Iggy

Do you have a source saying that distance (or volume) cannot be relative to FOR according to realism? I would be very interested to see any source you have for that especially if it explains why. Thank you.

I wonder if anyone could explicitly say since I haven't seen it yet, is there anything provable about the nature of a neutrino that makes FTL propagation incompatible with relativity?

Can you give us a source establishing that realism rejects a notion of distance that's relative to frame of reference, please?

That's funny. Your assumptions can't be wrong so it must be math's fault

Huzzah! I do believe you have it, Sir. I haven't read the replies yet, so I may be repeating someone, but I would add only to where you say "There is not an objective fullgod frame of reference that can extend its observers out appropriately to account for every possible velocity and every possible extended halfgod like now." just that space-time accomplishes exactly that. It combines all the frames into a single entity. Very nice post, and very well worded.

That relativity and/or a constant speed of light contradict a universal now was proved in post #327 and surrounding posts. Now that you know "universal now" refers to different reference frames rather than locations maybe you could give it another look and it will make more sense.

Did you forget the following straightforward statements? And, whether you have forgotten or not, how many times more should they be repeated, and by how many people, for you to get rid of the strawman? moving to your recent and relevant question... It means "relative to velocity". That's always what it means. Time is relative to velocity. Distance is relative to velocity. Simultaneity is relative to velocity. There is a difference between "location" and "velocity". Even if you like the former and can't be bothered getting corrected on it, the latter is correct. The difference between one frame of reference and another frame is velocity so when someone says "length depends on frame of reference" they are saying that the length between two things as it exists at one constant velocity (regardless of location) is different from the length between the same two things as it exists at another (relatively different) constant velocity. The order of events anywhere in one frame is different from the order anywhere in another frame. Location, signal delay, and 'photon lag' is irrelevant. This is why when you say "the sun-earth distance does not depend on the location from which it is viewed", the whole thread shakes their head and clinches their teeth. Please realize that you aren't disagreeing with relativity -- you are presenting a strawman based entirely on your lack of knowledge of how relativity works. You are not alone in this confusion between location and velocity. You may well be alone, however, in your inability to be corrected on the misconception despite so many people telling you so many times that it is wrong and a misconception. The trick you could try is to remember things from yesterday. There are enough statements correcting you that I quoted up there that you would be forced to abandon the misconception if only you could remember the statements. Just try remembering what people say -- even if they say it as much as a day ago.

I only meant that they are similar in the sense that neither accounted for the concept of 'now'. But, I don't think it is helping that SH and I are both explaining the same issue. I'll take the back seat while you consider his last post which was quite good.

I agree, and I think an important point is that the concept isn't incompatible with relativity -- just isn't necessary. I recalled reading a good augmentation to what Tar was saying and it wasn't hard to find so I'll post it: It is all very well saying that all that exists is what is happening at the present instant, what exactly do you mean by that? Presumably you mean ‘me reading this book in this particular location’. Fair enough. But I imagine you would also include what is happening elsewhere (literally elsewhere) at the present instant. For example, there might be a man in New York climbing some stairs. At the present instant he has his foot on the first step. So, you will add him, with his foot on that step, to your list of existent entities. But now suppose there is an astronaut flying overhead directly above you. Because of the loss of simultaneity of separated events, he will disagree with you over what is happening simultaneously in New York while you are reading this book. As far as he is concerned, the man in New York, at the present instant, has his foot on the second step – not the first step. Moreover, a second astronaut flying in a spacecraft travelling in the opposite direction to the first arrives at a third conclusion, namely at the present instant the man in New York hasn’t even reached the flight of stairs yet. You see the problem. It is all very well saying that ‘all that exists is what is happening at the present instant’, but nobody can agree as to what is happening at the present instant. What exists in New York? A man with his foot on the first step, or a man with his foot on the second step, or one who has not yet reached the stairs? As far as the block universe idea is concerned, there is no problem: all three alternatives in New York exist. The argument is merely over which of those three events in New York one chooses to label as having the same time coordinate as the one where you are. Relative motion means one simply takes different slices through four-dimensional spacetime as representing the events given the same time coordinate, ‘now’. But of course, the block universe idea also has its problems. Where does the perceived special nature of the moment ‘now’ come from, and where do we get that dynamical sense of the flow of time? This is a big unsolved mystery, and might remain that way for all time. It does not seem to come out of the physics – certainly not from the block universe idea – but rather from our conscious perception of the physical world. For some unknown reason, consciousness seems to act like a searchlight scanning progressively along the time axis, momentarily singling out an instant of physical time as being that special moment we label ‘now’ – before the beam moves on to pick out the next instant to be so labelled. But now we are venturing into the realms of speculation. Let’s get back to relativity. Relativity - A Very Short Introduction The last line is excellent advice But I would add that I believe philosophy and psychology are currently quite well suited to answer the question of why 'now' seems so important to human consciousness.

If you assume that the glass isn't tempered (or that it's annealed to where it won't shatter) then a diamond dust drill bit is the way to go. There are other recommendations for a glass-drilling method here: http://www.ehow.com/how_7525770_drill-hole-glass-plate.html The idea behind the diamond bit is that diamond is harder than glass... perhaps that is the point of the question.

