Riddle

[zardoz]

What you see is just illusion, surrounded by confusion.

[jeaton]

Overmod

Ah, ye of no faith.

Jay

[Overmod]

Personally, I prefer Silly String theory instead. "We put the degenerate in 'degenerate dimensions'..."

[jeaton]

Mooke

Just wait until they start on string theory next week.

Jay

[Anonymous]

I'm with zardoz, time for a nap. My references to Dilithium and star trek were tongue in cheek, though those ideas might have some merit. So, your serious answer suprised me, but is definately informative, very cool.

[zardoz]

Overmod,

Thanks for the clarification. I was unaware of the Planck length, so it seems I need to "catch up on my technical journals".

Actually, since I already learned something new today (one of my goals in life), now I can go back to bed and nap all day!

[Overmod]

Didn't see the added post until just now:

I hadn't realized that the warp field was intended as a GP drive. (Hey, maybe this qualifies us as a railroad topic again???) The only thing about that is that gravity is quite possibly a 'pseudoforce' expressing relaxation of pre-induced strains in spacetime... meaning that you can't "induce" a gravitational field directly and extrinsically. You see the problem: a bootstrap drive can't possibly be an FTL drive unless you fictify the physics. If you do that, why not go immediately to Doc Smith's inertialess drive (which poses its own weird violations of physics-as-we-know-it, but gets around the problems with gravitational field geometries...)

Part of the problem with an induced-GP drive that produces an 'infinite' field is that either the source is a point (in which case the field lines are NOT parallel, leading to forces on the ship "other than acceleration" (hint, NOT what you want 'warped') or something that does not translate into the necessary stable geometry for superdense virtual structures (e.g., kugelblitz). As with the Compton length -- a drive that requires more power to move matter than would be required to create the same amount of matter de novo is... well, something you won't power with dilithium-crystal matter/antimatter annihilation. By an interesting number of orders of magnitude...

[Overmod]

zardoz: there is a Planck length associated with the Planck constant, h. Start by correcting geometry by dividing by 2pi to give h-bar (the correct character has a bar, like a thorn, but I don't have the font).

Planck length is calculated (from fundamental constants, measurable with great precision, and h) as sqr(h-barG/ce3) -- that's "c-cubed" with the e being exponent -- which works out as about 1.6 x 10e-35. This is a factor of some 10e20 times smaller than a proton... oops... and qualifies as the 'shortest meaningful length'

Planck time is the time it takes the effective 'centroid' of your photon (which is moving at the speed of light) to traverse THIS length. Since below that length classical distance ceases to have objective (and 'observable' meaning, there is no 'point' in discussing units of time, in the Standard Model, that are any shorter. (That does not mean that they don't exist; we can speak quite facilely of the Big Bang universe coming into existence at about 10e-43 seconds)

Note what happens when the Compton wavelength and the Schwarzschild radius (taken as a length) converge to equal the Planck length -- note the mass in both cases converges on a particular value of interest, which is NOT particularly small. But that would be digressing even further from anything of practical railroad interest, I think...

BTW, I've always heard it was the objective size of the electron, not its position/indeterminacy, that made it indeterminate as a metric for length (vs. a proton). If it is not moving, you can determine an electron's position to reasonably high (if statistical) precision. It's only when trying to measure BOTH position and momentum that you get into Heisenberg trouble...

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Overmod

toyo, get a new dictionary. There have been more than 'six' quarks for many years now. For fun, look up Murray Gell-Mann's speculations on the 'Eightfold Path" ... and see if you can figure out whether he did, or didn't, actually believe quarks exist.

Quarks are HYPOTHETICAL 'elementary particles' -- and there are not 'six' of them, there are at least eighteen, in the Standard Model at least (six flavors each with three colors).

You might want to read up a bit more on what a hadron is... now that I've told you how to spell it correctly. The definition here:

http://www.physics.gla.ac.uk/lattice_EU_network/

(in the Introduction) is a better one than that in the "Wikipedia", as it accurately describes the hadron as a state and not a 'ding an sich'.

