At Big Think: How reality is shaped by the speed of light

Relatd @65, Did you get my explanation? -Q Querius

Relatd @65,

Thanks for the attempt. If you look at Einstein’s equation, how do you get that you can’t travel faster than light?

The m in E = mc^2 is relativistic mass for which the formula is m(rel) = m(rest)/sqrt(1 - v^2 /c^2). If you increase the velocity of something until it reaches c, then the relativistic mass becomes m(rel) = m(rest)/sqrt(1-1/1) = m(rest)/sqrt(0). Dividing is undefined, and when approaching 0 as the denominator, it results in the relativistic mass approaching infinity. It's not possible to accelerate an infinite mass. If magic happens and you find an object travelling faster than the speed of light, the denominator of the equation would be negative and the relativistic mass and energy would then be imaginary numbers. -Q Querius

Viola Lee/61

No. Reading back over those posts I think Sev has some misunderstandings.

I make no claim to infallibility - unlike some - what am I misunderstanding? Seversky

Querius, Thanks for the attempt. If you look at Einstein's equation, how do you get that you can't travel faster than light? For those younger than 60, the idea of a sound barrier might sound ridiculous. It was thought that nothing could move faster than sound or 10,000 feet per second. And survive. Especially a manned aircraft. At Physics World, the whole 'faster than light barrier' idea is being looked at differently. https://physicsworld.com/a/spacecraft-in-a-warp-bubble-could-travel-faster-than-light-claims-physicist/ It should be obvious to anyone: There is no way to reach the nearest star. None. But by doing the work, making proposals, and eventually, experiments, this barrier will be broken. Otherwise, humanity will always remain in the present solar system. relatd

In defense of Relatd, I'd say that, while Einstein's mass-energy equation and "relativistic mass" and time equations have been experimentally verified. However, its interpretation has been challenging and one can be easily fooled into false statements as a result, not to mention that it's currently incompatible with quantum mechanics. For example, here's the iconic experiment validating time dilation: https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2021/07/15/time-traveling_on_an_airplane_one_of_the_cheapest_tests_of_relativity_785017.html Let me strongly recommend the following article, which describes the experimental history of relativistic dynamics: https://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/classes/252/relativistic_mass.html Yes, it was Galileo! And yes, I learned something new! (smile) -Q Querius

Relatd: Baloney. Incredible. You frequently ask for 'real science', experimental, observable, empirical science. And when it's given to you but disagrees with your (incorrect and ignorant) views you just dismiss it. I tell you what, why don't you get a few kilograms of plutonium and check out some of the work yourself. Just let me know ahead of time so I can be well away. JVL

Viola Lee @61, I'm happy to agree. And that was the purpose of my thought experiment. -Q Querius

No. Reading back over those posts I think Sev has some misunderstandings. Not nearly as many as relatd, though. Viola Lee

Viola Lee @59, So you agree with Seversky's description @16? -Q Querius

Didn't think about it. Not related to the discussion about the inability of a particle to be accelerated to the speed of light, or about the truth of E=mc^2. Maybe you'd like to explain some of this to realtd , or just tell him he's wrong (BA pointed out he was wrong about Cherenkov radiation), or perhaps just point him to some youtube videos. Also, I don't think you are using ad hominem correctly. Viola Lee

Viola Lee, Ignoring your ad hominems, did you come to a conclusion on my thought experiment? Do large objects radiate energy as they are slowed from relativistic velocities? -Q Querius

VL at 56, Baloney. relatd

E = mc^2 has been verified: it is the key equation which makes nuclear power possible. Here's a link of the derivation: Link. You might also read here. The fact that you think such an important equation, central to many aspects of physics, is "stupid" and has not been experimentally verified says a great deal about you, but not about the equation. No sense is my saying any more. Viola Lee

Don't worry, Q. I don't expect you to explain anything to me. Of course, I therefore really have no idea what, or how much, you understand. Maybe lots more than me, and maybe not. Over and out with you, I think. Viola Lee

VL at 53, It's a stupid equation. There can be no experimental verification. relatd

Relatd: E = mc^2 is c squared (times itself), not doubled. And yes, you could throw a ball to the other car. I think I've concluded that you know very little about physics, so I won't bother to explain any more. But it takes a lot of something to declare that E = mc^2 is a stupid equation! Viola Lee

Viola Lee @ 38,

Of course I know the role played by the sqrt(1 – v^2/c^2) factor in the equations. Don’t know what point you were trying to make when you wrote, “Great! So then you know where gamma is involved in Einstein’s famous equation.”

Oh, then you obviously don’t understand how gamma works in conjunction with mass and energy. No, I won’t explain it to you. Did you come to a conclusion on my thought experiment? Do large objects radiate energy as they are slowed from relativistic velocities? -Q Querius

Bornagain77 @40, Thanks for the video link. I noticed that Dawkins was nodding in agreement through the Weinberg’s observations (https://youtu.be/z4E_bT4ecgk?t=495). In college, I once listened to a conversation between two physics professors, one of whom expressed curiosity at how the laws of physics are actually derived and the source of the constants being used. Mathematical systems don’t determine physics, they are intelligently chosen to approximate what’s observed. So, is there a single mathematical system that perfectly describes the operation of the universe? According to Gödel's incompleteness theorems, the answer might actually be no. And there’s no way we can determine whether we are even capable of understanding such a mathematical system or systems. Personally, I prefer the amazing and brilliant statement from 2,000 years ago . . .

In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of mankind. And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not grasp it.

In answer to the question, “Why is there something rather than nothing in existence?” it indicates that the Logos has personal consciousness that manifests our experienced reality! I'm sure the scientists you referenced studied science with respect and reverence. -Q Querius

VL at 48, What? If I am in a car going 100 MPH and another car going 100 MPH pulls up alongside, I can throw a ball to the other car (assuming zero wind) just like it was not moving at all. relatd

Querius at 35, Really? Let's look at Einstein's equation, E=MC2. What does it tell you? Energy EQUALS Matter traveling at twice the speed of light. So, if you could accelerate matter to twice the speed of light, it would turn into energy? What a stupid equation. I mean people just assume that nothing can travel faster than light but if we could accelerate the chair you're sitting on to twice the speed of light, it would turn into energy? What was he thinking? relatd

Ooops. I need to read more carefully. Here are some corrections, in bold: Back to the speed of light: the most significant thing is not that it is a speed that cannot be exceeded by any particle, but that it is constant for all observers irrespective of their relative speeds. If I am going 100 mph in a boxcar and throw a baseball forward to 100 mph, the ball appears to be going 200 mph to an observer on the ground although it it just appears to be going 100 mph in respect to the boxcar. However, if the hypothetical boxcar is travelling at the speed of light and one throws the baseball at the speed of light, both the observer on the ground and the one in the boxcar will see the baseball travelling at the speed of light. The observer on the ground will not see the baseball travelling at twice the speed of light in respect to the ground. Both will see the baseball travelling at the speed of light. Viola Lee

to relatd: Back to the speed of light: the most significant things is not that it is a speed that cannot be exceeded by any particle, but that it is constant for all observers irrespective of their relative speeds. If I am going 100 mph in a boxcar and throw a baseball forward to 100 mph, the ball appears to be going 200 mph to an observer on the ground although it it just appears to be going 100 mph in respect to the ground. However, if the hypothetical boxcar is travelling at the speed of light and throws the baseball at the speed of light, both the observer on the ground and the one in the boxcar will see the baseball travelling at the speed of light. The observer will not see the baseball travelling at twice the speed of light in respect to the ground. Both will see the baseball travelling at the speed of light. Viola Lee

Thanks, BA. That type of focused response is better. Viola Lee

VL, I did not want to step any further into this thread. And I thought that you and others have been doing a good job on correcting Relatd and JVL. in their mistakes thus far. For instance, I liked very much when you corrected JVL thusly, "JVL, Christians do believe math is discovered not invented. And yes, Christians would believe God would know all those numbers. That is pretty orthodox theological philosophy of math." Yet when Sev asked, "Does the theological philosophy of math hold that God discovered math or that he invented it?" And you responded thusly, with a smiley face, "a difficult question for theologians!" :) ,,,I saw the necessity to step back into the thread to clear up any misconceptions you created. You falsely claimed that I am 'derailing discussions', but alas, I only stepped in to clear up any unnecessary confusion that you yourself, willingly or not, created when you said that whether God invents math or discovers math, with a smiley face no less, is "a difficult question for theologians!" :) Although the answer to that question is a bit technical to understand, it is a question that, none-the-less, (since it has been mulled over for centuries by Christian theologians), not really all that 'difficult' for Theologians to answer. For instance, I think Edward Feser, (in an articled entitled "Keep It Simple" no less), does a fine job of answering that question.

