Realitycheck

Can it be considered that as the clock travels around the world, it finds a shortcut through time, solely because it is moving, while the comparison clock is not? Whereas, since it is moving, it reaches the same point in time at a faster rate, hence the clock will be behind upon comparison? It seems that the only determinant variable is relative velocity.

This seems to kind of fit in with that conclusion. Any comments?

As a clock travels around the world, the outside world does not slow down, so it can only be concluded that the molecular activity in the clock slows down, causing the arrow to move slower. This is one of those semantics deals. Absolute universal time is not relativistic, only the relationship between two obects can be. Anybody have any simple descriptions on why or how the clock slows down?

I would venture to say that not everything fits into a tidy little equation like some pawn to be manipulated.

Why can't time just be time? Why do we make equations that say time is bendable and stuff like that? Universal time is the same here as it is in another galaxy. We just measure it differently. It does not change, no matter how fast you are travelling. It is a constant. It is not relative to anything else. Maybe it is all just a semantics thing.

You might be able to experiment with the speed of light in relation to the movements of 2 or 3 objects, but that is not the same as objects moving at near the speed of light. It does not compare.

I think this is probably an optical illusion caused by the diffusion of the light travelling through the dust.

Well, this is what I believe. Equations are equations, kind of like estimating the flight path of an electron around a nucleus. However, when you get Object A flying .99C in one direction and Object B flying .99C in the opposite direction, we'll just have to see what actually ends up on the flight data recorders.

The first part is right, but the second part does not compute. Just a little fine print.

I disagree with this. If there was a way to travel .99C, and two objects travelled away from a common origin at .99C, then the light from object A would simply take many years to get to object B. The relative speed between the two moving objects would simply be irrelevant. Relative speed is irrelevant, theoretically speaking. The speed of light is irrelevant when compared to relative speed. Time travel can no longer be accomplished because in order for the relative speed between two objects to be greater than the speed of light, they must be travelling away from each other, theoretically speaking.

I suppose that if the universe was expanding at the speed of light in one direction (though I think this is highly unikely) and it was expanding at the speed of light in the other direction, as well, then the relative speed between both separate ends would be twice the speed of light, though we would never see the light from the other end because we would be travelling away from it too fast.

Is this true, space has expanded faster than the speed of light? Can that be calculated with the variables at hand?

I do not have anything against the Big Bang Theory and the idea that the universe is expanding. Proven scientific observations are kind of hard to counter, in my opinion, though the implications of the first few seconds of the existence of the universe truly raise many more questions. It surely must have been some kind of self-propelling fusion bomb using some form of material with unknown properties that God set off right as he killed himself, leading to the scattering of more of this unstable material. How else could a sun spontaneously combust from inert matter in deep space? What I am asking now is how can space be limitless? According to some, once the universe reaches full expansion, it will start to revert and shrink, which would be one long heyday of cataclysmic collisions to observe until the inevitable wallop. It either keeps on expanding indefinitely, starts shrinking back, or hits a wall, though it could slow its expansion to a crawl till it stops, like a fish outgrowing its tank. Either way, it shouldn't be limited, but if it is infinite, just how could that be?

There has to be an outer limit, and then, what is on the other side of this outer limit?

If you use galvanized posts, they make a machine that literally drives the posts into the ground very quickly. There is a company in Dallas that specializes in making temporary fences around construction projects. If you are interested, they are called National Fences.

Your plan does cushion the impact of flipping it over on its side 150 times, though.

So what you are saying is to roll the blocks from the quarry with ellipses of lumber attached to the sides. I have a hard time seeing how the attached lumber or the fasteners (rope?) hold up. After all it is 14'X12'X64'. Why not just carve the block into a crude cylinder and roll it to the site? Of course, this way you would have to grade a rolling surface 64'X1/3 mile. Without grading it semi-perfectly, the stone most likely fractures 80-100% of the time. To me, this sounds a whole lot more doable, except that the one 1,000 ton stone that didn't make it all of the way out of the quarry is pictured and carved into a very square block. Well, maybe since it is 12' wide, it has enough structural support, so we just tip it over on its side 150 times till you get to the site without breaking it.

