Are there any physisists on the forum?

[lordjenks]

if abiding by the string theory, all matter is made of tiny strings which create weight etc then nothing can go beyond the speed of light becuase forces exist upon the strings wouldnt be able to exist, same theory that if you went below K, -273 or around there thne there is no energy at all for the quarks and strings inside them that the particle simply cannot exist

 

[mangaman]

Back to school for you!

Light is only at a constant speed in a vacuum.
It is slowed down when it travels through anything (air, glass etc).

So the speed of light can be changed.

However the long and the short of it is that you cannot speed something up to a point where it is as fast as light even if that light were slowed down the most it could be (which from memory is when passed through a diamond).

D'oh - I did my best though and no-one can ask for more than that.

I will stick my neck out and say Yellow Fang is talking about quantom theory which is a different area

 

[Noodley]

See, none of you know for sure! You can't even agree on what current theory to use let alone if it's the definitive answer...

 

[colly]

Apologies for spelling it incorrectly.

Anyway.

The supplimentary is this: The CERN device, the LHC, will be crashing protons or lead ions into each other in an attempt to discover the Higgs Boson.
Two beams will be travelling in opposite directions at 99.99% of the speed of light. 001% shy of the magic 'C'.
Each beam of particles travelling at 99.99% the speed of light

From what you say the closing speed of the particles still be less than the speed of light ?

Will the closing speed be closer to 'C' by 99.99% of the missing .001% ?

Is that tiny, amount of extra velocity important? Could they not simply fire a beam of particles across one accelerated beam at 90 degrees?

Don't ask me why I got to pondering this because I have no ******* idea at all.

 

[Noodley]

Bloody hell colly, I thought you were gonna come up with some time travel supplementary question to find out if you could go back and have yer tea all over again!

 

[Fab Foodie]

I don't know Colly, but one of my mates is working on this project and he rides a bike very fast indeed...

 

[Yellow Fang]

I think it might be that as the particles approach the speed of light they get more massive. The more they are accelerated, the more the energy is turned to mass. They want a really big bang when they collide.

 

[colly]

Bloody hell colly, I thought you were gonna come up with some time travel supplementary question to find out if you could go back and have yer tea all over again!

Yeah, I'm sorry the question was kind of a let down.

Ok what about gravity?
Instantaneous or not?
How do we know?
How could we know?
Do we need to know?
What IS gravity?

I'll make some more tea while you sort it out.

 

[Yellow Fang]

D'oh - I did my best though and no-one can ask for more than that.

I will stick my neck out and say Yellow Fang is talking about quantom theory which is a different area

I was talking about quantum mechanics, but apparently it contradicts the theory of relativity. I read it about it in Roger Penrose's book: The Emperor's New Mind.

 

[colly]

I think it might be that as the particles approach the speed of light they get more massive. The more they are accelerated, the more the energy is turned to mass. They want a really big bang when they collide.

Once had a girlfriend like that............but in her case it was cakes not the speed of light .

 

[mangaman]

No - it's Einstein's special theory - nothing evceeds the speed of light

Ralatively from a different angle things look different but it is time that changes rather than speed bas I understandn it

(I hope Over The Hill doesn't send me back to school again)

 

[Yellow Fang]

Yeah, I'm sorry the question was kind of a let down.

Ok what about gravity?
Instantaneous or not?
How do we know?
How could we know?
Do we need to know?
What IS gravity?

I'll make some more tea while you sort it out.

Isn't gravity actually curved space. Mass distorts space time. Light travels in straight lines. When it appears to bend around massive objects, it is actually spce that is being bent. This is covered in one of Einstein's theories of relativity.

 

[mangaman]

I was talking about quantum mechanics, but apparently it contradicts the theory of relativity. I read it about it in Roger Penrose's book: The Emperor's New Mind.

Yer I've read that - an excellant book I think (although I disagree with the end when he argues A.I. is impossible because of uncertainty in quantum theory.

He does, however, I think make the distinction between "classical" physics of Newton etc and "quantom" physics.

Einstein's special theory of relativity is very much in the classical tradiion

 

[mangaman]

Yeah, I'm sorry the question was kind of a let down.

Ok what about gravity?
Instantaneous or not?
How do we know?
How could we know?
Do we need to know?
What IS gravity?

I'll make some more tea while you sort it out.

That's a slightly different question though.

I think Einstein's General Theory attempts to answer that, although it's pretty incomprehensible to the lay person.

I'm not sure a theory of quantum gravity has been robustly tested (unlike Einstein's General theory which predicted things which have been proven)

At this point the question is too difficult for me and I'm off to bed

 

[gaz]

Yeah, I'm sorry the question was kind of a let down.

Ok what about gravity?
Instantaneous or not?
How do we know?
How could we know?
Do we need to know?
What IS gravity?

I'll make some more tea while you sort it out.

Gravitons seams like the best theory to date imo