Keep it Simple – Edward Feser – 2020 Excerpt: Mathematics appears to describe a realm of entities with quasi-­divine attributes. The series of natural numbers is infinite. That one and one equal two and two and two equal four could not have been otherwise. Such mathematical truths never begin being true or cease being true; they hold eternally and immutably. The lines, planes, and figures studied by the geometer have a kind of perfection that the objects of our ­experience lack. Mathematical objects seem immaterial and known by pure reason rather than through the senses. Given the centrality of mathematics to scientific explanation, it seems in some way to be a cause of the natural world and its order. How can the mathematical realm be so apparently godlike? The traditional answer, originating in Neoplatonic philosophy and Augustinian theology, is that our knowledge of the mathematical realm is precisely knowledge, albeit inchoate, of the divine mind. Mathematical truths exhibit infinity, necessity, eternity, immutability, perfection, and immateriality because they are God’s thoughts, and they have such explanatory power in scientific theorizing because they are part of the blueprint implemented by God in creating the world. For some thinkers in this tradition, mathematics thus provides the starting point for an argument for the existence of God qua supreme intellect.,,, https://www.firstthings.com/article/2020/04/keep-it-simple ‘the Word’ in John1:1 is translated from ‘Logos’ in Greek. Logos is also the root word from which we derive our modern word logic http://etymonline.com/?term=logic What is the Logos? Logos is a Greek word literally translated as “word, speech, or utterance.” However, in Greek philosophy, Logos refers to divine reason or the power that puts sense into the world making order instead of chaos.,,, In the Gospel of John, John writes “In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). John appealed to his readers by saying in essence, “You’ve been thinking, talking, and writing about the Word (divine reason) for centuries and now I will tell you who He is.” https://www.compellingtruth.org/what-is-the-Logos.html John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”

bornagain77

Yes, but your long posts derail discussions others are having, and I seriously doubt anyone is reading them so your repetition is not effective. Viola Lee

The Rules of Life - Rule Four – "The lesson is repeated until learned,,"

The Rules Of Life Category - people Rule One – You will receive a body.,,, Rule Two – You will be presented with lessons.,,, Rule Three – There are no mistakes, only lessons.,,, Rule Four – The lesson is repeated until learned.,,, https://www.gettheedgeuk.co.uk/the-rules-of-life/

bornagain77

Nothing like a few thousands recycled words from BA in the morning to keep a discussion on track! :-) Viola Lee

And since Newton also held to the orthodox Christian belief that man is made in the image of God,,,

Priest of Nature – the religious worlds of Isaac Newton – R. Iliffe (Princeton University Press, 2017) Excerpt page 5: “The analogy between the human and the divine would remain at the heart of Newtons theological metaphysics. In the essay on God, space, and time that he penned in the early 1690s, the analogy between man and God played a key role. Was it not most agreeable to reason, he asked, that Gods creatures shared his attributes as far as possible as fruit the nature of the tree, and an image the likeness of a man, and by sharing tend towards perfection? Similarly, was it not reasonable to believe that God could be discerned in the more perfect creatures as in a mirror? Such a view also enabled humans to understand the being and attributes of the divine.” https://www.yoono.org/download/prinat.pdf

,,, and since Newton also held to the orthodox Christian belief that man is made 'in the image of God', (and since he explicitly rejected the mechanical and/or necessitarian philosophy), then I hold that Newton would be very pleased, if he were around today, to see the recent closing of the “freedom of choice” loophole within quantum mechanics.

Cosmic Bell Test Using Random Measurement Settings from High-Redshift Quasars – Anton Zeilinger – 14 June 2018 Abstract excerpt: This experiment pushes back to at least approx. 7.8 Gyr ago the most recent time by which any local-realist influences could have exploited the “freedom-of-choice” loophole to engineer the observed Bell violation, excluding any such mechanism from 96% of the space-time volume of the past light cone of our experiment, extending from the big bang to today. https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.080403

Moreover, when we rightly allow the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics, (as the Christian founders of modern science originally envisioned, Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, and Max Planck, to name a few of the Christian founders,,,, and as quantum mechanics itself now empirically demands with the closing of the “freedom-of-choice” loophole by Anton Zeilinger and company), then rightly allowing the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics provides us with a very plausible resolution for the much sought after ‘theory of everything’ in that Christ’s resurrection from the dead bridges the infinite mathematical divide that exists between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics and provides us with an empirically backed reconciliation, via the Shroud of Turin, between Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity into the much sought after ‘Theory of Everything”

December 2021 – When scrutinizing some of the many fascinating details of the Shroud of Turin, we find that both General Relativity, i.e. gravity, and Quantum Mechanics were both dealt with in Christ’s resurrection from the dead. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/in-time-for-american-thanksgiving-stephen-meyer-on-the-frailty-of-scientific-atheism/#comment-741600 The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead as the correct “Theory of Everything” – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vpn2Vu8–eE

Verses:

Matthew 26:39 And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.” Colossians 1:15-20 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

bornagain77

In fact, via Gregory Chaitin's extension of Godel's incompleteness, we now know that “an infinite number of true mathematical theorems exist that cannot be proved from any finite system of axioms.”

The Limits Of Reason – Gregory Chaitin – 2006 Excerpt: Unlike Gödel’s approach, mine is based on measuring information and showing that some mathematical facts cannot be compressed into a theory because they are too complicated. This new approach suggests that what Gödel discovered was just the tip of the iceberg: an infinite number of true mathematical theorems exist that cannot be proved from any finite system of axioms. https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/The_Limits_of_Reason_Chaitin_2006.pdf

As should be obvious, this presents an irresolvable dilemma for atheists who hope to construct a single mathematical description of the universe that makes no reference to God. As even the late Steven Weinberg, an atheist, himself honestly admitted, “I don’t think one should underestimate the fix we are in.,,, we can already think of mathematically consistent laws that don’t describe the world as we know it. And we will always be left with a question ‘why are the laws nature what they are rather than some other laws?”

“I don’t think one should underestimate the fix we are in. That in the end we will not be able to explain the world. That we will have some set of laws of nature (that) we will not be able to derive them on the grounds simply of mathematical consistency. Because we can already think of mathematically consistent laws that don’t describe the world as we know it. And we will always be left with a question ‘why are the laws nature what they are rather than some other laws?’. And I don’t see any way out of that. The fact that the constants of nature are suitable for life, which is clearly true, we observe,,,” (Weinberg then comments on the multiverse conjecture of atheists) “No one has constructed a theory in which that is true. I mean,, the (multiverse) theory would be speculative, but we don’t even have a theory in which that speculation is mathematically realized. But it is a possibility.” Steven Weinberg – as stated to Richard Dawkins at the 8:15 minute mark of the following video Leonard Susskind – Richard Dawkins and Steven Weinberg – 1 in 10^120 Cosmological Constant points to intelligent design – video https://youtu.be/z4E_bT4ecgk?t=495

The only way out of this dilemma is, as Bruce Gordon explains, (and as was previously mentioned), “a mind that can choose among the infinite variety of mathematical descriptions and bring into existence a reality that corresponds to a consistent subset of them. This is what “breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe.” And it is not as if we do not already have very good reasons to believe that the infinite Mind of God must be behind ‘choosing’ among the infinite variety of mathematical descriptions and bringing into existence a reality that corresponds to a consistent subset of them.” We already know that 'free will' is involved in human mathematicians themselves creating new mathematical axioms. As David Robertson has shown, the “famous “Turing test” for artificial intelligence could be defeated by simply asking for a new axiom in mathematics. Human mathematicians are able to create axioms, but a computer program cannot do this without violating information conservation. Creating new axioms and free will are shown to be different aspects of the same phenomena: the creation of new information.,,,”

Algorithmic Information Theory, Free Will and the Turing Test – Douglas S. Robertson Excerpt: Chaitin’s Algorithmic Information Theory shows that information is conserved under formal mathematical operations and, equivalently, under computer operations. This conservation law puts a new perspective on many familiar problems related to artificial intelligence. For example, the famous “Turing test” for artificial intelligence could be defeated by simply asking for a new axiom in mathematics. Human mathematicians are able to create axioms, but a computer program cannot do this without violating information conservation. Creating new axioms and free will are shown to be different aspects of the same phenomena: the creation of new information.,,, The basic problem concerning the relation between AIT and free will can be stated succinctly: Since the theorems of mathematics cannot contain more information than is contained in the axioms used to derive those theorems, it follows that no formal operation in mathematics (and equivalently, no operation performed by a computer) can create new information. http://cires.colorado.edu/~doug/philosophy/info8.pdf

Moreover, the free will of God, via the Judeo-Christian presupposition of the contingency of the universe, played an essential role in the founding of modern science. As Stephen Meyer explains contingency was the essential Judeo-Christian presupposition that lay at the founding of modern science “that nature has an order that is built into it. But it is an order that is contingent upon the will of the Creator.”