Also, how would they tie all of these ropes to the block in a manner that would enable them to pull an 800 block of stone, overcoming the friction of them rolling over the logs which I highly doubt would support the weight of the block in the first place. Getting them to roll under an 800 ton block of stone would really be difficult, even with 40,000 people pulling on the ropes. The weight distribution may be 14.5 lbs/si when it is lying flat on the ground, but when you concentrate the weight distribution of the block to only the contact area where the logs meet the stone, that makes it more like 184-10,000 lbs./si, using 12" logs. If you have an uninterrupted series of logs, then it would be somewhere around 184 lbs./si, at best, excluding the friction factor. However, based on the lack of actual evidence, there is probably a way to do it.

I wholeheartedly agree. I was kind of shooting wildly in the dark, knowing that it really didn't add up, but I didn't really think that someone flew 4.3 light years to do it. However, I'm still not completely convinced that the Romans actually did do it, for purely technical reasons (though it is a lot easier to just submit to more knowledgeable people). People have tried to reenact stuff like this with disastrous results and it is very difficult even today with 1,000 ton capacity moving cranes.

I was in kind of a hurry and lacking sleep when I calculated that. So you really think they could do all that back then? You think they would go through all the trouble to trim 64' long blocks of stone with an ellipse on side, making it that much heavier, when it had to fit perfectly into a rectangular slot with no room for error? I happen to know something else about the construction of this site. In one or some of these blocks, are holes drilled exactly, say, 1/2" by 3' deep. Also, how would you even lift these 800 ton blocks on one side to get the logs under it, to get the ropes under it? How would you trim the bottom side of it, much less cut away the bottom side of it from the quarry in the first place? Also, according to the author, these giant blocks were cut from granite, making it much harder to chip away from, though that would make it easier for them to handle the stresses. Limestone probably would not handle it.

I suppose I might have looked pretty unbalanced. This "hypothesis" was still very undeveloped and it could only have been held up by the weak possibility of the presence of little green men intruding in our affairs still today. I already knew that 300 million years was quite a long time for little green men to kill. I can't believe that I actually submitted that for peer review, but what can I say, that's kind of what recovering from a coma is like.

Looking for an example of almost-living things or potential preliminary components of "cells" that don't have DNA? Check out these things: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prions Maybe we get some kind of symbiotic relationship going on with one of these things and something else like it but much different? (I know what some of you are probably thinking. If there was a God, why didn't he do it much faster, like in 7 days? It's really a moot point.)

What is the state of theory regarding the steps leading to the creation of the first single-celled organisms? What I have come up with on my own are the development of organic compounds into pseudo-organisms that can't necessarily be classified as living beings, until cold fusion takes place or lightning strikes and the Frankenstein effect takes place or something like that. I hate to sound like a preacher, but I think there comes a point where you have to accept that there must be a grand design driving it all in order for it to take place, whether it is directly willed or simply an involuntary process in the growth timeline of a planet with the characteristics of ours. My knowledge on the subject is very limited, but I was wondering what other people believe.

I've been butting heads for a year or two on boards with hardcore creationists trying to convince me that information can only be reduced and not added (despite the six-fingered species of humans). Is this the same argument that is typically made about the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics? If not, what is the typical rebuttal to this question? Also, I would like to read information about the evolution of the precursors to the first single-celled organisms. Can someone direct me to good sources of this type of information?

Look at this picture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Baalbek-Bacchus.jpg How are they going to get those giant stones at the tip 120 feet in the air on top of everything else without knocking anything down? I suppose if there was extraterrestrial technology involved, the cuts in the stone would have looked a lot more professional and they wouldn't have cut the columns into segments.