Show me the proof, and i'll eat my hat.

(I don't own a hat by the way. )

If someone really managed to do that, then the scientific community would be in uproar about it, and it would make headline news. I haven't heard anything though, so either he doesn't have any proof, or you're the world's best journalist.

Incidentally, I'd heard that some scientists had managed to create a TRANSPORTER!

...It only works on beams of light though.

Apparently they shone a laser in at one end, it went through the machine, and the beam reappeared a meter away at the other end of the machine. They don't think they'll be able to get matter through it for a long time though...but just imagine if it were possible! 8O

They have proof for it as well, but i'm not sure where to look. I heard about it on the news about a year or two ago. Anyone else hear about it?

...



Like I said, i'm not a mathematician, physicist, or whatever. Chances are you know more than me. Aren't Blackholes uber heavy AND uber dense though?

A couple of quick comments.

Mass makes the gravitational field. (Exactly *why* is unknown, only the mathematical relationships between them is known.) Density controls the intensity of the field in any given point in space. If you use Einstien's analogy of a rubber sheet as spacetime, two balls of the same mass but different sizes will push on the rubber sheet with the same force but the one which is more dense (of smaller diameter) is being held up by a smaller area of rubber sheet so the curvature is deeper. (Again, I stress, this is an analogy.)

In relativity objects may not travel faster than the speed of light. In quantum mechanics, it's no big deal at all: happens all the time... With *quanta* it happens all the time. With objects of many quanta -- like you and me -- it doesn't . A physicist in Vienna (that I heard about) got a stream of quanta (laser light, I think) to travel 300x the speed of light (via quantum tunneling) to send information (a mozart sonata) a very short distance (less than a meter). The experiment is still under contention in some circles... In other words: some scientists *are* having a sh-t fit about it. But because it was individual quanta and not an object composed of many quanta, it's not really picked up by the news services.... Other similar experiements have been done with atoms, but I don't remember the circumstances so I wont quote them.

FTL *is* possible according to Quantum mechanics. And experiments in the quantum world seems to bare this out. Unfortunately, processes of making it happen for large things -- like people or spacecraft -- seem to be far out of our reach for the moment.

Current studies of gravity waves and gravitons have not, to my knowledge, confirmed *directly* the existance of either. (I, personally, do not like either. But the universe does not revolve around my opinion.) And there is compelling indirect evidence that gravity waves *do* exist exactly as Einstien predicted.... In fact, Relativity has yet to be inaccurate in *any* of the experiments that have been designed to test it. However, it is quite well known that it *can not* be the final theory because it breaks down at the quantum level, where the black hole's "singularity" lays. In fact, the very term "singularity" is a mathimatical term that deals with geometric curves where rules break down. (I don't understand these rules well enough to explain. I could describe them, but that wouldn't help 'understanding'.) We can there for say that relativity is *false*. It's also the best we have for the moment.

"Teleportation" as claimed by recent physics articals are not like the transporters of Star Trek. They do not send matter from one place to another. They send information. The experiments basically measure the exact state of one particle (a photon, an electron or an atom) and then transfers that state onto another particle some distance away. This second particle will then act and interact as if it were the first... It's something of a cheat, see? If you did the same sort of thing to a mouse, you'd litterally rip it appart, atom by atom -- thus destroying it utterly -- and then make a perfect copy of it somewhere else, at the quantum level, using different particles.... We're nowhere near that stage, of course. It's just an example of scaling the process up. I wouldn't call it a transporter, myself. But, what the hell. What do I know?

sirNemanjapro: The idea of spinning particals around in an accelerator to produce gravity would theoretically work but would also be impractical. The amount of energy required to get them going fast enough to make that kind of gravitational result would be way too high. With much less energy you could shoot them out the back as a rocket and accellerate your ship at 1g... To my knowledge, though, this is an unique thought to you, which is something to be genuinly proud of... *I* would never have thought of it... and now that you've mentioned it, i will take the time to think about it deeply in the future.

This new star is not a representative of how increadibly much we don't know about the universe and should not be considered a reason to dissavow all astronomical/cosmological knowledge. This thing is a small star, without much light that's hard to see. There are lots of them out there. The only reason we noticed it was that it noticably moved across the sky over a matter of a handful of years; and that's only a big deal because it means it's close. The artical said it had been on many photographic plates over many years. That just means no one was actually looking for it so it wasn't noticed... I think it's kinda cool that we still have next-door-neighborhoods we've yet to discover!

As to other living populations out there... I can't believe there aren't. The galaxy is just too damned ginormous (eg: big) for there not to be, let alone the universe... But who knows?! Someone has to be first! Maybe it's us.

