You -can- use certain equations on 4-d spacetime -treating- the time and space dimension in the same way. This does not make them the same thing! Wouldn't that be great, every time someone developed a way of treating two things the same way in mathematics, they magically became identical to each other in all respects, in reality.

What, like cloning? hasn't that been done? And wasn't that once an idea, that evolved to a theory, that became an experiment, that has evolved to a science, and become a reality?

Jess, I'm unsure if you are addressing me as I see no connection between your post and mine, except that both end with the word "reality".

You posts address the relationship between 'an idea of what may be possible' to 'the realization of the possible'.

My posts are related to confusing the mathematical treatment of of two kinds of quantities as -interchangeable in certain contexts- and saying that those two kinds of quantities are -identical in all respects-.

We all know that in a flat 2D space, orthogonal coordinates are interchangeable. You can do transforms between any orthogonal coordinate system and another.

Consider a room with two walls N-S, and two walls E-W.

The E-W axis is interchangeable with the N-S in many ways.

Would anyone like to claim that North and East are "the same thing"?

You are welcome to. Just don't try to use "the east pole" to navigate.

Hey massagetrade.

Since light has an upper limit to its 'speed' does it allso have a lower limit.

If time slows as one approaches light what would happen if you went the other way and slowed to the lower limit?

would time speed up?

As with any other lever what is the fulcrum between light and time?

More than one kinda science.

*sits in the corner and looks dumb..gets up and goes to Wal Mart to buy that crochet hook thingy* quantum physics??? Ok like I barely got through biology much less earth science all this is like confusing me now

>> Since light has an upper limit to its 'speed' does it allso have a lower limit.

I believe not - light slows to varying degrees as it passes through different kinds of materials, I don't know what qualities of the material determines the degree of the slowing, but it might be possible to construct materials which could slow light to arbitrarily slow speeds.

How is this relevant?

>> If time slows as one approaches light what would happen if you went the other way and slowed to the lower limit?

AB, the speed at which some particular photons are traveling in some place has nothing directly to do with the slowing of time as you approach "the speed of light". "The speed of light" in the last sentence was a reference to the maximum speed of light, not the speed of some light in some situation.

Time slows as you approach the speed of light in a vacuum. There is a simple equation showing the relationship. You slow down again, to any value, time will speed up again slightly, as derived from that equation.

>> As with any other lever what is the fulcrum between light and time?

I don't know what you mean by fulcrum in this context. Be careful with analogies.

>> More than one kinda science.

You know, I do not insists that modern physicist have it right. All I insist is that people who claim to be interested in truth exercise care with phrases like "the same thing" lest they unknowingly use some sloppy thinking in their effort to bolster their worldview with a misinterpretation of the beliefs of modern physicists.

We only think the photons are moveing at a 'speed' because we measure their movement based on a concept we have called 'time'.

If that concept is flawed then the movement we measure within that packet or photon of light is false also as is our concept of distance. (just a thought dont shoot me)

AB,

Yes - my understanding of the views of modern physicist is consistent with part of my understand of what you are saying here about the interconnectedness of speed, distance, and time - its in the units we use for speed! kilometers (or miles) per hour!

I don't know what you mean by the 'concept' being 'flawed'. Einstein's equations changed things, but did not invalidate the basic idea of, say, counting resonance cycles of cesium (time) or measuring distance.

You know, if people want to believe that time and space are the "same thing", I'm cool. And I certainly have no objection to AB's statement "more than one kind of science". Personally, I think most modern scientist are just wrong about most things they believe anyway. I have a bit of an issue with people mis-representing the beliefs of modern physicist to bolster their own beliefs, but people are going to do that, I probably do it myself without realizing it. And I have an issue with the phrase "the same thing", its one of those phrases whose careless use will rob all intelligence from a thought process, either a personal thought process or a group thought process. Being interchangeable does not make two things the same.

We are countin said resonance cycles based on our own concept of measurements.

How can we be sure they are accurate. What if instead of a photon 'traveling' what we see as travel is actually a stationary atom causing a induced frequency shift in adjacent stationary atoms and that proprogating induction is what we are measuring as 'travel','speed','distance', and 'time'.

AdventureBegins,

Time and space are relative to the observer. If two people are a football field length from each other, that's a fact. An observer might see it different, but that's what relativity means. Our perception of reality is relative to our position in the space-time continum. That doesn't mean that there are no absolute truths about an objects position in Space-Time, it means that looking at an object from a single or even many perspectives might lead us to false conclusions. The whole thing about the closer you get to the speed of light, the slower time goes, that's to the inside observer. If you were in a spaceship going 90% of the speed of light, you wouldn't feel different from someone standing still. To someone outside of the spaceship, it would appear that you had been traveling for 25 minutes, but you would think you had traveled for an hour.

The following is a nice simple explaination: http://www.geocities.com/Axiom43/relativity.html

>> We are countin said resonance cycles based on our own concept of measurements. How can we be sure they are accurate.

Dude, I'm not even certain I exist.

>> What if instead of a photon 'traveling' what we see as travel is actually a stationary atom causing a induced frequency shift in adjacent stationary atoms and that proprogating induction is what we are measuring as 'travel','speed','distance', and 'time'.

Light travels through a laboratory vacuum chamber, in which the few errant atoms are not adjacent.

I read and understood Einsteins Theory of General and Special Relativity.

Thank you for the time life books childrens explanation.

Just because it is written don't make it so. There are many ways to look at anything. Being able to step outside the accepted box can be quite a usefull tool.

>> Just because it is written don't make it so. There are many ways to look at anything. Being able to step outside the accepted box can be quite a usefull tool

I completely agree.

You are old enough to know that there are absolutes, it's time for you to grow up. It's good to know that everything is relative, but every observation has an absolute truth. Einstein didn't reject that, that's what he explained with the theory of relativity.

"I read and understood Einsteins Theory of General and Special Relativity. "

Bull****.

Expansion on Spider's comment. Every opinion may have a partial truth. There is no guarantee there is an absolute truth contained therein.

Sorry, Spider, observation, not opinion.

Differentkindofwench,

I didn't say every opinion contained truth. Every event / thought has an absolute truth behind it. If something happens and nobody knows what happened, it really did happen anyways.

When I said "but every observation has an absolute truth" I meant to add " behind it". Most opinions are incorrect, in my opinion.

Thanks for the clarification, Spider.