Be aware that electrons are not made up of quarks.

jruppert, think a bit more about how you would generate a field such as you describe... don't you think it might be a weensy bit easier to manipulate the spacetime INSIDE a field than attempt to modify the universe outside... particularly referential to a "velocity" frame?

Incidentally, this completely stands your assertion about the locomotive's existence on its head: The locomotive (by definition) continues to exist in normal time/space (by any definition, technical or otherwise, of "normal" -- it's the rest of the universe that's been distorted by the field. Sixty million Frenchmen CAN be wrong, if they're all cranked in various ways...

The cheese thing is only intended as humor.

I believe the standard line among trekkies is that the field is an artificial gravitational field, that though is only a size appropriate for a space ship, has a gravitational weight equal to an object far larger. By unbalancing the field - stronger gravity on one side, time/space would flow around the field to the other side, affecting motion.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Overmod

talbanese: sorry about that! I could never stay awake through an entire Steven Wright routine...

No problem. I am here to learn!!!

[zardoz]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Overmod
Time isn't a physical constant and hence has no minimum duration; the proton is certainly not the smallest particle; you will have fun reviewing Planck's Constant (and the length associated with it

My understanding of Planck's Constant was that it is the smallest definable energy unit (6.626x10 to the minus34 Joules, not a measurement of distance.

And the reason that the proton is used for the basic "time" measurement, is that although the electron is certainly smaller (as you pointed out correctly), it's "location" cannot be determined (as you also pointed out); therefore there is no way to measure the duration a photon as it traverses the electron.

[Sterling1]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Overmod

Is there a picture in the "Adults Only" thread?

There was once a young wacky teenager who decided he would have a little 'fun'
After his little 'fun' he found out that in his lower vicinities that he needed a little colonge only find out and realize he would need all of the big bottle to hide 'it'
In pulling up his friction pins static electricity was created and quite unfortunately caught fire with force of a cherry bomb
Nevertheless he still could attract chicks with a high degree of turnover.

Ever wonder what teens do in their spare time when they're not playing with trains?

[Overmod]

Is there a picture in the "Adults Only" thread?

[Sterling1]

How about this:
what weighs nearly half a ton when nursing, is a duck on land, and penguin in the water

[Overmod]

toyo, get a new dictionary. There have been more than 'six' quarks for many years now. For fun, look up Murray Gell-Mann's speculations on the 'Eightfold Path" ... and see if you can figure out whether he did, or didn't, actually believe quarks exist.

Quarks are HYPOTHETICAL 'elementary particles' -- and there are not 'six' of them, there are at least eighteen, in the Standard Model at least (six flavors each with three colors).

You might want to read up a bit more on what a hadron is... now that I've told you how to spell it correctly. The definition here:

http://www.physics.gla.ac.uk/lattice_EU_network/

(in the Introduction) is a better one than that in the "Wikipedia", as it accurately describes the hadron as a state and not a 'ding an sich'.

Be aware that electrons are not made up of quarks.

jruppert, think a bit more about how you would generate a field such as you describe... don't you think it might be a weensy bit easier to manipulate the spacetime INSIDE a field than attempt to modify the universe outside... particularly referential to a "velocity" frame?

Incidentally, this completely stands your assertion about the locomotive's existence on its head: The locomotive (by definition) continues to exist in normal time/space (by any definition, technical or otherwise, of "normal" -- it's the rest of the universe that's been distorted by the field. Sixty million Frenchmen CAN be wrong, if they're all cranked in various ways...

The cheese thing is only intended as humor.

[Anonymous]

As you grow older, you learn more and more about less and less, until you know everything about nothing.

What if the locomotive was traveling inside a warp field?

The time/physics inside the field normal, time/space in front of the field being compressed, and behind the field expanded back to normal. The locomotive would then not exist in normal time/space.

