Avian, what's up with this new Earthlike planet?

[Avian(Admin)]

Originally posted by progdirjim
[b]The answer to your question is YES, you hand Jim a 1 lb gold brick.

If you had a scale on that plane going the speed of light, it will measure the gold bar "heavier". If you could somehow weigh that bar on a scale that was sitting on earth, it would weigh the bar exactly the same as it would on earth.

Well, actually, that's reversed. In the moving reference frame, time and mass would appear as it normally would have. But if you could see the plane from a ground telescope pointed at the speeding plane, it would appear to be more massive. It would also appear shorter. And the telescope would reveal everyone moving in slow-motion.

The plane would have to be moving awful fast, though, for that to be of any significance.

Of course, our luggage never made it onto the plane, and it now weighs the same as it did, following the new relativistic rule: lost luggage gains no mass.

To make things even more complicated, the mass really doesn't increase per se. (insert clip from Scanners here)

Here's the best link on the web I've found for this subject:
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physic...y/SR/mass.html

[Roger -Dot- Lee(Admin)]

Originally posted by Avian
Well, actually, that's reversed. In the moving reference frame, time and mass would appear as it normally would have. But if you could see the plane from a ground telescope pointed at the speeding plane, it would appear to be more massive. It would also appear shorter. And the telescope would reveal everyone moving in slow-motion.

So what you're saying is that the gold bar that you and I are passing back and forth, using to flirt with the stewardesses, and using as a management tool to keep the 7 year old sitting behind you from kicking your seat, is going to remain at 1lb, but to Jim, who's watching us through his Captain Marvel Super Telescope (with magic decoder ring) (19.95 from Ronco), sees us become more massive, and hitting^H^Hmanaging that kid with a x lb gold bar (where x is the answer to whatever formula kicks in). It APPEARS that we've grown, gotten heavier, to someone sitting ong the ground. But to you and I, we're still just passing this 1 lb bar back and forth.

The plane would have to be moving awful fast, though, for that to be of any significance.

Of course, our luggage never made it onto the plane, and it now weighs the same as it did, following the new relativistic rule: lost luggage gains no mass.

See "Black Holes"

To make things even more complicated, the mass really doesn't increase per se. (insert clip from Scanners here)

Here's the best link on the web I've found for this subject:
http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physic...y/SR/mass.html

Finally. A link that tells me, in terms that I can actually understand, why it's mathematically impossible to break the light barrier with our current understanding of physics.

And I see where my confusion arose:

My definition of mass is what they refer to as "invariant mass", that measurement that says that the gold bar weighs in at one lb regardless of velocity. E = mc2 refers to "relativistic mass", which is just another (and, according to this article (as well as my own personal observation) confusing) term for 'energy'. I can buy that it requires more and more energy to accellerate once you start getting closer to the speed of light. But adding mass (and to my college-dropout eyes, this violated the laws of conservation of matter) was where the physical impossibility lie.

But this equasion:

m0 = sqrt(E^2/c^4 - p^2/c^2)

answers, in no uncertain terms, why it's physically impossible to break the light barrier. As p^2/c^2 approaches E^2/c^4 (ie, the faster you go and the closer you get to the speed of light), you end up with a 0 in those parens, and the square root of 0 becomes 0. Breaking that barrier makes it a negative number. Anyone with any algebra knows that calculators tend to get rather grumpy when you attempt to ascertain the square root of a negative number.

OK. So nothing with mass can reach the speed of light, because of the above equasion.

This, however, leads to another quandry that I can't quite fathom.

We're all aware of the phenomenon known as a black hole -- those intense gravitational sinks that have escape velocities that exceed the speed of light. That's why they're black.

But. (and I KNOW you knew this was coming)

Doesn't gravity affect things based on their mass? IE more massive things are more adversely affected by gravity. Otherwise these iron-man competitions we all see on Fox Sports would be a waste of time (even more so than they already are) since anyone should be able to lift that minivan that's parked across two spaces as easily as they'd pick up the quarter that just fell out of their pockets. Ergo, more massive things are more adversely (for lack of a better word) affected by gravity.

And since light can't escape black holes due to their gravity, they have mass.

Right? Or am I missing something again? (more likely than not, all things considered)

Roger -Dot- Lee, starting to understand why his college profs started walking away fast when they saw him approaching.

[Bob Lentil]

Originally posted by Roger Lee
It APPEARS that we've grown, gotten heavier, to someone sitting ong the ground.

Shrunk and gotten heavier, actually.

Doesn't gravity affect things based on their mass? IE more massive things are more adversely affected by gravity. Otherwise these iron-man competitions we all see on Fox Sports would be a waste of time (even more so than they already are) since anyone should be able to lift that minivan that's parked across two spaces as easily as they'd pick up the quarter that just fell out of their pockets. Ergo, more massive things are more adversely (for lack of a better word) affected by gravity.

And since light can't escape black holes due to their gravity, they have mass.

Here's a website that gives a simple glossy explanation: http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/as...rs/961102.html

***Bob Lentil boldly predicts that Roger's next question will be, "How does gravity affect space-time?"***

[Roger -Dot- Lee(Admin)]

Originally posted by Bob Lentil
Shrunk and gotten heavier, actually.

er...yeah. That's what I meant. er...the observer got bigger ... OOH! LOOK! ELVIS!

Here's a website that gives a simple glossy explanation: http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/as...rs/961102.html

Interesting site. See my statement about GSFC.GOV from earlier.

So, what they're saying is that it might have mass, but if it does, then it's less than 4 x 10e-48 grams. In other words, they're not sure. This is a valid answer.

***Bob Lentil boldly predicts that Roger's next question will be, "How does gravity affect space-time?"***

er, no. I don't think so. I was digging around and found discussion about space-time and how, once you got inside the event horizon of a black hole, you can no more avoid the singularity than you can avoid next tuesday.

This statement, in spite of the supporting evidence, caused smoke to pour out of my Oulette-Pacquard 9905 Bullshit Meter with the Physics/Astronomy attachments, and those are hard to replace. So I think that I'll be avoiding the gravity and space-time discussions for the time being. I've just gotten to the point where I might be willing to concede that there might be some validity (albeit very small) that the speed of light is inviolate. I always want to tack on "with what we know of physics today" to the end of it. I don't want to start getting into space-time and how gravity does strange things with it, etc. etc.

I'll watch if someone else wants to ask it, though.

Roger -Dot- Lee, sitting in a corner, rocking and sucking his thumb

[Yesspaz]

I just want everyone to know I'm twittering around on the floor....

Originally posted by Yesspaz
I just want everyone to know I'm twittering around on the floor....

****KeithieW shuts his eyes, imagines Spaz twittering about on the floor and runs out the house screaming****