Bagpi

As far as my limited imagination can see, the only thing a tilt could be relative to would be the Sun. The rest of the universe would'nt give a monkeys. Without the Sun in the equation and the present tilt giving us the seasons we currently enjoy, how would you guage if there was a tilt. North South East West, seems to me to be a man made observation. Approaching earth for the first time from deep space, the Earth's alignment would depend on your ships alignment with regard to the rest of the universe. bagpi

Planet earth may have tilted!!...Relative to what?? bagpi

The trouble with Phsysics it seems to me is that language gets in the way. Perhaps instead of asking if something can move faster than light?, the question should be: Will it ever be possible to circumvent the barrier imposed by C. Circumvent being the key word. Perhaps light takes the long way round just because it can. Is their possibly another way to get from A to B by going round the inside of the track to the finish line? Humans historically have a handy knack of circumventing the apparently impossible, getting unbelievable amounts of energy simply from bumping a few unbelievably small (particles) into each other for example. Made even more confusing by recent research considering if particles even exist. Something exists....ask the Japanese. bagpi

Someone said "0" was impossible and I don't understand the analogy either....how can ice MELT but still be at freezing point. I have seen a block of ice in a cup of boiling water ...no problem?????? KC

I have not got my head around the quote thingy yet so have pasted........... QUOTE: According to either observer. Actually, that's not strictly accurate. If you had two things approaching each other at the 99.9% the speed of light, they would appear to a third observer to be traveling towards each other at 2c. If two things were approaching each other at exactly the speed of light, they would already have hit each other before a measurement could be made, so it's not really meaningful to talk about how fast it seems to them, since it seems infinitely fast. So if they were a light year apart the distance between them would be reducing at what rate at 100% c, if you were a Deity looking on. Surely, said Deity would not see an instantaneous coming together as light itself would then appear to have travelled faster than c. Aaaaaand...why does something with no mass give a monkeys about a blach hole and all the gravity inherent in such a thing. Still puzzled. Keith

Questions: 1) What speed do two light (beams) approach each other from opposite directions. 2) If light has no mass what makes the black and white thingy in the light bulb rotate and why bother with a proposal to power space ships with a big sail. 3) If light has no mass how is it bent (slowed down) by muckle heavy things. 4) If light does indeed have mass...how can it travel at the speed of light without violating lots of laws. 5) If light does have mass and can be slowed down does this mean some stuff out there might be closer than we think. 6) Somebody stoped light recently in a near absolute zero degrees clowd of sodium..then started it up again.............what now??? Very puzzled I am Keith (Bagpi)

It may sound dumb, but do we not need to qualify (faster than light). What if.............there was an extremely long something with very little mass a wave or (standing wave)?? (I am on thin ice now) perhaps. What might happen if it was given a gentle nudge. Would there instantaniously be a corresponding move at the other end, ie communication faster than light.

Hello people. I have found this very interesting forum by accident after watching a doco on "This elegant universe" (String theory). Surfing to find out more I came across McC's TFT which in turn led me to this forum. By way of introduction I am totally a lay person being ignorant of your math, while however managing to grasp (I think) the gist of what some of you are saying. To be honest I was hoping to find out more about TFT before trying to obtain at considerable expense and bother. I too would have liked to read the book before passing comment. Alternatively I am wading through this thread to get an idea of what it contains to justify my purchase. I have decided possibly unfairly not to bother. What influences my thinking is that if one simple thing is wrong with an idea then....good bye, back to the cosmic drawing board. If true that the idea is, that everything is expanding, however different materials expand at different rates depending on their density, then surely Blind Freddy can see that we are in a lot of trouble, or would have been many Moons ago. Anyway could it not be said that if an object was lifted off the surface of a mass (where good old fashioned gravity was nowhere to be felt) it would stay where it was quite happily watching the other mass and itself expanding without feeling the need to wait for the larger mass to catch up with it, ie fall back to the surface? More especially if the larger mass just happened to be spinning, poor old smaller mass would be constantly be bouncing. Being thrown off then being caught up by big old nasty mass. Sooooo...back to conventional theory as I understand it. The Earth sucks. However I thought it was the whole planet as a mass, not some magic spot somewhere in the middle. If this is correct then our experience of gravity might be different on the surface than say 10 or 20 miles deep. Where I am coming from is that the proposal that a hole right through the planet would cause something dropped in it to oscillate ad infinitum from one surface to the other,(saw this somewhere) might be wrong. On the surface anywhere the complete mass of the planet would surely be in effect...downwards.I would like to know if any measurements of simply the weight of a known control have been taken at the bottom of an extremely deep pit.Where I would have thought there would be now less mass below and more and more all around, the deeper the pit??. As such would something dropped through a hole right, through the planet, not in fact accelerate initially then be acted upon by more of the planets mass in all directions the deeper it went. Consequently possibly taking for ever to even get to dead centre, where it would stop. I would really like to know your thoughts on this principally as I have other notions to put depending on whether you consider me to be a complete moron or not. I did Google for the Tamarack experiment only to discover that it most likely is myth that it took place. The story however relates that two plum bobs at equal depths in the earth were not closer together as expected, rather they were further apart.Myth or not, if two plumb bobs were measured at equal depths would they not in fact perhaps be further apart, given the way they would be acted upon by the now (surrounding mass)? Please be gentle with me. Foot note....I saw a T shirt....."There's no such thing as gravity......The Earth Sucks!!!

Hello or (How'r ye gaun). Does anyone know,:confused: if there were no observers, would there be anything to observe?