Intelligent discussion

Sorry, I just found this amusing:

As an engineering major at a large university I know this like the back of my hand.

The reason everyone is so terse in answering this question is because it's been done to death, avail yourself of the search function to save yourself further embarassment, because no one here feels like endlessly reiterating why the speed of light is not a "speed limit" to someone who is overly confident in that "B" they got as a grade in their grade 10 physics course.

maybe it's done to death because the counter-arguments ignore most of the practicle experiments, as well as theory involved.

Einstein's theories include temporal as well as physical distortion as you approach light speeds.  The temporal distortion was proven in partical accelarators, using radioactive particles with a known half life.  The increase of energy required to achieve near light speed also supports Einstein's theories and is ignored by most of your posters.  

To use the spaceship example sited elsewhere, at lightspeed minus 1, you appear to travel from point a on the ship, foward to point b at a set speed.  Relative to your frame of referance you move at your normal rate.  Relative to someone standing on planet, it may take you centuries to complete your walk.  

If you want to avoid the faster than light arguments, change your paradigm.  Why bother with linear acceleration?  Circular acceleration, with centrifical force providing the psuedo gravity would work, not require near infinite energy, and with a couple of adjustments to offset tidal forces,  almost work, but any acceleration based model also has to explain how the atmosphere can extend beyond the "Ice Barrier".   The air must be trapped here, or we would be accelerating through it.  The earth, sun, moon, and planets would have to be part of a single unit accelerating together, with some form of ether holding it all in place.

no, i think you'll find that GPS stands for Global Positioning Satelite.


SATELITE.

Turns out:

a) the "S" in "GPS" stands for "system".  Look it up.
b) you spelled "satellite" wrong anyway.

More to the point (i.e. you don't have to response to points (a) and (b) please):

c) even if it did stand for "satellite", so what?  Presumably FEers believe that just because the space shuttle is called the space shuttle doesn't mean it really goes into space, or that just because a globe is called a globe doesn't mean it's really spherical (the real thing I mean, not the models), etc.

Man.  If the government can fool people like you just by "carefully" picking the names of things, then in all sincerity I have no trouble believing that they can pull of the round-Earth hoax.

-Erasmus

maybe it's done to death because the counter-arguments ignore most of the practicle experiments, as well as theory involved.

Um nope, they're terse for exactly the reasons 6string gave.  The acceleration model simply does not disagree with relativity, in theory or in experiments.  The slightly less terse version is: what frame of reference are we in? and Please investigate the Principle of Equivalence.

I won't get any less terse than that; any further mention of this issue will just go ignored (by me, at least).

I suppose an exception would be a post that demonstrates to my satisfaction (a) that the poster fully understands the (allegedly errnoneous) justification of the model, (b) that the justification is erroneous, via a well-reasoned, clear refutation of the justification based in the principles of relativity, (c) that no other justification is possible, proven formally.

At all times while examining a post for these criteria I will insist on the highest standards of mathematical rigor combined with unparalleled ability to convey intuition.  Failure to meet the criteria will result in no response.

This is my final word on the matter.

-Erasmus

Quote from: "The_Smee"

no, i think you'll find that GPS stands for Global Positioning Satelite.


SATELITE.

Turns out:

a) the "S" in "GPS" stands for "system".  Look it up.
b) you spelled "satellite" wrong anyway.

More to the point (i.e. you don't have to response to points (a) and (b) please):

c) even if it did stand for "satellite", so what?  Presumably FEers believe that just because the space shuttle is called the space shuttle doesn't mean it really goes into space, or that just because a globe is called a globe doesn't mean it's really spherical (the real thing I mean, not the models), etc.

Man.  If the government can fool people like you just by "carefully" picking the names of things, then in all sincerity I have no trouble believing that they can pull of the round-Earth hoax.

-Erasmus

you spelt off wrong.

(b) that the justification is erroneous, via a well-reasoned, clear refutation of the justification based in the principles of relativity

O.K I will attempt to demonstrate under you (b) clause:

If you want nice math and diagrams then go to:
http://gregegan.customer.netspace.net.au/FOUNDATIONS/01/found01.html#s7

I would start with the fact that it has been shown that light propagates from it's source without the momentum of it's source.  In other words, the speed of light within a specific medium is a set speed, you can't speed it up by speeding up the source.  This leads to the "Red Shift" that you mentioned as distant object move away from the earth, consistent to the expending universe theories.  In simple terms, the Doppler Effect.

