Argument supporting existence of a God

[Clete]

:chuckle:

It's just how I approach the issue. It's still possible for us to discuss matters, as long as we respect each others' viewpoint.

"I just saw the Earth behind that cloud."
"Did it look round?"
"Yeah, but I don't think it saw me."

Ok fine. It makes no sense to me but whatever floats your boat.

 

[Stripe]

Ok fine. It makes no sense to me but whatever floats your boat.

Do you think it's possible that E=mc² might be improved on?

 

[Jonahdog]

Do you think it's possible that E=mc² might be improved on?

Sure, go for it.

 

[Idolater]

I don't know how to explain the science, I'm not that much of an expert. It has to do with Maxwell's equations, and the Lorenz Tranformation, neither of which anyone one disputes and what they mean in relation to why nothing can travel faster than 299792458 m/s.

The bottom line is that nothing with mass can ever attain the speed of light.


No. The fact that nothing with mass can travel faster than light is not a consequence of Einstein's equations, it's the other way around. Einstein's equations are what they are because 299792458 m/s is the cosmic speed limit. It is the Lorenz Tranformation that predicts the value of c, not Einstein's theories.


If Maxwell's equations are correct then asking the question is a moot point. The fact that they travel at c is proof that they must be massless.

If someone were to prove that light has mass, it wouldn't just be the last century of physics that would be crushed to powder but virutally the whole of science itself and our ability to communicate meaningful information. Causality itself would be crushed to powder, not just Einstein.

Watch this video, it does a much better job of explain it than I am capable of.

https://youtu.be/msVuCEs8Ydo


Attempting to weigh something that travels at light speed might be a fun project to attempt but is just as much a waste of time as is the hunt for non-existant dark matter.

Light is so interesting.

Photons travel at a fixed velocity in a vacuum, let's just say for the sake of argument.

Velocity is displacement divided by time, and when we measure the velocity of light, we only measure it simplistically, from point A to point B. We can't do any other way.

But through diffraction, we know that photons are actually traveling in waves. Picture a wave; instead of a straight horizontal line (I'll call it the 'center line'), a wave tends upward, tops out, then tends downward, crosses the center line, then bottoms out, and then turns back upward toward the center line again. This is one full wavelength.

Now the significance here is that this means that photons with shorter wavelengths /higher frequencies, actually travel longer distances than those with longer wavelengths and lower frequencies, over the same point A to point B displacement.

Imagine a meter. Imagine a photon with a wavelength of a meter. In that meter, that photon travels one wavelength. We know that the variance from the straight line is non-zero, again, due to diffraction. So that photon actually travels something more than a meter, if we add up all the distance that it travels along its actual path, as it goes up and down its wave.

Now compare that to a photon with a wavelength of a micron (one millionth of a meter). This photon travels the one meter, plus the distance of all those one million waves, so it travels one million more times longer than the photon with a wavelength of a meter, less the meter.

If the photon with wavelength of one meter travels all tolled, 1.00001 meters, due to the up and down of its wavelength (confirmed with diffraction, the additional one micron total displacement is a guess), then the photon with a wavelength of a micron actually travels 2 meters! Its velocity (net displacement divided by time) is the same c (in a vacuum), but in that same meter, that photon has traveled, over the distance of one meter, a million times the distance, less the one meter, as the one with a wavelength of one meter.

So the speed of that photon, is 2c, even while its simple velocity is the same as the photon only traveling one wavelength during the meter. So there appears to be no limit to the speed at which a photon can travel along the actual path of its wavelengths, just its simple velocity is limited to c.

And that explains to me why photons with higher frequencies also have higher energies. But what it still leaves mysterious to me, is why the simple point A to point B velocity of a photon is limited to c, when the actual speed of the photons with higher frequencies /lower wavelengths are markedly higher than c, along the actual paths that they travel along their waves.

Maybe instead the total distance traveled per wavelength is a millionth as small. So then the one micron wavelength photon wouldn't travel two meters for every meter of displacement, but it'd still have an average speed of >c, and that's really my point.
:e4e:

 

[genuineoriginal]

If you mean simply that it isn't about light itself then yes, c isn't so much the speed of light as it is the speed of causality. Light, being massless, simply has no impediment to speed and so go at the fastest possible speed. The same thing that governs the relationship between energy and mass is the same thing that creates the cosmic speed limit.

If you believe that a cosmic speed limit causes mass to increase towards infinity as its speed approaches the speed of light, then you have believed a lie.

You know what this last several posts of talking past one another was caused by?

