Kyle, I imagine you have lots of research resources into this such as organisations and websites. Thomas posted 'metaresearch' which I have booked marked. Frank dropped off a paper today that I'll have a look at at some point.
I know when I've understood something because the penny drops. The penny dropped with EPR, infinite speed of information transmission (may be not mass energy as far as I can tell) but acceleration, gravity and curved space-time or ether, I can't get anything to focus in my mind yet apart from very weak hunches. Phenomologically (much as SR or thermodynamics) we can fit theories without knowing what is going on underneath. I can't say what ether is or is made of. I can't explain the 'memory effect' of acceleration and time dilation. I can come up with an analogy for time dilation with the lowering of light speed in a dielectric but not length contraction. Phenomologically at least with the idea of striking out the time delay terms in the Lorentz transform, this simple engineer believes that he can rid GR of curved space-time at least for time dilation which would become a scalar field correction referred to a distant rectangular co-ordinate system grid far from gravitating sources. It would be nice to have a vector field representing length contraction whereupon from this global grid or co-ordinate a local grid could be constructed (taking into account local acceleration and velocity). The results would be the same as SR/GR. Then without the (perhaps) subterfuge of curvilinear co-ordinates I could start looking at things in a 3D + time way permeated by an 'ether'. I could then start looking at the properties of this ether thing, why it does what it does and whether it can be engineered for at first an subspace comms, an impulse drive and then an Alculbierer type Warp Drive (OK, so I'm a trekky). It's a massive task. I'm happy with the superluminal communications protocol and will be able to do very good experiments on that. Remi. -----Original Message----- From: Kyle R. Mcallister [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 26 September 2006 03:24 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Vo]: faster than light speeds, CBR etc. ---- Original Message ----- From: "Remi Cornwall" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, September 25, 2006 3:23 PM Subject: RE: [Vo]: faster than light speeds, CBR etc. > There must be a chance of seeing a frame 0 we have been accelerated from > whose time is running fast, not just blue shifted because it is coming > towards us but because we are the moving twin in the paradox and > ultimately > this must be the original rest frame of the universe if one believes the > Big > Bang or even Steady State, no? Do a search for the paradox of the equally accelerated twins, aka the "other" twin paradox, and you will find the conventional explanation for what is going on. While you will likely not hear it presented quite this way, an implication of relativity of simultaneity is that time, in a sense, "propagates" at v = c. It then follows that any effect exceeding c, that is with spacelike separation, is acausal, at least in some frames of reference. It should be noted that there is absolutely no way to determine whether or not there is true relativity of simultaneity or whether there exists absolute simultaneity with any signalling system limited to c. It is only presumed, based on taking the simpler of two explanations, that simultaneity is relative. You will no doubt find in many of the standard texts (probably all in fact) 'spacetime diagrams' which show the student why everything is only relatively simultaneous, and why the paradox of the equally accelerated twins happens. What no one seems to be taught is that almost the entire area of the spacetime diagram of events is completely meaningless! The only way one observer would be able to tell if indeed simultaneity was truly relative with the other observer would be to use a signal travelling at v = infinity. The only communication which can take place between the two observers (or twins in this case) is when they are at the exact same location. If they are separated by any distance, they can only communicate at a speed less than or equal to c, and as such can never determine the nature of the vast area of the spacetime diagram. And yet this completely untestable portion of an X/T chart, charmingly taught as the spacetime diagram, can never be proven to be correct with anything limited to c. When I realized that, there wasn't any going back. The magic of relativity was lost, and now I ask the kinds of questions that the residents of sci.physics.relativity say are the wrong questions to ask. It makes excellent predictions, yes, and has so far been unfalsified. But these self same predictions can be had by dropping the relativity of simultaneity, and establishing that it is absolute. Tangherlini, Selleri, etc. have given different transforms which work identically to special relativity at velocities up to c; where they differ is in the realm beyond c, and in the meaning behind the numbers. In a nutshell: with relativity of simultaneity, if you go faster than light, you end up with time travel, at least in some reference frames. (and in fact you can do some tricks to make it happen in all reference frames, those nasty irresolvable paradoxes). If instead you assume absolute simultaneity (which by definition means there is a preferred reference frame) if you go faster than light, you just get there faster. Time travel is impossible, the arrow of time irreversible. When one considers EPR, Nimtz's experiments, and others of a somewhat similar nature, Occam's Razor begins to dull. > I read somewhere that they (?) can detect absolute motion relative to the > cosmic background radiation because it appears Doppler shifted. Roughly 370km/sec in the direction of the constellation Virgo, if I remember correctly. Some say 600km/sec, but I do not recall where that came from. > Though pops into my head, if the CBR is homogeneous and isotropic and > universal it must have a lot of mass, might that be what EMPROP devices > could be pushing against? 'xcuse the pun, I know its tenuous. Seems to me > that if one has a cavity one could be shielding against it. I dunno, need > to > figure. Anyway I will ask permission to see if I can scan in the article > debunking ZPE from I think the astrophysical journal. <begin speculation> Assuming (big assumption because nobody* was there) that the universe began with an explosion at a single point, one could reason that the frame of reference occupied by that point, the part of which did not explode outwards in all directions, is the cosmic rest frame. If so, the CBR (CMB, COB, CIB, etc.) could very well be that same frame of reference. It would be interesting then, I think, to test any possible reactionless drive for efficiency changes depending on its orientation with respect to the direction of our travel against this CBR frame. One other thought, off the deep end: since you mentioned the dreaded ether: if a supposed ether is the cosmic rest frame, and therefore preferred, what happens if somehow a part of that ether were dragged along by "something"? Does that part of the ether now have a separate, non-preferred frame? Or do rulers and clocks behave the exact same way in both the non-dragged and dragged parts? I have wondered about this because the CBR is not entirely homogenous. <end speculation> *Nobody human at least. --Kyle