Wow...perhaps the machine should be called a Trans-replicatorer or maybe even a Repliporter...

...

Thanks for your explanations, ZDarby, as always you make sense from physics.

By the way, you might like my current signature...

I'm sure that's more than enough information to stop the arguments, so please guys, try to refrain yourselves.

That is only if live can be created out of itselfe. You know the cream a la cream where humans are supposed to come from? I know that things will adapt to their surroundings so that they can survive. But to actually think that humans came from something like this, sounds to me AS the biggest practical joke ever conceived by mankind. So from my point of view someone has to be behind the creation of animal/humans: so you get to the point will this someone create other lifeforms on other planets also? One could argue with that, but because i'm a christian, i don't think this to be true (although nothing is said about this in the bible). Anyway scientists tend to explain things as in saying somethings happens over millions of years ago and a lot can happen in such a time.. yeah right.

The argument of saying the universe is enormously big SO other life has to exists elsewhere is thus not neccersairly true.

Teleportation: as you explained it if you would do this to humans. You would simply store everything from him/her, then kill the dude and recreate him later. Now ofcourse ethical things would get in the way with this. But i'm curious how are they going to transfer the exact amount of energy that is in these particals. Now as i know it everything is build up out of energy, so how are you going to reproduce something like that? Now perhaps scientists have not gone to the point where they think this to be true, yet it's a theory that i think is true.

So we come again at the point where science and religion meet. Those can always be sensitive subjects so I proceed with caution and keep to the facts.

There are two theories each with two possibilities regarding this subject. 1) God created mankind. 2) Chance (nature, evolution) created mankind.
If 1) applies, there are two options: 1.1) God created mankind on this planet (Earth) for a specific reason or purpose and created us here alone. 1.2) For another specific reason or purpose he created living beings on different planets all over the galaxy.
If 2) applies, there are two options: 2.1) Earth is a random extrema, in which something that unlikely occured it is the only place in the universe. 2.2) With the proper ingredients, lots of luck and lots of time it is possible for chance (nature) to create a similar living environment.

Now, let's analyse those possibilities. If God indeed created mankind, can't we realistically say He created the entire universe as well? I mean if He didn't, who did? So, if He created mankind on this planet solely, why would He create such a massive galaxy around it? Wouldn't it make more sense there would be more civilizations He created on other worlds. We call Earth His masterpiece. Shouldn't we call the galaxy His masterpiece instead? Second, this is only a question perhaps someone else could answer, why would someone like Him want to create something like us in the first place? Are we part of an experiment of some sort? Say He created numerous of worlds in the galaxy to contain living, sentient beings to see who would thrive best or behave best, of whatever?
So, if God created us, I don't believe He created only us. He wouldn't create such a vaste universe consisting of empty rocks with only one planet flourishing. So, therefore I want to rule out option 1.1.

I personally don't believe there is any God or supreme being involved in our existance at all. The reason we, humans, exist is because of a meteor that impacted earth and caused the Dinosaurs to become extinct. Chance. Chance is what created this world to the point it is now (well, that is not entirely true: chance created the world to the point it was 10,000 years ago). Life on this world came to existance because the ingrediënts where here. Because it could happen. Good circumstances allowed it to thrive, grow and evolve to a point it is now.
Life on other worlds could exist in the same as it does on Earth. Even now whe are very close to discovering alien life on worlds like Mars and Europa. If it is proven to exist there, even within our own solar system, isn't it even a far more occuring phenomenon than we first anticipated?
I don't believe that Earth is a random miracle, so I want to rule out option 2.1 from above.

So we are still at the point whether God created us, or whether chance created us as I am convinced there is more life beyond this world. To be able to answer this question, which we obviously can't, we need to think if it is life or intelligent life we are talking about. What was it that made human beings sentient? Why was it that in only a fraction of time (on the Earth's scale) sentient beings existed here on earth when there where billons of years of other creatures which weren't sentient. Is this another phenomenon of chance? Are we humans just lucky to be sentient apes or could we just as easily have been sentient reptiles of some sort? Or did something else create our mental abilities and is that the true definition of 'Life'.

I am going to stop this here and have you guys give a reaction first. I don't know who or what created us. But I am certain whatever it is, didn't create us in this entire galaxy alone.

Well done, Centurion that was sensitive and thought provoking. (God I sound like a teacher - have a gold star! )

I have the same points of view as you, Centurion; I personally don't believe in a higher being creating us, and I can't see the conditions for life only occuring on one Planet out of the potential Trillions that may exist.

