New Idea

[rw752]

Hey, right wonder if any of you could cast your opinions on the following:

 

i am currently a first year physics student studying in bristol university, i am currently at home over the break. i have a couple of homework pieces to be done but in an effort to avoid doing any actual work i have been pondering on some bits and pieces that have puzzled me throughout my first term.

 

the first wonder i have is that of time. i have read alot in special and general relativity and from what i can gather if one was to accelerate ones self to the speed of light then one could live forever. what i put forward is that time is only the result of velocity. that is we as a universe only experience time because we are accelerating in one or more directions. this would then lead to a measurable time difference as the years went on. Now time is just a measurement of the distance between two events therefor prediciting this theory would be relatively simple.

 

now i have only begun to look into this today and will tonight called upon the time between ice ages, as these times are very long and any difference would be significant.

 

this idea may well be and probably is very rubbish but as an aspiring astrophysicist i want talk about any ideas.

 

would really appreciate any feedback!

 

thanks all, have a great christmas

 

rob

[JonM]

i have read alot in special and general relativity and from what i can gather if one was to accelerate ones self to the speed of light then one could live forever.

 

 

Well nothing with mass can be accelerated to the speed of light, but the rest of it sounds interesting. Best of luck with your studies

[swansont]

Time in your own frame is unaffected. You would have a long life as measure by someone you left behind, but if you were normally going to live 100 years, by your own clock, you would still live 100 years. Depending on the details of your travel, if you were to return to your point of origin, many thousands of years may have passed by their reckoning.

[wormholeman]

Why dose he think if someone can accellerate to speed light and then be able to live forever?

 

edit:oh..because time is the result of velocity

[Bettina]

I'm reading about this right now. I was always fascinated with what went thru Einsteins mind when he thought about riding on a beam of light....what would he have seen...

 

Anyway, what swansont already said. Only the observer would notice the difference. You will still live a normal life.

 

Good luck

 

Bettina

[[Tycho?]]

Why dose he think if someone can accellerate to speed light and then be able to live forever?

 

edit:oh..because time is the result of velocity

 

From your point of view time would pass at a normal rate. So it will not change your lifespan.

[guardian]

I agree with Swansont also. Time is relative. But what is disheartening is that Einstein (from what Bettina has mentioned) is allowed to imagine himself riding a beam of light - yet when I ask a question Is it sensical or non-sensical to use a photon reference frame...I get nothing (for a long time) and then a "non". Hmmm. Is it really that difficult to succintly describe why or why not? I go with Einstein and ride the light - afterall the photon is doing it and still gets to interact. I digress...

[timo]

But what is disheartening is that Einstein (from what Bettina has mentioned) is allowed to imagine himself riding a beam of light - yet when I ask a question Is it sensical or non-sensical to use a photon reference frame[/url']...I get nothing (for a long time) and then a "non".

As far as I can see, that "non" completely answered your question since all except the first sentence in your post refered to "what if it is sensical". I don´t know what Einstein said or imagined. There are so many stories about him that I wouldn´t expect they´re all true. Anyways, you have to keep in mind that Relativity wasn´t as established and rounded out in Einstein´s times as it is today.

Hmmm. Is it really that difficult to succintly describe why or why not? I go with Einstein and ride the light - afterall the photon is doing it and still gets to interact. I digress...

You didn´t ask for an explanation in your thread so why are you asking for it here? Nevertheless, the short answer is: The movement direction of the photon (which would be the time-direction in its frame of rest) is self-perpendicular and has length zero. This causes problems constructing a proper base.

[guardian]

Thank you Atheist.

 

Is it really that difficult to succintly describe why or why not?

You didn´t ask for an explanation in your thread so why are you asking for it here?

...to be entirely correct I wasn't asking for an explanation of 'why' HERE, I was asking whether it was so difficult. Usually when someone asks a question (even in the form that I used), 'physics experts' will give reasons for their answer. The intriguing part was that it took some 6 days to answer something that seems so simple even if it was a 'non' by a (presumably) non-expert.

 

Now back on topic...

[Janus]

I agree with Swansont also. Time is relative. But what is disheartening is that Einstein (from what Bettina has mentioned) is allowed to imagine himself riding a beam of light - yet when I ask a question Is it sensical or non-sensical to use a photon reference frame[/url']...I get nothing (for a long time) and then a "non". Hmmm. Is it really that difficult to succintly describe why or why not? I go with Einstein and ride the light - afterall the photon is doing it and still gets to interact. I digress...

 

The point is that when Einstein made his imaginary ride with a beam of light he soon realised that it lead to non-sensical results. For one, the beam of light he was riding on would cease to exist.

[Meti]

It is a very interesting idea, and I wish you luck in the future; but, really, to answer the question - one could only give an answer based on theory, while ignoring some of the things that make such an event an impossibility (eg. matter moving at the speed of light). But, at last, if one were to move at the speed of light, you would not "live" forever, and (from your point of view) time would not seem to pass at a normal rate. Also, if matter were to stop moving, time would not stop. These conclusions are based on a certain theory, (quickly):

 

Matter (and what have you) has a universal velocity that is transferable

from movement through time (the passing of an hour from your p.o.v.) to

movement through spatial dimension (the movement of a car or a person

walking), with a maximum value that nothing can exceed.

 

So, when you reach the speed of light, the total of this "special velocity/energy" is transferred into spatial movement (your trip through the cosmos); and none is reserved for *your* movement through time. So, you would not even have a "point of view" because there is no "special v/e" left to give the electrical signals in your brain, let alone your body itself, the ability to move through time. As you said yourself, Time is the measured distance between two events, but without any temporal movement, one event cannot become another.

 

You can also think of it this way, if all of the s v/e is given to your body, you can only move in one dimension - like light only moves in only one dimension at any given time, a straight line. Thusly (a word I made up btw - just saying that for all you grammar freaks ), if all of your movement is in a single direction, one dimension, then your body cannot move in any way (including all of the electrical impulses that make your body work) but a straight line. You would be frozen in time.

 

When I said that you would "not live forever", I meant that, being frozen in time is not what I would call being alive, since you cannot perceive anything. Although you could slow down even a trillion years into the future and still be as you were when you had first reached the speed of light. In that sense, you could just about "live forever".

 

For the last point, if you were to stop moving completely, in the three spatial dimensions, all of the s v/e would be entirely transferred into time - so, time would pass incredibly fast, meaning - you would die instantaneously (not that you could live through the process of actually slowing down).

 

I hope I have answered your "wonder", and given you a bit of drive to help you in the coming years. (Sorry for the long post)

 

~Meti