speed of light

Originally posted by FabianFnas
Remember "KellyJay rethorics"...?

Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten.🙂
By the way, I think you mean “rhetorics” and not “rethorics”?

Originally posted by KellyJay
Yea, clearly...
You don't even see what you’re saying; you say because time has
been affected, so time must have been affected. Couldn't possibly
be the mass of Mercury has been affected, as the timing devices
could have been during the other stress as a possible explanation
as well.
Kelly

This is an interesting shift in your position. Now you say that it isn’t something in the measuring device that has changed, you say it is something in the naturally occurring thing (I.e. planet Mercury) that is being observed that has changed.

Exactly what property of the mass of Mercury has been affected to effect its orbit -I mean, is it the total quantity of mass that Mercury has that has changed? -or what?
And how does Mercury being deep in the suns gravity well change that property of Mercury’s mass?

Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten.🙂
By the way, I think you mean “rhetorics” and not “rethorics”?

Oh, thank you for the correction. 🙂

Originally posted by FabianFnas
Oh, thank you for the correction. 🙂

Not that I can talk -my spelling used to be truly atrocious due to by dyslexia and it still isn’t good (I rely heavily on the spellchecker and often use the dictionary).
And I don’t see the point of the silent ‘h’ in “rhetorics” anyway. 🙂

Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
Not that I can talk -my spelling used to be truly atrocious due to by dyslexia and it still isn’t good (I rely heavily on the spellchecker and often use the dictionary).
And I don’t see the point of the silent ‘h’ in “rhetorics” anyway. 🙂

I've always wondered why to use a difficult word, like 'dyslexia', which is so hard to spell...
Is this perhaps to make the life hard to those with this spelling difficulties...? 😕

Originally posted by KellyJay
I retract nothing! I honestly have faith in science, but it has its
limitations as all things do when it comes to people. Science does
not change, but our opinions, thoughts, beliefs, conclusions do
with new information. People are full of dogma, people get things
into their heads and that is that, there is a difference between
people and science, thou s about the numbers and percentages
being applied about the distant past and so on.
Kelly

Kelly,

Thank you for responding properly to one of my posts, I appriciate the time you have taken to do so. Here is my responce, which I hope you find interersting.

You seem to make the point that "some people think they are science - I dissagree with these people but that is different from dissagreeing with science", or words to that effect. I do not understand this, what do you mean by "some people think they are science"?

You say that "it is easier to for me to think that all the various different timing devices could being affected by single stress, than time itself". Well you are wrong. This is not me being dogmatic, and it is not me "thinking that you dissagreeing with me is dissagreeing with science", but you are wrong. As has been pointed out to you in the thread, other factors have been ruled out, and even if another factor is discovered it will not effect results to the accuracty that we can measure them at the moment. You simply cannot comprehend time altering, which is ok, it is a very difficult subject to get your head around.

As for changing your view point. I think most people who read this thread will be of the view that you have changed it. You have certainly altered your basic stance and I think you have adopted a slightly more reasonable tone because you have realised that you are wrong and are trying to avoid further confrontation without admitting that.

On a related point, you seem to think that the "dogma" of science (or "people who think they are science" ) is because they are not willing to change their view. This is a commenly held missconception about science/scientists. Often, when someone says something radical but with no evidence it is ignored by scientists. This can give the impression that the scientists are dogmatic or set in their ways. Quite the opposite is true, if a revolutionary idea is suggested it is welcomed as long as it has evidence to back it up. However, because science does not tolerate wild accusations with no emperical foundation people who do not understand say it is "set it its ways" - like you seem to think even tho you have tempered down your view.

As for radioactive decay, you are wrong. You seem to think that because of the timescales involved it cannot be reliable. This is not the case. Radioactive dating works by knowing the rate at which radioactive things decay and so working backwards to get the age of the object (to put it simply). BUT, we can observe the conditions we are assuming today, for example, we can make a pure sample of a radioactive matieral and measure it's decay rate (this is eqivelent to going back in time a million (or whatever) years and observing a radio active object then, before it has decayed. You are right to ask questions, as I keep saying, but what you are suggesting (that millions of years ago radioative decay worked differently) amounts to suggesting that the Strong Force constant (or other such things) change with time and were different in the past. This questions has been asked by science, and astronomical methods have been used to measure the various constants far back in history (as some light reaching Earth from space has taken millions of years to arrive). I dont not expect you to understand this.