“That (contingency) was a huge concept (that was important for the founding of modern science). The historians of science call that ‘contingency’. The idea that nature has an order that is built into it. But it is an order that is contingent upon the will of the Creator. It could have been otherwise. Just as there are many ways to make a timepiece, or a clock,,, there are many different ways God could have ordered the universe. And it is up to us not to deduce that order from first principles, or from some intuitions that we have about how nature ought to be, but rather it is important to go out and see how nature actually is.” – Stephen Meyer – 5:00 minute mark – Andrew Klavan and Stephen Meyer Talk God and Science https://idthefuture.com/1530/

And as Sir Isaac Newton himself, (the father of modern physics), stated, ‘Without all doubt this world…could arise from nothing but the perfectly free will of God.... From this fountain (what) we call the laws of nature have flowed,"

‘Without all doubt this world…could arise from nothing but the perfectly free will of God… From this fountain (what) we call the laws of nature have flowed, in which there appear many traces indeed of the most wise contrivance, but not the least shadow of necessity. These therefore we must not seek from uncertain conjectures, but learn them from observations and experiments.”,,, – Sir Isaac Newton – (Cited from Religion and the Rise of Modern Science by Hooykaas page 49). https://thirdspace.org.au/comment/237

Moreover, “Newton’s voluntarism moved him to affirm an intimate relationship between the creator and the creation; his God was acted on the world at all times and in ways that Leibniz and other mechanical philosophers could not conceive of,,”

“Newton’s Rejection of the “Newtonian World View”: The Role of Divine Will in Newton’s Natural Philosophy – (Davis, 1991) Abstract: The significance of Isaac Newton for the history of Christianity and science is undeniable: his professional work culminated the Scientific Revolution that saw the birth of modern science,,, Newton’s voluntarist conception of God had three major consequences for his natural philosophy. First, it led him to reject Descartes’ version of the mechanical philosophy, in which matter was logically equated with extension, in favor of the belief that the properties of matter were freely determined by an omnipresent God, who remained free to move the particles of matter according to God’s will. Second, Newton’s voluntarism moved him to affirm an intimate relationship between the creator and the creation; his God was acted on the world at all times and in ways that Leibniz and other mechanical philosophers could not conceive of, such as causing parts of matter to attract one another at a distance. Finally, Newton held that, since the world is a product of divine freedom rather than necessity, the laws of nature must be inferred from the phenomena of nature, not deduced from metaphysical axioms — as both Descartes and Leibniz were wont to do. http://home.messiah.edu/~tdavis/newton.htm

In other words, not only did Newton hold that God, via his free will, created this universe, but Newton also held that God, via his free will, continually sustains this universe in its existence. (i.e. the universe is 'contingent' on the will of God for its continual existence) bornagain77

JVL: "I guess if God already knew about all those then Christians should believe that mathematics is discovered not invented." JVL, first off it is important to note, although mathematics is indispensable for modern science, that Darwinists themselves have no mathematical model to establish their theory as being a 'hard science'.

Top Ten Questions and Objections to ‘Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics’ – Robert J. Marks II – June 12, 2017 Excerpt: “There exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. Hard sciences are built on foundations of mathematics or definitive simulations. Examples include electromagnetics, Newtonian mechanics, geophysics, relativity, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, optics, and many areas in biology. Those hoping to establish Darwinian evolution as a hard science with a model have either failed or inadvertently cheated. These models contain guidance mechanisms to land the airplane squarely on the target runway despite stochastic wind gusts. Not only can the guiding assistance be specifically identified in each proposed evolution model, its contribution to the success can be measured, in bits, as active information.,,,”,,, “there exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. According to our current understanding, there never will be.,,,” https://evolutionnews.org/2017/06/top-ten-questions-and-objections-to-introduction-to-evolutionary-informatics/ Robert Jackson Marks II is an American electrical engineer. His contributions include the Zhao-Atlas-Marks (ZAM) time-frequency distribution in the field of signal processing,[1] the Cheung–Marks theorem[2] in Shannon sampling theory and the Papoulis-Marks-Cheung (PMC) approach in multidimensional sampling.[3] He was instrumental in the defining of the field of computational intelligence and co-edited the first book using computational intelligence in the title.[4][5] – per wikipedia

Secondly, with their reductive materialistic framework, Darwinists also have no realistic clue why 'immaterial' mathematics should even exist, (much less do they have any realistic clue why 'immaterial' mathematics, which are indispensable for modern science, should be applicable to the universe).

What Does It Mean to Say That Science & Religion Conflict? - M. Anthony Mills - April 16, 2018 Excerpt: In fact, more problematic for the materialist than the non-existence of persons is the existence of mathematics. Why? Although a committed materialist might be perfectly willing to accept that you do not really exist, he will have a harder time accepting that numbers do not exist. The trouble is that numbers — along with other mathematical entities such as classes, sets, and functions — are indispensable for modern science. And yet — here’s the rub — these “abstract objects” are not material. Thus, one cannot take science as the only sure guide to reality and at the same time discount disbelief in all immaterial realities. https://www.realclearreligion.org/articles/2018/04/16/what_does_it_mean_to_say_that_science_and_religion_conflict.html

Thus Darwinists, who are wedded to the framework of reductive materialism, (and who claim, (without any evidence mind you), that consciousness and/or the immaterial mind, is 'emergent' from some material basis), are forced to deny the objective reality of this transcendent, 'immaterial', realm of mathematics that our immaterial minds are able to grasp. The predicament that Darwinists find themselves in regards to denying the objective reality of this transcendent, immaterial, world of mathematics, and yet needing validation from this transcendent, immaterial, world of mathematics in order for their theory to even be considered scientific in the first place, should be the very definition of a scientifically self-refuting worldview. But be that as it may, the Christian Theist holds that God, who is omniscient, i.e. infinite in knowledge, already knows all math that can possibly be known, and that God chose, out of that infinitude of mathematical possibilities, "among the infinite variety of mathematical descriptions" and brought "into existence a reality that corresponds to a consistent subset of them. This is what “breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe.”

Bruce Gordon: Hawking’s irrational arguments – October 2010 Excerpt: ,,,The physical universe is causally incomplete and therefore neither self-originating nor self-sustaining. The world of space, time, matter and energy is dependent on a reality that transcends space, time, matter and energy. This transcendent reality cannot merely be a Platonic realm of mathematical descriptions, for such things are causally inert abstract entities that do not affect the material world,,, Rather, the transcendent reality on which our universe depends must be something that can exhibit agency – a mind that can choose among the infinite variety of mathematical descriptions and bring into existence a reality that corresponds to a consistent subset of them. This is what “breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe.” Anything else invokes random miracles as an explanatory principle and spells the end of scientific rationality.,,, Universes do not “spontaneously create” on the basis of abstract mathematical descriptions, nor does the fantasy of a limitless multiverse trump the explanatory power of transcendent intelligent design. What Mr. Hawking’s contrary assertions show is that mathematical savants can sometimes be metaphysical simpletons. Caveat emptor. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/1/hawking-irrational-arguments/

In short, the Christian Theist holds that, via Neoplatonic philosophy and Augustinian theology, that any mathematics that might describe this universe “are God’s thoughts”,

Keep it Simple – Edward Feser – 2020 Excerpt: Mathematics appears to describe a realm of entities with quasi-­divine attributes. The series of natural numbers is infinite. That one and one equal two and two and two equal four could not have been otherwise. Such mathematical truths never begin being true or cease being true; they hold eternally and immutably. The lines, planes, and figures studied by the geometer have a kind of perfection that the objects of our ­experience lack. Mathematical objects seem immaterial and known by pure reason rather than through the senses. Given the centrality of mathematics to scientific explanation, it seems in some way to be a cause of the natural world and its order. How can the mathematical realm be so apparently godlike? The traditional answer, originating in Neoplatonic philosophy and Augustinian theology, is that our knowledge of the mathematical realm is precisely knowledge, albeit inchoate, of the divine mind. Mathematical truths exhibit infinity, necessity, eternity, immutability, perfection, and immateriality because they are God’s thoughts, and they have such explanatory power in scientific theorizing because they are part of the blueprint implemented by God in creating the world. For some thinkers in this tradition, mathematics thus provides the starting point for an argument for the existence of God qua supreme intellect. https://www.firstthings.com/article/2020/04/keep-it-simple (Also see Einstein and Wigner on the 'miraculous' applicability of mathematics to the universe)

Although Darwinian materialists, and/or Darwinian atheists, have no clue why 'immaterial' mathematics should even exist, much less why it should be 'miraculously' applicable to the universe, (and/or how the supposedly purely material mind of man is even capable of grasping this immaterial realm of mathematics), many atheists will claim, (with their philosophical feet planted firmly in mid-air), that mathematics exists completely independent of God's Mind in some 'platonic realm'. Which is to say that many atheists hold that they don't need God in order to explain the existence of mathematics, and that mathematics has a 'necessary' existence, not a 'contingent' existence that is dependent on the Mind of God. Yet Godel falsified that 'Platonic', i.e. 'necessary existence', belief that atheists have for mathematics. Godel’s incompleteness theorems proves that mathematics has a ‘contingent’, i.e. dependent, existence, and that it does not have a ‘necessary’, i.e. self sufficient, existence as is erroneously presupposed by most contemporary theoretical physicists today. As the following article states, "Kurt Gödel had dropped a bomb on the foundations of mathematics. Math could not play the role of God as infinite and autonomous."