The true goal of space exploration is to find other sentient life. Finding some sort of bacteria on Mars or Europa would be great, but people want to be able to communicate with little green men and to be able to answer the question of "are we alone?"

I think that we exist purely by chance, but that chance isn't like winning the lottery - it is more like hitting a fish in a barrel. I believe that life is out there, whether it chooses to be found or not.

I think the chance of life finding sentient beings is far lower though; all we have to do is look at Earth. As you said, sentient life has only existed in the last 10,000 years or so, and there has been billions of years since the first lifeforms appeared from the ooze.

In that time, there has been millions, if not billions of species. What is it that made only one sentient and capable of survival? Chance.

Chance made life appear, chance let us evolve concious thought and sentience, and chance has let us survive this long. Who knows what else chance has in store for us? Who knows what chance has done to the Universe...?

absence of evidence does not equate to evidence of absence.

simple statistical probablity dictates that there must be intelligent life elsewhere in our galaxy let alone the universe.

don't be too quick to dismiss the significance of finding bacteria on europa or mars (or wherever else). it would prove one thing - life on this planet wasn't a fluke. that would be a massive discovery...

The answer, to my mind, has to come from paradox.
Were we created directly by the hand of God? Yes.
Were we the product of Evolution? Yes.
Are we alone in the universe? Yes.
Are there sentient races out there? Yes.

How can all this be true at the same time? Paradox.

To me, life *is* God. The creation and the creator must be one and the same. The Holy Trinity ilustrates this quite well: the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit all in one. The creator, the created, the creation... This is just my take on things, of course. I just have a hard time believing in a universe or God I, as a mere mortal, can understand. They must be beyond my understanding to such an extent that I need faith to believe in them.

Was the birth of life on Earth by pure chance or was it destined. Yes.
Are we, as humans, sentient or mere animals? Yes.
Do we have free will or are we the puppets of destiny? Yes.

These sorts of questions are not easily answerable, or else they would have been long ago. However, by definition, the answer must be simple... Not easy but simple? How? ... Exactly, I don't know. But example: F=ma is a simple equation that explains quite a bit. However, it is not easily applied to the universe in all its complexity. When searching for answers search for and embrace paradox. This will keep what you find simple without being simplistic.
~~~~~~~~
@MOE -- I noticed your new signature. Yes. I like it.... Is that ratio accurate? One part per trillion (10^12)? I'll have to look into that!

Sorry: I'm double posting.

@iwulff -- The "teleprotation" is done with the interaction of photons. Taking the example of an electron orbiting an atom:

The origial atom has a certain state, speaking in a quatum sense, that includes the type of energy and the form of that energy. A group of photons are shot at it that are specifically designed to mesure the entire quantum state of that electron. Those photons are then gathered up, sent down a pipe and focused on the target electron of the target atom. The target electron has already been massaged in just the right way so that when it interacts with the photons it will be put in exactly the same quantum state as the original.... This is an example for understanding purposes only! The experiment itself was rather different but the idea was the same.

The process of measuring the state of the original object -- in this case an electron -- destroys the original. IE in order for the information to be trasfered from the orignal to the target, the original must be destroyed. So, if you walked into this transporter, the very act of you being measured would destroy you before you were recreated on the other side. And every particle that was you just a few seconds before has been dissasociated from anything even remotely like you. You better hope the pattern buffer doesn't have a blow-out!

To answer the question more directly, the state of the matter is measured and transfered onto something that can hold this information. New matter is introduced to the cycle and the information imprinted onto its state. That way you do not have to create the total energy of the object you're copying, only the energy inherent within the information -- which is much less.

Did that make sense?

ZDarby, I didn't actually make it myself, I got it from the scientific section of the Oxymoron Humour Archives.

The scientific section of the Oxymoron Humour Archives

I got it from the Product Warning Labels page:

Product Warning Labels

I'm sure you'll like them, ZDarby. The one i'm using for my current signature is pretty much the only one that would fit.

My favourite pages are:
Ban Dihydrogen Monoxide! Cats, Toast and Antigravity Proof of the non-existence of Santa Claus The Chemical analysis of Man and The Chemical Analysis of Woman

Hehe they're all brilliant!

ZDarby Im very glad that you have taken my theroy in concidiration. I have think of it myself. But I really dont have time to engage in some experiments of that sort. Basicly now i have given myself to web design and video prost production. So collage got the third place. My girl is second.
Everything else is... Well, it has to wait.

A agree on all the tings you have said. Expecialy about religion.

One day I will post my theroy of our being on the earth. I think you will like it. We can even go to make a Paramount buy it of us for a show. )

this could turn into a debate about God very shortly (like the one several months ago), but there is nothing in the bible that says anythin about other races being or not being there, and if you look at the probability of us being here in the first place, its sooooo small that the only logical conclusion is that God does exist.

I would like to add my own belief into this thread.

I believe that the Universe, its galaxies and solar systems have and will always be. They may not be in the same state, shape or form, however, their basic make-up will never vanish.
Everything is always in motion; Changing from one state to another, then eventually back again. Just as there are cycles of life, there are cycles in our Universe, galaxies and solar systems. The Universe will expand, contract, then expand again. Just as a nebula collapses in on its own gravity to form a new star- that star one day creates another nova.

Edit: wow, sorry for the massive amounts of errors in my post. I seem to have been half sleeping when i wrote the original.

Love the fact this thread was about a new star and we had
Religon and load of other htings im so dumb i dont even know lol

Wayyyyyyyyyy oofffffff toooooppppiiiccccc but meh

oh ans sirjan
Well actually one german scientist has managed to make a matter go faster than the speed of light! Apperently no one told him that he cant do that. It will make some Enstines theoryes a peace of CrAp, and it will redefine mathematics as we know it.

That is suuucccchhhhhh crap no offence if that had happend im sure there would be some kind of news on it

@MOE: COOOL!!! Lots of things to waiste time on!! Thank you. I love it! I'm laughing my *ss off here!! And I have an especially large rump!!!
~~~~~~~
@UnDated: Actually, we don't know what the probability of life is. We have guesses -- some of them exceptionally well educated -- but no real knowledge. So any 'conclusion' from these guesses are preliminary at best.

