Why can't anything go faster than the speed of light?

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eric76
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21 Dec 2015, 2:50 am

That's a pretty good article.

What it fails to explain is your interpretation of it.



slenkar
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22 Dec 2015, 9:13 pm

In the article it says the universe is made of grains, I call them pixels as it makes it easier to explain.

My theory is simply that each grain is a processing unit in a big computer this explains time dilation nicely.

Time passes quicker for stationary or slow moving objects. Each grain has two jobs,
To move things like atoms or photons,taking into account physics collisions etc.
And to advance time for the atom or the photon it contains.

It takes the maximum amount of processing power to move something at the speed of light so there is no processing power left to advance time or age the photon.

If something is moving slowly or stationary the grain can spend all of its processing power advancing time for that atom, so a clock on an airplane goes slower than one on earth.



VegetableMan
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22 Dec 2015, 9:19 pm

I once hit the floor and crawled behind the couch faster than the speed of light when I noticed two Jehovah's Witnesses coming up the walk.


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eric76
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23 Dec 2015, 5:37 am

May whatever bastard came up with these captchas be infested with fleas the size of hornets.



eric76
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23 Dec 2015, 5:41 am

The captchas won't let me post my response.

I will post one paragraph at a time and see if that comes through.



eric76
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23 Dec 2015, 5:41 am

slenkar wrote:
In the article it says the universe is made of grains,



eric76
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23 Dec 2015, 5:42 am

No, it doesn't.



eric76
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23 Dec 2015, 5:42 am

It uses the word "grain" somewhat metaphorically to try to get the point across that on the order of the Planck length, there are limits on what we can know about that volume.



eric76
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23 Dec 2015, 5:42 am

You are misinterpreting what was intended. Thinking of it as grains would likely lead you to misinterpretations.



eric76
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23 Dec 2015, 5:42 am

You are seeing it as structured in terms of grains. In fact, there is no such structure. I think that "structure" implies some static quality. If you zero in on a tiny enough point in empty space, it will look the same as every other nearby point no matter how tiny the distance between them.



eric76
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23 Dec 2015, 5:43 am

Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principal tells us that the more we know the position of a particle, the less we know of its momentum. Conversely, the more we know of its momentum, the less we know of its position.



eric76
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23 Dec 2015, 5:43 am

If I remember correctly from looking at the article when you posted the link, it mentions the "quantum foam". That doesn't mean a fine scale structure similar to something like styrofoam. Rather, it is referring to the fact that if we pick a tiny enough volume, we uncertainty of how much energy is in that volume is enormous. At that scale, the universe is in constant flux -- the spacetime is completely unpredictable and varies enormously from instant to instant.



eric76
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23 Dec 2015, 5:43 am

Here is a quote from Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler's book Gravitation, chapter 4, section 44.3: (I'll omit the quotes because that seems to set off the captcha from hell -- the quote is bolded instead):



eric76
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23 Dec 2015, 5:44 am

If Einstein's theory thus throws light on the rest of physics, the rest of physics also throws light on geometrodynamics. No point is more central than this, that empty space is not empty. It is the seat of the most violent physics. The electromagnetic field fluctuates (Chapter 43). virtual pairs of positive and negative electrons, in effect, are continually being created and annihilated, and likewise pairs of mu mesons, pairs of baryons, and pairs of other particles. All these fluctuations coexist with the quantum fluctuations in the geometry and topology of space.



eric76
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23 Dec 2015, 5:44 am

The universe is not made of grains.



eric76
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23 Dec 2015, 5:45 am

It really sucks having to post one paragraph at a time.