Deep Thoughts

[Dotini]

*cracks knuckles*

Think of the Earth. The gravity of the Earth bends its surface into a 22,000 mile round ball and prevents anything moving below 17,500mph leaving it. It can move around the surface and even, with digging, through it but, unless it hits 17,500mph, it can't leave the confines and environment of the Earth.

Now let's rewrite the above:

Think of the Universe. The gravity of the Universe bends its surface into a 14BLy round ball* and prevents anything moving below c leaving it. It can move around the surface and even, with digging, through it but, unless it hits c, it can't leave the confines and environment of the Universe.

So what would happen if you could break c? Same as happens if you can break 17,500mph, only with the Universe. But you can't*.


*Yeah, alright, it's not a ball or round. But it's not 14BLy across either. The visible universe is though. Get off my case.
**That is to say, you can't travel faster through space faster than c, but there is no theoretical barrier to moving from one point in the universe to another faster than light travelling at c - if one tunnelled through the Earth, you could get from opposite points on the globe in one-fifth(ish) the time it'd take you to fly from one to the other at the same speed.

Fascinating stuff!

My impression is that a large number of physicists, maybe not quite a majority, think gravity operates at higher than light speed. Thoughts?

Respectfully,
Dotini

 

[Kneedragger]

Its equal parts, 'I think, Therefore I am' ..and, 'I think, Therefore Who Am I?'

 

[niky]

Basically, it's break a Universal law and you get kicked out.

Funny, though... given that light moves slower in different mediums (as the "speed of light" only applies within a vacuum), it's possible that you can outrace light. Say... get up to close to the speed of light, zip by a glass cylinder that's... oh... about a few light-minutes long... and have a coherent laser fire into the cylinder at exactly the same time you pass... should be fun to overtake a light beam that way...

But seriously... wouldn't time slow to an almost complete standstill once you get close to the speed of light? Which would mean that your drive motors would accelerate slower and slower the faster you go (not even taking into account mass...)...

 

[Joel]

 

[Talon]

^

Famine, maybe you can explain something to me. You say that you can't leave the Earth's confinement if you are going slower than 17,500mph, and I've heard this before, but why not? It seems logical to me that you could get out going at whatever speed you wanted, as long as you had the horsepower.

 

[Omnis]

^Lol! Bubba, we need more torque!

 

[Kneedragger]

You say that you can't leave the Earth's confinement if you are going slower than 17,500mph, and I've heard this before, but why not? It seems logical to me that you could get out going at whatever speed you wanted, as long as you had the horsepower.

I think the 17.5k number is the requirement to attain earth orbit. All space missions I'm aware of began with orbit, and only afterwards left the earths atmosphere completely. As for horsepower it took 5 F1 engines of the Saturn 5 rocket (7.5 million pounds of thrust) to acheive orbit, but it only took a single engine to send the command module on its way to the moon (TLI) once in earth orbit. And they travelled at, I believe, 25k mph all the way to the moon ..off of one short single-rocket burn.

 

[Solid Lifters]

I think the 17.5k number is the requirement to attain earth orbit. All space missions I'm aware of began with orbit, and only afterwards left the earths atmosphere completely.

I was taught it's 25,000 mph. Not that it's reliable, but Wiki agrees.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_velocity

 

[niky]

Well... if you had an elevator reaching from the Earth and up past geosynchronous orbit, you wouldn't need to be going as fast. Just climb past the midpoint of the elevator tower and let the force of the Earth's rotation shoot you out the other end.

 

[Kneedragger]

I was taught it's 25,000 mph. Not that it's reliable, but Wiki agrees.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_velocity

Quote from that article: "In fact a vehicle can leave the Earth's gravity at any speed less than the speed of light". But the article itself dealt with escape velocity, not the speed required to attain earth orbit.

 

[Famine]

If you want me to make it more complex, I can, but I was pitching it at the level the question was asked...

Plus I'm on holiday and orbit velocities are currently a sore point.