Besides, I don't believe in conclusions. A conclusion is when you decide to stop thinking. That sounds rather snide. I don't mean it to be a pot shot but an expression of opinion. For me, the jury is still out. I have certain faith stuctures but I like to explore outside of them.
~~~~~~~

@CCB
I couldnt find the link for that experimetn. But here is something.
http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/199 ... light.html
It dosent says anything about matter trough speed of light but it says some nice things everybody should read.

And this is the real brain of the century!

And I must say again he is Serb (or Srbin).

Big thanks to Nikola Tesla!

Veliko hvala Nikoli Tesli!

Велико хвала Ð￾иколи ТеÑ￾ли!

I'm so sorry. Slowing being possible doesn't actually mean accelerating is possible! (Though this experiment does not even mean they have put down the speed of light but they have had several forces to stop the photons which is something completely different. The speed of light is constant!

Nothing in this universe is constant.

how's the speed of light not constant? i thought it was always 186,282.397 m/ps

That's true in relation to an object which is not moving at all. In relation to each other object with a random initial velocity, the speed of light is different

btw, I read a book once about the 'Science in Star Trek' written by a Physics Engineer. There was a debate about transporters and how they would likely work. In essence, an object is heated until it is 'dematerialised' (which means it is heaten that much that all molecules get vaporised, NOT dispersed.). With the energy obtained by that (exothermic reaction as the matter vaporised is being transfered to energy) new matter is created in the exact same composition as when it first was. Using this theory of transporter operation, it would be easy to create a device to duplicate or clone people without vaporising the original. You'd only need a power source that can produce the same mount of energy as the total chemical and thermodynamic energy of a person (that's quite a lot..)
Only problem is, that this would probably not work on living beings as completely duplicating someone would probably not duplicate its 'soul'. Thus, by assuming it works, star trek assumes people do not have something like a soul and are made completely out of pure matter.
Anyway, I think such a thing as transporting things could be made to work to everything but organic matter.
Oh, and I doubt it has been done already as it would have caused quite a stir in the scientific world.

No. I'm sorry. But this is incorrect. Light travels in a vacuum at the stated speed. This *is* constant no matter how fast you are traveling compared to another object. This is the basic precept of Einsteinian Relativity. For the cause and effect of relativity to take place and work, this must be an absolute inviolate....

However....

In the quantum world the speed of light is an average of the slow moving quanta and the quickly moving quanta. A light source actually emits light of all speeds. But the 'slow' light interferes and cancels out the 'fast' light; and all you have left is what's traveling at 186,282.397 mi/s (299,792.458 Km/s) -- the "speed of light", 'c'. (This is why/how information (and matter?) can be transfered at 300c in the labratory.) And because of the odd properties of quanta, even a single quantum of light will interfere with itself so that all possible replications of itself cancel out except the one traveling at *exactly* c. This is generally true for all distances larger than a few angstroms. For Quantum Theory to work, this must be true... Now you see why relativity and the quantum are so hard to unite.

As a side-note, there has been a suggestion recently that the speed of light has changed over the universes 13.7 gigayear lifetime. This has not been proven. However there *is* evedence that the ratio of the mass of the electron to the proton has changed over time. It's not certain but there have been some rather interesting studies. And if this mass constant is variable over time, there is room to speculate that c might be too. Very weird.



I've thought of this before. We don't really know how the soul is "connected" to the body. It might be that the sould would transfer itself to an *exact* quantum copy of the body if the original body were destroyed. Or maybe using the same matter to make the copy somehow retains the soul? But, then, when Riker gets split into Will and Thomas, do they both share the same soul? I don't quite know what to say on that one... At least, not without going into a dissertion on the subject of soul-body interfaces.