You being intentionally unclear about what you meant.

I was very clear, it was your preconceptions that caused your misunderstandings.

You seem to want to waste my time. I won't allow it any further. I won't be responding to any more of your posts on this topic. You either have no idea what you're talking about or are being intentionally difficult or both. Either way, it's no longer worth my time.

That is weird for you to say, since it was you that kept trying to make the claim that it is the speed of light that defines "c".

 

[genuineoriginal]

NOPE! Saying it doesn't make it so.

The speed of light has been measured a million times over many decades of time. The most accurate physical measurement was done in 1973 and measured a speed of 299792.4574 m/s +-0.0011 meters/sec. That's an accuracy of 1 part in 272,538,597.6363636.


Further more c is now EXACTLY 299792458 metres per second, by definition!

First you claim that saying it does not make it so, then you claim that it is so because saying it (by definition) makes it so?

In no way is that an aproximate value nor is it a theoretical concept.

So, now it is impossible for light to go faster than 299792458 metres per second because someone said that that was the speed of light (by definition)?

I can quote as many sources as there are in existence on what the speed of light is.

So what?
What you are attempting to prove has nothing to do with what you are disputing.

I swear it feel like I'm talking to a bunch of flat earthers!

I swear it feels like you are talking like a flat earther.

 

[Clete]

Do you think it's possible that E=mc² might be improved on?

That depends on what you mean by "improved".

In terms of accuracy or precision, I doubt it very much. Einstein's equations are very robust.

In terms of conceptual explanation/understanding, perhaps.

 

[Clete]

Light is so interesting.

Photons travel at a fixed velocity in a vacuum, let's just say for the sake of argument.

Velocity is displacement divided by time, and when we measure the velocity of light, we only measure it simplistically, from point A to point B. We can't do any other way.

But through diffraction, we know that photons are actually traveling in waves. Picture a wave; instead of a straight horizontal line (I'll call it the 'center line'), a wave tends upward, tops out, then tends downward, crosses the center line, then bottoms out, and then turns back upward toward the center line again. This is one full wavelength.

Now the significance here is that this means that photons with shorter wavelengths /higher frequencies, actually travel longer distances than those with longer wavelengths and lower frequencies, over the same point A to point B displacement.

Imagine a meter. Imagine a photon with a wavelength of a meter. In that meter, that photon travels one wavelength. We know that the variance from the straight line is non-zero, again, due to diffraction. So that photon actually travels something more than a meter, if we add up all the distance that it travels along its actual path, as it goes up and down its wave.

Now compare that to a photon with a wavelength of a micron (one millionth of a meter). This photon travels the one meter, plus the distance of all those one million waves, so it travels one million more times longer than the photon with a wavelength of a meter, less the meter.

If the photon with wavelength of one meter travels all tolled, 1.00001 meters, due to the up and down of its wavelength (confirmed with diffraction, the additional one micron total displacement is a guess), then the photon with a wavelength of a micron actually travels 2 meters! Its velocity (net displacement divided by time) is the same c (in a vacuum), but in that same meter, that photon has traveled, over the distance of one meter, a million times the distance, less the one meter, as the one with a wavelength of one meter.

So the speed of that photon, is 2c, even while its simple velocity is the same as the photon only traveling one wavelength during the meter. So there appears to be no limit to the speed at which a photon can travel along the actual path of its wavelengths, just its simple velocity is limited to c.

And that explains to me why photons with higher frequencies also have higher energies. But what it still leaves mysterious to me, is why the simple point A to point B velocity of a photon is limited to c, when the actual speed of the photons with higher frequencies /lower wavelengths are markedly higher than c, along the actual paths that they travel along their waves.

Maybe instead the total distance traveled per wavelength is a millionth as small. So then the one micron wavelength photon wouldn't travel two meters for every meter of displacement, but it'd still have an average speed of >c, and that's really my point.
:e4e:

I understand your idea here but it misunderstands what a wave is and how it works. What you are describing would be analogous to a sled sliding across a frozen and wavy body of water.

Let's say you have a body of water with very uniform waves and that the water was flash frozen solid so that the waves are now not only uniform but also standing in place. If you sent a sled across that body of water, the sled would indeed travel a longer distance than if the surface was flat but that isn't anything similar to what light (or any other wave) is doing.

Light isn't traveling along a wave, it is a wave. When a wave travels across a pond, the water isn't traveling across the pond, the wave itself is moving through the water. The water molecules don't move much at all. They basically just move up and then down as the wave propagates by. The water is just the medium through which the wave is propagating.

