[klaivu]

Mathematical proof that the distance can never be crossed :

A = 1
A is the distance.
B = 0.1 , the one-tenth factor.
n = a natural number, {1, 2, 3 ... }
AB^n = the distance left
( ^ = powered ( sp ) )

When n is one, the distance is 0.1. When it's two, its 0.01. When it's 3, the distance is 0.001 etc. You get the idea.

AB^n can only equal zero when either
A or B is zero. ( because the only
time you get zero while multiplying
numbers is when one of the numbers is
zero. ) B^n = B * B * B * ... * B
n times.

Therefore, the distance can never be
crossed.

Spiraleye is basically saying that because the universe is so large, there is no distance between Utah and Helsinki.

A question for you to chew on : What's the distance between two points next to each other ?

[ May 23, 2001: Message edited by: klaivu ]

[Etict]

Aargh! Maths! No! My brains, my eyes, i'm melting...

This is the point where the fun ends. When people who understand something about maths come in. Sucks.

[Frost]

Funny discussion... but yeah, you never get the full amount by exponentially adding compound fractional increments... or blah blah blah...

...unless you use an Intel FPU.

[Hlid Skjalff]

HEadlight thing... what will really happen - is Doppler Shift and you will just see the headlight in RED spectra - coz you'll be constantly chasing the photons/particles emitted by the light/wave source. I think that is it.

[Impaler]

Actually, according to Einstein, the light will move as fast and as far away from you as it would if your spaceship were standing still. It wouldn't race just barely ahead of you; it would still beam away travelling 186,000 miles a second from your space ship, as if it were a stationary point, even if you're travelling theoretically 99.9999% as fast as the speed of light.

Confusing, no?

Another thing that bugs me is: How can we possibly measure a distance in a vacuum? Man has always used distance as a means of measuring the amount of matter you would cover.

Another thing: According to Einstein, light is pure energy, yet it still has mass. Therefore, if we were to construct a physically impossible substance that exerted more energy than a light particle, and it had less mass than a photon, then we could technically break the speed of light.

Another thing: Astronomers gathered at a recent convention to discuss a somewhat pressing matter; in 1 billion years, the sun will be too hot and luminous to allow life on Earth in it's current orbital path. Their plan you ask? They'll use super-massive 200 km comets to move the earth another 30 million miles out. The only problem they see is that we'd lose the moon.

Another thing: NASA is honestly researching and testing faster-than-light spaceships, including those that bend space and time itself.

[schabe]

regarding the topic: it may be that 0.999... with infinite number of '9' is the same as '1' but nevertheless you wont travel to the other side because you have to make infinite steps and soemtimes you will get old and dont want to travel anymore.

impaler:
distance in a vacuum: you can check the time that it take when light travels from one point to the other and than you have the distance.

faster_than_light particles: imho energy and speed are different thinks. there is light that has more energy (blue light) and light with less enegry (red light) but speed is the same.

yep... still any questions ?

[Impaler]

?? Red light has less energy than.. blue light??

The colors we see are simply reflections off of materials, or diffusion through fluids. Light is every color, and there is only one color light. It's all radiation, and radiation all travels at that constant rate of C. Therefore radio has the same amount of energy as.. blue light .. ?

[Frost]

Each light/color in the spectrum has different wavelengths, thus frequencies... as I understand it.

[ May 23, 2001: Message edited by: Frost ]

[Chris]

Im: your right, i completly forgot about that. It is like puttin newtons and einsteins theories together.

And this is how warp drive could be established, believe it or not (maybe?). In theory, lets say you are on a space station going (lets keep it simple) 90% the speed of light.

You fire a space ship from that space station at 90% the speed of light, according to the theory of velocity you will be traveling faster then the speed of light, quite a bunch actually.

Boom, fire another space craft at 90% of the speed of light. That is almost 3 times faster then the speed of light.

Problems: can matter withstand that speed (G's, will matter turn to energy to withstand that speed automatically?)
and
how could we accelerate to that speed?

