Einstein was wrong, the speed of light cannot be constant because it's immeasurable by his own theo

Originally posted by muzzleflash
Of course the speed of light isn't constant.

How do you think it get's sucked into a black hole? It has to change it's speed flying outwards and turn inwards.

But however if we could observe light in a completely closed system perhaps it would maintain a consistent speed or behavior? I hate to refer to Newton and the First Law of Motion and the principal of inertia, but it was inevitable.

It doesn't get "sucked" into a black hole. It travels at a constant velocity c but because spacetime is warped by the mass of the black hole, the photon follows a curved path (actually the "sum of all paths" and appears to have been sucked in. A photon is massless - it has zero rest mass - so there is nothing to "suck" on.

Originally posted by BobAthome
reply to post by Astyanax

 

"to take what scientific experts tell us on faith"

sounds like a cult,,of high Priests

QUESTION EVERYTHING!

Unless you plan on reproducing the experiments yourself you'll have to take it on faith. The difference is that the option is there for you to confirm or deny with your own data. "Question everything" is a meaningless statement if your not prepared to educate yourself to the level of competency needed to have reasonablel doubts about it.

Originally posted by DaveNorris
its a theory. many theories cant be tested doesnt mean they are wrong, doesnt mean they are right either, they are just theories

and IF he did get it wrong, that doesnt mean he was covering anything up.

edit on 25/8/2011 by DaveNorris because: added txt

Theories are empirically, experimentally tested hypotheses. Hypotheses that withstood falsification for some time, are theories.
Theories are the pinacle of scientific insight. There is no certainty beyond a theory. "Just theories" is something noone with profound education, regardless in which domain, would ever say.

Now don't take me wrong, I do not mean this in a condescending or rude way.. But the what OP is suggesting is just philosophical.. without proof and demonstration of proof this is all it could be at this point.

Also, again, not being rude.. but Einstein was a genius, how can you possibly say he is wrong and you are right??

Originally posted by Astyanax

I don’t believe you can expect to understand relativity without such a course of academic study. Self-study won’t do it; you need to be taught. That’s because there are too many ways to get your ideas wrong and go off at a tangent – sometimes literally, as in this poster’s case.

Originally posted by CLPrime reply to post by Astyanax

 

I would be a perfect exception to that rule. But okay.

Although a structured academic program is ideal, I disagree that it is a necessity for everyone.

As an amateur enthusiast of cosmology and astrophysics, I consider myself to have developed a reasonably solid understanding of the basic principals required by both general and special relativity through primarily individual effort.

I have been fascinated by the idea of space since I first saw Carl Sagan's Cosmos series during grade school in the 1970's. I remember being so inspired I tried to tackle what was then the hypothetical subject of black holes on my own at the local public library with only a 5th grade education and a card catalog to help guide the way. Needless to say, I was immediately overwhelmed, discouraged and quickly returned to a more kid friendly mix of Star Wars comics, Ad Libs and Choose Your Own Adventure books.

Later on in high school, after I had actually developed the necessary academic foundation and the opportunity presented itself, I was still intimidated by the subject from my younger experiences and instead followed safer interests (aeronautics). I have long regretted that decision, In recent years I have redeveloped enough curiosity and the self confidence to try again however returning to college to pursue a formal education in what for me is only a hobby is not a practical option.

In the last decade there has been a resurgence of lightweight educational cable programming on the mechanics of nature eloquently presented by the likes of Michio Kaku, Brian Cox and Neil Tyson. Interest in the subject is bigger than ever with the new generation of slick video production coupled with rock star physicist narratives working to inspire more people to further their horizons every day.

I would say to have a go at relativity beyond what the discovery channel has to teach, it is mandatory to first have some fluency in the physical sciences of classical physics and chemistry along with a reasonable understanding of the supporting mathematics.

