Quark
Work is measured in changes:
A change of position
A change of time
A change of temperature
A change of energy
I have likely forgotten a few. There is a relationship that exists among all of them to include the ones that my, blank for the moment; mind refuses to let me see, maybe for good reason. I tend to have difficulty seeing them as separate entities due to their relationships.
It is difficult to even frame the questions that come to mind, pretty much for the same reasons. I have problems accepting that something of substance, but with zero mass should move; and not only move, but to move at the speed of light in continues display of energy that it shouldn’t seem to have, and yes it could simply be my inability to understand what is at work here, but I can’t get past the thought that if something has zero mass, any display of energy can not be attributed to it, specifically.
I can accept that it can move if it has substance. I can accept that it can have substance without mass; though this is a little harder to accept, and I am not sure that I should.
How do you move something that seemingly doesn’t have the energy to move on its own?
If it exists, and it does seem to exist, you push it, pull it, or carry it. One of the thoughts that I am having is really a question of what if. What if the speed of light or C is more directly related to what is pushing, pulling, or carrying the particle?
If this could be the case; then as a massless particle it would not have a direct gravitational connection to something that has mass, but the energy pushing, pulling, or carrying it would. If there is an interaction between the massless particle and the carrier; as in having substance the particle can be carried, then particle will go were it is carried.
At this point I chose to use the word carried, because I was getting tired of typing push, pulled, or carried, and feel that carried is the more reasonable word.
In following the thought; there is an interaction between the particle and the carrier that I can not explain except by saying that because the particle has substance it can interact. The interaction would appear to be in the form of drag, but to say that this is the case would seem to say that C is the result of work being done, which would seem to imply that that as a speed limit, the speed limit need only apply to a particle that has a value equal to zero mass.
If something of substance could have a mass value less than zero it could go faster, but I can’t see how except by saying that by presenting less drag it is easier to carry, which would not be imposable if the carrier moves faster than C, which it would seem to have to do if the speed of light is the result of work being done.
At this point, it may be time to simply let the thought die, but I want to explore it a little further. Most of the thought is based on things I have read about. I am simply tweaking the mechanics a little bit, well maybe more than a little bit.
I tend to think in packets, as in I tend to have difficulty following a straight path in a thought. So, at this point I would like to interject another thought somewhat related, that I had earlier.
Tachyons
Shooting from the hip – If something is moving faster than light why would we expect to see it at all? It’s interaction with light would seemingly only be observable if the interaction were contained to a certain space long enough for an observable reflection. I don’t necessarily mean as I would physically observe myself in mirror, because there are other means of observation, but the principles would be similar. I don’t see all that reflects in a mirror; I only see what I can see.
If we use a scale that allows negative mass it would seem that we would have to overlay the scale with descriptive that tells us what we should expect to find depending on where we end up on the scale.
It would seem the problem may be that we are making our scale similar to a mirror, but is a mirror always a mirror? We expect only what is reflected to have real value, but if something is passing through the mirror, then we are in effect applying the mirror as a filter; saying that filter has a value of zero.
It would seem, that if we insist that 0 mass = C, and we insist that all ideas about matter be based on 0 mass = C, then no thought of anything moving faster than C should ever make any sense anywhere, but in our imaginations.
However:
If C were simply a positive number on a scale that does not contain negative numbers, or even a zero, it would seem that we might open up a part of the universe that we refuse to acknowledge as real, but for this reason or that reason have to acknowledge as real in order to make the math work, and it might be worth the effort for someone to explore the thought. I may be oversimplifying here, but just keep moving the 0 to the left while leaving C where it is.
I’m just thinking here… What is better, our reality or our imagination? Our imagination can become real; it has often enough, but all this, at one time imaginary, stuff around me is real. Not a single piece of any of it is made out of something that is not real, but this is just a point of view. As a matter of observation, I could say that because of the physical structure of what the things are made of, that most of what surrounds me is made up of that which is real and that which is not real, giving value to that which is matter and to that which is space.
If it is absolutely true that something of zero mass has to move at C, and if we assume that everything real falls on a scale of 0 mass or greater, then nothing is passing through the mirror; all the answers are in the reflection, and I don’t see how that we can allow for a tachyon to exist, but saying that the tachyon can not exist seems a little too much like playing at God.