nrobinson_12

I have no clue about all the other stuff, but I recently read an article about the twin paradox and light speed and this is what is explained. Photons have no mass, they are both a particle and antiparticle, and they are around everywhere all the time. Light itself, doesn't really have anything to do with time slowing down, just it's speed. Standing still we, are already traveling at the speed of light. Time spent traveling + distance traveled = light speed. Thus, when we don't move any distance, it doesn't take any time and equals light speed. So the faster your speed, the more distance is traveled, and the more time slows for the person traveling. Obviously, the amount of time is miniscule down here. But as the twin paradox states, one twin stays here on Earth, while the other travels in a rocket ship traveling near the speed of light, when the twin in the rocket returns three months later, 80,000 years would have passed on Earth. That is because, the twin on the rocket ship was moving at almost twice the speed of light, since he himself is traveling at the speed of light inside the rocket, while the rocket itself is also traveling at near light speed, and would cover a very large distance, in a very short amount of time, and time would slow because speed traveling + distance traveled, also equals time. Meanwhile, the twin on Earth is traveling a just light speed with time progressing as normal. It would take the twin on Earth 80,000 years to walk the same distance. The article also went on to say that nothing with mass, that they know of, can travel faster than the speed of light. E=mc^2 means that anything with mass traveling at the speed of light would have to have infinite mass and infinite energy.

Animals do kill there own children, the do it all the time. If a mother suspects a sick or weak one in a litter, they will kill it. I presume that this is for survival purposes of the species all together, they don't want the weak and diseased genes to populate within the gene pool. I do agree that emotions are instinctual and help ensure survival, mostly because other animals have them as well. The only difference is, people associate thoughts and ideas with those emotions. Regardless if you were to have the most horrible of existence, or the grandest, emotions would still basically feel the the same. Granted, given the circumstances, you may feel certain emotions more than others, but that would effect your psyche, not the biological way in which emotions work. For example, if you're mad or scared, you more than likely would trigger adrenaline and noradrenaline, your fight or flight response mechanism, which is most definitely a survival instinct. If something were to cause elation, you would have an increase in feel good hormones serotonin and dopamine, which would make you want an experience again or help create stronger bonds. So you see, the biological responses would be the same because of evolution, how we interpret them and what we do with them is subjective. *On a side note, I read another one of your posts, where you believe that the ideal school would be more like therapy, and that the children would get all the love and attention they need. I just want to say, that while I do wish you would have had a more pleasant and well adjusted childhood, since you elude to the fact it was anything but, I find that idea to be a huge step in the wrong direction. I'm not saying kids don't need nurturing and attention, but that needs to come from the home, not school. And further more, I think that it is important for kids to get upset; to be sad and angry; to experience disappointment, let down, and failure, because it is those things that teach us how to cope with the world and with life. I think a lot of kids are sheltered from the harsh realities of life and are unprepared to launch themselves out into the world because no one told them how hard it really was, hence the reason for so many 20 something dependents still living at home. (just to clarify, I am not advocating child abuse in any way shape or form, and have no intentions on offending anyone who was/is a victim thereof.)

Hi, I'm Nikki, 26, and I've been a science nerd for as long as I can remember, and decided to go into nursing right out of high school. To say the least, I have found that I'm more of a theoretical person, rather than practical, which is why I work more behind the scenes in nursing now. I'd love to go back to school for either anthropology, geology, or astrophysics...though I don't think my math skills will ever be up to par enough for the latter. It's a far fetch, given my age and life circumstances, but who knows...maybe someday. My mind is constantly pondering away at the thoughts about how we got her; how did the universe happen, how does it work; how did the Earth evolve, how does it work, why has it changed the way it has and what impact it had on the life that existed; how did life evolve, how did we not only evolve from ape to man, but what did that ape evolve from and so on; how might the living environment and life circumstances shape our evolution, our culture, our instincts and ways of thinking. So many things going on inside my head, so much so that at times it seems to consume my thoughts, and yet I have no one who really shares any interest in the same things. Most people I know are more concerned with their day to day life, rather than answers to the universe. So, hopefully, I will find an outlet for my crazy thoughts, where maybe it'll be appreciated.

Okay, I just watched this documentary on this, and this is what I took away from it. The first thing to know is that standing still, we are already moving at the speed of light. Time spent traveling + distance traveled= lightspeed, therefore if you don't move, it doesn't take any time to get there, thus you are already moving at light speed. The second thing is frame of reference. If you were on a train that is moving very fast, and another person saw you on it from the window, and you would appear to be moving as fast as the train. Yet to you, you are sitting still on the train, and if you weren't able to look outside, it wouldn't seem like you were moving fast, only as fast as you were moving inside the train. If you both were on a train, lets say traveling 60 mph, and were to look out the window, it would appear that the other train is traveling at 120 mph, rather than 60. This is reference frame and can vary depending on the observer. So if one twin took off from earth in a rocket ship reaching speeds close to that of light speed (mind you, yourself are already traveling lightspeed just by sitting still), he would in essence be traveling almost double light speed, while the twin on earth was still traveling at just lightspeed, or barely faster. So, the faster the rocket ship goes, the closer to light speed it gets, means a larger distance will be traveled and time would slowdown to compensate for speed, because distance traveled + time spent traveling= Light speed. So if the twin left the earth at near light speeds, and was gone for 3 months, 80,000 years would have here on earth. If you think in a smaller scale, it's quite simple. It takes less time to get from point A to point B in a car, compared to if you were to travel the same distance on foot. So for the earth bound twin to travel the same amount of distance that the rocket ship did, it would take 80,000 years in he were walking, instead of 3 months......make sense?