Page 3 of 3 FirstFirst 123
Results 81 to 109 of 109
  1. #81
    Kärnfysikern's Avatar
    Kärnfysikern is offline Retired: AR-Hall of Famer
    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Location
    Scotty, beam me up
    Posts
    6,359
    Quote Originally Posted by Tren Bull
    yea i wish i could retake e&m, but have the entire course focus solely on field theory. like if we had immediately started up with maxwells equations. sh_t, we didn't see all four equations grouped together until the last month of the class.

    i agree on the circuits... its boring. plus i had a bad teacher for it. but i get to take a class totally dedicated to circuits either next semester or the one after that...

    fun fun

    haha, btw i can only imagine what the schrodinger equation would look like for something like a carbon atom... or god forbid something even bigger like uranium... man that would be like 400 pages long!!!
    Your a engineer right?? Did you only deal with maxwells equations in its integral form or in both the differential and integral form?

    I swear to god I dont know how the computers could have evolved so quickly because I can not for the life of me understand why anyone can gain a interest in circuts and stuff like that If I ever hear the word MOSFET again Il punch someone.

    Soon I will be all to familiar with the schrödinger equation for molecules. Atomic and molecular physics. I hope its more fun that it sounds Im more into nuclear and particle physics myself when it comes to the quantum world. Molecular physics is borderline theoretical chemistry it seems.

    I cant wait to get into the dirac equation though(relativistic schrödinger). What I find most amazing with both those equations is that they where invented not derivered. I wonder how they did go about just finding a equation that fits reality. I wish I had a brain like that

  2. #82
    Tren Bull's Avatar
    Tren Bull is offline Dbol Junkie
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
    Location
    northern cali
    Posts
    16,442
    Quote Originally Posted by johan
    Your a engineer right?? Did you only deal with maxwells equations in its integral form or in both the differential and integral form?

    I swear to god I dont know how the computers could have evolved so quickly because I can not for the life of me understand why anyone can gain a interest in circuts and stuff like that If I ever hear the word MOSFET again Il punch someone.

    Soon I will be all to familiar with the schrödinger equation for molecules. Atomic and molecular physics. I hope its more fun that it sounds Im more into nuclear and particle physics myself when it comes to the quantum world. Molecular physics is borderline theoretical chemistry it seems.

    I cant wait to get into the dirac equation though(relativistic schrödinger). What I find most amazing with both those equations is that they where invented not derivered. I wonder how they did go about just finding a equation that fits reality. I wish I had a brain like that

    im pretty sure that for the majority of e&m we only used the integral form of maxwell's equations, but in the physics class after that we briefly went over e&m waves. and that teacher had us use both the integral and the differential form of maxwell's eqns.

    i hear ya on the circuits bro... i hated that topic. hell, im trying to be a mechanical engineer. so why the hell do i need to study linear circuits?



    btw, i can only imagine what the relativistic form of the schrodinger eqn looks like... dear lord thats gonna be complicated.

    but dont trip bro, you're VERY smart and educated... i bet theres bilions of people that would kill to be able to think like you do.

    btw, vector analysis sounds like a fun class. its not a requirement for me though, so i dont think il be taking it. ive got more than enough classes to keep me busy for the next few years.

    to be honest though, il eventually study relativity in more depth. it is something that fascinates me to no end... id love to take general relativity

  3. #83
    Tren Bull's Avatar
    Tren Bull is offline Dbol Junkie
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
    Location
    northern cali
    Posts
    16,442
    Quote Originally Posted by johan
    there is some truth to it.
    But like feynman said
    "Physics is to maths as sex is to masturbation"

    I enjoy maths though, but it can get a bit dry and a bit to disconnected from reality for my taste. I think mathematicians often view what physcisist do to maths as bastardisations. Because we dont give a shit about the details hehe, we take what works and screw the rest. I know mathematicians do not at all like how things in physics derivered.