Personally, I read as much paper and digital print as my academic foundation allows me to understand, when I need help I source amateur internet forums like physicsforums.com or bautforum.com (as well as more recently, the definitive ATS resource for simple explanations of complex subjects aka ATS member CLPrime )

In this way I have certainly learned enough on my own to feel confident in laymen conversation and not completely lost when tackling more complex idea's ( such as the case for cosmic inflation, the reason why time ceases to exist near a singularity or the implication for the standard model in light of the recently confirmed direct observation of gravitational lensing produced by a mass of dark matter )

I would cite Leonard Susskind ( Stephen Hawking's intellectual rival whose roots began as a humble plumber) as someone whose interest in the field was sparked outside of a dedicated course of academic study. Albert Einstein himself was a notoriously poor student who struggled with the mainstream curriculum and was passed over by his educators in favor of other, more promising pupils.

This post isn't meant to lend any weight to the kind of poorly researched,misrepresented nonsensical fluff and amateur Sci-Fi promoted by most self proclaimed alternative theorists highlighted in these type of threads (John Hutchison, Zecharia Sitchin, David Talbot etc)

Nobody is going to be overturning Einstein any time soon. As this thread clearly illustrates, thus far every single person I have ever seen claiming to have dis-proven relativity has only proven that they do not understand much, if anything, on the subject.

It takes a disciplined effort involving a lot of work to yield an honest comprehension of relativity, my opinion is that if somebody is serious about learning it is possible for an individual to be competently self educated in this day and age. The personal computer combined with the internet have made the resources both accessible and freely available to anyone interested.

I know its not worth much but that's my two cents on the matter....

Here is a cool page I found while researching. www.adamtoons.de...


I also am reading a paper called Tesla vs Einstein. But I can't find anywhere else where it is stated that Dirac found particles to spin faster than light. Checking more into it.

Here is a quote from the paper. hmmm

"Concrete proof that relativity can be violated can be found in George Gamow’s watershed book Thirty Years That Shook Physics. Gamow, one of the founding fathers of quantum physics, tells us that in the mid-1920’s, Goudsmit and Uhlenbeck discovered not only that electrons were orthorotating, but also that they were spinning at 1.37 times the speed of light. Gamow makes it clear that this discovery did not violate anything in quantum physics, what it violated was Einstein’s principle that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light.
Paul Adrian Dirac studied the problem. Following in the footsteps of Herman Minkowski, who used an imaginary number i, (the square root of -1) to be equivalent to the time coordinate in spacetime equations, Dirac assigned the same number i to electron spin. In this way he was able to combine relativity with quantum mechanics and won a Nobel Prize for the idea in the process. That was the upside. The downside was that the finding that elementary particles spin faster than the speed of light as a matter of course went the way of the passenger pigeon. No physicist talks about this anymore. What this means is that the entire evolution of
20th and nascent 21st century physics is evolving ignoring this key Goudsmit and Uhlenbeck finding. The ramifications suggest that elementary particles, by their nature, interface dimensions, the faster than c realm stemming from the ether."

Here is source:
Article in New Dawn Magazine, chapter excerpt from: TRANSCENDING THE SPEED OF LIGHT
Consciousness, Quantum Physics & the Fifth Dimension- Marc J. Seifer


Thoughts?

Originally posted by cplouffe

"Gamow, one of the founding fathers of quantum physics, tells us that in the mid-1920’s, Goudsmit and Uhlenbeck discovered not only that electrons were orthorotating, but also that they were spinning at 1.37 times the speed of light. Gamow makes it clear that this discovery did not violate anything in quantum physics ...."

Of course he does, 'cause he's one of the "founding fathers" of quantum physics, right?

Goudsmit and Uhlenbeck discovered not only that electrons were orthorotating,

I fail to see how this could possibly have been discovered, given that the location of electrons is impossible to determine. Besides, "orthorotating" isn't a word...though, I do know what it's supposed to mean, and it demands knowledge of electron location, which, again, is impossible to determine given knowledge of the electron's rotation (a consequence of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle). They could show the possibility that this is the case, but could never show it with any certainty.

However, that, of course, is not the issue being discussed...

but also that they were spinning at 1.37 times the speed of light.

Electrons neither orbit nor spin. Such things are classical terms, and to apply them to quantum physics makes me question whether or not Gamow truly said any of this. To suggest that an electron is spinning faster than the speed of light is akin to suggesting that objects at the outer limits of the observable universe are actually travelling at near the speed of light. Neither of these statements is true, and they come from a fatal misunderstanding of the physics involved.