The question about light is, "What is light propagating through?". This question has yet to be answered to my satisfaction. I don't think anyone really knows. In fact, Einstein won a Nobel prize proving that light was not a wave but a particle. See Einstein's Legacy: The Photoelectric Effect

Clete

 

[Clete]

If you believe that a cosmic speed limit causes mass to increase towards infinity as its speed approaches the speed of light, then you have believed a lie.

Really?

Prove it.

Don't even prove it - just make an argument. Any rationally sound argument.

Go ahead, just one single rational argument that makes even the slightest attempt to refute Einstein's work.

I can cite you as many articles and papers as you care to see that demonstrate that this effect does actually occure. It's one of the most tested scientific ideas in history.

I was very clear, it was your preconceptions that caused your misunderstandings.

The entire thread is still here for everyone to read.

I responded directly to your precise words.

That is weird for you to say, since it was you that kept trying to make the claim that it is the speed of light that defines "c".

c is the speed of light, you idiot! What are you even talking about?

When you write E=mc² you are writing a sentence. Written in regular words the sentence goes like this...

"Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared."

You could accurately say that c is equal to the speed of any massless particle or that c is equal to the speed of causality or you could just put in the number itself but it all means the same thing. These sorts of terms are called "synonyms". It happens when more than one word means the exact same thing. Sort of light "stop" and "halt" or "start" and "begin". Get it?

This concludes 4th grade English class for today.

 

[Clete]

First you claim that saying it does not make it so, then you claim that it is so because saying it (by definition) makes it so?

You are an idiot.

Go read some books a learn something for a change. You're making yourself out to be a fool.

"By definition" is a perfectly valid and completely rational argument. LOOK IT UP!

So, now it is impossible for light to go faster than 299792458 metres per second because someone said that that was the speed of light (by definition)?

It's because they have defined the meter and the second in such a way that the speed of light is precisely 299792458 metres per second.

Live with it.

So what?
What you are attempting to prove has nothing to do with what you are disputing.

So what? Really?

The so what is taht I'm not just talking out of my backside about things I know nothing about.

I swear it feels like you are talking like a flat earther.

Welcome to my ignore list!

 

[Stripe]

That depends on what you mean by "improved".

In terms of accuracy or precision, I doubt it very much. Einstein's equations are very robust.

In terms of conceptual explanation/understanding, perhaps.

What about relativity? Do you think general and special relativity are valid?

 

[Idolater]

I understand your idea here but it misunderstands what a wave is and how it works. What you are describing would be analogous to a sled sliding across a frozen and wavy body of water.

Let's say you have a body of water with very uniform waves and that the water was flash frozen solid so that the waves are now not only uniform but also standing in place. If you sent a sled across that body of water, the sled would indeed travel a longer distance than if the surface was flat but that isn't anything similar to what light (or any other wave) is doing.

Light isn't traveling along a wave, it is a wave. When a wave travels across a pond, the water isn't traveling across the pond, the wave itself is moving through the water. The water molecules don't move much at all. They basically just move up and then down as the wave propagates by. The water is just the medium through which the wave is propagating.

But as you say below, photons are particles, and it's not parallel to waves on the surface of water, because the photons are traveling the sinusoidal route, this is shown in diffraction of light. And even though the velocity of light along a straight line is limited to c, since the photons are actually traversing a sinusoidal route, they are traveling a greater distance than the straight line, and the greater the frequency of the light, the greater the distance traveled. And so therefore the higher the frequency of the photon, the greater distance its travels and so the greater its average speed, which is therefore greater than c. It must be.

The question about light is, "What is light propagating through?". This question has yet to be answered to my satisfaction.

I thought the answer is roundly 'nothing.' I thought that it being nothing, is the foundation upon which special relativity rests.

I don't think anyone really knows. In fact, Einstein won a Nobel prize proving that light was not a wave but a particle. See Einstein's Legacy: The Photoelectric Effect

Clete

And this doesn't negate, but adds to, that light is also definitely a wave.

 

[genuineoriginal]

c is the speed of light, you idiot! What are you even talking about?

When you write E=mc² you are writing a sentence. Written in regular words the sentence goes like this...

"Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared."

You could accurately say that c is equal to the speed of any massless particle or that c is equal to the speed of causality or you could just put in the number itself but it all means the same thing. These sorts of terms are called "synonyms". It happens when more than one word means the exact same thing.

You are using equivocation and claiming you are talking about a synonym.