    Nah I mean vector analysis. Stokes theorem, gauss theorem, curl, gradient, divergence and all that stuff

    math tends to get so abstract that sometimes i dont have any clue what it is that im calculating... i mean i can get the right answer but its something that doesn't have any physical meaning to me. thats why i prefer physics.

    but i still have respect for math and chemistry

  4. #84
    Phreak101's Avatar
    Phreak101 is offline Anabolic Member
    Join Date
    Apr 2002
    Location
    Chicago
    Posts
    2,056
    Awesome thread! Im with you Tren , people who don't find this stuff fascinating either a) Don't comprehend just what a big deal it is or b) Don't get it period.

    To imagine that gravity is just the space around an object warping to accomodate for the mass of the object is crazy!

  5. #85
    Kärnfysikern's Avatar
    Kärnfysikern is offline Retired: AR-Hall of Famer
    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Location
    Scotty, beam me up
    Posts
    6,359
    Quote Originally Posted by Tren Bull
    i hear ya on the circuits bro... i hated that topic. hell, im trying to be a mechanical engineer. so why the hell do i need to study linear circuits?
    Thank god for electrical engineers that can find the fun in circuts so we dont have to
    How much physics does a mechanical engineer study and what kind of things will you be able to work with in the future? I am utterly clueless to what some branches of engineering acctualy do

    Quote Originally Posted by Tren Bull
    but dont trip bro, you're VERY smart and educated... i bet theres bilions of people that would kill to be able to think like you do.
    thanks bro

    Quote Originally Posted by Tren Bull
    btw, vector analysis sounds like a fun class. its not a requirement for me though, so i dont think il be taking it. ive got more than enough classes to keep me busy for the next few years.

    to be honest though, il eventually study relativity in more depth. it is something that fascinates me to no end... id love to take general relativity
    Yeah relativity is what got me into physics in the first place. I have finaly been able to sign up for a general relativity class. so 30th october it starts along with a class in nuclear and particle physics and I cant ****ing wait whats extra cool is that its on my birthday aswell. Its very wierd that it is on my birthday knowing how much I love those 2 topics.
    In 5th grade I got ahold of "the special and general theory of relativity" that Einstein wrote as a popular science book and ever since I have been fascinated by it. That day my mind was set on what I want to become.

    Quote Originally Posted by Tren Bull
    math tends to get so abstract that sometimes i dont have any clue what it is that im calculating... i mean i can get the right answer but its something that doesn't have any physical meaning to me. thats why i prefer physics.

    but i still have respect for math and chemistry
    Same here. I know maths are suposed to be abstract and have no real relation to reality(except when its applied to physics, chem ect). But I just dont se the point in calculating stuff without it meaning anything. The mathematical relations on there own are pretty beautifull but they dont satisfy me enough to make me love maths. I never realy have the patience either to disect the theorems and understand them completely. They are just tools to me and just like with a wrench I dont care much about the structure I just want to know how to use and apply it.

    Like you I have huge respect for mathematicians. I seriously think pure mathematics must be one of the hardest, if not the hardest, subject to study. Dont know much about chemistry other then that organic chemistry makes my head hurt in a non good way

  6. #86
    Kärnfysikern's Avatar
    Kärnfysikern is offline Retired: AR-Hall of Famer
    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Location
    Scotty, beam me up
    Posts
    6,359
    http://www.amazon.com/Relativity-Spe...e=UTF8&s=books

    thats the book that made me love physics. But a newer edition. Its very basic(no higher maths at all) but nothing is like reading the thoughts of the man himself. A peak into einsteins own way of explaining his theory. Priceless.

    I probably borrowed it from the library 5-6 times struggling to try and comprehend everything but at that age I didnt have a chanse.

  7. #87
    Timm1704's Avatar
    Timm1704 is offline Anabolic Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    ninja dojo, UK
    Posts
    4,082
    jesus fvcking christ fellas: my ears, eyes and arse are bleeding. i think this thread has collapsed my existence as we know it! to think at first i just thought i had the shits or summit.....