 

[Danoff]

Quote from that article: "In fact a vehicle can leave the Earth's gravity at any speed less than the speed of light". But the article itself dealt with escape velocity, not the speed required to attain earth orbit.

That's a dangerous statement because it's extremely easily misunderstood. The speed is relative to the earth's surface. The earth's surface moves quite quickly with respect to the Sun. You could be moving not at all with respect to the sun and achieve escape velocity with respect to the Earth.

The point is to give you a notion of how much you'd need to change your velocity with respect to what it is now (presumably at the earth's surface) to be able to escape the earth-moon system's gravitational pull. Think of it that way.

The space elevator concept is another example of how this can be taken the wrong way. If you're at the end of a space elevator whipping through space at the same rotational rate as the earth, you're moving way faster than you would be at the surface of the earth.

Edit:

I suppose the most important point of all is that you can't decouple speed from position in a gravity field without changing energy - and energy is what matters for whether you're captured in a gravity field. If you hold position constant, you need a threshold velocity at that position to be able to escape. If you hold velocity constant, you simply need a threshold position to be able to escape. If your position is on the surface of the earth, the threshold velocity is the often-cited escape velocity.

 

[Danoff]

"According to my calculations"

This is a very natural phrase for many engineers to use during the course of engineering work. Probably once or twice a day I am tempted to use this phrase when starting a sentence, and I can't use it.

Why can't I use it? Hollywood. Hollywood has destroyed this phrase, making it immediately distractingly laughably nerdy. Nobody will hear whatever comes after "according to my calculations". They're too busy picturing you with enormous glasses being held together by masking tape, a pocket protector, and zits... and keep in mind, this is other engineers I'm talking about doing the picturing.

Thanks a lot Hollywood.

 

[Sage]

I like to go with the even dorkier “I did some maths, and…”

 

[livemusic]

Do people take pictures in touristic points of their own home town?

I work at the city hall over here, and its building and an old locomotive in front of it are some of the few touristic points in my town. I noticed there are tourists taking pictures of themselves in front of the building and in the locomotive all the time, yet I've lived here all my life and don't have a single photograph of myself in those places. I take pictures in other cities' touristic points though.

I wonder if that's the same case with most people.

 

[AlexGTV]

Growing up I believed that I am a body that also carries dna. But I believe what Dawkins supports that this is actually the other way around. I am the surviving machine of the dna.

I have a brief definition of mathematics.
It is a relationship of 10 arbitrary symbols, among them 2 having special importance - 0 being the void/absence and 9 being the reference point. There are two special areas. The one is between 0 and 1, and the other is all the rest.

 

[Keef]

"According to my calculations"

This is a very natural phrase for many engineers to use during the course of engineering work. Probably once or twice a day I am tempted to use this phrase when starting a sentence, and I can't use it.

Why can't I use it? Hollywood. Hollywood has destroyed this phrase, making it immediately distractingly laughably nerdy. Nobody will hear whatever comes after "according to my calculations". They're too busy picturing you with enormous glasses being held together by masking tape, a pocket protector, and zits... and keep in mind, this is other engineers I'm talking about doing the picturing.

Thanks a lot Hollywood.

I use it often, specifically for humorous effect.

 

[Submerged]

Do people take pictures in touristic points of their own home town?

I work at the city hall over here, and its building and an old locomotive in front of it are some of the few touristic points in my town. I noticed there are tourists taking pictures of themselves in front of the building and in the locomotive all the time, yet I've lived here all my life and don't have a single photograph of myself in those places. I take pictures in other cities' touristic points though.

I wonder if that's the same case with most people.

I had often wondered about that. I did live in Shanghai for seven months and I actually took a lot more photos of going out and just being with people than taking photos of the area (which was none). I think it is because you know you have lived there for a long time that you rely on your memory to tell you what it really looked like, but for a tourist or a visiting person, they will not be able to remember it as well. Also, it serves as a way to confirm that they have been to that place before.

