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Wednesday, November 30, 2005
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I THINK I'M WRONG!... AGAIN!
OK, I would like to denounce my previous two theories on lightspeed travel. They are based on a principle I no longer believe to be true: Time dilation.
Time dilation is a THEORY that states that the faster you move, the slower time progresses for you and the faster it progresses for everyone else. My previous two theories kinda half supported that... Well, now I think that time dilation is the STUPIDEST thing of which I've ever heard!
Time is absolute. Nothing we do can affect it in anyway. It is not tangible and will continue ticking on as it always does, always has, and always will.
If this is the case, then the speed of light is no more a barrier than the speed of sound. Sure, weird things happen when you reach it, but it IS surpassable.
So if you're traveling at the speed of light on a round trip to a star 3 lightyears away, it will take you three years to get there and three years to get back. When you return to Earth, six years will have passed. If you travel three times the speed of light, a round trip would be two years. There are no fluctuations in time.
Because mass increases as speed increases, traveling near and beyond the speed of light would require engineering to combat the gravitational forces on the "ship" and its passengers. Although we do not have these capabilities now, they are possible.
If I am right and time does NOT dilate, traveling to the stars is still quite a long journey, even at many times the speed of light. Therefore, there are only two theoretical ways of making voyages to the stars plausible: Space ships that can travel THOUSANDS of times the speed of light, or wormholes.
Neither of these options are proven to exist or be possible, and as of yet we're still stuck with a measly 25 miles per second for our fastest flying ship. Voyages through space are still quite a ways off.
posted by Rick at 7:41 PM
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Sunday, November 13, 2005
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I THINK I'M WRONG!
I need to make a correction to my light speed thoughts!!!!
OK, you're on Earth looking at a star that's 10,000 lightyears away. What you see is what that star looked like 10,000 years ago, so if you traveled at the speed of light to reach that star, when you get there it will appear as it truly was when you saw it.
OK, say that star blew up 7,000 years ago, but we still see it's light from 10,000 years ago. When you get there it will have been gone for 7,000 years.
BUT HERE'S THE REALLY SCREWED UP PART!
The light from Earth that you'd see would be the Earth from when you left, meaning that the Earth is actually 10,000 years older. So when you go back it will be to the true Earth from your viewpoint at the star 10,000 lightyears away.
In conclusion:
Traveling at lightspeed (Or close seeing as the differences in time allowed for traveling would only be a few years), a round trip to a star 10,000 lightyears away would only result in a 10,000 year lapse on the original departure point.
posted by Rick at 12:56 AM
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Friday, November 11, 2005
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Light speed
According to Einstein, it is impossible to travel at or beyond the speed of light. Strange things happen as you approach light speed. Time for the object traveling would slow down, while time elsewhere would progress normally. What this means is that if you went 10,000 lightyears at a speed as close as possible to the speed of light, you'd reach your destination in a few hours, days at most; however, 10,000 years would have passed both where you came from and where you went. So a round trip would mean missing 20,000 years on Earth. So it stands to reason that if you could travel at the speed of light time would completely stop for you (Instantaneous travel), but continue normally elsewhere once again. If you surpass the lightspeed barrier, time would go in reverse for you, however, once again, normal time would pass the same. There is no way to avoid that one major problem.
posted by Rick at 9:13 PM
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Monday, November 07, 2005
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Religion
Religion is just a theory. Scientists didn't know how the universe got here, so they theorized that there was a big explosion. There are different theories on how the moon and Earth formed, and how all planets form. Religion is just another theory for why things are. The problem is, religion consists of nothing but fanatical followers. What started out as theory has become a "truth", an obligation because people became fanatical about it. If someone wrote a book explaining the Big Bang theory as if it really happened, and people started following it and praising it, that'd be the same as religion.
When man evolved enough to wonder why the sun rose and set, he could not deduce the reason. This is how the supernatural began. Early man fabricated stories to explain things. These hominids had no proof of their stories, or theories, they just wanted a reason. This is how gods came to life. Man created God, it's not the other way around.
I'm not saying science is any better. I read on NASA.gov that a huge star that scientists thought would become a black hole became a neutron star instead. Scientific theories are just as made up as religion. No matter how logical any theory may seem to anyone, they all fall apart. "God created the universe", well, who created God, and if God has always existed, how do he come into existance in the first place, and where does he exist, and if He created the universe what was there before, etc.? The same goes for all the scientific theories too. There is too much contradiction now, and unfathomable questions in the past.
Religion serves no purpose. Some people tell me it teaches morals, right and wrong. That's common sense. Any person should be able to decide for himself the difference between right and wrong and still be a functioning member of the human society. Morals are tought from experience that can be learned anywhere. And some people truly believe every single thing the Bible says. First, meanings have been changed through the translations, so no one really knows what it originally said. There's also no proof that it is what it claims to be, and if it is truly the writings of the disciples (New Testament), they could have been altered by the church. Why isn't Jesus's teenage life in the Bible? It's been edited out.
And why Jesus? I'm sure there was more than just one man who claimed to be a great prophet or an incarnation of God. What made Jesus so special to make it into the Bible? He's just a man. The Koran follows Mohammad. What made the Muslims think he was so special? I guess it's just a right time, right place kinda thing.
So anyway... The beginning ruins every logical theory. What was there before the universe? How did that get there? And so on for infinity. There HAS to be a beginning somewhere, but even that doesn't make sense, because how did everything come out of nothing? It's impossible to know. People should not dwell on the past, but instead live the present and prepare and better the future. Who cares how everything got here? It's here let's make the best of it without having to worry about what got us here and what will happen to us when we die. Death is natural, and until you die, you'll never know what really happens.
In general, people are decent and functioning, with or without some theory of everything. Some day everyone will realize this and the churches won't be able to threaten the people with God and Hell and whatnot anymore. Too bad that won't be anytime soon...
posted by Rick at 10:57 PM
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