Just a pilot of a jet plane that exceeds the speed of sound can not hear his engines through the air, any object traveling at the speed of light or faster could not see light reflected off of itself, as the light could not keep up.  You would see the entire star field as point towards which you are traveling, and any stars on the horizon would seem to vanish.

In almost every section of the link I provided, there is proof of why we can not be hurdling through space faster than light.

This thread ( http://theflatearthsociety.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1326 ) contains a worth-reading discussion regarding the speed of light and it's function as a "barrier".

In almost every section of the link I provided, there is proof of why we can not be hurdling through space faster than light.

But I never said the Earth was travelling faster than light.  Or at any particular speed at all.  I don't know what it means for an object to be travelling at a certain speed, actually.

-Erasmus

But I never said the Earth was travelling faster than light.  Or at any particular speed at all.  I don't know what it means for an object to be travelling at a certain speed, actually.

-Erasmus

OK, if I understand you, speed is a relative concept.  Therefore, ignoring light for a moment, it is impossible to establish your absolute speed, infact relativity basically states that there is not "Absolute Zero" when it comes to motion.

However, within the model of a constantly accelerating system, you can pick any arbitrary point of time from which you can calculate your relative speed to a theoretical location that is not accelerating.  I used ten thousand years,  in a similar vein one of the other posters used his own birth.  

Under both frames of reference the speed of light must be exceeded if the flat earth is maintaining a rate of acceleration the is equivalent to gravity.

However, within the model of a constantly accelerating system, you can pick any arbitrary point of time from which you can calculate your relative speed to a theoretical location that is not accelerating.  I used ten thousand years,  in a similar vein one of the other posters used his own birth.  

Under both frames of reference the speed of light must be exceeded if the flat earth is maintaining a rate of acceleration the is equivalent to gravity.

That's just it.  If you were to get in a rocket and accelerate upwards with a constant thrust and drop some sort of reflective object out behind you, and regularly measured your speed relative to it, it would never appear to be moving faster than the speed of light away from you.  It's not that the speed of light "must be" exceeded in the model; it simply isn't the case that the way you measure my speed/acceleration and the way I measure it will be the same.  And we only care about how we measure it.

What do you think would happen when you are going slightly slower than light and still accelerating?  Suddenly you'd just stop accelerating?  Furthermore, do you think that no part of the ship (such as a passenger) would be able to accelerate further?

As long as a constant force is applied, a constant force will be felt.  The effect will be different to outside observers, but the same to you on the ship.

-Erasmus

What do you think would happen when you are going slightly slower than light and still accelerating?  Suddenly you'd just stop accelerating?  Furthermore, do you think that no part of the ship (such as a passenger) would be able to accelerate further?

As long as a constant force is applied, a constant force will be felt.  The effect will be different to outside observers, but the same to you on the ship.
-Erasmus

Actually, according to Einstein, your last conjecture is wrong.  While the warping of the dimensions would cause those inside the ship to not notice most of the effects, the amount of force needed to accelerate an object increases dramatically because it's mass increases as you approach light speed.   This is proven by the energy curve required as they increase the maximum speed particles can be acceleterated in particle accelerators.

So if a constant force is applied, eventually the effect will , not just consistant with Einstein, but thermodynamics too.

as for

Furthermore, do you think that no part of the ship (such as a passenger) would be able to accelerate further?

I'm researching that one.  Since time and spacial distortion is only significant at speed a small fraction below light, the question of a light inside the ship shining forward while the ship travels at anyspeed becomes a paradox.  So far the only physicist I have on tap has given me a cop out answer...that since there is no way to determine the speed that does not rely on measurements occuring at the speed of light or less, there's not way to prove that there is indeed a paradox...not a satisfactory answer to me, just because it is not observed directly, does not mean it does not exist.

the amount of force needed to accelerate an object increases dramatically because it's mass increases as you approach light speed. ...
So if a constant force is applied, eventually the effect will , not just consistant with Einstein, but thermodynamics too.

Yeah but I get to pick the frame of reference from which I measure mass.  I choose the frame in which I am at rest, which, conveniently, is the Earth/spaceship.  Thus any time I measure the mass of something (like myself), I measure it to be the rest mass, so it doesn't take any more  than the "usual" force to provide the desired acceleration (again, acceleration is measured in my frame of reference).

In otherwords, as long as the force is constant in my frame of reference, so is the acceleration.

Since time and spacial distortion is only significant at speed a small fraction below light, the question of a light inside the ship shining forward while the ship travels at anyspeed becomes a paradox.