Taking God Out of the Equation - Biblical Worldview - by Ron Tagliapietra - January 1, 2012 Excerpt: Kurt Gödel (1906–1978) proved that no logical systems (if they include the counting numbers) can have all three of the following properties. 1. Validity ... all conclusions are reached by valid reasoning. 2. Consistency ... no conclusions contradict any other conclusions. 3. Completeness ... all statements made in the system are either true or false. The details filled a book, but the basic concept was simple and elegant. He (Godel) summed it up this way: “Anything you can draw a circle around cannot explain itself without referring to something outside the circle—something you have to assume but cannot prove.” For this reason, his proof is also called the Incompleteness Theorem. Kurt Gödel had dropped a bomb on the foundations of mathematics. Math could not play the role of God as infinite and autonomous. It was shocking, though, that logic could prove that mathematics could not be its own ultimate foundation. Christians should not have been surprised. The first two conditions are true about math: it is valid and consistent. But only God fulfills the third condition. Only He is complete and therefore self-dependent (autonomous). God alone is “all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28), “the beginning and the end” (Revelation 22:13). God is the ultimate authority (Hebrews 6:13), and in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge (Colossians 2:3). http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v7/n1/equation# “There is a hole at the bottom of math” (Godel’s incompleteness theorems) This is Math’s Fatal Flaw – 2021 video – 27:16 minute mark https://youtu.be/HeQX2HjkcNo?t=1636

And as David Goldman put it, ‘we cannot construct an ontology that makes God dispensable,,, Mathematics never will create the sort of closed system that sorts reality into neat boxes.”

THE GOD OF THE MATHEMATICIANS – DAVID P. GOLDMAN – August 2010 The religious beliefs that guided Kurt Gödel’s revolutionary ideas Excerpt: we cannot construct an ontology that makes God dispensable. Secularists can dismiss this as a mere exercise within predefined rules of the game of mathematical logic, but that is sour grapes, for it was the secular side that hoped to substitute logic for God in the first place. Gödel’s critique of the continuum hypothesis has the same implication as his incompleteness theorems: Mathematics never will create the sort of closed system that sorts reality into neat boxes. http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/08/the-god-of-the-mathematicians

bornagain77

Q: Of course I know the role played by the sqrt(1 - v^2/c^2) factor in the equations. Don't know what point you were trying to make when you wrote, "Great! So then you know where gamma is involved in Einstein’s famous equation. " As I wrote above, "I know how to derive them from the results of the Michelson-Morley experiments." I once worked with a student in the gifted program who was interested in relativity work through the derivation of the equations and understand both the setup and the algebra. Viola Lee

Thanks for the second opinion about Cherenkov radiation, BA. I assume relatd understands now. Viola Lee

Does Cherenkov radiation disprove Einstein principle and Maxwell equation? How can electricity travel faster than the speed of light? Q: Does Cherenkov radiation disprove Einstein principle and Maxwell equation? How can electricity travel faster than the speed of light? Of course not. Cherenkov radiation occurs when a charged particle moves through a medium at a speed greater than the phase velocity of light in that medium. That is always a lower speed than the speed of light in a vacuum. So nothing in the theories of Einstein or Maxwell is violated - Gary Novosielski - retired Physics teacher https://qr.ae/pvjGOK --- https://www.quora.com/Cherenkov-radiation-is-supposedly-faster-than-light-But-didnt-Einstein-say-nothing-can-travel-faster-than-light

bornagain77

Note: Bremsstrahlung (braking radiation) prevents electrons from travelling faster than the speed of light in a particular medium while undergoing acceleration (typically, deflection around a proton-heavy nucleus). Viola Lee wrote:

I know about the Lorentz transformations.

Great! So then you know where gamma is involved in Einstein's famous equation. Here's a thought experiment. Take a massive object travelling at a relativistic velocity into and out of a gravitational energy well. As it speeds up it gains some mass and as it slows down it loses some mass. When it slows down and loses mass, would you say that the extra mass is radiated as energy? Relatd, The only way something--a galaxy in this case--can actually travel APPARENTLY faster than the speed of light in a vacuum is actually due to cosmic expansion and not due to relative motion. At least this is what's being measured by the increasing red shift of distant galaxies. Regarding Cherenkov radiation, here's an explanation that might be helpful (note the words, "in a medium"). https://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-bremsstrahlung-and-cherenkov-radiation/ -Q Querius

Here's a better explanation of Cherenkov radiation

Cherenkov radiation Alternate titles: Cherenkov light By The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Edit History Cherenkov radiation emitted by the core of the Reed Research Reactor located at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, U.S. Cherenkov radiation Cherenkov radiation, light produced by charged particles when they pass through an optically transparent medium at speeds greater than the speed of light in that medium. Devices sensitive to this particular form of radiation, called Cherenkov detectors, have been used extensively to detect the presence of charged subatomic particles moving at high velocities. Cherenkov radiation, when it is intense, appears as a weak bluish white glow in the pools of water shielding some nuclear reactors. The Cherenkov radiation in cases such as this is caused by electrons from the reactor traveling at speeds greater than the speed of light in water, which is 75 percent of the speed of light in a vacuum. The energetic charged particle traveling through the medium displaces electrons in some of the atoms along its path. The electromagnetic radiation that is emitted by the displaced atomic electrons combines to form a strong electromagnetic wave analogous to the bow wave caused by a power boat traveling faster than the speed of water waves or to the shock wave (sonic boom) produced by an airplane traveling faster than the speed of sound in air. The phenomenon was discovered by the Soviet physicist Pavel A. Cherenkov in 1934 and was explained by Ilya M. Frank and Igor Y. Tamm in 1937.

[My emphasis.] Viola Lee

Viola Lee to Sev at 28: a difficult question for theologians! ?

How would you know since you are not theologian? :) Sandy

Relatd: But forget that, we now know particles can travel faster than the speed of light.

Do you have a reference for any particle travelling faster than 299,792,458 m/s? Sir Giles

to Sev at 28: a difficult question for theologians! :-) Viola Lee

Thanks, relatd: You write, "Einstein’s equation was a straight, linear progression." What equation are you talking about? Can you explain more? Here a couple of links that will help you understand better: (Oddly enough, these are insecure sites, so you may have to cut and paste the url in. ) Does Cerenkov radiation travel faster than light? (Intermediate) curious.astro.cornell.edu/about-us/142-physics/the-theory-of-relativity/the-speed-of-light/1038-does-cerenkov-radiation-travel-faster-than-light-intermediate”t/1038-does-cerenkov-radiation-travel-faster-than-light-intermediate Has there been an experiment that measured speed faster than the speed of light in vacuum? (Advanced) curious.astro.cornell.edu/about-us/133-physics/general-physics/general-questions/801-has-there-been-an-experiment-that-measured-speed-faster-than-the-speed-of-light-in-vacuum-advanced The basic fact is this, from the second article: “When we say that no particle can travel faster than the speed of light, what we mean is that a particle with finite rest mass cannot cross the speed of light limit; in other words, it cannot speed up to faster than speed of light starting from a speed less than the speed of light.” Also, it is important to note that light travels slower in various media. That is why a stick looks crooked when you stick it part way in water. Light follows the principle of least time, so it actually takes a long, bent path to get to your eye to compensate for travelling slower in water. I used to teach this in calculus class as an important application of finding the minimum of a function. Viola Lee

Ba77 at 25, When Einstein was formulating his theories, he lacked knowledge about certain things. I propose that the speed of light barrier is false. Einstein's equation was a straight, linear progression. And of course, it ended at a very high, "impossible" number. Example: "Cosmic rays, which are ultra-high energy particles originating from all over the Universe, strike... [+] The fast-moving charged particles also emit light due to Cherenkov radiation as they move faster than the speed of light in Earth's atmosphere, and produce secondary particles that can be detected here on Earth." If Einstein knew this when he was formulating his theories, what would he have done? But forget that, we now know particles can travel faster than the speed of light. relatd

Viola Lee/27

JVL, Christians do believe math is discovered not invented. And yes, Christians would believe God would know all those numbers. That is pretty orthodox theological philosophy of math.

