and also that anything going faster than 55 mph would be vaporized. So if i know something is that science is good at convincing people of what they cannot do. It like the Politician, It (the science) say convincing lies, until proven otherwise, afterward they just apologizes for their error but everyone already forgot what it was all about and keep voting for them.

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Re: Page 90

Post by discord »

razor: E=mc2(yeah i know, can't be arsed figuring out how to do a squared 2) tells us that objects in motion have more energy, therefor a increase in energy without a increase in speed should be a increase in mass...these are still pretty small value changes though.

and something that always bothered me with the 'no rest frame' is the speed of light....what exactly is it relative to? and that always makes me think of the speed of sound, there seems to be several similarities here, as you approach the 'barrier' you need more and more energy to overcome.....something in the way...the faster you go, the more wave front you are building up in front of you, creating drag hindering further acceleration...

so, my theory here is that the speed of light is merely the speed of sound in a near vacuum. now chew on that you damn physicists.

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Re: Page 90

Post by Cy83r »

discord wrote:razor: E=mc2(yeah i know, can't be arsed figuring out how to do a squared 2) tells us that objects in motion have more energy, therefor a increase in energy without a increase in speed should be a increase in mass...these are still pretty small value changes though.

and something that always bothered me with the 'no rest frame' is the speed of light....what exactly is it relative to? and that always makes me think of the speed of sound, there seems to be several similarities here, as you approach the 'barrier' you need more and more energy to overcome.....something in the way...the faster you go, the more wave front you are building up in front of you, creating drag hindering further acceleration...

so, my theory here is that the speed of light is merely the speed of sound in a near vacuum. now chew on that you damn physicists.
Sound is a wave function of a vibrating cloud of particles, vacuum doesn't transmit sound because there's not enough stuff to bump the energy through. The something to push past in regards to the light-speed barrier is your increasing mass, rather than the stacking air pressure in front of a hypersonic aircraft, it takes mass to move mass; though, interesting thought, the mass of your unused propellant increases with the ship, should a mass-holding object reach lightspeed and thus become infinitely massive, the propellant also becomes... infinite? I got something wrong there. The idea behind FTL drives harnessing tachyons is that the particle holds negative/imaginary mass, potentially negating the mass of the ship or inverting it entirely, allowing the vessel to quaintly ignore the light barrier, but catching them, assuming they exist at all, is the problem; wormholes ignore the entire problem all together by ripping spacetime apart and creating a new shorter path to the destination, but the logistics of exploiting existing wormholes, creating new ones, and aiming them are about as feasible as creating an interstellar empire using slowboats, again, this assumes wormholes exist in the first place.

Oh, the speed of light also changes depending on the medium it moves through, so c is considered the speed of light in a perfect vacuum.

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Re: Page 90

Post by junk »

Razor One wrote:Causality wall of text
Alright I believe I understand the premise. But keep in mind that this effects conventional space FTL. If you have nonconventional space FTL you shouldn't have any causality issues either.

Either by using the different reference frame as you mention or alternatively using the various technobabble space folding techniques. Admittedly technobabble.

On another note - was quatun tunneling disproven or not? I remember it coming up a few years ago.

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Re: Page 90

Post by NOMAD »

Karst45 wrote:
NOMAD wrote:hehe, I really hope Dec 21, 2012 doesn't happen. Looking forward to seeing what is coming next.
If you base your assumption (like most media did) that because the Mayan Calender end that it also mean the end of the world, rest assured, it wont happen because Mayan calendar, like all their believe, is based on the circle. On other word, there is no end to the Mayan calender.

All that is know is that the Mayan did observe something important in the past, important enough for them to Mark it on the stone. They did that because, in their believe that everything is cycling, they tough that this particular even would come again.

So something important will happen, the end of the world? probably not, though lots of people will panic because of the misinformation that most media are using to instigate fear (you fight the terrorist but your actually Terrorizing your own population. can you feel the irony?)

So that mostly it, dont fear the end of the world, but you still can sell those survival kit / bunker some sucker will buy them anyway ;)
Well I don't have any survival kits for sale but I might get one, just in case: since you never know what will happen in life).

you make a valid point, its impossible to know what they saw, bad or good. yet, I'll be spending time with my family either way, what ever comes on that date
I am a wander, going from place to place without a home I am a NOMAD

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Re: Page 90

Post by Razor One »

Cy83r wrote:No, my point is that you're assuming: a) there is not a way around the lightspeed barrier by ignoring mass... somehow (tachyons with their imaginary mass, maybe, if they exist and if they can be caught without negating their needed properties);
Define Mass.

