Elysian Shadows

I had to read a nonfiction book for Sr. Inquiry class and I chose to read First You Build a Cloud by K.C. Cole. Book about physics and theories and stuff. Learned some interesting stuff

Relativity -
Everything is relative... to light. Because no matter how you measure light, it's always going at approx. 186,000 miles per second. That's right -- if you're going the 180,000 miles per second next to a light beam, it will not measure as moving 6,000 miles per second away from you (because it's relative to you), no -- it will measure 186,000 miles per second. And that guy standing behind you measures you at 180,000 miles per second moving away from him, and the light at 186,000 miles per second.

So if you travel towards a light source at 186,000 miles per second, the light coming at you does NOT measure 372,000 miles per second (speed of light x 2) -- no, it measures at 186,000 miles per second. Assuming I read the chapter right, which I do believe I did. So, obviously, something strange happens to either time or space between you and the light source -- and it does. Even a clock sent on a jetliner around the world (not anywhere close to the speed of light) comes back a bit slow.

What's even more awesome is that simultaneity is relative. Imagine you're standing in space, and a transparent room comes flying by in front of you at nearly the speed of light. Now suppose that inside this room is a man in the center. And there's a light above his head. He turns on the light -- to him, the light hits all the walls simultaneously. You, however, standing still watching him zoom past at nearly the speed of light will see the light hit the back wall first and the front wall later.

Light and reflections -
Here's a couple ways I bet you haven't thought of things. Some things work as a one-way window to trap light, while some things are totally transparent. Suppose you're looking in a window at a woman wearing a red dress. All the colors go through the window, and all but red are absorbed into her dress -- what you're seeing is reflected red light. Her dress emits the absorbed light as heat, which cannot escape through the glass, although the red light can.

Prisms -
A prism separates light, right? I bet you hadn't thought of each light color existing where all the others did not -- in other words, in their shadows.

Order and Disorder (Entropy) -
The only reason things are defined as impossible is because of miniscule chances of them happening. There is a chance that that melted stick of butter will have all its molecules bump around the right way so that it reforms into a solid stick of butter. But that's a lot less chance than each one further losing its grip and 'melting' off of the others into a progressive pile of goo.

Your refrigerator broke? Well, if you're lucky, maybe all the cold air molecules will bump back into your refrigerator.

But probably not.

Now what's funny is that there's a lot more ways for disorder to happen than for it to un-happen. So... the universe should be a really disorderly place, right?

Wrong. It's pretty systematic -- there are, after all, laws of nature and orbits. And predictable disorder, such as your refrigerator will break down eventually. And the closer it gets, the better you can predict it. (As a small example).

Cause and effect -
Everything has some sort of cause... the problem is, that cause has a cause, which has a cause, and so on creating infinite causes. So... are lives predetermined? Newton thought so.

Edit - Oh, did you know a coiled spring weighs more than an uncoiled spring? Because more energy is more mass. After all, E = mc^2.
So m = E/(c^2)

Many ideas here. Discuss. :)

Oh, did you know a coiled spring weighs more than an uncoiled spring? Because more energy is more mass. After all, E = mc^2.
So m = E/(c^2)

Literally? As in, it really weighs more if you measure it? I've always been confused with what has more possible energy. Like, does a bowling ball placed on a table have more energy then one on the floor because it could possibly fall or something... :watiff:

Yes, more massive objects have more potential energy -- in fact, a large amount more than an object a little smaller.

E = mc^2

energy = mass times the speed of light squared.

I see. So like, the coiled spring has potential to release a helluva lot more energy than an uncoiled one, and since M = E/(c^2), enery is a bigger number and when divided by the velocity of light squared, will give you a higher mass...?

JS Lemming wrote: Like, does a bowling ball placed on a table have more energy then one on the floor because it could possibly fall or something... :watiff:

:watiff:
Okay, JSL, I thought I understood, now you just confused the hell outta me. :?

MarauderIIC wrote: Everything is relative... to light.

Is there a reason behind there? I just don't see why that is so.

MarauderIIC wrote: Even a clock sent on a jetliner around the world (not anywhere close to the speed of light) comes back a bit slow.

Okay, that's just freaky. Why? Why why why!?!

MarauderIIC wrote: The only reason things are defined as impossible is because of miniscule chances of them happening.

Yeah, I'd heard about that. I also heard that there is a chance that every molecule in the universe could bumb into each other at the right time and the universe would be destroyed. That's pretty cool.

MarauderIIC wrote: Cause and effect -
Everything has some sort of cause... the problem is, that cause has a cause, which has a cause, and so on creating infinite causes. So... are lives predetermined? Newton thought so.

The thought of "predetermination" just makes me morbidly depressed for some reaon. I'd hate to think that if there is a god, he'd have our lives all predetermined, and when we live we're just going with what was already layed before us to do.

I'd like to think that we have a choice to choose and shape our futures and destinies. I know very well that there is a good chance that isn't true.