Does the theological philosophy of math hold that God discovered math or that he invented it? Seversky

JVL, Christians do believe math is discovered not invented. And yes, Christians would believe God would know all those numbers. That is pretty orthodox theological philosophy of math. Viola Lee

Bornagain77: And yet the Higg’s field itself, by which particles receive their mass, (and apparently to the consternation of Atheistic Naturalists) Really. It's a wonder not one of them has decided to become a Christian then isn't it? “Every number is defined by its own character so that no number is equal to any other. They are unequal to one another and are different, and the individual numbers are finite, but as a class they are infinite. Does that mean that God does not know all numbers, because of their infinity? Does God’s knowledge extend as far as a certain sum, and end there? No one could be insane enough to say that. Now those philosophers who revere the authority of Plato will not despise numbers and say that they are irreverent to God’s knowledge, For Plato emphasizes that God constructed the world by use of numbers, while we have the authority of Scripture, where God is thus addressed, “You have set all things in order all things by number, measure, and weight.” And the prophet says of God, “He produces the world according to number’. And the Savior says in the Gospel, “Your hairs are all numbered”. Never let us doubt then that every number is known to him “whose understanding cannot be numbered”. Although the infinite series of numbers cannot be numbered, this infinity of numbers is not outside the comprehension of him “whose understanding cannot be numbered”.” What does that mean: every number is known to him? Are we talking every single real number? Every single rational number? Every single irrational number? Every single transfinite number? Every single hyper-real number? Every single complex number? Every single cardinal number? Every single ordinal number? There are a lot of different kinds of numbers. I guess if God already knew about all those then Christians should believe that mathematics is discovered not invented. JVL

Of note to 'mass', (which prevents atomic particles from ever reaching the speed of light),,,

39:00 minute mark: “Mass turns out not to be an intrinsic property of matter either” (mass is a phenomenological artifact of field interactions, i.e. specifically ‘otherwise massless particles’ interacting with the Higg’s field) – Bruce Gordon: – The Incompatibility of Physicalism with Physics: A Conversation with Dr. Bruce Gordon https://youtu.be/wk-UO81HmO4?t=2344 Focus: Nobel Prize—Why Particles Have Mass - October 11, 2013 Excerpt: Subsequent work showed that the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism (or “Higgs mechanism,” for short) could give mass not only to weak particles, but also to electrons, quarks, and other fundamental particles. The more strongly a particle interacts with the Higgs field, the more massive it is. https://physics.aps.org/articles/v6/111

And yet the Higg's field itself, by which particles receive their mass, (and apparently to the consternation of Atheistic Naturalists), provides evidence for Intelligent Design in that the Higg's field is found to be finely tuned. i.e. "Why the strength of the Higgs field is so ridiculously weak defies understanding",,, "This is an unacceptable prediction of the theory because if this had happened we wouldn't be around to discuss it"

The 2 most dangerous numbers in the universe are threatening the end of physics - Jan. 14, 2016 Excerpt: Dangerous No. 1: The strength of the Higgs field,,, there's something mysterious about the Higgs field that continues to perturb physicists like Cliff. According to Einstein's theory of general relativity and the theory of quantum mechanics — the two theories in physics that drive our understanding of the cosmos on incredibly large and extremely small scales — the Higgs field should be performing one of two tasks, says Cliff. Either it should be turned off, meaning it would have a strength value of zero and wouldn't be working to give particles mass, or it should be turned on, and, as the theory goes, this "on value" is "absolutely enormous," Cliff says. But neither of those two scenarios are what physicists observe. "In reality, the Higgs field is just slightly on," says Cliff. "It's not zero, but it's ten-thousand-trillion times weaker than it's fully on value — a bit like a light switch that got stuck just before the 'off' position. And this value is crucial. If it were a tiny bit different, then there would be no physical structure in the universe." Why the strength of the Higgs field is so ridiculously weak defies understanding.,,, http://finance.yahoo.com/news/two-most-dangerous-numbers-universe-194557366.html Should the Higgs boson have caused our Universe to collapse? Excerpt: Our Universe lies in a ‘valley’, which sets the behaviour of the Higgs boson. A deeper valley also exists, but our Universe is prevented from entering it by a large ‘hill’. During the early period of cosmic inflation, the BICEP2 results imply that the Universe would have received a ‘kick’ into the other valley, causing it to collapse in less than a second.,,, Measurements of the Higgs boson have allowed particle physicists to show that our universe sits in a valley of the 'Higgs field', which describes the way that other particles have mass. However, there is a different valley which is much deeper, but our universe is preventing from falling into it by a large energy barrier. The problem is that the BICEP2 results predict that the universe would have received large 'kicks' during the cosmic inflation phase, pushing it into the other valley of the Higgs field within a fraction of a second. If that had happened, the universe would have quickly collapsed in a Big Crunch. "This is an unacceptable prediction of the theory because if this had happened we wouldn't be around to discuss it" said Hogan, who is a PhD student at KCL and led the study. http://phys.org/news/2014-06-higgs-boson-universe-collapse.html

Verse:

Wisdom 11:20 - (NIV) ,,, But you have set all things in right order by proportion: by measure, by number, and by weight.

Supplemental note:

“Every number is defined by its own character so that no number is equal to any other. They are unequal to one another and are different, and the individual numbers are finite, but as a class they are infinite. Does that mean that God does not know all numbers, because of their infinity? Does God’s knowledge extend as far as a certain sum, and end there? No one could be insane enough to say that. Now those philosophers who revere the authority of Plato will not despise numbers and say that they are irreverent to God’s knowledge, For Plato emphasizes that God constructed the world by use of numbers, while we have the authority of Scripture, where God is thus addressed, “You have set all things in order all things by number, measure, and weight.” And the prophet says of God, “He produces the world according to number’. And the Savior says in the Gospel, “Your hairs are all numbered”. Never let us doubt then that every number is known to him “whose understanding cannot be numbered”. Although the infinite series of numbers cannot be numbered, this infinity of numbers is not outside the comprehension of him “whose understanding cannot be numbered”.” – St. Augustine – “City of God” – 12th Book, 19th Chapter – Infinity: Aristotle, St. Augustine, Cantor, Gödel – video – 31:29 minute mark https://youtu.be/SMt2VtjMfrU?t=1889 St. Augustine on the infinite Mind of God surpassing mathematical infinity (and the insight of Godel's incompleteness) Sept. 2022 - https://uncommondescent.com/cosmology/from-iai-news-how-infinity-threatens-cosmology/#comment-765873

bornagain77

While we are on the subject of the speed of light, (and/or the inability of objects with mass to reach the speed of light, i.e. the "Cosmic Speed Limit"), here is something that makes you go "wow, that's cool"...

Researchers develop way to control speed of light, send it backward - April 4, 2019 Excerpt: Previous attempts at controlling the speed of light have included passing light through various materials to adjust its speed. The new technique, however, allows the speed to be adjusted for the first time in the open, without using any pass-through material to speed it up or slow it down. "This is the first clear demonstration of controlling the speed of a pulse light in free space,",,, Abouraddy and study co-author Esat Kondakci demonstrated they could speed a pulse of light up to 30 times the speed of light, slow it down to half the speed of light, and also make the pulse travel backward. The researchers were able to develop the technique by using a special device known as a spatial light modulator to mix the space and time properties of light, thereby allowing them to control the velocity of the pulse of light. The mixing of the two properties was key to the technique's success. "We're able to control the speed of the pulse by going into the pulse itself and reorganizing its energy such that its space and time degrees of freedom are mixed in with each other," Abouraddy said. https://phys.org/news/2019-04-researchers-develop-way-to-control.html Optical space-time wave packets having arbitrary group velocities in free space - 2019 H. Esat Kondakci & Ayman F. Abouraddy Abstract Controlling the group velocity of an optical pulse typically requires traversing a material or structure whose dispersion is judiciously crafted. Alternatively, the group velocity can be modified in free space by spatially structuring the beam profile, but the realizable deviation from the speed of light in vacuum is small. Here we demonstrate precise and versatile control over the group velocity of a propagation-invariant optical wave packet in free space through sculpting its spatio-temporal spectrum. By jointly modulating the spatial and temporal degrees of freedom, arbitrary group velocities are unambiguously observed in free space above or below the speed of light in vacuum, whether in the forward direction propagating away from the source or even traveling backwards towards it. Introduction The publication of Einstein’s seminal work on special relativity initiated an investigation of the speed of light in materials featuring strong chromatic dispersion1. Indeed, the group velocity vg of an optical pulse in a resonant dispersive medium can deviate significantly from the speed of light in vacuum c, without posing a challenge to relativistic causality when vg?>?c because the information speed never exceeds c1,2.,,, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-08735-8

bornagain77

Relatd: I don’t agree with any of that. You have the right to be completely wrong if you wish. But it doesn't mean anyone will take you seriously. Just sayin'. JVL

Relatd: As a spacecraft reaches 90% of the speed of light, it begins to turn into energy. E=MC2. What? Are you serious? No one, except you, ever said that. That's not how to interpret that equation. You can't even interpret a simple equation correctly!! Incredible. JVL

Q, I know about the Lorentz transformations. I know how to derive them from the results of the Michelson-Morley experiments. I quote the formula for mass in my above quote from an article on relativistic mass. I think Sev is talking about how mass increases as velocity increases according to the Lorentz transforms. As velocity increases so does mass, and since the effect of energy on velocity is proportional to mass, the faster something goes the harder it is is to add enough energy to continue to increase its velocity That is why the Britannica article says, "In fact, as the spacecraft’s speed approaches that of light, the mass m approaches infinity. However, as the object’s mass increases, so does the energy required to keep accelerating it; thus, it would take infinite energy to accelerate a material body to the speed of light. For this reason, no material object can reach the speed of light, which is the speed limit for the universe" Do you agree with what I wrote and what the Britannica article says? Viola Lee

Viola Lee, No, I don't do "homework assignments" for you anymore. Check out something called "the Lorentz factor" involved in relativistic mass. -Q Querius

I don't think relatd understands a number of things correctly. First, let me quote Britannica, from the first part of here.

