Is this a valid TN subject? It's about time but a little off of the usual subject of 10Mhz oscillators.
I heard of an alternate way to describe time dilation caused by velocity. I think this makes it easier to understand but I've not been able to verify the math. This alternate explanation also makes it easy to see why we can never go faster than light. But I've not seen a mathematical derivation so it could be wrong or just an approximation. Here goes: 1) We assume a 4 dimensional universe with four orthogonal axis, x, y, z, and time (t) 2) assume that at all times EVERY object always has a velocity vector who's magnitude is "c", the speed of light. The magnitude of this vector (speed) never changes and is the same for every particle in the universe. This at first seems a radical statement but how is moving at c much different from assuming every partial is at rest in t's own reference frame? I've just said it is moving at c in it's own reference frame. Both c and zero are arbitrary speeds selected for connivance. How can this be? I know I'm sitting in front of my computer and have not moved an inch in the last four hours. c is faster than that. Yes you are stationary in (x,y,z) but along the t axis you are moving one second per second and I define one second per second as c. Now you get smart and try to move faster than c by pushing your chair backward in the Y direction at 4 inches per second. So you THINK your velocity magnitude is the vector sum of c and 4 inch/sec which is greater than c. BUT NO. Your speed along Y axis causes time dilation such that your speed along T is now slower than 1 second/second. In fact if you push your chair backward along Y real fast at exactly c your speed along t axis is zero, time stops. Try pushing your chair at 0.7071 * c and you find yourself moving through t at 0.7071 sec/sec and the vector sum is c. You can NOT change you speed from c all you can do to change the direction of the velocity vector and your speed through time is determined by the angle between that vector and the t axis. It works ok to just use one of the three spacial axis because we can always define them such that (say) the Y axis points in the direction of motion. So a plot of your speed in the dy,t plane covers the general case and looks like an arc of radius c. If this works out then I have some work to do, like defining momentum as a function of the area between the velocity vector and the t axis -- Chris Albertson Redondo Beach, California _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