i'll lend weight to wait zdarby has said. this is wronger than mr and mrs wrong quoting their wrong machine...

Im so confused right now.....lol tried to keep up with this thread but all this weight, mass and gravity just makes me feel fat!

Don't worry lol you're not the only one

This is simple. Wait until we go to more complex things.

Simple? Its only simple if you know it. You want complicated. Try accountancy, audit, business law and tax. Then i'd kick your ass! lol

While I do have quite some roots in the science area, I must say, ZDarby, you lost me here.



I was only saying that the speed of light is relative to an object which moves. Same as a train going 100 km/h will move at that speed in relation to a three standing next to the track. But in relation to a car moving at 80 km/h the train has a speed of only 20 km/h.
For as far as I know that's the same with light, so if you travel at half the speed of light, in relation to you, said speed of light will only be half of what it would be to an object in rest. Hence, it is relative.

The story which followed about quantums and such I didn't grasp at all, so please elaborate on that if you wish. What *is* a quantum to start with? I thought you where refering to a photon at first



I don't believe the soul, if such a thing exists, would transfer by itself if it isn't made of matter. I think we can be very short and clear on this one. Star Trek assumes that all that makes us human is the sum of all of our molecules. i.e. place the exact same molecules of a random being in the exact same location with the exact same molecular and thermodynamic energy and you have created a living duplicate of the original.

Your example of Will and Thomas is therefore easy. They don't *share* the same soul since there is not such a thing. In theory, a transporter kills a being and creates another being. If for some reason, it didn't kill the being but just creates another one, you have a perfect clone. One thing is wrong during that episode, though. Which is, from what energy was Thomas (or Will for that matter) created? Normally, the energy of the dematerialisation would be used to rematerialise the copy. But if that has already happened and should happen a second time, the same amount of energy will be needed. That's quite a lot..

I can't spend too much time as it's way past my bed time. But...



This is the Newtonian way seeing light that Einstein replaced with relativity. In relativity the speed of light is an absolute no matter how fast you are traveling and no matter what reference frame you measure from. That's why it's so weird: your perception of time and space is what is relative, *not* the speed of light. It's this basic precept that both special and general relativity are based on.

So, if you are traveling at half the 0.5c compared to our sun and you look out the window to measure the light coming from the sun, you will find it's traveling at 1c. Even if you're traveling at 0.9999c, measurements of the speed of light from any and all directions will come out as 1c.

And, no, I'm not joking, on crack or misunderstanding. I've spent a great deal of my adult life trying to bend my mind around the four dimensional geometry of space-time and how it works. I aint no expert. Not by a long shot. But on this fact I would stake my life on: for relativity to work as stated by Einstein, light *must* travel at the same speed *no matter what*!

Very strange!



Yes. You were right. I was refering to the photon. A photon is a quantum of light. Quantum mechanics assumes that all matter and fields can be sectioned off into little chunks of matter-energy. Each chunk is a quantum. Every type of quantum transfers and interacts with other quanta in very specific ways, ways that are specified in the laws of Quantum Mechanics. Photons are the quantum of electromagnetic fields; eg: light. I was using light as an example but wanted to make statements that were more generalized to all quanta. ('Quanta' is the plural of 'quantum'.)

I can't go into why at the moment, but for chunks of matter-energy -- that is to say 'quanta' -- to ineract properly within the confines of Quantum Mechanics, the speed of light must not be a maximum speed but an average; a kind of canceling out of every other possibility. And yet the laws of special relativity have been worked into the construct of Quantum Mechanics. *General* Relativity, however, has not.

Again: very strange!

Sorry. Gotta go.

Reading all that, the best way to think of light is that the faster you travel, the faster that light APPEARS to travel...

...So does this mean that FTL is impossible? 8O