Given that all matter has mass, the only way to get to lightspeed is to shed mass entirely, or in simpler terms, cease to be matter. Photons do this through wave particle duality and quantum mechanics. The only way that wave particle duality can happen is on the quantum scale, photons, electrons and such. Atoms generally cannot behave in this manner. Classical objects, such as yourself or my favored can of coke, cannot and never will have any kind of wave particle duality to conveniently ignore their mass because they are not on the quantum scale at which these effects could occur.
and, more importantly, b) that negative time implies time travel.
Time is another dimension in our generally four dimensional and arbritrarily 11 dimensional universe. You can't have negative length. You can only have length that increases in a different direction.

Likewise, you can't have negative time, it's a misnomer You can only have time that flows in a different direction. 'Negative' time can only be time that flows in a manner opposite to regular time. Regular time flows forwards. 'Negative' time would have to flow backwards. Relativity has no preference for the directionality of time.

Also, I think I may have figured a way around an FTL object meeting and STL object. Since the traveler's energy is so high there might be a very good chance that the FTL object proceeds to quantum tunnel through whatever it hits. The only problem is that this implies that tachyons and similar particles won't be very easy to catch, if at all; let alone detect.
Quantum tunnelling only occurs on the quantum scale. Macroscale classical objects cannot be quantum.

Edit: an object higher up a gravity well has more mass than one lower down? That makes some sense, though that makes it seem like weight and mass are tied together in some... perhaps geometric function? Objects in motion having more energy and thus mass has been something of a modern-day no-brainer for a while though.
I think you've misunderstood.

Weight and mass are tied together. Weight is the phenomenon of gravity acting on mass.

Mass is generally described as a property of matter. I suppose it is a bit obvious in hindsight that since E=MC^2 the addition of any kind of energy to an object would increase its mass by a corresponding amount... I just don't recall that connection ever being made during ye olde Highschool Physics. Then again my teacher for that was a bit pathetic...

Lastly, we always have spacetime shortcuts like wormholes to investigate, which, as far as I'm still aware, don't violate relativity (which is still incomplete, by the way) or causality (which still makes sense from a fourth or fifth dimensional perspective even when broken, or perhaps causality looks insane from those higher viewpoints). Hell, broken causality made an excellent game about time travel warfare called Achron. Not to mention that I have a couple RPG plots that abuse causality. So, perhaps the ideas of relativity and causality are what's broken, they don't [completely] accurately portray the truth of how the universe works in its entirety, it just explains things on our mundane level.
Source on broken causality still making sense from a fourth and fifth dimensional perspective? I'd like to read that.

Broken causality can make for some excellent fiction. As it stands though, it appears to be a very solid and non-negotiable part of reality.
P.S. And another thing, and this is far out so not very important to answer, don't we sort of violate causality just by trying to predict others' actions and respond accordingly? The cause of a preemptive action is technically the probability of a future event occurring, even if based on current observations, you are still making a hypothetical leap into a future where this possibility exists and then acting on it.
That doesn't break causality.

Cause: We see a boulder hurtling towards us.
Effect: We react to the boulder.

We don't violate causality by being able to predict that if we do nothing the boulder will crush us into paste and move out of the way accordingly. Cause and effect are maintained. The reaction itself is an effect of the cause. Likewise, if we did nothing and didn't react to the boulder, subsequently getting crushed by it, that too would be an effect of the cause.

Asimov wrote a good story once dealing with cause and effect. I can't recall the name of the story but it relied on a chemical reaction. It was argued that if timed just right, a certain substance would dissolve in water before it actually touched it. When they tried to break causality by preventing the substance from actually dissolving in water, they faced all kinds of natural disasters and deleterious effects until they finally dunked the substance in water.

What resulted of course was an ability to predict the future. If a certain disaster were to occur, the substance would dissolve and you'd know something was up. The applications were intimated that the Russians had already cracked the phenomenon and were using it to brutal effect to bring accident rates down and have a practically flawless space program.

'Fraid that's all the time I have before work. I'll try to get around to answering more questions as best I can after I get back.
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Re: Page 90

Post by Cy83r »

Objection, 'classical' objects are a collection of almost innumerable quantum effects, the dissociation between physics and quantum physics is a failing of modern science.