Mind you, if you do go abroad or somewhere different and someone doesn't believe you come from the area you come from, it is quite handy to show them a photograph that you had taken....

 

[Danoff]

I wonder if the word Dufus comes from "Doo Face", or if it's more of a do/fuss kind of thing.

 

[Danoff]

No one ever uses the word "amok" without putting "run" in front of it.

 

[Submerged]

..... I amok you!

 

[Danoff]

My wife loves mac and cheese. She's always on the lookout for it at restaurants and has tried every kind at the grocery store. But she likes mac and cheese so much that she's a mac and cheese snob. She's very picky about the kind of (and amount of) cheese and anything that might have been added to it. She's so picky, that almost all of the mac and cheese she eats she doesn't like. Recently she had some mac and cheese at a catered event. I assumed that this would make her day, but instead she didn't care for it. Which led me to wonder.... does she really like mac and cheese? Maybe she doesn't! She dislikes the majority of mac and cheese that she eats.

She told me she thinks I actually hate cars, since I don't care for so many of them. I told her that we both hate TV and movies since we dislike so much of it. Now, of course, I love cars, we love movies, and she loves mac and cheese. But only the good stuff.

Is it possible to be such a fan of something that you become a snob and end up actually disliking it?

 

[heingericke]

My wife loves mac and cheese. She's always on the lookout for it at restaurants and has tried every kind at the grocery store. But she likes mac and cheese so much that she's a mac and cheese snob. She's very picky about the kind of (and amount of) cheese and anything that might have been added to it. She's so picky, that almost all of the mac and cheese she eats she doesn't like. Recently she had some mac and cheese at a catered event. I assumed that this would make her day, but instead she didn't care for it. Which led me to wonder.... does she really like mac and cheese? Maybe she doesn't! She dislikes the majority of mac and cheese that she eats.

She told me she thinks I actually hate cars, since I don't care for so many of them. I told her that we both hate TV and movies since we dislike so much of it. Now, of course, I love cars, we love movies, and she loves mac and cheese. But only the good stuff.

Is it possible to be such a fan of something that you become a snob and end up actually disliking it?

Absolutely, any music lover will tell you the same thing. I'm fussy about what's on the radio, I usually leave it on talk radio cause I know sooner or later they're gonna play that one annoying track that I wont be able to get out my head.

 

[heingericke]

We're all familiar with the term show & tell. So if a TV show is referred as such, surely it should be Radio tell.

 

[Danoff]

Modern medicine is not all it's cracked up to be. We have super-advanced, state-of-the-art, ultra-complex and sciency gizmos to solve some medical issues - usually medical issues that are common. And other things just fall through the cracks.

Pregnancy, for example, we have covered head to toe. We have gizmos and doodads for everything - and the process has been thought about, thought about again, and over thought to a point of refinement that's almost unbelievable. Infertility on the otherhand, that one falls through the cracks bigtime. You'd think if we had sperm and egg in a lab that we could create an embryo no problem - you'd be completely wrong.

My terrier goes to the vet with an abscess on his throat. What caused it? Dunno. What will cure it? Dunno. What are we going to do about it? We're going to put little plastic tubes in his throat to let the fluid drain out of it onto your carpet. Awesome! Oh and you need to mess with the drains to keep them from scabbing over. Uh....

So let me get this straight. My dog has an abscess (seems reasonable). The result?

- Blood dripping around my house
- Miserable dog
- The medical procedure doesn't take well understood bodily functions into account.
- As a result, you need me to monitor my dog all day (no of course I don't have a job, I refuse to work just for moments like this)
- We don't know the cause
- We don't know whether this will fix it.


Um... WTH?

When you're a kid your parents make doctors out to be these infallible super heroes that get everything right and fix any problem in no time. I guess part of growing up is realizing that doctors are people too, they don't have all the answers, medicine has serious limitations, and life can be ugly.

 

[Danoff]

In music, if you're the 2nd best guitarist in the world, you're awesome. If you're the 20th best guitarist in the world you're awesome. In sports, if you're the fastest man in the world (bolt) you're awesome. 2nd fastest man? Looser.