[SpiralEye]

klaivu-I'm not actually saying that there IS no distance between Helsinki and Utah. I'm just commenting on an interesting phenomena that happens when you make a smal change to Zeno's Dichotemy paradox. There IS a distance. The method of traveling a particular distance may keep you from completing your journey, while a slightly different method will let you move just fine.

Impaler--I remember reading somewhere that Einstein had said that about light, but it's all too theoretical at that point to seem real at all to me. We know that at least one application of E=mc^2 is correct in fundament. And Hiroshima and Nagasaki will never be the same. . .

Chris--It would be cool if matter could withstand it. Hmm....I'm going to post my new random thought sometime soon.

[Hlid Skjalff]

Impaler: Of course red light has less energy than blue light, you have doubts about that??
What did you say about the radio vs. visible light? Radio has less energy if you look at the frequences/wavelengths chart... Besides, did you ever HEAR or SEE the radio waves.. don't think so... but you have surely seen the visible light - it has enough energy to irritate cells in your eye, Violet more energy than red, after the Violet goes, UV radiation, then X-rays, (not in the order) and eventually Cosmic rays that can burn you in an Augenblick (NO TIME) Doesn't matter Vacuum or not, absolute zero or 100000C photons either move with the speed of light or do not exist AT ALL. Therefore Vacuum and temperature DO NOT affect the intencity and SPEED of the electro-magnetic radiation!!!

[v1510nAry]

so what u well eventually reach it no matter what may take eternity but u well reach it ...

[Chris]

You will never reach it, not even in eternity, in other words, it will take forever to reach it.

[Giant Hamster]

ok.....so, this has branched out a lot.

well, on the first part. the never getting anywhere thing:

ok. So, what I'm gathering from most of you; is that the "space" between your, lets say, Bed; and your, lets say, door; again, is infinite. you Can not get from your bed to your door due to it being infinite from the fractions and blah.

ok.

well. here is my question. Why do you all think we can't go past infinite? the only reason infinite is considered endless is because first we didn't have enough fingers to count on, so we made computers, and our computers haven't found a solid number yet...its always repeatinggggggggggggg^. Thats why Infinite Is considered Endless. Not because it actually is. Don't get all, "well, I know that infinate is endless cause of this fraction by this power and i have a puppy that is stuck in a timewarp with the langaliers i want my mommy" and shit.

Ok, So. With knowing that Infinite could quite possibly NOT be forever(the better term), then it is entirely possible that we can move around. I can even make a fucking sound file to prove this...in audio of course..duh. but it still applies. shhh. quite! no smiting in the cherrios!!!!!

actually, i guess I will make that sound file.

[Concealed]

Chris: I don't think it would go that easily. It would take infinite amount of energy for the ship to accelerate from 90% of the speed of light to full c.

[ May 24, 2001: Message edited by: Concealed ]

[schabe]

giant hamster: infinity IS endless, for sure. either in time or in place. consider infinitiy had an end so it wouldnt be infinity any more :-/

[wayfinder]

aristotle and the tortoise anyone?

[schabe]

consealed: wrong wrong, wrong. but your posting brought the right forumlar to my mind (i hope): energy of light is

E=h*f

where h is planck's constant and f is the frequency of light. so blue has a higher frequency and therefore more energy.

quod erat demonstrandum

[klaivu]

Yellow and blue light have the least energy. That's why plants are green.
Spiraleye : The only way you could get to the other side would be if lenght would be divided into absolute units, eg. you couldn't move less than the unit. Alas, there is always an infinite amount of points between two points, and they only are next to each other when they are the same point.

[Hlid Skjalff]

Klaivu: RED has the least energy, its preceded by Infra Red, the most Energetic radiation BEFORE the visible light band!!! The highest is VIOLET!!! Thet is followed by Micro and X rays (more energetic)
Concealed: Yeah right!!! Did you EVER hear about WAVE/particle theory? No? thats Ok...
You mean that Alpha emissions have the same energy as the radio waves? yeah :-)))
Schabe: I'm not sure about the formula, but the Energy of the radiation DOES depend on the frequency!!! For frequency DEFINES the energy.