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Re: Page 90

Post by elizibar »

Cy83r wrote:Objection, 'classical' objects are a collection of almost innumerable quantum effects, the dissociation between physics and quantum physics is a failing of modern science.
Let us perform a simple experiment to determine the probability of a classical-scale object quantum tunneling through another such object:

1) Smash head into keyboard.
2) Record whether the head tunneled through the keyboard.
3) Repeat the trial until a statistically significant number of events have occurred.

I'll be over here on the other side of the internet waiting for you to find your first positive tunneling event. Be sure to let me know, I could use a co-authorship on the publication of such a result!

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Razor One
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Re: Page 90

Post by Razor One »

Elizibar, you owe me a new keyboard. And new nasal passages. I swear the bloody coke came out of my nose!

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:P

You don't understand quantum mechanics. I don't either, nor for that matter do experts in the field actually understand quantum mechanics.

Particles can tunnel through objects as a consequence of wave-particle duality. Heisenbergs uncertainty principle explains the phenomenon; it has a statistical probability of appearing on the other side of an object.

Classical objects, such as you, me, this can of coke, our erstwhile starship careering into a rogue asteroid and not quantum tunnelling their way through it are not individual particles. They cannot and can never exhibit wave-particle duality, therefore, heisenberg's uncertainty principle can never apply.

What do you mean by "The dissociation between physics and quantum physics" and how is that a failing of modern science?
dfacto wrote: And my question is, "so what?"

Just because it makes no sense doesn't necessarily mean anything at all (Hi quantum mechanics, you sick twisted hellscape you), other than that we're in for some seriously bonkers stuff. Is there some physical roadblock to causality violations (other than FTL seeming to be impossible)? Maybe we haven't observed paradoxes simply due to lack of contact with FTL capable civilizations? Maybe one day we'll colonize other solar systems before constructing the colony ships, but will that just be us scratching our heads or will the universe bear any effect from the paradox?

If I had to guess though it's a moot point and FTL is just not going to happen.
Here's a simple method to understand why causality is critical.

2H2 + O2 = 2H2O + Energy

That there is a chemical equation. It shows that when you add two hydrogen molecules (not atoms, molecules) and a molecule of oxygen, the result is two water molecules and energy.

The left side of the equation is the cause.
The right side of the equation is the effect.

Let's remove effect.

2H2 + O2 = ...

Oops. Water can't form. There goes life. The laws of chemistry are absolutely dependent on there being cause and effect. Cause and effect lead to a sequence of events that allow a chemical reaction to occur. Your body, right now, is absolutely dependent on millions of chemical reactions which allow you to live, breathe, percieve and think. If these chemical reactions occurred with no resultant effect, you would die, instantly. If the reactions occurred spontaneously within you without cause, you would also die. Instantly.

Put another way...

Science aims to model the universe. It does this through observation, hypotheses, modelling and experimentation.

Without causality, experimentation is pointless. Experimentation is pointless because one could not construct a model or formulate a hypothesis. One could do neither of these things because observations would never be consistent.

Our entire universe depends on the integrity of causality. It is present in everything from fundamental natural laws through to philosophy. We would not be able to exist if not for causality.

Chucking the book on causality is chucking the book on all existence.

Regarding the Mayan Calendar BS...

I've survived 17 seperate "End of the World!" claims. Earth's a tough old bitch and so am I apparently.

If someone claims they know the day and hour the Earth, or humanity at least, is going kaput, punch them. They're talking shit. They're either insane or trying to get money out of you. Potentially both.
discord wrote:
and something that always bothered me with the 'no rest frame' is the speed of light....what exactly is it relative to? and that always makes me think of the speed of sound, there seems to be several similarities here, as you approach the 'barrier' you need more and more energy to overcome.....something in the way...the faster you go, the more wave front you are building up in front of you, creating drag hindering further acceleration...

so, my theory here is that the speed of light is merely the speed of sound in a near vacuum. now chew on that you damn physicists.
Physicists would love nothing more than to be able to go FTL without breaking causality or relativity. They'd be on the research gravy train for life if they could manage that... not to mention all the science groupies they could get :P

The speed of light in a vacuum, C, is a universal constant. It's not relative to anything as far as I know... perhaps the question there isn't worded properly.

Leaving that aside, I've explained it before. As you try to accelerate to C, the energy required to increase your velocity towards C increases exponentially. In order to attain C you need infinite energy. Infinite. More energy than the entire universe has. More energy than the entire (hypothetical) multiverse has. More energy than you can ever conceivably gather, more energy than can ever be gathered.

It is not possible to match C, let alone exceed it with relativity as it is currently.

That being said, it is possible to exceed the speed of light.

Just not in a vacuum.