  8. #88
    Phreak101's Avatar
    Phreak101 is offline Anabolic Member
    Join Date
    Apr 2002
    Location
    Chicago
    Posts
    2,056
    If you all want a simple yet fascinating look into exactly what they are talking about, pick up a copy of The Elegant Universe.

    It will make you trip more than banned recreational substances!

  9. #89
    Flagg's Avatar
    Flagg is offline Knowledgeable Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Location
    Front toward enemy
    Posts
    6,265
    I absolutely LOVE stuff like this.

    I don't know if what i'm gonna say is relative to anything being discussed, but the basic topic is about Space and Time.

    Time is the one thing that is infinite and basic maths proves that. I think I read on the net awhile ago, it may have even been Wikipedia.

    "Infinity is the state of being greater than any finite (real) number however large."

    That was a definition for what infinity is but that definition alone is a paradox because there is no such thing as a finite number. You can ALWAYS add one. And that is infinity. If you could get a computer or even a calculator with a huge powersource that would add one to one and then one to two and then one to three it would go on forever providing the power was constant. There is no number that exists that is too great. Space might have limits but time is truly ever lasting. The one constant that doesn't change. Infinity in essence is momentum.

    Can I throw in a theory about time travel?

    A lot of people say time travel is impossible because of the so called ramifications of temporal rifts and time change. For example you could have a lil time machine. You could say that in 15 minutes we are gonna send a mug backward in time by ten minutes to the same location SO by rights that mug should appear in 5 minutes time. And if that happens what if you choose not to send your original mug back at all? And THAT is what throws people for a loop.
    Well what I think is two things, IF time travel is possible you either cannot interact with anything physical around or nor could you be seen, this would prevent anything changing so if it's yourself or an object you/it simply cannot have physical presence.
    Or and this is what I think happens...if you go back in time and change an aspect of time, say that would prevent your parents from meeting, then by rights you should cease to exist. Wrong. The fact you are there physically dictates that YOUR time, the present you came from still exists. All you've done is create a new time line. It'd be like going back and killing Hitler before he came to power. You could kill him but you still have memories from beiung taught about WW2, so all you've done is create a new timeline. What im saying is you can't change the past, you can only create new futures.

    You may make a choice to send that mug back by 10 minutes in 15 minutes time and whether it appears or not, somewhere in another timeline two mugs exist. Does any of this make sense to anyone? I know I haven't explained this as throughly as I would have liked. I'd be particularly interested in your thoughts on this Johan.

  10. #90
    Kärnfysikern's Avatar
    Kärnfysikern is offline Retired: AR-Hall of Famer
    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Location
    Scotty, beam me up
    Posts
    6,359
    Quote Originally Posted by Flagg
    I absolutely LOVE stuff like this.

    I don't know if what i'm gonna say is relative to anything being discussed, but the basic topic is about Space and Time.

    Time is the one thing that is infinite and basic maths proves that. I think I read on the net awhile ago, it may have even been Wikipedia.

    "Infinity is the state of being greater than any finite (real) number however large."

    That was a definition for what infinity is but that definition alone is a paradox because there is no such thing as a finite number. You can ALWAYS add one. And that is infinity. If you could get a computer or even a calculator with a huge powersource that would add one to one and then one to two and then one to three it would go on forever providing the power was constant. There is no number that exists that is too great. Space might have limits but time is truly ever lasting. The one constant that doesn't change. Infinity in essence is momentum.
    You are confusing mathematical concepts. I havent taken much higher maths but there is a real difference betwen infinity and a finite number. There is a infinite ammount of finite numbers, but no finite number can be infinity. No matter how high a number is it is always a number, you can say that is 2375257265243678425782456782357845782537345270. You can count forever and the number you get is still a number you can count, you will always be able to say this is "a shitload of numbers". But you can not put a number to true infinity.

    Does that make any sense? If it doesnt Il try to explain it further. You can try and read about countable and uncountable sets of numbers that could be enlightning.

    Also time as far as we know has a definite and known begining so we can not claim as of right now that time is infinite.

    Quote Originally Posted by Flagg
    Can I throw in a theory about time travel?