I also have some Dilithium crystals for sale.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Overmod

Quark is the sound certain cheeses make when they try to break the lightspeed barrier. A tachyon (spelling correct) doesn't make any noise because it goes through the wall before it approaches it. You detect them to figure out how fast your engine is turning.

An electron is, in fact, several times smaller than a proton... mass-wise over 1800 times smaller. Size-wise, you can't tell -- the indeterminacy of measurement is far greater than the objective (statistical) size of the electron and hence no one has observed one directly. Even AFMs show the electron shell as a haze...but a proportionally correct haze!

quark (kwoork,kwark) n
any group of six elementary particles having electric charges of a magnitude one-third or two-thirds that of the electron, regarded as constituents of all haldrons (any elementary particle that interacts with other particles).
The cheese thing is a secondary definition not related to this thread.
A tachyon is a third class of particles that travel only at speeds exceeding that of light-A HAH!!! This loco was going the speed limit (of light)- not exceeding it! And I meant could you 'see' the light emitting from the ditch lights :O)
OK-I'm in WAY over my head-somebody help me!!

[Overmod]

Quark is the sound certain cheeses make when they try to break the lightspeed barrier. A tachyon (spelling correct) doesn't make any noise because it goes through the wall before it approaches it. You detect them to figure out how fast your engine is turning.

An electron is, in fact, several times smaller than a proton... mass-wise over 1800 times smaller. Size-wise, you can't tell -- the indeterminacy of measurement is far greater than the objective (statistical) size of the electron and hence no one has observed one directly. Even AFMs show the electron shell as a haze...but a proportionally correct haze!

[rrnut282]

Quark: the sound a tachyon (sp?) makes as it passes through a sheet steel wall.

Besides, isn't an electron several times smaller than a proton?

[Overmod]

talbanese: sorry about that! I could never stay awake through an entire Steven Wright routine...

zardoz --it's not fun to yank my chain! shame on you!

[mook ignore]
Time isn't a physical constant and hence has no minimum duration; the proton is certainly not the smallest particle; you will have fun reviewing Planck's Constant (and the length associated with it); and no, the light from the flashlight doesn't go at twice lightspeed and doesn't just 'hang' there. Blah blah blah.
[/mook ignore]

OK, Mook, you can start reading again without eyes crossed and headache. To get back on track: How does modern railroading relate to the old Zen concept "Nothing moves. Where would it go?" (Has some 'relativity' to the Union Pacific, that's for one...)

[Anonymous]

Ah! Thanks. I do understand the physics of Ensteins of E=mc2. I never intended to push my loco pass or near the speed of light. I don't think the dynamic brakes would slow the loco down in time to make that curve.

I do know that this question is an old Steven Wright joke and we studied the very joke in physics!

[zardoz]

QUOTE: Originally posted by toyomantrains

OK- very enlightening! Try this one...
You're in a SD70M in 'modified' notch 47 travelling at the speed of light (CWR,of course!) and you turn on your ditch lights---Can you see them??
And will the Darwinite that just ran around the crossing gates see them also??

Better yet...if you were at the back of the cab of this hypothetical locomotive travelling at the speed of light, and you shined a flashlight towards the front of the cab, how fast would the light beam travel? Double the speed of light (supposedly impossible unless you watch Star Trek or Star Wars), or would the beam just sort of hang there in mid-air?

Of course, in our relativistic universe travelling at the speed of light is impossible (E=MC2). However, there is nothing (except the lack of technology) to prevent you from travelling at 99% the speed of light, providing you had sufficient power.

But then we get into the time-dilation effect. The faster one travels, the slower "time" passes for the traveller. It has been computed that if one can travel at a constant 1G of acceleration, one could tour the entire known universe in about 50 years (for the travellers). However, due to the aformentioned time-dilation effect, the universe will have aged approximately 4 billion years, and our Sun will have long ago become a Red Giant, expanding to a size equal to the orbit where Mars once existed, having boiled away the Earth; and after that the Sun itself will have exploded in a Nova, then cooled to a White Dwarf about the size of the former Earth, where it will cool and eventually die.

