Alan McDougall

I don't dismiss the metaphysical, science simply will never explain everything, in my opinion there are things that will remain unsolved. I don't, however, think that suggestion the reality of spacetime, by using a metaphor, makes it into a metaphysical subject.

Who is "Whoever"? Who is "Whoever" in your quote above? Do I write so badly? http://io9.com/how-does-spacetime-get-bent-560618783

Agreed like I stated in post 12

Who is ,"Whoever" ?

What?

Thus speaking is the Zeno's paradox, under discussion a fallacy?

Thanks for being honest, how can you salvage something that up to now, except for your input had no content to discuss? Of course it is OK to also discuss mental health issues on a broader base, in this thread!

Is this the place to bring up metaphysics?

I wrote you row at the same rate, both up stream and down stream

I said in my post that started the topic that I would give the link after you guys came up with the answers. http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml Here are two more In an experiment,you shoot a bullet , down a level flat plane, and drop a bullet at the same moment. A) At the exact moment bullet A) leaves the barrel of your gun, your friend dropped another bullet B) from his hand at exactly the same height and moment the bullet was expelled out of the end of your gun.. 1) Which bullet hits the ground first? You are rowing up river against a flow of 5 miles per hour, after 1 hour of rowing you notice you have dropped your hat and immediately turn around and row at the same rate down river to retrieve it (Discard the time needed to actually turn your boat around) 2) How long will it take to catch up with your hat and retrieve it from the river? You are in a room with just 2 unmarked doors, one door leads to the hangman and death, the other leads to freedom and life. There are 2 guards in the room with you, one can only lie the other can only tell the truth. You have no idea which is which. You are allowed just one question to one of the guards, you chose which, by just by asking this one question, you must establish exactly which door is the one leading to freedom or you die 3) What is the correct question?.

Why?

I have sinned against man and god my transgressions are unforgivably especially in light of the fact that my memory has been proved very fallible by greater minds than I Finally EDDINGTON space-time must, therefore, be a 4-dimensional object. http://einstein.stanford.edu/content/relativity/q411.html What is a space time continuum?In 1906, soon after Albert Einstein announced his special theory of relativity, his former college teacher in mathematics, Hermann Minkowski, developed a new scheme for thinking about space and time that emphasized its geometric qualities. In his famous quotation delivered at a public lecture on relativity, he announced that, "The views of space and time which I wish to lay before you have sprung from the soil of experimental physics, and therein lies their strength. They are radical. henceforth, space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality." This new reality was that space and time, as physical constructs, have to be combined into a new mathematical/physical entity called 'space-time', because the equations of relativity show that both the space and time coordinates of any event must get mixed together by the mathematics, in order to accurately describe what we see. Because space consists of 3 dimensions, and time is 1-dimensional, space-time must, therefore, be a 4-dimensional object. It is believed to be a 'continuum' because so far as we know, there are no missing points in space or instants in time, and both can be subdivided without any apparent limit in size or duration. So, physicists now routinely consider our world to be embedded in this 4-dimensional Space-Time continuum, and all events, places, moments in history, actions and so on are described in terms of their location in Space-Time.

I have suffered terrible with manic depression for many years but at present very well controlled by modern medication. This particular disorder has effected many people of great intellect and influence, two examples were the late great Winston Churchill another Vincent van Gogh I prefer to call it manic depression rather than the waters down title of bipolar disorder, what I have experienced due to this malady almost defies belief. I am prepared to dialogue with those interested, please join in?

You are right all you need is to move towards the object for the effect to come into effect at B

The light speed limit C has something to do with the concept of diminishing returns. Lets take the analogy of a world class athlete like Usain Bolt, it is easy for him to run the hundred meters at say 10 second, but harder to run it at 9.8 much harder to run it at 9.6 and he needs much more energy to run just a little faster than that. The closer he comes to his physical limit the more and more energy he needs To achieve his world record time of 9.58 for the 100 meters, he had to accumulate the maximum energy output condensed in the final strides of the race to better his time, imperceptibly from 9.6 to 9.59. That is one example of diminishing returns (You mostly read about diminishing returns in economics, but it also applies to the performance of world class athletes) In a way an object that approaches the speed of light has the same dilemma. The closer it gets to C the more and more energy it needs to go faster and its mass increases. Near the speed of light say at 99.01 C it by now needs an unimaginable amount of energy to go a tiny bit faster and is also becoming increasingly massive. Theoretically to actually reach the speed of light, the object will need all the energy in the universe to achieve it and by that moment would have become as massive than the entire universe. There is some speculation if this impossibility were to actually happen the universe would become one colossal fundamental particle of infinite mass. This is an example of the ultimate case of diminishing returns. Another example is the Large Hadron Collider it needs over 20 megawatts of power to push protons to 0.99991 C . but to achieve C with the same protons my above paragraph would apply! I hope this helps somewhat! Alan An

