light vs. time

mott · Feb 6, 2005

ok so the speed of light is 186000m/s and as you approch that speed time seems to change. could it be possible that time has a speed limit thats = light? they say that if you can reach light speed time may seem to stop for you. so would it would'nt it be that in a way light is instant. for us light may travel for years, but for a partical of light or a traveler it would be instant??? if you can understand my gibberish im just courious?!?

vogon13 · Feb 7, 2005

Time seems normal to YOU whatever your speed. As you whiz by me at high speed you appear to ME to be experiencing time more slowly than I. If you measure the speed of light in your spaceship, no matter how fast it goes (your spaceship) you will always measure the speed of light as 300000 km/sec, whether light goes front to back or back to front or side to side in your spaceship. Light acts the same way for me, always and forever. If I measure the speed of a ray of light coming out your window as you speed by, speed of that light measured by me will also be 300000 km/sec. Light color may be shifted, though, red if you were moving away, and blue if moving towards me. You do not see color shift of your own light , but you will note effect in my light. When you get done flying around, if you went very, very fast, you will be dramatically younger than people you graduated from school with. If you went faster still, then perhaps many centuries will have passed. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!So many people, so few recipes !!Let's clean up this stinkhole !! </div>

mott · Feb 7, 2005

i understand that but from what i understand thats mainly dealing with speeds less than light. do we know what happens at light?? could there be a stop to time?

vogon13 · Feb 7, 2005

Entire mass of universe, less one proton, converted into energy to accelerate that last proton, does not get that proton to light speed. Just really, really, close. Think scientist named Chandresekhar did the math on this idea. So as far as this universe is concerned, you don't get an answer to your question. Acceptance would seem to be called for in this situation. In high school, I was obsessed with dividing numbers by zero, worked my way through that and moved onto other things. Like meaning of life, why are there trees, where were our souls before we were born, why didn't beta win out over vhs, etc. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!So many people, so few recipes !!Let's clean up this stinkhole !! </div>

mott · Feb 7, 2005

well i can answer on bata over vhs good advertising lol

larper · Feb 7, 2005

Actually, you are exactly right. To a photon, it can traverse the entire universe in an instant. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Vote Libertarian </div>

mott · Feb 7, 2005

well IF it were possible for man to travel at =light then would it also be true to us??

mott · Feb 7, 2005

if so then would'nt time have a speed limit = to light

redwhitearcher · Feb 8, 2005

To say what if it was possible is like saying if 1=2

mott · Feb 8, 2005

no more llike saying apples are= to oranges they are both fruit and organic but still different

larper · Feb 8, 2005

Yes, if a man were to actually travel at c, the ultimate Lorentz contraction would take place. The universe would contract to a point, he would traverse it instantly, and the universe would age infinitely while he doesn't age even a millisecond. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> Vote Libertarian </div>

mott · Feb 8, 2005

so in a way we know the speed of time. it traveles at the same speed that light does

Saiph · Feb 8, 2005

Not really. That viewpoint doesn't make much sense. Time is a unit of measure, just as distance is (especially in relativity). Saying time moves at the speed of light is the same as saying distance moves at the speed of light (or an inch moves....) The "length" of time chanes at higher speeds. That doesn't mean it's moving. You also end up with a sort of circular definiton when you do that. You said time, seconds, moves at a velocity, or meters/second...You use time to define itself. You can do the same thing with distance too, since it also gets shorter with higher speeds. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> --------------------SaiphMOD@gmail.com -------------------"This is my Timey Wimey Detector. Goes "bing" when there's stuff. It also fries eggs at 30 paces, wether you want it to or not actually. I've learned to stay away from hens: It's not pretty when they blow" -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink" </div>

siarad · Feb 8, 2005

Puzzles me too & I've worked out a descriptive picture but can't quite understand it's implications, especially whether it's circular. Hopefully it'll come to me so I can post it or more likely realise it's rubbsh <img src="/images/icons/frown.gif" />

mott · Feb 8, 2005

let me reword it we know the rate time travels

Saiph · Feb 9, 2005

rate is still two units. So you've got seconds per....what? Time is a fundamental unit, not a derived one, like velocity (meters per second) which uses two fundamental units, meters and seconds, to obtain it. Relativity says the size of the unit of time changes. People get together and agree on how long a second is. However, even by using the same definition (period of a pendulum under specific conditions, atomic vibrations, whatever), once people start moving at different relative velocities, they no longer agree on that length. E.g. say everyone believes a second is the period of a pendulum of a certain design, in standard earth gravity (1g). Now, using the same design, and same gravity, people measure it, but they have one difference: They're moving. On trains, in spacecraft etc. All other conditions are identicle, and so the pendulum will have the same period (it is not, and cannot be, coupled to velocity, as that's entirely relative). Despite that, when the observers look at eachother's experiments, they will disagree. They'll say eachother's pendulums are moving slower than the physcists report. I.e. the person w/ the pendulum will still say 1 second. The person outside, looking in (and moving at a different speed) will say it takes longer. However, changing the duration of a given unit of time is not a rate. It may be a ratio, and we know how it shifts, but it is not a rate, nor a speed. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> --------------------SaiphMOD@gmail.com -------------------"This is my Timey Wimey Detector. Goes "bing" when there's stuff. It also fries eggs at 30 paces, wether you want it to or not actually. I've learned to stay away from hens: It's not pretty when they blow" -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink" </div>