Relativistic mass Cosmic speed limit To derive further results, Einstein combined his redefinitions of time and space with two powerful physical principles: conservation of energy and conservation of mass, which state that the total amount of each remains constant in a closed system. Einstein’s second postulate ensured that these laws remained valid for all observers in the new theory, and he used them to derive the relativistic meanings of mass and energy. One result is that the mass of a body increases with its speed. An observer on a moving body, such as a spacecraft, measures its so-called rest mass m0, while a fixed observer measures its mass m as “rest mass/sqrt(1 - v^2/c^2), which is greater than m0. In fact, as the spacecraft’s speed approaches that of light, the mass m approaches infinity. However, as the object’s mass increases, so does the energy required to keep accelerating it; thus, it would take infinite energy to accelerate a material body to the speed of light. For this reason, no material object can reach the speed of light, which is the speed limit for the universe. (Light itself can attain this speed because the rest mass of a photon, the quantum particle of light, is zero.) Einstein’s treatment of mass showed that the increased relativistic mass comes from the energy of motion of the body—that is, its kinetic energy E—divided by c^2. This is the origin of the famous equation E = mc2, which expresses the fact that mass and energy are the same physical entity and can be changed into each other.

Now some specifics: 1. Related writes, “As a spacecraft reaches 90% of the speed of light, it begins to turn into energy. E=MC2. If matter can be interpreted as traveling at the speed of light squared, which cannot be shown to be true. The speed of light is given as 186,000 miles per second. Double that and it becomes 372,000 miles per second.” a) This paragraph makes little sense. Matter can’t be “interpreted as traveling at the speed of light squared,” nor can the speed of light be doubled: nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. As the Britannica article points out, as speed increase mass increases. Nothing special happens at 90% the speed of light: every increase in the speed increases the mass. Sev explains all this correctly. 2. The second quote of relatd’s about the phase transition at 90% the speed of light does sound like science fiction. For instance, related writes, “Once past the speed of light ...” But nothing can go faster than the speed of light. Relatd, do you have a source for your understandings about all this. And Q: you write

Seversky @16,

By the equivalence of mass and energy, when energy is added to an object, it’s mass is also increased. As the mass of an object increases it takes ever more energy to make it go faster.

No, that’s completely wrong. Check into something called “relativistic mass.”

I just posted an article on relativistic mass that I think says what Sev is saying. Can you explain what is “completely wrong” about that, and perhaps explain what you think is right? Viola Lee

Seversky @16,

By the equivalence of mass and energy, when energy is added to an object, it’s mass is also increased. As the mass of an object increases it takes ever more energy to make it go faster.

No, that's completely wrong. Check into something called "relativistic mass." -Q Querius

I don't agree with any of that. relatd

Relatd/14

As a spacecraft reaches 90% of the speed of light, it begins to turn into energy. E=MC2. If matter can be interpreted as traveling at the speed of light squared, which cannot be shown to be true. The speed of light is given as 186,000 miles per second. Double that and it becomes 372,000 miles per second.

If an object in space is accelerated then energy is added to it. A moving object has more energy by virtue of its motion than a stationary object. By the equivalence of mass and energy, when energy is added to an object, it's mass is also increased. As the mass of an object increases it takes ever more energy to make it go faster. At the speeds we normally experience the effect is negligible but when you approach the speed of light it becomes significant, so much so that at the speed of light the mass of any physical object would become infinite and would require an infinite amount of energy to accelerate it any further. There isn't enough energy in the whole Universe to do that. The other effect is the dilation of time that occurs at relativistic speeds. Time would be observed by us to pass slower for an object travelling that fast. In effect, it would live longer. All the above effects have been observed in particle accelerators.

As the spacecraft reaches 90% of the speed of light, it experiences a phase transition. Like photons which can be waves or particles, it enters a phase transition. It would register not as solid matter but as a wave. However, the crew would experience nothing while in the wave state. They would look out a window and see the light from the stars begin to smear, as if the points of light now had tails. Once past the speed of light, the stars would turn into lines of varying lengths. The spacecraft is now traveling in a condition where further acceleration would pose no problems. It has transformed not from matter to energy but to a state I will call phase-shifted. Further, it has now entangled itself to its destination via the intentionality of those on board. Like a photon, it has particle and wave characteristics.

That sounds more like Star Trek physics than the real world version. That said, there is nothing wrong with speculation provided you don't give it more credence than could be justified by the evidence. Seversky

PyrrhoManiac1 @6,

The second sentence is a sheer non sequitur from the first. If we could experience the universe at the speed of light, we would not experience time as we currently do — but that does not mean that we would experience all events as simultaneous. The speed of light still takes place within time — that’s the very point of “light-year” as a measure of distance.

As an object travels at relativistic speeds, time slows for that object relative to an observer according to the formula, T = T0/sqrt (1- (v^2/c^2)). As v (velocity) approaches c (the speed of light), v^2/c^2 approaches 1 and the denominator approaches infinity, thus T approaches infinity and we'd infer that time nearly stops from the object's frame of reference. I suppose one could argue that everything else would then seems to speed up, but funny things happen when one tries to divide by zero, so most physicists will refuse to go there. Of course, the speedy object would also be squashed flat according to a similar equation and the handy limerick: There once was a man named Fisk, Whose fencing was exceedingly brisk, So fast was his action that the Lorenz-FitzGerald contraction Reduced his rapier to a disk. -Q Querius

Ba77 at 11, As a spacecraft reaches 90% of the speed of light, it begins to turn into energy. E=MC2. If matter can be interpreted as traveling at the speed of light squared, which cannot be shown to be true. The speed of light is given as 186,000 miles per second. Double that and it becomes 372,000 miles per second. The fastest spacecraft speed is 364,660 mph, which becomes 6,077.66 mpm, which becomes 101.294 miles per second. Since a spacecraft traveling near the speed of light would begin to experience friction from hydrogen atoms and should not get hit by particles the size of a grain of sand or larger, it would require a force field. Allow me to present a proposal: As the spacecraft reaches 90% of the speed of light, it experiences a phase transition. Like photons which can be waves or particles, it enters a phase transition. It would register not as solid matter but as a wave. However, the crew would experience nothing while in the wave state. They would look out a window and see the light from the stars begin to smear, as if the points of light now had tails. Once past the speed of light, the stars would turn into lines of varying lengths. The spacecraft is now traveling in a condition where further acceleration would pose no problems. It has transformed not from matter to energy but to a state I will call phase-shifted. Further, it has now entangled itself to its destination via the intentionality of those on board. Like a photon, it has particle and wave characteristics. relatd

Ba77 at 10, Time passes for light. It takes 8 and a third minutes for the light from the sun to reach us. Photons have wave and particle characteristics. relatd

In the following video, Barbara Springer gives her testimony as to what it felt like for her to go through the tunnel towards ‘the light’:

“I started to move toward the light. The way I moved, the physics, was completely different than it is here on Earth. It was something I had never felt before and never felt since. It was a whole different sensation of motion. I obviously wasn’t walking or skipping or crawling. I was not floating. I was flowing. I was flowing toward the light. I was accelerating and I knew I was accelerating, but then again, I didn’t really feel the acceleration. I just knew I was accelerating toward the light. Again, the physics was different – the physics of motion of time, space, travel. It was completely different in that tunnel, than it is here on Earth. I came out into the light and when I came out into the light, I realized that I was in heaven.” – Barbara Springer – (7:40 minute mark) Near-Death Experience Documentary: “Shadows: Perceptions of Near-Death Experiencers” https://youtu.be/HR0x57aMv-k?t=460

And in the following audio clip, Vicki Noratuk, who has been blind from birth, (besides being able to ‘miraculously” see for the very first time in her life during her Near Death Experience), Vicki also gives testimony of going through a tunnel at a ‘horrifically’ rapid rate of speed:

“I was in a body, and the only way that I can describe it was a body of energy, or of light. And this body had a form. It had a head, it had arms and it had legs. And it was like it was made out of light. And it was everything that was me. All of my memories, my consciousness, everything.”,,, “And then this vehicle formed itself around me. Vehicle is the only thing, or tube, or something, but it was a mode of transportation that’s for sure! And it formed around me. And there was no one in it with me. I was in it alone. But I knew there were other people ahead of me and behind me. What they were doing I don’t know, but there were people ahead of me and people behind me, but I was alone in my particular conveyance. And I could see out of it. And it went at a tremendously, horrifically, rapid rate of speed. But it wasn’t unpleasant. It was beautiful in fact.,, I was reclining in this thing, I wasn’t sitting straight up, but I wasn’t lying down either. I was sitting back. And it was just so fast. I can’t even begin to tell you where it went or whatever it was just fast!” – Vicki’s NDE – Blind since birth – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e65KhcCS5-Y

And in the following quotes, the two Near Death Experiencers both testify that they firmly believe that they were in a higher heavenly dimension that is above this three-dimensional world, and that the reason that they have a very difficult time describing what their Near Death Experiences actually felt like is because we simply don’t currently have the words to properly describe that higher dimension:

“Regardless, it is impossible for me to adequately describe what I saw and felt. When I try to recount my experiences now, the description feels very pale. I feel as though I’m trying to describe a three-dimensional experience while living in a two-dimensional world. The appropriate words, descriptions and concepts don’t even exist in our current language. I have subsequently read the accounts of other people’s near-death experiences and their portrayals of heaven and I able to see the same limitations in their descriptions and vocabulary that I see in my own.” – Mary C. Neal, MD – “To Heaven And Back” pg. 71 “Well, when I was taking geometry, they always told me there were only three dimensions, and I always just accepted that. But they were wrong. There are more… And that is why so hard for me to tell you this. I have to describe with words that are three-dimensional. That’s as close as I can get to it, but it’s really not adequate.” – John Burke – “Imagine Heaven” pg. 51 – quoting a Near Death Experiencer

That what we now know to be physically true from special relativity, (namely that it outlines a ‘timeless’, i.e. eternal, ‘dimension of light’ that exists above this temporal dimension), would fit hand and glove with the personal testimonies of people who have had a deep heavenly NDEs is, needless to say, powerful evidence that their testimonies are, in fact, true and reliable and that they are accurately describing the ‘reality’ of a higher heavenly dimension, that they experienced first hand, that physically exists above this temporal dimension. I would even go so far as to say that such corroboration from ‘non-physicists’, who, in all likelihood, know nothing about the details of special relativity, substantially adds to the overall validity of their personal NDE testimonies and thus substantially adds to the Christian’s claim for the reality of a heavenly ‘eternal’ paradise that exists above this temporal realm.

Matthew 6:33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

Thus in conclusion Einstein himself may not have personally believed in life after death, (nor in a personal God), but Special Relativity itself, Einstein's own baby, directly contradicts Einstein and offers stunning confirmation that Near Death Testimonies are accurate ‘physical’ descriptions of what happens after death, of going to a ‘higher timeless/eternal dimension’, i.e. ‘heavenly dimension of light’, that exists above this temporal realm. All in all, and as far as modern science is concerned, I would say the Christian Theist is now sitting very comfortably as far as our most advanced science is concerned, As Michael Strauss stated in the following talk, "When you understand how limiting 3 dimensions of space and time are,, and when you understand relativity and quantum mechanics, the miracles of God become almost trivial",,,

"When you understand how limiting 3 dimensions of space and time are,, and when you understand relativity and quantum mechanics, the miracles of God become almost trivial",,, - Michael Strauss PhD in Particle Physics – Virtual Particles and Special Relativity https://youtu.be/l3kt-DKhlwc?t=96

Of supplemental note as to the 'main miracle' of Christianity, i.e. Jesus's victory over death turns out to be very plausible as the correct solution for the much sought after 'theory of everything'.

Oct. 30, 2022 - Thus in conclusion, and to repeat, when we rightly allow the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics, (as the Christian founders of modern science originally envisioned, Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, and Max Planck, to name a few of the Christian founders,,,, and as quantum mechanics itself now empirically demands with the closing of the ‘freedom of choice’ loophole by Anton Zeilinger and company), then rightly allowing the Agent causality of God ‘back’ into physics provides us with a very plausible resolution for the much sought after ‘theory of everything’ in that Christ’s resurrection from the dead bridges the infinite mathematical divide that exists between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics and provides us with a very plausible, empirically backed, reconciliation, (via the Shroud of Turin), between Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity into the much sought after ‘Theory of Everything”. https://uncommondescent.com/philosophy/at-quanta-magazine-how-godels-proof-works/#comment-768973 December 2021 – When scrutinizing some of the many fascinating details of the Shroud of Turin, we find that both General Relativity, i.e. gravity, and Quantum Mechanics were both dealt with in Christ’s resurrection from the dead. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/in-time-for-american-thanksgiving-stephen-meyer-on-the-frailty-of-scientific-atheism/#comment-741600

Verses:

Matthew 26:39 And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.” Colossians 1:15-20 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

bornagain77

And due, in large part, to Minkowski's work that properly elucidated the 'higher dimensional' framework of special relativity, we can now visualize what happens when a 'hypothetical observer' approaches the speed of light. In the first part of the following video clip, entitled ‘Optical Effects of Special Relativity”, a video which was made by two Australian University Physics Professors, we find that the 3-Dimensional world ‘folds and collapses’ into a tunnel shape as a ‘hypothetical’ observer approaches the ‘higher dimension’ of the ‘four-dimensional continuum’ of the speed of light.

Optical Effects of Special Relativity – video (full relativistic effects shown at 2:40 minute mark) https://youtu.be/JQnHTKZBTI4?t=160

Also please note, as was visualized at the 3:00 minute mark of the preceding video, that all of the light was concentrated into the direction of travel of the observer. This concentration of light in the direction of travel is termed the ‘headlight effect’

Relativistic aberration Relativistic aberration is the relativistic version of aberration of light, including relativistic corrections that become significant for observers who move with velocities close to the speed of light. It is described by Einstein’s special theory of relativity.,,, One consequence of this is that a forward observer should normally be expected to intercept a greater proportion of the object’s light than a rearward one; this concentration of light in the object’s forward direction is referred to as the “searchlight effect” (or headlight effect). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativistic_aberration

Moreover, these higher dimensional 4-D spacetimes that undergird both special relativity and general relativity are also comforting to overall Christian concerns in that they reveal two very different ‘eternities’ to us. One ‘eternity’ is found for a hypothetical observer who is going the speed of light, and another ‘eternity’ is found for a hypothetical observer falling to the event horizon of a black hole.

Time dilation Excerpt: Time dilation: special vs. general theories of relativity: In Albert Einstein’s theories of relativity, time dilation in these two circumstances can be summarized: 1. –In special relativity (or, hypothetically far from all gravitational mass), clocks that are moving with respect to an inertial system of observation are measured to be running slower. (i.e. For any observer accelerating, hypothetically, to the speed of light, time, as we understand it, will come to a complete stop.) 2.–In general relativity, clocks at lower potentials in a gravitational field—such as in closer proximity to a planet—are found to be running slower. (i.e. For any observer falling to the event horizon of a black-hole, time, as we understand it, will come to a complete stop.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation

Again, the finding that time, as we understand it, comes to a complete stop at the speed of light, (and at the event horizon of a black hole), is very friendly to Theistic presuppositions about ‘eternity’ and/or ‘eternal life’. As Dr. Richard Swenson noted in his book “More Than Meets The Eye”, “The laws of relativity have changed timeless existence from a theological claim to a physical reality. Light, you see, is outside of time, a fact of nature proven in thousands of experiments at hundreds of universities. I don’t pretend to know how tomorrow can exist simultaneously with today and yesterday. But at the speed of light they actually and rigorously do. Time does not pass.”

“The laws of relativity have changed timeless existence from a theological claim to a physical reality. Light, you see, is outside of time, a fact of nature proven in thousands of experiments at hundreds of universities. I don’t pretend to know how tomorrow can exist simultaneously with today and yesterday. But at the speed of light they actually and rigorously do. Time does not pass.” – Richard Swenson – More Than Meets The Eye, Chpt. 11

Now that we have outlined the basics of what we know to be physically true from special relativity, (and from General Relativity), It is very interesting to note that many of the characteristics found in ‘heavenly’ Near Death Experience testimonies are exactly what we would expect to see from what we now know to be physically true about Special Relativity. But first and foremost, before we get into that comparison, it is important to note that, (although atheists dismiss Near Death testimonies out of hand as not being worthy of consideration), the evidence for the validity of Near Death Experiences turns out to be far more robust and trustworthy than the evidence for Darwinian evolution is. As Dr. Michael Egnor noted, “The most “parsimonious” explanation — the simplest scientific explanation — is that the (Near Death) experience was real. Tens of millions of people have had such experiences. That is tens of millions of more times than we have observed the origin of species , (or the origin of life, or the origin of a protein/gene, or of a molecular machine), which is never.,,,”