Not exactly what I was referring to is "Vacuum Energy' or what is called zero-point energy that exists in a vacuum. It is rather complex, I just put two chapters about it below, but if you want to know more about read the whole article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_state EnergyMain article: Vacuum energy The vacuum state is associated with a zero-point energy, and this zero-point energy has measurable effects. In the laboratory, it may be detected as the Casimir effect. In physical cosmology, the energy of the cosmological vacuum appears as the cosmological constant. In fact, the energy of a cubic centimeter of empty space has been calculated figuratively to be one trillionth of an erg.[8] An outstanding requirement imposed on a potential Theory of Everything is that the energy of the quantum vacuum state must explain the physically observed cosmological constant. Electrical permittivityIn principle, quantum corrections to Maxwell's equations can cause the experimental electrical permittivity ε of the vacuum state to deviate from the defined scalar value ε0 of the electric constant.[10] These theoretical developments are described, for example, in Dittrich and Gies.[5] In particular, the theory of quantum electrodynamics predicts that the QED vacuum should exhibit nonlinear effects that will make it behave like a birefringent material with ε slightly greater than ε0 for extremely strong electric fields.[11][12] Explanations for dichroism from particle physics, outside quantum electrodynamics, also have been proposed.[13] Active attempts to measure such effects have been unsuccessful so far.[14According to Astrid Lambrecht (2002): "When one empties out a space of all matter and lowers the temperature to absolute zero, one produces in a Gedankenexperiment the quantum vacuum state."[1] According to Fowler & Guggenheim (1939/1965), the third law of thermodynamics may be precisely enunciated as follows: It is impossible by any procedure, no matter how idealized, to reduce any assembly to the absolute zero in a finite number of operations.[24] (See also.[25][26][27]) Photon-photon interaction can occur only through interaction with the vacuum state of some other field, for example through the Dirac electron-positron vacuum field; this is associated with the concept of vacuum polarization.[28] According to Milonni (1994): "... all quantum fields have zero-point energies and vacuum fluctuations."[29] This means that there is a component of the quantum vacuum respectively for each component field (considered in the conceptual absence of the other fields), such as the electromagnetic field, the Dirac electron-positron field, and so on. According to Milonni (1994), some of the effects attributed to the vacuum electromagnetic field can have several physical interpretations, some more conventional than others. The Casimir attraction between uncharged conductive plates is often proposed as an example of an effect of the vacuum electromagnetic field. Schwinger, DeRaad, and Milton (1978) are cited by Milonni (1994) as validly, though unconventionally, explaining the Casimir effect with a model in which "the vacuum is regarded as truly a state with all physical properties equal to zero."[30][31] In this model, the observed phenomena are explained as the effects of the electron motions on the electromagnetic field, called the source field effect. Milonni writes: "The basic idea here will be that the Casimir force may be derived from the source fields alone even in completely conventional QED, ..." Milonni provides detailed argument that the measurable physical effects usually attributed to the vacuum electromagnetic field cannot be explained by that field alone, but require in addition a contribution from the self-energy of the electrons, or their radiation reaction. He writes: "The radiation reaction and the vacuum fields are two aspects of the same thing when it comes to physical interpretations of various QED processes including the Lamb shift, van der Waals forces, and Casimir effects."[32] This point of view is also stated by Jaffe (2005): "The Casimir force can be calculated without reference to vacuum fluctuations, and like all other observable effects in QED, it vanishes as the fine structure constant, α, goes to zero."[33]

In the real world Zeno is obviously wrong, but strangely his logic is hard to fault.