Here is a point that I think a lot of people on this thread will want you to directly answer:
Please outline how radioactive decay works, I want you to give the general equation for the process and then a specific example. I want you to derive an expression for the half life of a material in terms of it's decay constant

NOTE: this task is VERY EASY, it is not even A-level standard. You can find all the answers online or in books if you cant work it out. Please take the time to do this so further discussion with you will be more meaningful because you will actually understand the science we are talking about.

Matt

Originally posted by MattP
Kelly,

Thank you for responding properly to one of my posts, I appriciate the time you have taken to do so. Here is my responce, which I hope you find interersting.

You seem to make the point that[b] "some people think they are science - I dissagree with these people but that is different from dissagreeing with science", or words to that effect. I ...[text shortened]... l because you will actually understand the science we are talking about.

Matt[/b]

Define time, the rest can wait.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
Define time, the rest can wait.
Kelly

This is clear avoidance tactic Kelly, and you must know that everyone here will see that you are trying to divert attention away from the fact you cannot answer me question.

However, unluckily for you, I am a physicist - so your philosophical side track does not stump me in the way that you hoped it would. (I am bothering to actually answer your post in a constructive way, I am taking time and effort to respond to what you have asked - rather then just responding with some diverting questions. Will you please show the same respect to my posts).

Time is an additional coordinate dimension, much like the 3 spatial dimensions (lets call them x,y,z), as for this example I will work in standard cartesian geometry .

If I want to tell you a coordinate in space I must provide you with an x,y and z coordinate.

If I simply give you an x and y coordinate, but do not give you a z coordinate then you will know where in the (x,y) plane, but you will have know idea how high up I mean. Let's take a specific example of a cube of side length 100m, the origin of the coordinate system is the bottom left front vertex of the cube. If I tell you a coordinate x = 50m, y = 50m, but do not tell you the z coordinate then you will know that I mean somewhere on the central axis of the cube, but you will have no idea how high up the cube I mean. Simple stuff.

Now if I then tell you that z = 50m, you now have all the info. needed to know the coordinate I mean is in the centre of the cube.

Now let us consider time as a 4th dimension. If I tell you to meet me at the centre of the cube I must provide you with 4 coordinates, the 3 spatial ones (x,y,z) and a 4th time coordinate. If I tell you to meet me at (x = y = z = 50m), then you know I mean to meet you in the centre of the cube but you have no idea WHEN I want to meet you. I must tell you the time I want to meet you (doesn't matter if I tell you GMT or if we start a stopwatch together and I say in 50mins time, as long as we are using the same time system as each other).

This is an example of a space-time four vector, where time is also a required coordinate.

However, space-time, as we have mentioned before, is not a fixed thing that is constant throughout the universe. If the rate of time I experience is different to the rate which you experience we may still not make our meeting. If you are moving relative to me you will experience time at a different rate to me. We can transform between a space-time coordinate in my rest frame to the equivalent space-time coordinate in your rest frame by using lorentz transformations, which take into account the relative motion between our frames and convert coordinates between them so that if I give you a space-time coordinate in my frame, you can convert it to the correspondence coordinate in your frame and we can meet up.

This is where a lot of people have trouble - picturing TIME as another dimension. In fact, you can scale time by multiplying it by a speed to get a distance scale (as distance = time x speed), and this is often done using the speed of light in a vacuum to obtain things like "light cones" and to think about causality problems.

Where time differs from the 3 common spacial coordinates is that it appears we can only move in one direction through time (though the maths for some particles works as if they are moving backwards in time hehe!)

Also, space-time is distorted by large gravitational fields like that of the Sun - this gives rise to gravitational lensing (which has been observed and confirmed before you ask).

In short, time is simply another dimension through which we move - but it seems strange because we can only move in one direction through it and, because of how our senses work, we intuitively think of it as separate from space, when in fact it needs to be considered in conjunction with space.