I'm not sure that this is the case, or, of what you mean by "a small fraction."

So far the only physicist I have on tap has given me a cop out answer...that since there is no way to determine the speed that does not rely on measurements occuring at the speed of light or less, there's not way to prove that there is indeed a paradox...not a satisfactory answer to me, just because it is not observed directly, does not mean it does not exist.

Actually, relativity in important ways does depends on this whole how-long-it-takes-information-to-travel thing.  And it's not exactly in the negativist sense of "because we can't measure it, it doesn't exist", but rather, "it is, to so-and-so, the way so-and-so measures it."

Again I'm not really sure what paradox you're referring to, but if you could explain it I could probably consider it better.

-Erasmus

Quote from: "Doubter"

LEt's see if we look at the past 10000 years that most societies have agreed people have been around for, and have a speed of 9 meters per second per second, that puts us at 315,576,000,000 seconds squared ....Darn, my computer doesn't calculate that many digits.....How many times the speed of light? linear acceleration is a big problem.

Wrong.

How old is earth ? Please do an own calculation of our current speed.

Yeah but I get to pick the frame of reference from which I measure mass.  I choose the frame in which I am at rest, which, conveniently, is the Earth/spaceship.

No, you don't.  This is where relativity get's more flakey.  Mass increase due to acceleration is not relative.  There is a theoretical point where the mass is at it's abolute lowest.  In relativity it's one of the few things that is not relative to it's frame of reference.  

In otherwords, as long as the force is constant in my frame of reference, so is the acceleration.

If that was true, then you would not be suject to the psuedo gravity of acceleration, and everything would be in freefall.

I'm not sure that this is the case, or, of what you mean by "a small fraction."

A small fraction is going above 99% light speed, anything lower than that the dimentional changes are miniscule.  So the light shining inside the spaceship traveling at 99% the speed of light is shining at 199% the speed of light relative to the theoretical point of minimal mass.

Actually, relativity in important ways does depends on this whole how-long-it-takes-information-to-travel thing.  And it's not exactly in the negativist sense of "because we can't measure it, it doesn't exist", but rather, "it is, to so-and-so, the way so-and-so measures it."

Again I'm not really sure what paradox you're referring to, but if you could explain it I could probably consider it better.

-Erasmus

The first point of paradox is the two object would seem to be able to move in relationship to each other at just below twice the speed of light.

The second is that if you could reach 99.9999% of light speed or so, to the point where time dialation occurs, and you were racing a light ray, the closer you go to light speed, the faster the light would seem to be passing you because time for it is going faster than time for you.

Quote from: "Erasmus"

Quote from: "Doubter"

LEt's see if we look at the past 10000 years that most societies have agreed people have been around for, and have a speed of 9 meters per second per second, that puts us at 315,576,000,000 seconds squared ....Darn, my computer doesn't calculate that many digits.....How many times the speed of light? linear acceleration is a big problem.

Wrong.

How old is earth ? Please do an own calculation of our current speed.

I'll say at least 21 years old and 0 m/s referential to itself.

How would you answer the same quesiton for the round earth?

How would you answer the same quesiton for the round earth?

What question?  

The age of the earth?  I believe the current estimates are around 6.5 billion years, roughly half the age of the universe.  

Rate of Acceleration?  We travel at about 1000 miles a minute, and about 1 degree of Arc per day.  So we are constantly accelerating, with a constant speed, which allows the planet to stay in a relatively stable orbit.  We acccelerate falling to the sun, but our angular momentum allows us to miss - so we are in orbit.

first off i think the earth is ROUND because of the changes in seasons. i think the earth is ROUND becuase its been proven by countless evidance

First off, I think the earth is ROUND because of the changes in seasons. I think the earth is ROUND becuase its been proven by countless evidence.

The changing seasons work just fine on a flat Earth, why wouldn't they?

Quote from: "Unimportant"

How would you answer the same quesiton for the round earth?

What question?  

The age of the earth?  I believe the current estimates are around 6.5 billion years, roughly half the age of the universe.  

Rate of Acceleration?  We travel at about 1000 miles a minute, and about 1 degree of Arc per day.  So we are constantly accelerating, with a constant speed, which allows the planet to stay in a relatively stable orbit.  We acccelerate falling to the sun, but our angular momentum allows us to miss - so we are in orbit.

It sounds like you're measuring the Earth's speed with regard to the sun. Why did you pick that particular star? Isn't that kinda an arbitrary reference point? Don't you think the sun is "moving" as well?