    A lot of people say time travel is impossible because of the so called ramifications of temporal rifts and time change. For example you could have a lil time machine. You could say that in 15 minutes we are gonna send a mug backward in time by ten minutes to the same location SO by rights that mug should appear in 5 minutes time. And if that happens what if you choose not to send your original mug back at all? And THAT is what throws people for a loop.
    Well what I think is two things, IF time travel is possible you either cannot interact with anything physical around or nor could you be seen, this would prevent anything changing so if it's yourself or an object you/it simply cannot have physical presence.
    Or and this is what I think happens...if you go back in time and change an aspect of time, say that would prevent your parents from meeting, then by rights you should cease to exist. Wrong. The fact you are there physically dictates that YOUR time, the present you came from still exists. All you've done is create a new time line. It'd be like going back and killing Hitler before he came to power. You could kill him but you still have memories from beiung taught about WW2, so all you've done is create a new timeline. What im saying is you can't change the past, you can only create new futures.

    You may make a choice to send that mug back by 10 minutes in 15 minutes time and whether it appears or not, somewhere in another timeline two mugs exist. Does any of this make sense to anyone? I know I haven't explained this as throughly as I would have liked. I'd be particularly interested in your thoughts on this Johan.
    Im not sure if I have any thoughts right now about time travel(back in time) general relativity allows it for some very wierd circumstances. We even know how we would go about to build a time machine but it is a couple of thousand years before we would be able to Assuming general relativity holds for those circumstances offcourse.

    What you are describing is kind of like the many worlds intepretation of quantum mechanics. That each event spawns one world for each possible outcome. Its a comforting thought and I like it

    What "proves" to me that time travel isnt possible(or well that it isnt possible to change the timeline of our own universe) or what you say might be true is that if it was possible where are the time travelers? There would be a infinite ammount of time travelers traveling so we would se them everywhere. Just think about it. We would be the travel goal for time travelers from ALL times after time travel is invented.

  11. #91
    Flagg's Avatar
    Flagg is offline Knowledgeable Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Location
    Front toward enemy
    Posts
    6,265
    Quote Originally Posted by johan
    You are confusing mathematical concepts. I havent taken much higher maths but there is a real difference betwen infinity and a finite number. There is a infinite ammount of finite numbers, but no finite number can be infinity. No matter how high a number is it is always a number, you can say that is 2375257265243678425782456782357845782537345270. You can count forever and the number you get is still a number you can count, you will always be able to say this is "a shitload of numbers". But you can not put a number to true infinity.

    Does that make any sense? If it doesnt Il try to explain it further. You can try and read about countable and uncountable sets of numbers that could be enlightning.

    Also time as far as we know has a definite and known begining so we can not claim as of right now that time is infinite.



    Im not sure if I have any thoughts right now about time travel(back in time) general relativity allows it for some very wierd circumstances. We even know how we would go about to build a time machine but it is a couple of thousand years before we would be able to Assuming general relativity holds for those circumstances offcourse.

    What you are describing is kind of like the many worlds intepretation of quantum mechanics. That each event spawns one world for each possible outcome. Its a comforting thought and I like it

    What "proves" to me that time travel isnt possible(or well that it isnt possible to change the timeline of our own universe) or what you say might be true is that if it was possible where are the time travelers? There would be a infinite ammount of time travelers traveling so we would se them everywhere. Just think about it. We would be the travel goal for time travelers from ALL times after time travel is invented.

    Interesting. If immortality was possible, surely you could count forever? Yes it would be a shitload of numbers like you said but providing you would never be interupted you could in theory, count forever. Im interested in what you said about this "uncountable" set of numbers. Is that to do with you could add one to a number that could take you twenty years to say, hence by the time you've added that number you are already behind? As for time..I think everything has a beginning, EVERYTHING..however some things could go on forever but they have to have a start first. If something cannot be affected by age or deterioration then it could continue forever. Certain forms of energy are supposed to be everlasting. Nothing can simply "always" have existed. As cliche and ironic as this will sound, that's impossible.