[zardoz]

QUOTE: Originally posted by george745

You are only NOW because there is no future nor no past, there is only the present. Since time is only spatial in relation to us. Time in measured in the distance the earth travels around the sun.

It has been postulated that time actually has a definition in our version of reality. It is proposed that the smallest increment of time is ten to the minus 43rd power. That is the duration it takes for a beam of light in a vacuum to travel the diameter of a proton. And since as far as we now know, the individual quarks that make up a proton cannot exist seperately in our reality, the proton seems to be the smallest thing we can relate to. Unless, of course, you consider the quantum foam that pervades the entire universe, with virtual particles almost coming into existence from nothingness, and vanishing back into the nothingness just before they actually become real.

Remember, everything is relative to something else.

[Mookie]

Overmod - no disrespect, but doesn't your head hurt sometimes? I think my eyes just crossed!

Mookie

[Overmod]

talbanese -- the question wasn't "would you see the illumination", it's "would you see the ditch lights". And, as I stated, they are on the locomotive nose where you can't see them from the cab, no matter how fast you're going, conflating along the axis of movement, or even if time goes to zero at the limit. You appear to be a believer in Mach's physics, not Einstein's.

With respect to the light: "Physics will tell you" that the loco will NEVER move "at the speed of light". You can posit that all you want, but you will not make it so. Part of the reason for that is that changes in the forces that hold matter together don't propagate faster than lightspeed, so you can't "accelerate" anything up to that point.

Light isn't a "thing" with a "momentum" anyway -- it behaves like mutually reinforcing electric and magnetic fields, always propagating with the same effective speed (depending on the medium). If you move very close to the speed of light, you will be very nearly (but never quite completely) catching up to the wavetrain emitted from the lamps... these will always be sufficiently far in 'front' of you that you can't catch up to the wavetrain so it's immaterial what you'd see directly.

Now, if you're talking about REFLECTED light from the ditch lights (which is the only way you see them on a conventional locomotive anyway) there's another question. Is the light normal (the speeds cancelling) or is it showing a Blue Shift From Hell? Hint: the light is emitted with its relative normal spectrum, but with respect to something -- dust, say -- which let's assume is at rest in the reference frame -- it is blue-shifted severely. Perhaps to the point that it isn't properly 'reflected' off very much matter... Then, 'very soon' after it is reflected, you will be running up the reflected-frequency wavetrain at what is presumably a very large relative velocity, meaning that the incident frequency will effectively double as you encounter it. The question becomes one of energy/matter interactions rather than of theoretical physics in this scenario...

There is NO similarity of 'principal' between the Shuttle, poking along at .00003c or so, and something moving at true relativistic speeds. And, in any case, neither the astronaut nor the shuttle possess sufficient mass to cause much distortion in spacetime. You can see some time-dilation effect in orbit -- with a very, very, very accurate clock...

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Overmod

George745 -- halfway

toyomantrains -- a) no, of course not, they're on the front of the locomotive where you couldn't see them no matter how much Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction you had. b) it's highly unlikely he'll see the light from your ditch lights, as the frequency spectrum will be blue-shifted way the hell up out of the visible range. (He might see your train-radio transmissions, though, if your amplifier is good enough ;-})

Shrek -- I'd get a Cummins instead.

Actually you would. Physics tells us that the loco is moving at the speed of light . So is the headlight on the loco and yourself in the cab. When the headlight is turned on the light from the headlight will be moving at the same speed. Because you are also loco also moving at the speed of light, you would not experience the compression of the light waves. You will see the light.

This same principal works with the Space Shuttle. The Shuttle moves very fast 17000 - 20000 miles/hour. If an astronaut steps out of the shuttle the shuttle does not move away because the both parties were and are moving at the same speed.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by george745

How far can you run into a forest?

Half way

[zardoz]

QUOTE: Originally posted by vsmith

I prefer the philosophies offered from Marx/Lennonism.....John and Groucho that is...

John Marx and Groucho Lennon?

[Junctionfan]

Fritos stick!!!