I stand corrected, yes "Ellington" was a pompous physicist,, my mistake! I also remember something about Ellington, when someone asked him if it were true that only three people in the world really understood special relativity, he replied by asking, who is the other one? (Assuming only he and Einstein understood it) However, because this also comes from my fallible memory I will check it out to verify if it is correct! Who said Einstein or I tried to prove anything by his quote, I just used the analogy to help explain the topic to those who are interested and don't have your level of knowledge on the subject. I did mention Ellington's and his test with the position of the planet "Mercury during an eclipse" Mercury appeared from behind the moon before it should have, and the best explanation , is that space bend to make appear earlier than precise prediction said it should.

The best analogy in my opinion is that galaxies are to think of galaxies as being embedded in space and thus, they expand at the expansion rate of the universe. A spaceship on the other hand would have to travel 'through space to get to another nearby galaxy because it is not embedded in space. However if the if the spaceship needed to travel between the stars of its home galaxy, it would also have to travel through space to get there. "Nothing can exceed the speed of light "Through Space" But the spaceship which is part of its home galaxy , and its home galaxy is embedded in space, would also be subject to the overall expansion of the universe and would move outwards with space because it home galaxy is embedded in space, at the rate of expansion of the universe. Thus said spaceship could be said to be both "traveling "through Space" and traveling with space! Something can exceed the speed of light if it is embedded in space. RAISINS = GALAXIES DOUGH = SPACE Space is not really an immaterial thing, it is more like the analogy of dough in a raisin cake, the dough, loosely equate to space and the raisins to galaxies. When the rising of the dough of the raisin cake could be analogous to the expansion of the universe. The raisins don't move, they just separate, further and further apart as the dough rises. The raisins separate of a greater rate, if more heat is supplied,maybe we could equate the heat, to the mysterious dark energy that is causing the universe to expand. There are no perfect analogies , but that is my effort to try and explain the topic.

I am not sure exactly what you are getting at, " in Zeno's paradox Achilles could can move/run at first" and then "move/run half that distance" and so on, the next time etc, only later was he faced with ever smaller divisions into the infinitesimal. I once wrote a short document on the apparent enigma or paradox of movement, I will try and locate it.

Cold is relative the Inuit (Eskimo) people perceive cold differently from an African who has lived all his life in the blazing heat of the Sahara Desert. Technically you are right, cold is the absence of heat, heat is just the vibration of molecules in the substance. No material thing in the universe travels, "Through" space faster than C Galaxies, which are embedded in space(Much like raisins embedded the dough of bread loaf), can travel faster than light, relative to other galaxies from which they are receding, due to the expansion of the universe. Galaxies mostly "move with space as the expansion of the universe" continues, with exceptions of the like the Andromeda Galaxy, our nearest neighbor, which are being drawn together by their mutual gravity fields, but later,once combined into a colossal new galaxy, it will join the rest of the universe in its increasing expansion to its ultimate doom of the heat death.

In this case yes, this metaphor that you dislike, exists as a reality, if you like it or not, and mass distorts the the thing that has been "metaphorically put" to explain a complex idea. Einstein once quoted "if you can explain something to your granny", then you understand it yourself. Maybe you know something Einstein did not on space-time, if you do,please enlighten us? Read the paragraph below again please! In Einstein’s theory of general relativity, he put forth the radical idea that space is not just a static, empty arena in which celestial objects go about their business. Instead, he described our universe as a sort of fabric that is curved and distorted by the objects within it. Sound crazy?

Of course it would, mass=energy EMC2 , light is energy/electromagnetic spectrum , which the absence of would = absolute darkness. Quantum physics will not allow this to happen , what we suppose is empty space really seethes with energy. And also you are referring to the visual spectrum of electromagnetism in which our human eyes are designed by evolution to observe our reality. Just a thought! darkness is relative, a snake perceives objects in infrared , our eyes do not react in that particular part of electromagnetism.

Your last statement makes little sense, we don't know why the fundamental constants are set as the mathematical reality they are, but luckily they are what they are and they allow the conditions of the universe to support life, on planet earth at least. Your question is like asking why pi is not exactly 3 instead of 3.14159 to infinitity Wikipedia The number π is a mathematical constant that is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter and is approximately equal to 3.14159. It has been represented by the Greek letter "π" since the mid-18th century "pi" (/paɪ/).

You cant equate sound waves to the quantum world, sound waves are just that waves, in the macro- world In the micro- world, light just like other fundamental particles, can exist both as a wave and as a particle. Google the "Double Spit Experiment" Yes "space is a thing", or something, it is a 3 dimensional reality, which contains the stuff of our universe.