In certain mediums, such as air, water, glass and the like, the speed of light actually slows down.

If you were to have a substance where the speed of light is 1 meter per second, you could concievably break the speed of light in that medium just by walking through it. They're called Bose-Einstein condensates. It still doesn't let you break C proper. Universal constants are finnicky like that.

Okay, my brains are starting to explode and these phantom spiders are starting to bite my hands. I've probably got a fair bit wrong but right now my brain needs a rest from the physics talk.

Until later :P
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dfacto
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Re: Page 90

Post by dfacto »

Razor One wrote:Here's a simple method to understand why causality is critical.

2H2 + O2 = 2H2O + Energy

That there is a chemical equation. It shows that when you add two hydrogen molecules (not atoms, molecules) and a molecule of oxygen, the result is two water molecules and energy.

The left side of the equation is the cause.
The right side of the equation is the effect.

Let's remove effect.

2H2 + O2 = ...

Oops. Water can't form. There goes life. The laws of chemistry are absolutely dependent on there being cause and effect. Cause and effect lead to a sequence of events that allow a chemical reaction to occur. Your body, right now, is absolutely dependent on millions of chemical reactions which allow you to live, breathe, percieve and think. If these chemical reactions occurred with no resultant effect, you would die, instantly. If the reactions occurred spontaneously within you without cause, you would also die. Instantly.

Put another way...

Science aims to model the universe. It does this through observation, hypotheses, modelling and experimentation.

Without causality, experimentation is pointless. Experimentation is pointless because one could not construct a model or formulate a hypothesis. One could do neither of these things because observations would never be consistent.

Our entire universe depends on the integrity of causality. It is present in everything from fundamental natural laws through to philosophy. We would not be able to exist if not for causality.

Chucking the book on causality is chucking the book on all existence.
Not really. The universe is obviously causal (barring further physics asshattery), and I can't see why a single point causality violation would automatically negate all existence. It COULD, and causality violations could be a giant "off" switch on the whole operation, but on the other hand it might just be a localized quirk which only impedes physical processes in whatever space-time area it applies to. This is what my question basically is, and I'm pretty sure there's no answer: What does a single causality violation actually mean to the universe?

And now for a sci-fi tangent: causality violations would be the coolest weapon possible. You could cause any effect without requiring an apparent cause. Pair this with a quantum uncertainty luck device and you've got an invincible character.

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Mjolnir
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Re: Page 90

Post by Mjolnir »

discord wrote:razor: E=mc2(yeah i know, can't be arsed figuring out how to do a squared 2) tells us that objects in motion have more energy, therefor a increase in energy without a increase in speed should be a increase in mass...these are still pretty small value changes though.
That's not what that equation means. For starters, there's no velocity in it. E = m*c^2 just expresses the equivalence relationship of energy and mass, with the conversion factor the square of the fastest possible relative velocity...c^2. That equation is specifically for the rest mass. The full equation is E^2 = (m*c^2)^2 + p^2*c^2, where p is momentum. Massive particles thus relate rest mass to energy as E = m*c^2, and massless particles like photons relate momentum to energy as E = p*c. For relativistic energy of moving massive particles, you use the whole thing, together with p = γ*m*v if you're working with velocity instead of momentum.

And the concept of relativistic mass has largely been abandoned by physics as being more misleading than useful. When modern physics speaks of mass, they mean the rest mass.

discord wrote:and something that always bothered me with the 'no rest frame' is the speed of light....what exactly is it relative to?
It's not relative to anything. The speed of light in vacuum is always c with respect to the observer. Even if you have multiple observers flying around and flashing lights at each other. c is invariant, lengths and time are not.

discord wrote: and that always makes me think of the speed of sound, there seems to be several similarities here, as you approach the 'barrier' you need more and more energy to overcome.....something in the way...the faster you go, the more wave front you are building up in front of you, creating drag hindering further acceleration...
There's only a very superficial resemblance to drag. There's nothing slowing things down toward some special rest state, and nothing taking energy away from relativistic particles undergoing acceleration...they retain all the kinetic energy added to them. It's not drag, it's geometry, in a non-Euclidian spacetime:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minkowski_space

discord wrote:so, my theory here is that the speed of light is merely the speed of sound in a near vacuum. now chew on that you damn physicists.
How can a vacuum with particles averaging a centimeter or so of spacing so effectively propagate waves with wavelengths of a few hundred nanometers? Why isn't vision hopelessly blurred in a near-vacuum due to lack of particles to carry a clear image?

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