We do not fully understand space-time, but we understand it more then well enough to define timescales to measure things over, especially when they are in the same frame of reference as us!

Your implied point of: "How can we even know what time is? We cant possibly time things accurately because we DONT KNOW WHAT TIME IS, therefore any predictions or measurements based on time are not reliable" is simply nonsense and shows you have a total lack of knowledge on the subject.

To summarise again (in the hope that I can make you understand). Time is an extra dimension and we must consider time and space in conjunction as "space-time". The rate that time appears to pass is effected by relative motion between two observes (and by gravity), but this effect of space-time distortion can be accounted for using the theory of relativity. Any philosophical debates of "why do we perceive time as we do?","Concepts such as past, present future etc are just defined by humans", etc... have no bearing on the use of time as a coordinate in a space-time four vector just as where you choose the origin of your spacial coordinates has no bearing on the actually distance measurements.

Now, I have answered your questions to the best of my ability. Will you please answer my previous question to the best of yours. And in the future, if you try and use distraction/diversion tactics it will be very obvious and you will only make yourself look silly, as you are not fooling anyone.

Matt

PS: sorry if you think I am being blunt or unkind with my tone, but I am understandably irritated by your total lack of reasoned counter argument and the fact you havnt even tryed to answer the VERY EASY task I set you - it would talk you less then half an hour to research it from scratch. Also, whilst I maintain you have little of no knowledge of science, I do not think you are stupid - you may know a lot about other things.
Just thought I would pre-empt any "I choose to ignore your comments because they are rude" responses by pointing out that I am justifiably disgruntled by your lack of reasoned debate.

Originally posted by MattP
This is clear avoidance tactic Kelly, and you must know that everyone here will see that you are trying to divert attention away from the fact you cannot answer me question.

However, unluckily for you, I am a physicist - so your philosophical side track does not stump me in the way that you hoped it would. ([i]I am bothering to actually answer your post in by pointing out that I am justifiably disgruntled by your lack of reasoned debate.

[/i]Incase you have missed this, I seem to be having a conversation
with about 3 or 4 people here, YOU I'm not trying to dodge nor anyone
one else. I don't spend the time you do here it seems, I try to
get to as many points everyone makes as time allows. If you want
to accuse me of something it should be attempting to talk to, to
many people. I guess you feel like you are the only one I'm really
supposed to be paying all my attention too.

There is no clear avoidance going on, but I guess another shot at
me personally was needed. Your tone and your attitude I do not care
for, but that does not matter much either, your not here to make me
happy, or attempt to carry on a conversation with me without a person
dig every time I turn around.

I asked a simple question define time, insult me again or answer
it as you see fit.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
[/i]Incase you have missed this, I seem to be having a conversation
with about 3 or 4 people here, YOU I'm not trying to dodge nor anyone
one else. I don't spend the time you do here it seems, I try to
get to as many points everyone makes as time allows. If you want
to accuse me of something it should be attempting to talk to, to
many people. I guess y
I asked a simple question define time, insult me again or answer
it as you see fit.
Kelly

I have directly answered your question. I provided a fairly clear deffinition of time that is more then suitable for the situations we are considering.

edit: This is an example of avoidence, you have totaly ignored my very large post which answered your question, then claimed that I did not answer it!

Originally posted by MattP
I have directly answered your question. I provided a fairly clear deffinition of time that is more then suitable for the situations we are considering.

edit: This is an example of avoidence, you have totaly ignored my very large post which answered your question, then claimed that I did not answer it!

"KellyJay Rhetorics"

Why take him seriously at all?

Originally posted by FabianFnas
"KellyJay Rhetorics"

Why take him seriously at all?

You are right,

I think I will now give up on getting Kelly to understand,
at least until he shows some willingness to learn or demonstrates
some understanding of the subject on which he is basing his issues.

Originally posted by MattP
You are right,

I think I will now give up on getting Kelly to understand,
at least until he shows some willingness to learn or demonstrates
some understanding of the subject on which he is basing his issues.

I think you are both right and I am now very seriously considering if I should adopt the same policy -but the problem is I am not sure I can really stomach failing to pointing out the flaws in his arguments as well as pointing out his occasional misrepresentation of science.