[Chris]

quote

Quote:

ok. So, what I'm gathering from most of you; is that the "space" between your, lets say, Bed; and your, lets say, door; again, is infinite. you Can not get from your bed to your door due to it being infinite from the fractions and blah.

I thought we are talking about traveling half the distance to the "so called door" so in that aspect you will never reach the door, if you travel more then 100% on each step, of course you will reach the door.

On the light speed, I don't think it would take a infinate amount of energy to get that speed. If we wanted to do star trek and go from 0 to 90% of light, then it would take infinate, but accelarating slowly, even taking years upon years to get to that speed, that could be possible.

[v1510nAry]

but where able to mearsure how fast light is, but 1 day well be able to move at the speed of light we have broken the sound barrier many times ...... this red light thing just reminded me that the big bang theory is tr00 ... I still believe you well reach the other side

NOTHING IMPOSSIBLE !!!!!!!

[Lunatique]

WTF? I must be in the wrong forum. What happend to all the artist? Have they been assimilated by scientists?

Of course I'm just kidding. There are plenty of people who are strong in both right and left brain. I'm not one of them since I flunked math twice in high school. The reason: I was drawing all the time and never paid attention. I hate math.

[Chris]

I never argued that matter can exsist at faster then speed or at speed of light.

My thoughts are if matter does reach the speed of light, does it turn to energy automatically? That is the question I pointed out at the end of that post.

[SpiralEye]

Okay, this will probably be the last post on this from me. And I'm going back to my original topic.

Last night I was thinking, if traveling 90% of a remaining distance at each hop becomes a calculus limit, what happens if you travel more than 90%? So I tried 98% or 98/100ths.
Here is a two-steps comparision of traveling using both methods:
.98 + .0196 = .9996
.9 + .09 = .99
So, taken to the infinite, they both become .999..., but the 98% method accelerates a little faster. At first I wondered if the 98% method would actually let you cross over 1, but no, because our next hop is determined by moving a distance shorter than the remaining distance. Therefore, any hop method that uses a fraction that is greater than zero, but less than nine-tenths, will never cross a given distance. (0<n<.9)
And furthermore, any fractional method between nine-tenths and less than ten-tenths, will become a calculus limit, allowing the distance to be crossed, as long as movement continues for an infinite amount of time. (.9=<n<1)

My final interesting thought on this is that, using the decimal system, any integer can be expressed in terms of a repeating decimal. Two can be expressed as:
(.999... + .999...) = (1 + 1) = (1.999..)
That had never occurred to me before.
Anyways.

Have fun with this, whomever continues the debate.

[The typo gremlins struck again]

Wayfinder--just read your last post--haha! Yes, 'Godel, Escher, and Bach' rears it ugly head again!

klaivu--.999... does equal one. Please, look it up on google or something...or follow the previous links I posted to discussions on "Does .999... equal 1?"

[ May 24, 2001: Message edited by: SpiralEye ]

[Impaler]

Odd. A branch of optics that i never dove in to. Or i did a belly flop. Either way, I've never heard of colors having more or less energy than another.

Theoretically, matter cannot reach the speed of light, so it doesn't get turned into energy. It just gets really, really, really, really fast.

[klaivu]

No no and no spiraleye.
0.999999999999999999999999999... ad infinitum is never equal to one. There is no smallest number.
Hlid Skjalff : you are probably right. Photosynthesis is the most efficient in red and blue light though. Maybe that has little to do with energy rates ?

[ May 24, 2001: Message edited by: klaivu ]

[ May 24, 2001: Message edited by: klaivu ]

[Hlid Skjalff]

klaivu: I'm sorry, I know absolutely nothing about biology (well I know what photosynthesis is, but...) I don't know why red and blue are the most efficient light colours...

[Hlid Skjalff]

Lukias: here and now, huh? Smells like Suicentrism :-))))))

[Giant Hamster]

why does everyone keep thinking infinite is the same as endless??? its not!!! its only considered endless cause we haven't found the end yet.

yeah yeah, there is the mobius strip thing, but that is looping, not infinite. You have to stop thinking that infinite and endless are the same, they aren't.