Basically: electrons don't orbit, their positions are entirely probabilistic (meaning, essentially, that they "jump" around"); and electrons don't spin, because they have no physical existence (they are a wave-function having intrinsic characteristics, including what is called spin only because it has effects similar to that of a spinning charge).

Nothing about the electron violates either quantum mechanics or relativity. In fact, all known observations of electron behaviour confirm (and, in fact, many are reliant on) both.

reply to post by CLPrime


Great. Thanks for explaining that. Pretty hefty statements so I wanted to throw it out there.


So thinking about it in the quantum world. How is the speed of information measured in quantum entanglement. I am trying to grasp some saying "information" is not actually being sent, rather they are interconnected in an unseen way. So the changes are instantaneous? Or if they are not "connected" is information sent faster than the speed of light? I know I am dumbing it down but trying to make it easier for me.

reply to post by cplouffe


After a brief glance, I believe the answer is that New Dawn Magazine is a tabloid peddling fiction and that the author Marc J. Seifer either does not understand anything about the subject, is being purposefully disingenuous in misquoting George Gamow's Thirty Years That Shook Physics in the Einstein vs Tesla article or possibly a combination of both.

A quick browse through the free electronic version of Thirty Years That Shook Physics on Google books and haven't found the quote yet.

I'm getting well out of my league here but the easy version is that "spin" in reference to an electron describes the particle's quantum state where as "spin" in the traditional sense describes angular momentum in classical physics (spin of a wheel,ball etc.)

Here is one person's explanation of how spin in quantum physics was so named. It sounds reasonable enough to to me, hopefully somebody with a stronger background can expand a bit?

I will try my best to explain this, so hopefully it works.

In the beginning of quantum mechanics, there were 3 quantum numbers, n, l and m (from wikipedia) "These were identified as, respectively, the electron "shell" number, n, the "orbital" number, l, and the "orbital angular momentum" number m." This didn't however explain all of the observed phenomena.

The concept of spin, which gave would account for the electrons magnetic moment. This idea was introduced sort of ad hoc to non relativistic quantum mechanics (Schrodinger equation). The idea explained lots of previously unexplained phenomena.

But the electron, as far as we can tell is point like (at that point it was known it was very small). The magnetic moment was large enough that the spin causing it would mean that the electron would classically be spinning fast enough to have equatorial speeds faster than light.

Later Dirac developed a relativistic version of quantum mechanics, which included spin, and treated the electron as a point particle. This told us that electron spin is really a property of electrons and isn't actually the electron spinning. It just has such a name because of its historical development and classical analog.

The name spin is really misleading, as the electron isn't rotating.

physorg.com

The answer, or part of it can be found in the light wave. The light of each wavelength may reach the end point at the same time, however, those with smaller peaks will travel that distance shorter. It's like having two people riding 10 speed bikes. One goes straight but the over zig zags. If both reach the end point at the same time, the one who was zig zagging has to goe faster than the one going straight. Therefore light has many different speeds acording to the wave peak intensity.

Now what each wavelength is traveling through is called the " Distance " between two points. The speed that each does it at is called " time ."

This has everything to do with how fast or slow the flow of time is. Near a black hole there is time dilation. So time seems to slow down. This is because the wave peaks of light are stretched like a slinky.

To travel in time, one would have to encapsulate themselves in a field where the atomic speed is slowed or reversed. And for that you would need the power of a black hole. Once you break off from the natural time flow you can travel up and down the river as you will.

All of the universe is continually expanding, so if by math you could measure the wave patterns and atomic density of the period of 1900 AD, and you could cause your protective shield to oscillate at that frequency, you would instantly break off from today and appear at that time point. You would stay there because when you shut if off you would adjust instantly. The same goes for time travel to the future.

And no, I'm not a scientist. It's just my opinion.

reply to post by Drunkenparrot


Thanks for the info. I am reading up on it as well. I see there is a thread in a physics forum talking about this and that quote was mentioned in it as well. That makes sense now about the label "spin"(as CLPrime also said) not really meaning what I thought it meant.