    Size is what defeats the human mind. I think we're close to understanding the concepts of infinity and size but our finite brains JUST cant touch it.

    Prehaps time travel isn't possible when you look at it like you just said Johan. Or maybe you can go back but not have any physcial presence and just observe. I think if I could go back anywhere in time, i'd love to see the marvels of prehistoric life.

  12. #92
    Phreak101's Avatar
    Phreak101 is offline Anabolic Member
    Join Date
    Apr 2002
    Location
    Chicago
    Posts
    2,056
    Quote Originally Posted by johan

    What "proves" to me that time travel isnt possible(or well that it isnt possible to change the timeline of our own universe) or what you say might be true is that if it was possible where are the time travelers? There would be a infinite ammount of time travelers traveling so we would se them everywhere. Just think about it. We would be the travel goal for time travelers from ALL times after time travel is invented.
    Stephen Hawking says that people from the future, if time travel was possible, would most likely only be able to travel back in time to the point that time travel BECAME possible...which is why we are not seeing them now.

    I don't know, thinking about it too much makes my head wanna asplode.

  13. #93
    Kärnfysikern's Avatar
    Kärnfysikern is offline Retired: AR-Hall of Famer
    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Location
    Scotty, beam me up
    Posts
    6,359
    Quote Originally Posted by Phreak101
    Stephen Hawking says that people from the future, if time travel was possible, would most likely only be able to travel back in time to the point that time travel BECAME possible...which is why we are not seeing them now.

    I don't know, thinking about it too much makes my head wanna asplode.
    Yes that follows exactly from general relativity. Someone showed that general relativity allows time travel if you build a HUGE massive cylinder(like solar mass or more) and spin it around you can travel backwards in time if you go around it. But only back to the time of its creation.

  14. #94
    Tren Bull's Avatar
    Tren Bull is offline Dbol Junkie
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
    Location
    northern cali
    Posts
    16,442
    Quote Originally Posted by johan
    Thank god for electrical engineers that can find the fun in circuts so we dont have to
    How much physics does a mechanical engineer study and what kind of things will you be able to work with in the future? I am utterly clueless to what some branches of engineering acctualy do



    thanks bro



    Yeah relativity is what got me into physics in the first place. I have finaly been able to sign up for a general relativity class. so 30th october it starts along with a class in nuclear and particle physics and I cant ****ing wait whats extra cool is that its on my birthday aswell. Its very wierd that it is on my birthday knowing how much I love those 2 topics.
    In 5th grade I got ahold of "the special and general theory of relativity" that Einstein wrote as a popular science book and ever since I have been fascinated by it. That day my mind was set on what I want to become.



    Same here. I know maths are suposed to be abstract and have no real relation to reality(except when its applied to physics, chem ect). But I just dont se the point in calculating stuff without it meaning anything. The mathematical relations on there own are pretty beautifull but they dont satisfy me enough to make me love maths. I never realy have the patience either to disect the theorems and understand them completely. They are just tools to me and just like with a wrench I dont care much about the structure I just want to know how to use and apply it.

    Like you I have huge respect for mathematicians. I seriously think pure mathematics must be one of the hardest, if not the hardest, subject to study. Dont know much about chemistry other then that organic chemistry makes my head hurt in a non good way

    well technically ive taken all of the pure physics courses i need to take for my bachelors degree, but there are other classes which are based on physics, like statics, engineering materials, fluid mechanics, dynamics... but basically i think that the most fundamental topic i need to know for engineering is differential equations.

    i didn't study relativity until just recently, and i must say, it fascinates me. i mean its not something that i need to study in any depth for mechanical engineering, but i still want to study it more simply cause its so sureal to me. like it seems so bizaar that it defies my logical thought process.

    haha you're right about math, it does get to be VERY abstract. i remember one of my physics teachers saying (in disgust )that it could only hold 100% true in an imaginary world. but i think math is beautiful... like the time i realized how you can calculate the angle between two vectors in 3D space by using the dot product... i was in total awe when i realized that (as dumb as that may sound)

  15. #95
    Tren Bull's Avatar
    Tren Bull is offline Dbol Junkie
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
    Location
    northern cali
    Posts
    16,442
    Quote Originally Posted by Phreak101
    Awesome thread! Im with you Tren , people who don't find this stuff fascinating either a) Don't comprehend just what a big deal it is or b) Don't get it period.