Superbowl winner? Awesome. Superbowl loser? Who? They sucked.

3rd best plumber in the tri-state area? You're hired. 3rd best team in your division? Horrific.

2nd best computer programmer at your company? You deserve a raise. 2nd fastest horse in the race? Loser.

Sports are a rough business.

 

[lbsf1]

In music, if you're the 2nd best guitarist in the world, you're awesome. If you're the 20th best guitarist in the world you're awesome. In sports, if you're the fastest man in the world (bolt) you're awesome. 2nd fastest man? Looser.

Superbowl winner? Awesome. Superbowl loser? Who? They sucked.

3rd best plumber in the tri-state area? You're hired. 3rd best team in your division? Horrific.

2nd best computer programmer at your company? You deserve a raise. 2nd fastest horse in the race? Loser.

Sports are a rough business.

However the idea of competitive sports are inherently competitive, you set out too win so to a certain extent anything below that is failure. Most plumbers don't set out too be the best in the world, just to the best of their ability however thats not how most sports are seen.

But when people say oh they came second they were rubbish I doubt they actually think that most of the time,if you gave a football fan the opportunity to meet the whole liverpool team I doubt they would turn it down no matter the fact that the team had a rubbish season last year not even qualifying for the champions leaque.

 

[Grand Prix]

Sports are basically just a safe way for nations, regions and individuals to "wage war", I feel. And like war, the winners in sports earn their place in history. It's a big deal for people that follow sports.

What I don't get is why people make such a big deal of following their local sports team. Oftentimes the players on the team could be from different regions, or even entirely different countries. So obviously nationalism and patriotism have little to do with it. Are they supporting their city? The company that owns the team and stadium? If that's the case, it seems odd they would get so worked up about a team losing, sometimes to the point of rioting, when the actions of the team are outside of their own control.

Now, people that choose a team to like that doesn't represent their city or region, are a little more understandable. They probably also watch every game in the season, and they know what kind of players they like. But they still get mad if their favourite players do poorly.

Perhaps, as a species, we feel a need to bind to something, or someone. We're a very social species from the start. It probably wasn't unusual to fight against another group for the survival of your own group. War and sports may be a continuation of that.


I think there are some people that care deeply about being the best in their line of work as well, and employers expecting them to continue being the best in their line of work. Most employers would be just happy with the 3rd best or 20th best person filling the position if they agreed with their terms of payment; the employee is essentially offering a service to the employer for a cost, anyway. This cost to benefit relationship exists in sports as well, but the primary goal in sports is to win. This is not to say that a company or employer doesn't want to "win" as well, it's just that nobody cares about losers in sports. If you only run a small company, have no major problems with income and you're happy with your employees, life can be good even if you're not the number 1 business in the country.

Likewise, there are plenty of happy amateur sports players too. There are people out there that have no aspirations of becoming the best, and only want to do the sport for fun or entertainment. They are never remembered, because the public gives no attention to these "losers." They only care about the professional players.


I guess what it comes down to is, how many people in general actually care about the activity. There just isn't that many people that like plumbing as much as they do soccer, or baseball, or whatever. It's "just a job." But arguably, professional players, as the word professional implies, are doing a job too. Maybe if someone started an international plumbing competition...

 

[Danoff]

Sports are basically just a safe way for nations, regions and individuals to "wage war", I feel. And like war, the winners in sports earn their place in history. It's a big deal for people that follow sports.

Interesting take. I guess that makes a lot of sense - that when viewing sports as a war, the losing side dies. So coming in second is like getting killed. Even if it's just barely.

 

[Grand Prix]

Interesting take. I guess that makes a lot of sense - that when viewing sports as a war, the losing side dies. So coming in second is like getting killed. Even if it's just barely.

Something like that, yes.

With the way I've seen some people react to their home hockey team losing a game, it would certainly seem like their team was all killed.