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Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TigerPaw who wrote (24399)	7/7/2006 10:56:06 AM
From: TigerPaw	Respond to of 28931

Why light? As I pondered Einstein's conclusion as to the speed of light. I wrote: If nothing can go faster than light - and light goes as fast as light - then all light must be traveling at the same speed. That really left open the question of why is light the top speed? Why didn't Einstein conclude that "faster than a speeding bullet" was the limiting factor, or some other property. The cause and effect argument really just says that there is a top speed after which relative motions will not continue to add to each other. It doesn't really say that light defines that limit. I think the answer is that light was the fastest thing that Einstein knew about, and when he tried it as the limit in the equations it worked. Since that time there has been many-many experiments which are set up along the lines of : "If light is the ultimate speed then this or that weird thing would happen", and when they do the experiement they find out that sure-enough, the weird thing was detected. Since Einstein's time physicists think they know why light is the top speed. The photon is not attracted to the structure of the universe (othewise known as a Higgs field) and so it can travel at full speed while other particles are slowed down by the field, and bend the field in proportion to their attraction to it. This bending is what we experience as gravity. TP

To: TigerPaw who wrote (24399)	7/7/2006 12:37:51 PM
From: LLCF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 28931

<One of the things he realized was that if you could go faster than that beam, then you could get to the destination first and learn what could be "seen" before anything actually had a chance to see it. This violated cause & effect because you could wind up reacting to something based on what "you see" faster than someone else would see the event you were reacting to.> He may have realized that... but so what? This doesn't prove anything, expecially since "seeing" is simply sensory ability of ours that evolved from the condition we have of light bouncing off of food on this planet. Some people react faster to light than others anyway... there must be another point. BTW... who cares about 'violating cause and effect'?? What scientific "theory" is that? Isn't that more in the philosophical realm? If it's impossible to move faster than the speed of light (something with mass right?), then there must be physical reasons... not just because you like cause and effect... cause and effect should be a byproduct, no? dAK