I would be inadequate to the task, but I know of a paper on the topic: Faster-than-c signals, special relativity, and causality Motivated by the recent attention on superluminal phenomena, we investigate the compatibility between faster-than-c propagation and the fundamental principles of relativity and causality. We first argue that special relativity can easily accommodate — indeed, does not exclude — faster-than-c signalling at the kinematical level. As far as causality is concerned, it is impossible to make statements of general validity, without specifying at least some features of the tachyonic propagation. We thus focus on the Scharnhorst effect (faster-than-c photon propagation in the Casimir vacuum), which is perhaps the most plausible candidate for a physically sound realization of these phenomena. We demonstrate that in this case the faster-than-c aspects are “benign” and constrained in such a manner as to not automatically lead to causality violations. arxiv Feb 14, 2002

If you appeal to your own authority, like so: you put yourself in the position of having that authority debunked. I'm sorry if debunking it feels malicious. I actually think it is helpful for you because if you realized that you don't understand the basic concepts of relativity then nothing would prevent you from amending misconceptions like you repeated again today... You wouldn't be bound to these idées fixes that persist even after you've been corrected on them about a dozen times. That would just be swell. Amen! I admire your intellectual honesty. Understood. I'm glad to hear you read the link and sorry to hear it isn't coming together for you more. You might compare time in relativity to a calendar. Nowhere on a calendar do you see "now" written. Would this mean to you, I'm asking honestly and I'm curious, that the calendar is somehow at fault or is misleading in how it represents time? I'm just trying to get a grasp on what you mean.

I don't specifically know, but I do know that bullet proof glass usually has layers, or a layer, of tempered glass. Tempered glass can't be cut so any holes would have to be drilled before it's tempered -- like with a diamond dust bit. EDIT... when I say "can't be cut" I mean that if you try it will shatter

or at least that the geometry itself doesn't have physical meaning without the test particle. I find this really interesting and I want to see if I understand what you mean. The events, by my understanding, are physically meaningful by themselves but the space-time coordinates are not. The coordinate chart is arbitrary and could be changed so that it looks different, but the events in the new coordinate system would still interact in the same way. The same test particles, for example, would intersect. Absolutely, the wiki article where I pulled Einstein's quote talks about the same:

or the forum has an unending supply of unrequited helpfulness and assistance... yeah, let's go with that In any case, I took us off topic. Sorry. What was the velocity of light relative to one of the ships in the last thought experiment? If a rod stuck out of the nose of one of the ships that was 2/3rds of an AU long would it take 2/3rds of 8.3 minutes for the light to reach the end? I do hope so for realism's sake.

Einstein said the opposite, "People before me believed that if all the matter in the universe were removed, only space and time would exist. My theory proves that space and time would disappear along with matter." Relativity doesn't insist that space exist independent of objects. Einstein believed it proved the opposite. He said in another quote that the "coordinates of the space-time continuum are entirely arbitrary choosable parameters, devoid of any independent physical meaning" EDIT -- sorry, IM Egdall. I didn't mean to repeat your point without giving props

Someone already did that for you in post #280. With an IQ of 200, or whatever you said, you should be able to answer questions like "if light goes twice as far as a ship then what fraction of their distances combined does light go?" while playing a banjo and juggling three cats.

You should have run with it

It seems like it should be easy because Owl has already said... If the two planets in that scenario are approaching each other at half the speed of light (to make the calculation easy) and they are 10 lightyears apart then here's the first frame where the red triangle (the light) moves relative to the green planet... It is easy to calculate, Owl, that the speed of the red triangle is 1 light-year per year. In 10 years it goes 10 light-years. 10 / 10 = 1. Then assuming distance and duration are invariant and there is a universal now the blue planet's frame is... Everything that happened in the first frame happens at the same time in this frame (a universal now). All of the distances in the green planet's frame are the same in this frame (no length contraction). With those assumptions it should be easy to see that the speed of light in this frame (relative to the blue planet) is not the same as the other frame (relative to the green planet). In this frame light moves 5 light-years in 10 years. Its speed is .5c This is where I see the conversation keep breaking down... or getting derailed as Schrodinger's Hat put it. In March, the first time I tried to prove that the speed of light couldn't be invariant with your other assertions (I used stick figures rather than planets) your solution was: But, without addressing this logical inconsistency your version of reality (your description of realism) can't make logical sense -- if not addressing my animations then addressing the Captain's diagrams or Schrodinger's Hat could, like he says, make a representation showing the contradiction. How can the red thing go the same speed relative to the green thing and the blue thing when your other assumptions clearly and directly contradict that assertion? It remains unanswered.

I'm not sure what you mean, but the Roman empire began in 44 BC. The Roman republic conquered Israel a decade or so before that. The books of the old testament were written well before that time... Perhaps you mean the Babylonian empire? You probably meant Greek rather than Hebrew.

That makes me think -- in 1916 Einstein wrote "Relativity: The Special and General Theory" that I think could not be better or more recommended for Owl and Tar. It is available online. Einstein writes in the preface: The present book is intended, as far as possible, to give an exact insight into the theory of Relativity to those readers who, from a general scientific and philosophical point of view, are interested in the theory, but who are not conversant with the mathematical apparatus of theoretical physics... ...I have purposely treated the empirical physical foundations of the theory in a "step-motherly" fashion, so that readers unfamiliar with physics may not feel like the wanderer who was unable to see the forest for the trees. May the book bring some one a few happy hours of suggestive thought! I just skimmed the first three chapters and I see that the seventh chapter is titled "The Apparent Incompatability of the Law of Propagation of Light with the Principle of Relativity"... exactly what we're talking about now. This, I believe strongly, would be a huge help to read.

I think you just perfectly summarized this whole thread. I feel better not being the only one who needed a double take

I see where you're coming from. I think making "progress in that region" could be considered a 'conservative decision' to go to war... or perhaps better put... that could be considered a reason why the war was a good idea by conservatives. Conservatives might be more interested in getting rid of totalitarian regimes and replacing them with liberal democracies for the free-market economy that is created rather than the humanitarian liberation of the people... I don't know. But, either way, I think military interventionism is too broad a thing to be either mainly liberal or conservative in principle.

Yeah, I think that makes sense.

A genetic mutation causing extra-long lifespan? I would have gone with James Howlett.