    To imagine that gravity is just the space around an object warping to accomodate for the mass of the object is crazy!

    thanks bro.

    haha, i bet this is the last thing people would expect to find on steroid .com


  16. #96
    Tren Bull's Avatar
    Tren Bull is offline Dbol Junkie
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
    Location
    northern cali
    Posts
    16,442
    Quote Originally Posted by johan
    Yes that follows exactly from general relativity. Someone showed that general relativity allows time travel if you build a HUGE massive cylinder(like solar mass or more) and spin it around you can travel backwards in time if you go around it. But only back to the time of its creation.

    wow really? i dont quite understand though (for traveling back in time)

    traveling into the future makes sense though

  17. #97
    Tren Bull's Avatar
    Tren Bull is offline Dbol Junkie
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
    Location
    northern cali
    Posts
    16,442
    hey johan, one of your posts got me thinking, if space and time are so closly related, and we are constantly moving forward in time, does that mean we are going through what someone in another reference frame would call space?

    btw i know that we as humans dont have an answer to this question, but its something to think about

  18. #98
    Kärnfysikern's Avatar
    Kärnfysikern is offline Retired: AR-Hall of Famer
    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Location
    Scotty, beam me up
    Posts
    6,359
    Quote Originally Posted by Flagg
    Interesting. If immortality was possible, surely you could count forever? Yes it would be a shitload of numbers like you said but providing you would never be interupted you could in theory, count forever. Im interested in what you said about this "uncountable" set of numbers. Is that to do with you could add one to a number that could take you twenty years to say, hence by the time you've added that number you are already behind? As for time..I think everything has a beginning, EVERYTHING..however some things could go on forever but they have to have a start first. If something cannot be affected by age or deterioration then it could continue forever. Certain forms of energy are supposed to be everlasting. Nothing can simply "always" have existed. As cliche and ironic as this will sound, that's impossible.

    Size is what defeats the human mind. I think we're close to understanding the concepts of infinity and size but our finite brains JUST cant touch it.

    Prehaps time travel isn't possible when you look at it like you just said Johan. Or maybe you can go back but not have any physcial presence and just observe. I think if I could go back anywhere in time, i'd love to see the marvels of prehistoric life.
    Yes but even if you count forever you never reach infinity. I realy suck at explaining mathematical concepts I have a hard time understanding myself

    Lets put it like this, you can count forever but you never reach infinity. You can not reach infinity, you can go as far as you want to. There is always another number and no matter how high a number you count you can always say exactly how many you have counted, you will never say "now I have counted infinitly many numbers".

    A way to look at the difference betwen a countable and uncountable set would be to imagine you are number 4.

    If you are contained in a countable set you can look to your right and find for instance 4.1 and you can look to your left and find for instance 3.9. There are discrete values around you because 4.05 or 3.99 are not allowed.
    That means you can pinpoint the exact number that is closest to you and can count your way to any allowed number. You can jump to 4,1 and then 4,2 ect and count each step untill you reach any desired number.

    If you are contained in a uncountable set however you can look to your right and find no nearest number. If I say 4.1 is the nearest its not true because 4.01 is even closer and then we have 4.001 and so on to infinity, you have no closest neightboor, just a bunch of numbers that get infinitly closer without end. No discrete values are around you. So you can not jump count your way to 4.1 since there are just no defined places to jump to. Its impossible to count your way to any number and that makes it uncountable.

    Counting time is a countable set because you can count your way to any number no matter how big and can never reach infinity.