This infinate chain of causes also reminds me of two questions that I've always asked myself:

1) Assuming that there is a god, how the hell did he get there? I can't comprehend a start or stop of time. If there wasn't, then how could god ALWAYS be a supreme ruler? Somebody (or some cause) had to put him there. Then something had to put that there.

Okay, then lets assume that time does start and end. How is a god just assigned right when time starts? How could time start? There had to be something before it...

2) An infinate universe? I guess I have a problem fathoming "infinity". How could a world be infinate? There has to be a boundry, a starting point, an end. Some point in which the universe originates. I just can't understand how it'd go on forever.

I can't understand even more how the hell it could stop. If there is a start and stop to the universe, what'd it look like? A black wall? A transparent glass that serves as a boundary? But what is on the other side of that boundry? More infinity? It can't just be nothing, because nothing IS something. Then that nothing would go on forever... good lord....

What do you guys think?

We are too inferier to understand that kind of stuff.

I really don't think that we could comprehend the answers to those questions.
:watiff:

Of course not our minds will explode :illegal:

If I read the chapter right, light is always 186,000 miles per second. No matter how you measure it (a car next to you going 50 mph and you're going 50 mph would measure the car next to you as 0 mph relative to you -- light is always 186,000 miles per second). I don't know why.

Why does it come back slow? Because apparently acceleration has something funky happen to space/time -- obviously, if you're going toward a light source and the light coming AT you is 186,000 miles per second and you're going AT it 186,000 miles per second... But if you slow down teh light is still coming at you 186,000 miles per second.

The bowling ball on the table has more potential energy because the pull of gravity on it is different than one closer to the center of the earth... If I had to hazard a guess. I'm not totally informed, I just thought I'd share the ideas from the book with you. :)

You want something "freaky", SS? Try this:
Line segment:

A__C___B
How many points are on line segment AB? Infinite.
How many points are on line segment AC? Infinite.
So you're saying there are the same amount of points on AB as there are on AC? Yes.
Technically, it's a different measure of infinity (the same amt)... Whee!

See works of Gregor Cantor -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Cantor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfinite_number

You might look for a book in your library :)

MarauderIIC wrote:A__C___B
How many points are on line segment AB? Infinite.
How many points are on line segment AC? Infinite.
So you're saying there are the same amount of points on AB as there are on AC? Yes.
Technically, it's a different measure of infinity (the same amt)... Whee!

You're killing me, Mar.

lol

WOW, this is very confusing.

But lets say this in how a Video game would work.

In most games there would be a small load time when you walk into a new area which creates the area and destroys where you came from. But... when you go back through this area this happens again creating this blah blah blah blah blah. So anyways then the game just does that so it won't be creating items and characters in this other area. NOTE: Vice City! Do you see characters where you don't exist. No they aren't there. And because you aren't there. But when things appear on some games they will just be invisible till it is in your viewing area then you see it.

But what if that were true in our universe?

What if the universe dose't exist unless you are there to see it existing?

Hyper Shadow wrote:WOW, this is very confusing.

But lets say this in how a Video game would work.

In most games there would be a small load time when you walk into a new area which creates the area and destroys where you came from. But... when you go back through this area this happens again creating this blah blah blah blah blah. So anyways then the game just does that so it won't be creating items and characters in this other area. NOTE: Vice City! Do you see characters where you don't exist. No they aren't there. And because you aren't there. But when things appear on some games they will just be invisible till it is in your viewing area then you see it.

But what if that were true in our universe?

What if the universe dose't exist unless you are there to see it existing?

Hyper Shadow, I think that that was one of your most possible and even relevant, intellegent theories yet.

That was just so... wow, you know what, I'm considering this. Now I won't be able to sleep as I'll be fathoming this all night... :?

What if the universe dose't exist unless you are there to see it existing?

I doubt that sight has anything to do with the existance of anything. The only reason games destroy and recreate levels is so they don't run out of tasty memory.

Besides, someone, somewhere will always be seeing the universe, one person doesn't create and destroy the universe.

If what you say is true, then if all life in the universe dies out, so would the universe, even though living organisms have nothing to do with planets, they only populate them.

Wutai wrote:Besides, someone, somewhere will always be seeing the universe, one person doesn't create and destroy the universe.

If what you say is true, then if all life in the universe dies out, so would the universe, even though living organisms have nothing to do with planets, they only populate them.

Perhaps the universe is relative to people as light is relative to us. There is no explanation for that, so why must there be one here?

What if the universe ceases to exist relative to you when you're a certain distance away, but it exists relative to somebody else.

What if the system on which this Universe exists can't store the data for the whole universe from everybody's perspective and only stores it for those who are close enough for it to even matter.

Maybe sections of the universe are just pointers in a huge C++ program in which each person doesn't get their own version of the pointer (normal variables) but just a memory location of the generic perspective by everybody. But you don't even gain access to that pointer until you're close enough where you need to see it.



Don't think I'm believing this crap, I'm just theororizing here, and I'm having fun at that. What do you think? I'm sure you can come up with some sort of freaky theories that can't be scientificly disproven.