Originally posted by hombero
Now don't take me wrong, I do not mean this in a condescending or rude way.. But the what OP is suggesting is just philosophical.. without proof and demonstration of proof this is all it could be at this point.

Also, again, not being rude.. but Einstein was a genius, how can you possibly say he is wrong and you are right??

Hubris. Pure unabashed hubris.

Originally posted by philware
reply to post by 31Bravo

 

he is right i watched something about the speed of light
and they used what he said in that programme
speed 186,000mps but you can slow speed down in
some form of liquid that to was shown to
i think the mans name in said documentry
was a mr tyson (and no not iron mike tyson)

No, it's Dr. Tyson - Neil deGrasse Tyson,PhD, Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planitarium, BS in Physics from Harvard, PhD from Columbia U. in Astrophysics and Chair of the Astrophysics Department at the Natural Museum of Natural History.

Originally posted by cplouffe
reply to post by CLPrime

 

How is the speed of information measured in quantum entanglement.

Basically: given two synchronized clocks (one at each particle of an entanglement pair), any change in one particle of the pair at a specific time will precipitate a reaction in the other particle at the same time.

I am trying to grasp some saying "information" is not actually being sent, rather they are interconnected in an unseen way.

Entanglement essentially removes the notion of "distance" (or "space") between two particles. As far as an entanglement pair is concerned, no matter how large we measure the distance between them to be, they experience no such distance.
This effect is purely at the quantum level, and, being a relatively new phenomenon, we have yet to understand how it truly works. Now, I have my own theory, but it's rough and by no means complete. We still have a lot to learn.

So the changes are instantaneous?

As far as we can tell.

Or if they are not "connected" is information sent faster than the speed of light?

Sort of. The information exchange between the two particles is faster than the speed of light. But an observer has no chance of learning that information faster than the speed of light - the issue of gathering the information from the entanglement pair is complicated, and it precludes the possibility of doing so instantaneously, even though the information, itself, is transferred instantaneously between the entanglement pair.

If that makes sense at all.

reply to post by CLPrime


Yes actually. Very well put. I am learning more and more about it each day. Very interesting stuff, but can be very dry. I read in spurts. Thanks again.

Originally posted by DarkSarcasm

Originally posted by Helious



I'm sure this has already been corrected, but, photons do have mass. Light is a form of matter with such small mass that it can behave both like a wave and as a particle.

L

No, it is impossible for photons to have any mass. I think you may be confused with neutrinos, which for a while were thought to be massless, but upon the discovery of neutron flavor oscillation was found to be necessarily massive (in the sense of having some mass, but very little.)
For a photon, if you ascribe any mass at all and then plug that into Hendrik Lorenz's transformation formulas, unallowable infinities (like dividing by zero) occur.
If you want to really want to intelligently discuss photons and light, it is first necessary to study and mathematically understand (not memorize) Lorentz's work on transformations, as well as that of Henri Poincare on symmetry transformation, and Hermann Minkowski's spacetime metrics. I would also highly recommend Richard Feynman's work on Quantum Electrodynamics.
It is also probably necessary to get one's hands on a good laser interferometer and actually DO the experiments which have unanimously verified Special Relativity.

reply to post by libertytoall


It's called relativity.

reply to post by AnnoyingOrangeX


We can figure out how much the observer is moving and then the constant speed of light.

The constant speed of light is constant therefor, and if not, then why does all light travel at that speed in a near vacuum? No force is working on it, yet it maintains the speed.

reply to post by CLPrime


Basically: given two synchronized clocks (one at each particle of an entanglement pair), any change in one particle of the pair at a specific time will precipitate a reaction in the other particle at the same time.


"will precipitate a reaction"
has too be
linear, then.

but that discounts waves,thought too be non-linear.
or are waves actually linear, bent to,
look like a wave.

that would assume,
mass.


photons have no mass.

reply to post by randomthoughts12


Light can be slowed down, to a rate you could probably run faster than, using a Bose-Einstein Condensate.
youtu.be...