Equivocation The fallacy of equivocation occurs when a key term or phrase in an argument is used in an ambiguous way, with one meaning in one portion of the argument and then another meaning in another portion of the argument.

​

The constant "c" in the equation E=mc² is a constant, not a variable for velocity.
You can't swap out the value of "c" with any other value in the equation, just like you can't swap out π in A=πr² and you can't swap out h in E=hf.

 

[genuineoriginal]

If you believe that a cosmic speed limit causes mass to increase towards infinity as its speed approaches the speed of light, then you have believed a lie.

Really?

Prove it.

Don't even prove it - just make an argument. Any rationally sound argument.

High Speed Motion and an Increase in Mass debunked The findings of the scalar motion investigation agree with the mathematical expression of this theory of Einstein’s, as they must do, since physical facts do not disagree with other physical facts, but they indicate that he made the wrong guess when he chose mass as the variable quantity in the acceleration equation. It is a decrease in the effective force that accounts for the decrease in acceleration at high speeds, not an increase in the mass… This casual acceptance of the interpretation by the physicists has placed a roadblock in the way of gaining an understanding of phenomena in which speeds greater than that of light are involved. Since, as we have found, the decrease in acceleration is due to a reduction in the effective force of the electric charge, there is nothing in the mathematical relations that would prevent acceleration to higher speeds where means of applying greater forces are available (stellar and galactic explosions for example). This conclusion, reached by correcting the interpretation of Einstein’s equation, without affecting the equation itself, is the same conclusion that we reached when we subjected the experimental results to a critical consideration. The mathematics of Einstein’s theory describe the process of acceleration by means of a one–dimensional (electric) force. They do not apply to the maximum possible acceleration by other means”.

​

 

[genuineoriginal]

I'm not just talking out of my backside about things I know nothing about.

You certainly appear to be doing just that.

 

[Clete]

What about relativity? Do you think general and special relativity are valid?

It depends on what you mean by valid.

Does the math work? Yes.

Does time actually exist? Again it depends on how you define the term 'time'. Einstein's theories are all based on the idea that time is defined as "what clocks measure". By that definition, his theories are fine so long as you understand that what is commonly referred to as time dialation is really an effect that momentum has on clocks.

If, on the other hand, you conflate the normal concept of time with the scientific idea of time, as most modern cosmologists do, then you're going to be confused because the concept of time only exists as just that, a concept. Time, in fact, is a convention of language that is used to convey information about the sequences and duration of events. It does not exist in an ontological sense. Clocks exist, time does not. So long as you keep that straight then Einstein's theories are as "valid" as any we have.

Clete

 

[Clete]

But as you say below, photons are particles, and it's not parallel to waves on the surface of water, because the photons are traveling the sinusoidal route, this is shown in diffraction of light. And even though the velocity of light along a straight line is limited to c, since the photons are actually traversing a sinusoidal route, they are traveling a greater distance than the straight line, and the greater the frequency of the light, the greater the distance traveled. And so therefore the higher the frequency of the photon, the greater distance its travels and so the greater its average speed, which is therefore greater than c. It must be.

The phrase highlighted in red is your faulty premise. The photon are NOT taveling a sinusoidal route. That is not happening.

You are speaking of a partical as though it was traveling along the surface of a wave function. That flat out is not what happens. The photon itself IS a wave function.

That ought to sound contradictory. If it doesn't then you are not understanding what I'm saying.

How can a partical be a wave function?

Answer that question and they'll give a Nobel prize and then shut the Nobel prize making factory down because you'll likely have finished physics.

I thought the answer is roundly 'nothing.' I thought that it being nothing, is the foundation upon which special relativity rests.

No, not at all. Relativity doesn't address the issue so far as I understand it.

Maxwell proved that light was an electromagnetic wave in the mid 1800s and Einstein discovered the photoelectice effect, proving it was a particle in 1905, which is what won him his nobel prize.

No one has yet answered what light is propagating through or how it makes sense that light is somehow both a particle and a wave.

And this doesn't negate, but adds to, that light is also definitely a wave.

It is just as definitely a particle.

And - just as definitely not a particle.

It's much weirder than you think...

 

[Stripe]

Have you heard of the pilot wave theory?

 

[Clete]

Have you heard of the pilot wave theory?

No.

(FYI: If you don't [quote ] me, it could be days before I see your post, if I see it at all.)

 

[Idolater]

Have you heard of the pilot wave theory?

It looks broadly like a competing interpretation of quantum physics to the 'many worlds' theory.

btw, so far as I can tell, God is, according to modern physics, a 'non-local hidden variable.'