mott · Feb 9, 2005

but time moves right? and measurments such as seconds, minutes, etc. all our way of grasping the concept. what im saying is: if we know a speed, rate, whatever time stops at could we know the real movement, rate, way it travels??

vogon13 · Feb 9, 2005

I think it was D. Letterman that posed the question: Without time, would nothing happen, or would everything happen at once? What if there was no such thing as a hypothetical question? Dogbert? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!So many people, so few recipes !!Let's clean up this stinkhole !! </div>

Saiph · Feb 9, 2005

time is said to flow. The way it's often looked at is we move through time, just as we move through space. The only difference is, we can only move one way, forward. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> --------------------SaiphMOD@gmail.com -------------------"This is my Timey Wimey Detector. Goes "bing" when there's stuff. It also fries eggs at 30 paces, wether you want it to or not actually. I've learned to stay away from hens: It's not pretty when they blow" -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink" </div>

mott · Feb 9, 2005

but isnt it said that time is the forth deminsion the other 3 we know of for sure can be mesured very well. (trust me im not trying to argue im just wondering)

newtonian · Feb 9, 2005

mott - I'm not trying to confuse you, or the issue, or me - but: what is your definition of time? Are you referring to space-time which began at the origin of our universe? Or would you consider my definition of time: time: the medium through which cause and effect flow. The natural result if that definition is correct is that if you are in a location where time has not traveled, then cause and effect cannot occur- in effect you could not exist. Time is a 4th dimension in a sense when considering the formula: e=mc^2 c, the speed of light, involves time. It doesn't matter what units of time you use, the speed of light is still the same but simply is expressed in different units. Therefore, time is not the units chosen- it is real, not just a language abstraction. And there is a difference between space-time and what I call primordial time. Theoretical astro-physicists, like Linde with FTL inflation theory, have postulated other universes created by cause and effect involving scaler fields. Each of these universes are postulated to have different properties and different space-times. However, the primordial time during which each universe, and specifically our universe, was (were) created due to cause and effect was before and hence independent of the space-times that were created. If there was no primordial time, there could be no interactions involving scaler fields and/or whatever else existed before our universe was created. One aspect of your question could be expressed differently: How fast can our universe's space-time reach another universe and interact with another universe's space-time?

mott · Feb 10, 2005

what i was asking in the first place was if time were to in a way stop at a certin speed. but now im just trying to understand the ramifications of that...im also trying to figure out if in some way that could be useful for humanity. also it kinda seems to me that the way we percive time is kinda short sided which your last post kinda cleared up...although ill have to think on it for a sec. lol it just seems that time itself should be (how do i put this without sounding like an idiot??) more flexible i guess --- /> its just my low understanding of physics. its just a concept that just slides across the top of my brain and a cant quite grasp the true question???? the cause and effect i understand..

Saiph · Feb 10, 2005

right, that's what my last comment hinges on. We move through the 3 spatial dimensions, any way we please. We move through time (as if it was a dimension), except we can only go one way. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> --------------------SaiphMOD@gmail.com -------------------"This is my Timey Wimey Detector. Goes "bing" when there's stuff. It also fries eggs at 30 paces, wether you want it to or not actually. I've learned to stay away from hens: It's not pretty when they blow" -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink" </div>

newtonian · Feb 10, 2005

And to add to Saiph: The one way is forward. I think it may involve law, as in the statutes of the heavens in Job (the Bible) at creation. To consider a time paradox if reverse time was possible: Could one then go back to before time was created? Then how could one go back forward since time does not yet exist? BTW - primordial time may have always existed. Then again, it may have been created- but that leads to a cause and effect paradox.

siarad · Feb 10, 2005

You've scientific answers but what if time does flow, washing over Earth. About 35 years ago I carried out an observation of time whilst working at Swansea Uni. It's common for people to say 'it's a slow/fast day' so I thought "is it true" On such days I asked people "what sort of day is it for you". Surprisingly almost all replied in the way I felt the day. There was one exception who always had the reverse, so did correlate but he was bolshie. I had students, lecturers, technicians to ask. Further when on the phone to various parts of the UK I asked & generally got correlation. Even the wives of friends at home correlated & sometimes they were ill in bed but still had fast days like the rest of us when we normally think time drags. Not scientific as it was just a bit of fun along with many of my other 'oddites' as it was put.

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