What I'm trying to get at is that any definition of speed requires a reference point. You chose the sun, but that's as arbitrary a reference as anywhere else in the universe. Since every definition of speed is relative, the idea of a "speed limit" at C is equally subject to that referential necessity. You can't just say something like "Yeah but the flat earth would be travelling 1000000000 times the speed of light so that's impossible" without defining a reference point, and no such reference point exists.

No, you don't.  This is where relativity get's more flakey.

Certainly not.  It's quite clear on what happens to mass in different reference frames.

Mass increase due to acceleration is not relative.  There is a theoretical point where the mass is at it's abolute lowest.  In relativity it's one of the few things that is not relative to it's frame of reference.

Mass, in fact, is relative.  We give a special name to the mass we measure of an object at rest with respect to us: that's its "rest mass" or its "inertial mass".  We can then define its relativistic mass as a function of this mass and the relative speed of the object.

Nothing flakey about it.

Quote from: "Erasmus

In otherwords, as long as the force is constant in my frame of reference, so is the acceleration.

If that was true, then you would not be suject to the psuedo gravity of acceleration, and everything would be in freefall.

Hm, again I'm not sure I'm following you.  I know that acceleration is locally indistinguishable from gravitation, and that we are not in freefall as long as the ground is pushing up on us.

What I was referring to is that, in the Earth's frame of reference, if there is a constant force on it, the Earth will accelerate at a constant rate, and every object rigidly attached to the Earth will accelerate at the same rate.

A small fraction is going above 99% light speed, anything lower than that the dimentional changes are miniscule.

In fact, Lorentz contraction and time dilation are noticeable at much slower speeds than that.  For example, at sqrt(3)/2*c (approximately 87% the speed of light) objects are reduced to half their rest length.  At half the speed of light, objects are reduced to 87% their rest length.  I would say these changes are quite the opposite of miniscule.

The first point of paradox is the two object would seem to be able to move in relationship to each other at just below twice the speed of light.

That's not really a paradox.  Relativity does not state that this is impossible; only that it is impossible for a signal (information) to travel faster than light.  If these two objects were signalling each other, then to them, the signals would appear to be travelling at light speed or less.

The second is that if you could reach 99.9999% of light speed or so, to the point where time dialation occurs, and you were racing a light ray, the closer you go to light speed, the faster the light would seem to be passing you because time for it is going faster than time for you.

No. The speed of light (in a vacuum) is always the same.  Under no conditions (says Einstein) will its speed appear to be anything other than c.

-Erasmus

That is correct.  That is why it is given the letter c.  The speed of light is a constant.  It never changes (except in different mediums), no matter the frame of reference.

You can't just say something like "Yeah but the flat earth would be travelling 1000000000 times the speed of light so that's impossible" without defining a reference point, and no such reference point exists.

That's untrue, and the point I'm trying to clarify with Erasmus.

The speed of light in a particular medium is fixed, regardless of frame of reference.

Also as for mass, I asked my physicist about how there was no fixed point where velocity or acceleration can be determined, his reply:

"When you say "fixed point", I assume you mean that there is no point that is not moving.   However, since relativity indicates that mass increases with velocity, it would be possible to determine a state of "zero velocity" by firing rocket, etc until you have minimized your mass.  Of course, the actual mass increases at normal speeds is so small that actually achieving  this state resides solely in the relm of theory."

There is another, theoretically simple way of telling the difference from acceleration and Gravity, but not very practicle...Gravity also travels at the speed of light  (interesting what you can learn watching Nova), eliminate the source of gravity and the effect spreads at the speed of light, in the accelerating model, there would be no effect, unless the oject eliminated is the source of acceleration.

But much more simple is the demonstration that objects radiate gravity, a massive object, suspended next to an extremely light object, which is also suspended, with the same electronic potential (to eliminate static electrical effects) will measurably effect the position of the lighter object following the equations established for gravitational effects.  How does acceleration account for that?  Also the path of celestial objects, such as meteorites, comets and the like, have their paths affected by the gravity of the object they pass.  Also, comet tails point away from the sun, Even the paths of the planets make no sense until you plot them as making circles around the sun, with the earth joining them.  That's why they were called planets.

That is correct.  That is why it is given the letter c.  The speed of light is a constant.  It never changes (except in different mediums), no matter the frame of reference.

According a team of Australian scientists, you are mistaken. Speed of light is not constatnt it is in fact slowing down.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/08/07/tech/main517850.shtml

Quote from: "TheEngineer"

That is correct.  That is why it is given the letter c.  The speed of light is a constant.  It never changes (except in different mediums), no matter the frame of reference.