    I think its possible that something can have existed forever. Imagine a closed time loop that brings you can to the begining, the time you started, when you have gone around it once. You can go on and on and it never ends or begins. That is eternal existance. This isnt physicaly impossible, it is just very very hard for our minds to fully grasp. I would say its even impossible for us to grasp it. We are just not built to be able to understand infinity

  19. #99
    Kärnfysikern's Avatar
    Kärnfysikern is offline Retired: AR-Hall of Famer
    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Location
    Scotty, beam me up
    Posts
    6,359
    Quote Originally Posted by Tren Bull
    wow really? i dont quite understand though (for traveling back in time)

    traveling into the future makes sense though
    I dont understand it either mathematicly yet, general relativity is a bit more advanced than special relativity. Tensor analysis, differential geometry and stuff like that. I guess in essence the spinning cylinder drags the spacetime with it in a way that creates some kind of wormhole betwen the past and present? Some wierd time loop.

  20. #100
    Kärnfysikern's Avatar
    Kärnfysikern is offline Retired: AR-Hall of Famer
    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Location
    Scotty, beam me up
    Posts
    6,359
    Quote Originally Posted by Tren Bull
    hey johan, one of your posts got me thinking, if space and time are so closly related, and we are constantly moving forward in time, does that mean we are going through what someone in another reference frame would call space?

    btw i know that we as humans dont have an answer to this question, but its something to think about
    Im not entirely sure if that is possible Ask me in like 5 years

  21. #101
    Tren Bull's Avatar
    Tren Bull is offline Dbol Junkie
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
    Location
    northern cali
    Posts
    16,442
    Quote Originally Posted by johan
    I dont understand it either mathematicly yet, general relativity is a bit more advanced than special relativity. Tensor analysis, differential geometry and stuff like that. I guess in essence the spinning cylinder drags the spacetime with it in a way that creates some kind of wormhole betwen the past and present? Some wierd time loop.

    jeez, thats a crazy thought bro... maybe i should go study some general relativity before i atempt to guess why this would occur

  22. #102
    Flagg's Avatar
    Flagg is offline Knowledgeable Member
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Location
    Front toward enemy
    Posts
    6,265
    Quote Originally Posted by johan
    Yes but even if you count forever you never reach infinity. I realy suck at explaining mathematical concepts I have a hard time understanding myself

    Lets put it like this, you can count forever but you never reach infinity. You can not reach infinity, you can go as far as you want to. There is always another number and no matter how high a number you count you can always say exactly how many you have counted, you will never say "now I have counted infinitly many numbers".

    A way to look at the difference betwen a countable and uncountable set would be to imagine you are number 4.

    If you are contained in a countable set you can look to your right and find for instance 4.1 and you can look to your left and find for instance 3.9. There are discrete values around you because 4.05 or 3.99 are not allowed.
    That means you can pinpoint the exact number that is closest to you and can count your way to any allowed number. You can jump to 4,1 and then 4,2 ect and count each step untill you reach any desired number.

    If you are contained in a uncountable set however you can look to your right and find no nearest number. If I say 4.1 is the nearest its not true because 4.01 is even closer and then we have 4.001 and so on to infinity, you have no closest neightboor, just a bunch of numbers that get infinitly closer without end. No discrete values are around you. So you can not jump count your way to 4.1 since there are just no defined places to jump to. Its impossible to count your way to any number and that makes it uncountable.

    Counting time is a countable set because you can count your way to any number no matter how big and can never reach infinity.

    I think its possible that something can have existed forever. Imagine a closed time loop that brings you can to the begining, the time you started, when you have gone around it once. You can go on and on and it never ends or begins. That is eternal existance. This isnt physicaly impossible, it is just very very hard for our minds to fully grasp. I would say its even impossible for us to grasp it. We are just not built to be able to understand infinity
    Hmm. Would you say then that Infinity and doing a set task for eternity are two different things?

  23. #103
    Kärnfysikern's Avatar
    Kärnfysikern is offline Retired: AR-Hall of Famer
    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Location
    Scotty, beam me up
    Posts
    6,359
    Quote Originally Posted by Flagg
    Hmm. Would you say then that Infinity and doing a set task for eternity are two different things?
    I guess...I guess what I am trying to say is that you cant start doing something and then do it for a infinitly long time. Either you have already done it for a infinite time or you will never do it for a infinite.

