Levi Bryant's Facebook Status Update 24/3/14 Australia EST.
Einstein's theory of relativity both fills me with wonder and horror... It's just so weird, almost magic... Light moves at 670 million mph no matter how fast you're going. And it's true; it really does act that way. Expanding and contracting to maintain that constant like the pupil of an eye.
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Tim Randles About 671 million mph.
6 hours ago · Like · 1
Levi Paul Bryant Good catch, typo!
6 hours ago · Like · 1
Duane Rousselle Two things: (1) I thought that the speed of light was only constant in a vacuum - otherwise, it is slowed down by any number of mediums including air, water, etc. (thus the refractive index) - there is a distinction here between special and general relativity (2) for general relativity, the speed of light depends upon an inertial frame (a relatively immobile plane of reference; an idea originally apparent in Newton). Finally, isn't the speed of light what you said (670) multiplied 100 000, so, to be exact, 670 616 629 mph? EDIT: see the typo acknowledge now - yikes, too bad it didn't get picked up in facebook copy-editing phase!
6 hours ago · Edited · Like · 1
Levi Paul Bryant Tim Randles is the guy to talk to here as he's the physicist. I'm just going with Brian Greene's number (forgot to add the million as I was multitasking; thanks for the catch!). I don't think the things you cite change the weirdness of it.
6 hours ago · Edited · Like · 1
Duane Rousselle What I find most interesting about Einstein's theory of relativity is the necessity of an inertial frame. Without the inertial frame, it seems to me, all of the strangeness of length contraction and time dilation, and, indeed, the entire theory of relativity, falls apart. So those who talk about never stepping into the same river twice must be perched up on a rock while making that observation.
6 hours ago · Edited · Like · 3
Himanshu Damle Duane Rousselle, I think a year or so back, an experimental aberration did show particles exceeding the speed c. Tachyons were losing their hypothetical status. But, alas it only proved to be an instrumental aberration. But, physics community was shaken indeed.
6 hours ago · Like
Levi Paul Bryant Whatever it is, it gives me indigestion
6 hours ago · Like
Stephanie Hutchison I suspect, we're all generally multitasking . . .
5 hours ago · Like
Ariel Riveros Pavez eat a good breakfast!
5 hours ago · Like · 2
Tim Randles Duane Rousselle actually in General Relativity inertial frames of reference are not guaranteed to exist. They are replaced by local frames of reference where the curvature of spacetime is negligible. For me the mind-bending consequence of relativity was learning that these "tricks" of mathematics, the seemingly arbitrary consequences of relativity, were biologically and physically manifest properties of the universe. If they were not so then GPS and various observations of highly energetic particles would not be possible.
5 hours ago · Like · 4
Levi Paul Bryant Tim Randles exactly! It drives me nuts that often it's just talked about as a perspective. It's physical, material! The astronaught is literally aging more slowly than his twin on earth.
5 hours ago · Like · 2
Duane Rousselle @Tim: I don't think the question was ever about the "existence" of inertial frames, for Einstein. I think this was even the basis of one of his debates with Varićak (if my memory serves me). Existence implies an unwarranted ontology. My understanding was that an "inertial frame" is a construct, something like an "idea" - an inertial frame is also moving. It is just, form the standpoint of another object, we consider it, as a thought-experiment, non-moving.
Of course there is a pretense (to borrow a Lacanain concept) to the inertial frame. The point is not that this is about perspective - it has nothing to do with perspective. It is that there is no relationship between the idea of an inertial frame and anything outside of that frame. It is not that we each have our own reality, it was much more about the fact that there is one inertial frame - something like the One of masculinity in Lacan's writing - and that everything else is not entirely subjected to the law of the One - something like the Not-All of femininity in Lacan's writing. Relativity is not about two frames with different perspectives, it is about the impossibility of a relationship between the One and the asymmetrical, the relatively immobile (which is itself a fiction, a ruse, a mask - since we are always moving) and the other.
For what it is worth, here is what Einstein said to Varicak: "The author unjustifiably stated a difference of Lorentz's view and that of mine concerning the physical facts. The question as to whether length contraction really exists or not is misleading. It doesn't "really" exist, in so far as it doesn't exist for a comoving observer; though it "really" exists, i.e. in such a way that it could be demonstrated in principle by physical means by a non-comoving observer."
You see Einstein's genius here.
5 hours ago · Unlike · 4
Tim Randles Indeed, and to see Einstein's genius is for me to be humbled by it. I do not feel qualified to comment on your second paragraph as I am not well-versed in Lacan's writing.
Side note: I tried to edit this more than once and failed. Clearly I need to go to bed. That being said, I'm sure to toss and turn thinking about this over the next hour...
4 hours ago · Edited · Like · 2
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