According a team of Australian scientists, you are mistaken. Speed of light is not constatnt it is in fact slowing down.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/08/07/tech/main517850.shtml

Even in science, it is not wise to just take something as gospel without at least checking around:

From a NASA article:
(http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/lightspeed_031217.html)

The speed of light, one of the constants scientists rely on to study the universe, appears to have held its ground under some tight NASA scrutiny despite other theories that it may slow as it moves through space.

By comparing gamma ray observations of two nearby galaxies, a NASA researcher found evidence that the speed of light is still traveling as fast as it ever has. The finding reinforces the relevance of Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity, which depends on a constant speed of light as the maximum speed attainable by any object.

"Special relativity is, of course, one of the backbones of modern physics," said theoretical physicist Floyd Stecker, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who conducted the study. "It's affirmation of violation, even in small amounts, would be fundamentally significant."

Stecker studied two galaxies, Markarian (Mkn) 421 and Mkn 501, with supermassive black holes at their cores, each sitting about a half a billion light-years away. The black holes in both galaxies spew intense gamma ray photons at Earth that can be seen colliding with infrared photons and annihilating one another.

If the particles were moving slower than the accepted speed of light - 186,000 miles (300,000 kilometers) per second - they wouldn't have enough energy to annihilate each other. The research is based in part on his past collaboration with Sheldon Glashow of Boston University and appears in the November issue of the journal Astroparticle Physics.

Quote from: "crunchybear"

First off, I think the earth is ROUND because of the changes in seasons. I think the earth is ROUND becuase its been proven by countless evidence.

The changing seasons work just fine on a flat Earth, why wouldn't they?

if you notices the sun is different each season. on winter days the sun shines less during the day.

with the round earth it is easely explained because the earth rotates on its axis. if the flat earth thery was to be correct then the sun would shine equaly long on each day. which is does not(of course if this is also part of the "conspiricy")

still another reason is the correolis effect.

if you want more evidence i can continue to explain.

one other major factor is the changes in the zodiac. on a flat earth why do the stars change?

still the major factor i see is the reason for this consipiricy. i am an arch conspiricy therist BUT there is no reason for the goverment to try and convince us that the earth is flat.

and still if it has been going on for such a long time someone would have come clean by now!

Your grammar makes my brain hurt...

Hm, again I'm not sure I'm following you. I know that acceleration is locally indistinguishable from gravitation, and that we are not in freefall as long as the ground is pushing up on us.

What I was referring to is that, in the Earth's frame of reference, if there is a constant force on it, the Earth will accelerate at a constant rate, and every object rigidly attached to the Earth will accelerate at the same rate.

But your idea of acceleration is as hampered by the frame of reference as the counter argument of the speed of light.  What are you accelerating in reference to?  Acceleration is a change in velocity or direction.  Whatever is your frame of reference that you are accelerating from, is also my basis for reference in stating that you are exceeding the speed of light after about a year, if you are in fact accelerating in a linear fashion.

Then there is the question of the ever increasing force required to continue the accceleration.  Even without relativity causing the energy requirements to curve to the ifinite, the energy required to accelerate the mass of the earth for the time that it can be reasonably determined that it has experience the force we (RE)  term gravity would be increadible.  And as with any force, what is the equal but opposite reaction?

If you are infact accelerating in a circular fashion, you need not be increasing speed, only direction, and the speed of light is not violated, but that leads to other factors such as tidal shear.

Quote from: "Unimportant"

You can't just say something like "Yeah but the flat earth would be travelling 1000000000 times the speed of light so that's impossible" without defining a reference point, and no such reference point exists.

That's untrue, and the point I'm trying to clarify with Erasmus.

The speed of light in a particular medium is fixed, regardless of frame of reference.

That has nothing to do with anything I was saying.

That has nothing to do with anything I was saying.

I am trying to establish that even in regards to relativity there can be established a fixed point of reference.  And that in the most extreem case, you can still only have two objects traveling in relationship to each at a speed of just less than twice the speed of light.  The sustained acceleration needed to provide a constant pseudo gravity of 1G is physically impossible under the theory of relativity.

But, to be clear, you stated "No such reference point exists", I disagree and have posted my reasoning, so yes, it has something to do with what you are saying.

So you're claiming that the speed of light can be used as a reference for our own velocity? How?

[Edit]Or was this where your relative mass argument comes in?