TheMadHatter0

[url']http://winn.com/bs/atombomb.html[/url]

You guys have too much time on your hands.

While this next link should probably go in the mechanics section (or even astronomy), I thought it would be most appropriate here, due to the subject matter of these e.mails

Lawnchair Larry

Make sure you guys also check out the guy that played Russian Roulette with a semi-automatic pistol, and the JATO Man

Enjoy!

-Ian

ascanio sobrero discovered this the hard way. you'd think that chemists from the middle ages would have the presence of mind NOT to taste the chemicals they produced; especially if the chemicals were previously unknown to man

haha... So Alfred Nobel just took that stuff that was already known about and made it into the solid, dynamite form?

And I was aware that it opened up blood vessels, but I didn't know that it was because it yielded NO.

Now is NO Nitrous Oxide, or is it N2O2, or is N2O2 really a compound (or is it just called a molecle? Sorry for butchering all these terms... It's been a while since I've been in a Chemistry class.

-Ian

if something has zero mass' date=' thinking of a photon, I dont see how

it can go any speed but c

although in various media light waves can have different speeds, and phase velocity and group velocity can be different

I still cant picture anything which people would call a photon travelling faster than c.

[/quote']

 

Okay, I may have been wrong here.

I did some quick research, and I found two different articles that contradict each other concerning this phenomenon.

Here's what looks to be info on the actual experiment itself:

http://www.dhushara.com/book/quantcos/qnonloc/qnonloc.htm

 

And here's an article saying it can't happen:

http://www.cabot-biz.com/photonics/ftl.html

 

And here's an article about Tachyons, or Tachyon-like particles (theoretical particles that go faster than light):

http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm?articleID=000657D8-67D9-1C71-9EB7809EC588F2D7

 

With that, I think I'm ready for bed.

-Ian

summary:

quantum entaglement' date=' an atom is 'cloned'! so to say, at the expense of it's life, in other words it is destroyed and recreated somewhere else! instantly!

 

this would be useful in quantum computing, whereby, information could be transported instantly anywhere in the world, it would outstrip broadband, as everything would be instant

[/quote']

 

Okay, let's clear up a few things here:

The "quantum entanglement" was used to bypass The Heisenberg Uncertainty principle, which basically says that you can't know where an object is at and the object's speed at the same time.

 

And, also from that I understand about quantum entanglement, (in this experiment) one photon was "entangled" with another to get a proper fix on it before the original photon was teleported to somewhere else.

 

Also, I'm not the biggest science buff here, but from what I understand, an object's properties are analyzed, and then the object is then recreated somewhere else. Then, because we don't want to have to worry about the exact same thing being in two separate places at once, we simply blow up the first object with an explosion or something (note: no matter is destroyed or created; existing matter is used to construct the new object, and the matter held in the matter in the old object is simply released to go about its business. Atoms and molecules are just separated from each other).

The matter itself is not really transferred; it's just the "properties" of the matter.

 

-Ian

On a side note, with all these wonderful things being mentioned here, here's something that (hopefully) more than less of you will know about:

I don't know about you, but I find it very ironic that doctors are in the regular habbit of perscribing Nitro Glycerine to heart patients.

It is in powder form, and I don't think it is, but I wonder actually how explosive the stuff is in that state.

-Ian

and i came up with:

LIFE

 

what do you think of it?

what is the purpose of it?

what is the meaning of it?

 

<strange accent>

Answer number 1 to question number 1:

</strange accent>

 

I think that Life has its ups and downs. We have pretty much done a bang-up job trying to keep this Earth intact' date=' but for the most part it's pretty enjoyable (even the bad times).

I say this because we go through bad times for a reason. If we experience something that is only partially awful, we learn from the experience and get better (thus you would think that after two car accidents I would have been able to avoid the one I just had a few days ago, but maybe I needed this third one to learn and avoid a 4th that would be the end of me)

 

<strange accent>

Answer number 2 to question number 2:

</strange accent>

I think that, among other things, this life is here to enjoy it, but not at the expense of others. I see it more as a gift than anything else (I mean, would you rather be a fly that only travels a few square miles over the course of the few hours of its existence?).

 

<strange accent>

Answer number 3 to question number 3:

</strange accent>

You may have already been able to pick up on the topic of my answers (or maybe not). Either way, I've tried not to sound too overtly like an uber Jesus freak or anything, so I'll spare you my real answer to this question (unless you actually do want it).

In any event, if you want answer to questions 2 and three from a Christian perspective, pick up a book called "The Purpose Driven Life" by a guy named Rick Warren.

It goes into much more detail about the whole thing, and really answers the question of "why am I here?," and if any of this really matters.

Or, if you'd rather, just take a look at this website:

http://www.lifeway.com/lwc/article_main_page/0%2C1703%2CA%253D151295%2526M%253D150019%2C00.html

 

Okay, I'm sure you guys have had enough of my ranting.

-Ian

Could someone tell me-

1) What is the speed of light measured by?

2) What possible factors did play an affect on how the light was measure?

3) Is there proof that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light?

 

I think that Martin pretty much explained how this works.

 

1) The metric system was defined as being in reference to the speed of light. One meter was the distance that light traveled in a certain fraction of a second (what I want to know is why they didn't just make it a nice' date=' round 3 x 10^8...).

I think that #2 has pretty much been explained as well.

 

Here's some info on #3:

Going back on my HS physics class (and please correct me if I slip anything up.. it's been a little while), a guy named Lorentz came did some research based on Einstein's theories of relativity and came up with some equations that are now called the "Lorentz Transform."

And, basically, if you use these formulas, any object having [i']rest[/i] mass (meaning mass when the object is not moving... here's where you get to mess with a ton of wonderful "plane of reference" issues) increases in mass the closer it gets to the speed of light.

When the object reaches the speed of light, a proper calculation returns the object's new mass is infinity.

The Lorentz transform also deals with object length as well. As it has been proven, an object does get smaller the faster it goes. In this case, though, a proper calculation will return a length of zero. Put the speed at faster than than light, and you get a negative length.

 

This has led some scientists to believe that when an object does reach the speed of light, it turns into pure energy (as by Einstein's E = mc^2 equation).

 

 

But, if you take an object without rest mass (i.e. a photon), you can theoretically make the object travel faster than light.

This has already been accomplished... I believe an experiment was performed a few years back where a photon was accelerated to 300x the speed of light.

And, yes, it did get to the end of the tunnel thingie before it left.

While this may not seem possible with simple Newtonian mechanics, there's some equations (that I have forgotten) that do demonstrate this result.

 

Taking all this into effect, some scientists have pretty much given up on trying to achieve faster than light speeds and have just started fiddling around with quantum teleportation.

Fun stuff.

 

-Ian