    Infinity is unreachable, either it is infinite or its not. Something finite can not achieve infinity.

    But then again I am not sure what I am stating now is correct. I just asked around and the example I gave as difference betwen countable and uncountable isnt entirely correct.

    So I will just admit this is over my head now before I bastardize maths anymore

  24. #104
    Ih8urdsm's Avatar
    Ih8urdsm is offline Associate Member
    Join Date
    Feb 2006
    Location
    The Pharmacy
    Posts
    375
    Quote Originally Posted by AnabolicAndre
    The universe has an end???
    Yes it has an end...but chances are that everything is just part of a larger 'universe', and a larger 'universe' and so on...Not really sure what the question is =) ...i think language confuses this type of topic too much because we want everything put into words, and not everything can

    Great topic though, i feel like im watching NOVA...i get smarter everytime...or atleast 'know more stuff' lol

  25. #105
    Kärnfysikern's Avatar
    Kärnfysikern is offline Retired: AR-Hall of Famer
    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Location
    Scotty, beam me up
    Posts
    6,359
    Quote Originally Posted by Ih8urdsm
    Yes it has an end...but chances are that everything is just part of a larger 'universe', and a larger 'universe' and so on...Not really sure what the question is =) ...i think language confuses this type of topic too much because we want everything put into words, and not everything can
    Great topic though, i feel like im watching NOVA...i get smarter everytime...or atleast 'know more stuff' lol
    Well said. Some things can only be expressed mathematicly and only understood mathematicly. Sometimes language is a barrier not a aid

  26. #106
    Ih8urdsm's Avatar
    Ih8urdsm is offline Associate Member
    Join Date
    Feb 2006
    Location
    The Pharmacy
    Posts
    375
    Quote Originally Posted by johan

    Like you I have huge respect for mathematicians. I seriously think pure mathematics must be one of the hardest, if not the hardest, subject to study. Dont know much about chemistry other then that organic chemistry makes my head hurt in a non good way
    I agree...and a lot of mathmaticians 'can explain' the 'universe, life, beginning of time, etc' with Math...although i think some of them are insane (LOL made me think of Darren Aronofsky's "PI")...which unfortunatly is what the general public usually seems to believe througout time, which is why some of most genious minds are shunned upon

  27. #107
    Phreak101's Avatar
    Phreak101 is offline Anabolic Member
    Join Date
    Apr 2002
    Location
    Chicago
    Posts
    2,056
    Quote Originally Posted by johan
    I guess...I guess what I am trying to say is that you cant start doing something and then do it for a infinitly long time. Either you have already done it for a infinite time or you will never do it for a infinite.

    Infinity is unreachable, either it is infinite or its not. Something finite can not achieve infinity.

    But then again I am not sure what I am stating now is correct. I just asked around and the example I gave as difference betwen countable and uncountable isnt entirely correct.

    So I will just admit this is over my head now before I bastardize maths anymore
    What he's saying is the word infinite cannot be described by either time nor space. Just like creation and destruction, both of these properties are dependent on time being a factor. When you run a race, you do it in so much time.

    The idea of infinite cannot be held inside the properties of space/time because it has no beginning and no end. However, like Johan said, the property of infinite must exist because there WILL be times when you see properties in physics/mathematics that are "infinite". Examples include, a circle, singularities, etc.

  28. #108
    Tren Bull's Avatar
    Tren Bull is offline Dbol Junkie
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
    Location
    northern cali
    Posts
    16,442
    actually now that i think about it, attaining the infinite is possible. lets say you manage to go the EXACT same speed as light. according to the lorentz transformation equations, youd go an infinite distance in literally no time at all.

  29. #109
    Tren Bull's Avatar
    Tren Bull is offline Dbol Junkie
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
    Location
    northern cali
    Posts
    16,442
    well, possible only theoretically, and in a different reference frame than you would be in


Page 3 of 3 FirstFirst 123

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 2 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 2 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •