They counted them, and then, to be sure, they sent out a letter and asked the dimensions to reply. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Exactly, mathematically is the issue we're talking about here. Maths will tell us what happened, but actually grasping the concept and understanding what is really happening or what would, practically, happen when something surpasses the speed of light is something entirely different, n'est-ce pas?

[ 04-14-2005, 08:44 AM: Message edited by: Link ]

Vaskez, if moving at the speed of light is staying at one spot, moving faster is moving backwards. Of course this only makes sense if time really slows down as speed encreases.

Re. tachyons - experimental observations are very sparce. I think there was one experiment where electrons were fired through some supercooled gas and possibly went faster than light but I seem to remember it's sketchy.

Re. teleportation and other things like that - the transfer of information happens at the quantum level which is all messed up anyway. I think the way to get round the information travelling faster than the speed of light is simply to have the two particles joined together in some other dimension.

And i thought there were 14 dimensions? :D

<font color = lightgreen>No, there are definitely 11. There were a couple of different camps of the old superstring theory, all of which had 10 dimensions. When someone decided to ask "what if there are 11 dimensions?" they found that all the superstring theories were the same thing. M theory also allows physics to look backward in time past the "big bang" because it isn't limited by traditional physics.
M-theory also proposes to explain why gravity is the weakest fundamental force but has infinite range. Apparently it is a "spill-over" of a force existing in another dimension. Some of those dimensions are really close to us--less than 10^-15 m--but we obviously cannot move into them.

I'll have to look for the equations later, but length definitely increases as velocity increases. Since the relative flow of time decreases but c is constant, the length must increase. That is, c is a constant--3.0 * 10^8 m/s--so if the flow of time decreases by a factor of 2 then length must increase by a factor of 2.

Let me take my Physical Chemistry book to work and I'll look through it during the course of the day, as well as locating a couple of M-theory websites. Should be an interesting search. [img]graemlins/petard.gif[/img]

Touching on the topic of interstellar travel...the only reasonable way to cross such distances is with a gravitic drive. This means that you are using gravity to warp your local volume of space-time to induce an acceleration vector on your ship, since gravity is equivalent to acceleration; gravity/acceleration is the path of least resistance in the topology of space-time. Search the internet for the "Hutchison effect" for a little more info--really fascinating. This might be some of the research being conducted at Area 51--no kidding.

@ Link: oui, c'est vrai.</font>

[ 04-14-2005, 12:41 PM: Message edited by: Azred ]

Ugh, this is getting complicated. They don't teach that at the local 9th grade.

I think you're referring to quantum entanglement... a very cool area of research that has made some amazing progress. It's being pursued as a means of providing a 100% spy-proof communications channel. Hard to spy on a transmission when the only points that the transmission line exists in 3d space are at the terminals.

The really wild part of this (to me) is that it's not just some wacked out theory... it's based in hard physics and has been demonstrated experimentally (albeit over short distance). There's some very cool stuff going on at the bleeding edge of physics these days.

[ 04-14-2005, 01:41 PM: Message edited by: Thoran ]

http://www.m2pt5.com/pics/funny/welc...heinternet.gif </font>[/QUOTE]Been here much longer than you [img]tongue.gif[/img] </font>[/QUOTE]At least I can count on somebody reading my posts as well. ;) [img]smile.gif[/img]

Great discussion everybody!

Hmm...that equation says shorter, as does this funky website Pretty pictures!

Yeah, quantum entanglement is totally cool and it still baffles me when its been demonstrated!

I'll tell you what really hurts my head though - Mr. Schrodinger and his cat. The idea that somehow even nature doesn't know what state a particle is in until it's directly observed is quite crazy! [img]smile.gif[/img]

<font color = lightgreen>Yes, indeed, the equations point to a shortening of the length of an object in the direction of its velocity. Since space is being stretched (or time is slowing down) then the object must get shorter to cover a particular distance in the newly-slowed time period.

Well, shamrock_uk, Schrodinger's cat problem isn't quite that nature doesn't know the status inside the box; rather, different outcomes have differing probabilities of likelihood of occurring, but no single outcome actualizes until the moment the box is opened. Thus, observing something forces one possible outcome to actualize. In the cat's case, the cat is neither alive nor dead until the moment the box is opened.
This also exposes another weirdness of the quantum world--the act of observing something changes what is being observed. Thus, you never see what was happening, only what is happening right now.

The other beauty of M theory is that is allows for multuple parallel universes. In our universe we open the box and the cat is dead; in the alternate universe we opened the box and the cat is alive.</font>

[ 04-14-2005, 10:37 PM: Message edited by: Azred ]

Hmm...so in another universe you mean I might get a good degree? [img]tongue.gif[/img] How do you feel like putting heads together to come up with a nice dimension-travelling machine? [img]graemlins/petard.gif[/img]