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Followup-To: alt.folklore.science
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Danny Bersch (ber...@sst.sps.mot.com) wrote:
: sh...@one.net (Scott Hess) writes:

: Perhaps more correctly stated, "The speed of light in a vacuum, c, 
: *appears to be* a property of our universe, like pi or e.  Current
: popular theory predicts that one _cannot_ go faster than the speed 
: of light while remaining in our universe."

Oh for Pete's sake, the values of pi and e have nothing to do with "which"
universe you're in.  They're mathematical concepts, that'll be the same
anywhere that 1+1=2.  They are NOT properties of our (or any other) universe!

: #]To be even more specific, back when the speed of sound was fast, all
: #]velocity and acceleration equations worked fine past the speed of
: #]sound.  It's just that nobody figured you could actually ever _go_
: #]that fast.  They could still figure out what accelerations would be
: #]necessary to push a given mass past the speed of sound, at least in
: #]theory.  
: 
: Yup.  And they could calculate the energy necessary to push a given
: mass past the speed of light as well ...... at least in the theory
: of the day.

You've missed Scott's point completely: he's saying that the aerodynamics
equations did NOT predict any problem going past the speed of sound, whereas
relativity DOES predict that c is an absolute limit.
 
: #]This isn't really a matter of opinion.  <SNIP>
: #]I can just prove that YOU CAN'T GET THERE FROM HERE!  
: 
: Can you *really* prove it?  If so, let's send all those erudite physics
: weenies home.  The job is done.  Or is it that what you can do is to
: derive the current theory and spread your derivations (complete with 
: all the required assumptions) before us for our perusal?  Science seeks
: to understand and predict, and to that end, we create models (theories)
: that we believe will let us extrapolate from what we know to what we
: would like to understand.  As such, our theories are molded as much by
: that which we would like to understand as by the nature of the physical
: universe.  Newton was exactly correct, for his day, as was Ptolemy.
: Both modeled what was known and predicted what was needed.  *Proof*,
: we must remember, has a temporal aspect to it.

Oh boy, you've again missed something: science seeks to predict, _and_then_
to_verify_!  And the energy-vs.-speed aspect of relativity has be demonstrated
accurate to something ridiculous like 0.9999999 c by particle accelerators:
otherwise, the accelerators _wouldn't work at all_!  It is this _verification_
that makes science objective and which ties it to the physical universe,
countering what the current anti-objective-science views of many sociologists
would have us believe.

You can say that Newton was "exactly correct for his day"(*) but you cannot
say he was _complete_.  From this point of view, relativity doesn't invalidate
Newton, it generalises it, _adding_ more physics.  But to allow for faster-
than-light travel, you have to _remove_ some physics from relativity, a
a completely different situation.  (And to be complete, even "wormholes"
don't allow v > c, they just provide a "shortcut" route to an otherwise
distant location).

As for your "temporal aspect" to proofs, well, you can improve on proofs and
sometimes reverse them with technological advances, but it's damned tough to
eliminate disproof.  And there's a hell of a lot of disproof out there to the
idea that photons travel at anything other than c in vacuum in _any_
reference frame (which is the whole foundation of the c-as-speed-limit idea).

: #][I had a roomate who once would start a conversation with something
: #]like "But let's say you _could_ go faster than the speed of light."
: #]How can you start a conversation by invoking magic?  
: 
: Yeah, it would be like starting a conversation around the turn of the
: century with, "let's say there was a limit to the speed of light...."

No it wouldn't.  See above, in the adding/removing of stuff from theories bit.

: #]I just wonder why people so seldom say things like "What if pi was 
: #]exactly 3.5?" or "What if e was 3.1415926...?" or "What if i was not 
: #]imaginary?"
: 
: Yeah, imagine where we'd be .....
: 
: Actually, these are not that absurd.  The semiconductor industry, for 
: years, used the equivalence (1 mil) = (0.025 micron).  When device
: geometries were on the order of a mil or two and error was 5%, this 
: was close enough.  Pi comes from the ratio of the circumference of
: a circle to its diameter.  The ancients could have chosen the inverse
: ratio and given pi a value nearer 0.31831, and the universe would 
: still have unfolded as it should.  EE's tend to use 'j' for the 
: "imaginary" axis, rather than 'i'.  Who knows, perhaps the theory
: would be easier to learn if we considered the axis to be the frequency
: axis rather than a "make-believe" axis.

You're just plain wrong.  Pi comes from a lot of different places, one of
which is the circumference/diameter ratio _in a flat geometry_.  It is a
fundamental mathematical constant, which is a hell of a lot stronger
statement even than saying c is a fundamental physical constant.  It is
_not_ an approximation IN ANY UNIVERSE.  We don't know what c is in "other"
universes, or even if relativity is valid there.  But pi remains pi. It's a
horribly anthrocentric attitude that lets you say he ancients "defined" pi.

btw, you seem to be confusing the idea of "what pi represents" with
"how we choose to communicate that idea".  It's the former that is of
relevence to discussions like this; the latter is just semantics
(e.g. whether sqrt(-1) is called "i" or "j").

j "mainly writing this to change the followups line" g.


(*) but you can't even say that Newton was "exact" up until Einstein
"discovered" (described is a better word) relativity: once Maxwell
quantified classical electrodynamics in 1864 (and thus first introducing
"c" to fundamental physics), Newton was in conflict with Maxwell.
Einstein was just the first to recognise the conflict's implications
and to describe its resolution.

-- 
"don't listen when you're told about the best days in your life      Spirit of
 a useless old expression, it means passing time until you die."      the West
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  -- John Girash --- gir...@cfa.harvard.edu --- http://skyron.harvard.edu/ --