Near-Death Experiences: Putting a Darwinist’s Evidentiary Standards to the Test – Dr. Michael Egnor – October 15, 2012 Excerpt: Indeed, about 20 percent of NDE’s are corroborated, which means that there are independent ways of checking about the veracity of the experience. The patients knew of things that they could not have known except by extraordinary perception — such as describing details of surgery that they watched while their heart was stopped, etc. Additionally, many NDE’s have a vividness and a sense of intense reality that one does not generally encounter in dreams or hallucinations.,,, The most “parsimonious” explanation — the simplest scientific explanation — is that the (Near Death) experience was real. Tens of millions of people have had such experiences. That is tens of millions of more times than we have observed the origin of species , (or the origin of life, or the origin of a protein/gene, or of a molecular machine), which is never.,,, The materialist reaction, in short, is unscientific and close-minded. NDE’s show fellows like Coyne at their sneering unscientific irrational worst. Somebody finds a crushed fragment of a fossil and it’s earth-shaking evidence. Tens of million of people have life-changing spiritual experiences and it’s all a big yawn. Note: Dr. Egnor is professor and vice-chairman of neurosurgery at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/10/near_death_expe_1065301.html

In fact, the main debate between ID advocates and Darwinists is over the sheer inability of unguided Darwinian processes to account for the origin of the functional 'immaterial' information that is found to be ubiquitous within biological life. And yet, it is the 'immaterial' nature of this information that is found to be ubiquitous within biological life that provides the Christian Theist with a 'soul', and/or a mechanism if you will, in order to explain how Near Death Experiences are possible.

Nov. 2022 - Personally, I consider these recent findings from quantum mechanics and quantum biology to rival all other scientific discoveries over the past century. Surpassing even the discovery of a beginning of the universe, via Big Bang cosmology, in terms of scientific, theological, and even personal, significance. To repeat, and as Jesus once asked his disciples along with a crowd of followers, “Is anything worth more than your soul?” https://uncommondescent.com/mind/at-evolution-news-does-a-new-scientific-study-offer-evidence-of-life-after-death/#comment-769693 ,,, also see "biophotons"

Now as to how NDEs and special relativity correspond. Many times people who have had a deep Near Death Experience mention that their perception of time was radically altered. In the following video clip, Mickey Robinson gives his Near Death testimony of what it felt like for him to experience a ‘timeless eternity’.

‘In the ‘spirit world,,, instantly, there was no sense of time. See, everything on earth is related to time. You got up this morning, you are going to go to bed tonight. Something is new, it will get old. Something is born, it’s going to die. Everything on the physical plane is relative to time, but everything in the spiritual plane is relative to eternity. Instantly I was in total consciousness and awareness of eternity, and you and I as we live in this earth cannot even comprehend it, because everything that we have here is filled within the veil of the temporal life. In the spirit life that is more real than anything else and it is awesome. Eternity as a concept is awesome. There is no such thing as time. I knew that whatever happened was going to go on and on.’ In The Presence Of Almighty God – The NDE of Mickey Robinson – video (testimony starts at 27:45 minute mark) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voak1RM-pXo

And here are a few more quotes from people who have had deep Near Death Experiences, that speak of how their perception of time was radically altered, i.e. how they experienced ‘eternity’, as they were outside of their material, temporal, body during their NDEs.

‘Earthly time has no meaning in the spirit realm. There is no concept of before or after. Everything – past, present, future – exists simultaneously.’ – Kimberly Clark Sharp – Near Death Experiencer ‘There is no way to tell whether minutes, hours or years go by. Existence is the only reality and it is inseparable from the eternal now.’ – John Star – NDE Experiencer

As well, people who have had deep Near Death Experiences also frequently mention going through a tunnel, towards an extremely brilliant light, to a higher heavenly dimension:

Ask the Experts: What Is a Near-Death Experience (NDE)? – article with video Excerpt: “Very often as they’re moving through the tunnel, there’s a very bright mystical light … not like a light we’re used to in our earthly lives. People call this mystical light, brilliant like a million times a million suns…” – Jeffrey Long M.D. – has studied NDE’s extensively The Tunnel and the Near-Death Experience Excerpt: One of the nine elements that generally occur during NDEs is the tunnel experience. This involves being drawn into darkness through a tunnel, at an extremely high speed, until reaching a realm of radiant golden-white light. https://near-death.com/tunnel/

bornagain77

Einstein's breakthrough insight into special relativity came from a 'thought experiment'. A 'thought experiment' where he imagined he was traveling away from the face of a clock tower at the speed of light. And where, "Einstein looks back at the clock tower and what he sees is astonishing. As he reaches the speed of light, the hands of the clock appear frozen in time"

“In the spring of 1905, Einstein was riding on a bus and he looked back at the famous clock tower that dominates Bern Switzerland. And then he imagined, “What happens if that bus were racing near the speed of light?”, (narrator: “In his imagination, Einstein looks back at the clock tower and what he sees is astonishing. As he reaches the speed of light, the hands of the clock appear frozen in time”), “Einstein would later write, “A storm broke in my mind. All of the sudden everything, everything, kept gushing forward.”, (narrator: “Einstein knows that, back at the clock tower, time is passing normally, but on Einstein’s light speed bus, as he reaches the speed of light, the light from the clock can no longer catch up to him. The faster he races through space, the slower he moves through time. This insight sparks the birth of Einstein’s Special Theory of relativity, which says that space and time are deeply connected. In fact, they are one and the same. A flexible fabric called spacetime.”) – Michio Kaku Einstein: Einstein’s Miracle Year (‘Insight into Eternity’ – Thought Experiment – 6:29 minute mark) – video https://youtu.be/QQ35opgrhNA?t=389

And, of course, without the passage of time if we were traveling the speed of light, then that means that our travel from point A to point B in this universe, no matter how many light-years we traveled in this universe, would be instantaneous for us. i.e. It is as if no passage of time whatsoever has happened for, say, the photons now hitting our telescopes that were left over from the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation (CMBR) 13.4 billion years ago. That time, as we understand it, comes to a complete stop at the speed of light, and yet light moves from point A to point B in our universe, and thus light is thus obviously not ‘frozen within time’, has some fairly profound implications. The only way that it is possible for time not to pass for light, and yet for light to move from point A to point B in our universe, is, fairly obviously, if light is of some ‘higher dimensional’ value of time than the temporal time we are currently living in. Otherwise light would simply be ‘frozen within time’ from our temporal frame of reference. Time not passing for light would simply be impossible if light were part and parcel to our temporal 3-Dimensional framework. ,,, And leaving aside the fact that, according to quantum mechanics, we do not really know what a photon is actually doing between emission and absorption,,

"We know what the particle is doing at the source when it is created. We know what it is doing at the detector when it is registered. But we do not know what it is doing in-between." - Anton Zeilinger Prof Anton Zeilinger Shows the Double-slit Experiment – video http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xgt69p_prof-anton-zeilinger-shows-the-double-slit-experiment_tech "The path taken by the photon is not an element of reality. We are not allowed to talk about the photon passing through this or this slit. Neither are we allowed to say the photon passes through both slits. All this kind of language is not applicable." - Anton Zeilinger Quantum Mechanics - Double Slit Experiment. Is anything real? (Prof. Anton Zeilinger) - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayvbKafw2g0

,,, And leaving aside the fact that, according to quantum mechanics, (since the photon, between emission and absorption, is mathematically defined as existing in a 'infinite dimensional' state, and that it, mathematically, takes an infinite amount of information to describe that ''infinite dimensional' state of the photon properly), the photon is best described as being one of 'God's infinite thoughts' between emission and absorption,,,

February 2022 - In essence, the wave function is, basically, mathematically described as being one of “God’s thoughts’ prior to its collapse to its finite state. Which is rather stunning confirmation of the Christian’s contention, (via Neoplatonic philosophy and Augustinian theology), that the (higher dimensional) mathematics that are found to describe this universe really are “God’s thoughts”. Just as was originally held by the Christian founders of modern science. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/at-mind-matters-news-why-would-a-purely-physical-universe-need-imaginary-numbers/#comment-747131

,,, Leaving all those 'minor details' aside, although it is intuitively obvious that light must exist some 'higher dimensional' framework in order for time to not pass for light, Einstein was not the first person who figured out the 'higher 4-dimensional' framework that light must exist in. It was Hermann Minkowski, (Einstein's math professor), building off the work of Bernhard Riemann, (who was a devout Christian by the way), who worked out the higher 4-dimensional geometry that special relativity is based upon.

Pay attention, Albert Einstein - January 1993 Excerpt: In 1905 Einstein presented his ideas to the world in the form of a mathematical theory, based on equations. It did not, however, make much impact. Indeed, the scientific community only really began to sit up and take notice after Hermann Minkowski gave a lecture in Cologne in 1908 in which he took Einstein’s algebraic equations and expressed them in terms of geometry. The equations of motion in special relativity involve four parameters, which describe the location of an object with the three coordinates of three-dimensional space, plus another coordinate representing time. Minkowski’s powerful insight was to combine space and time on the same geometrical footing. Space and time, we learn, are part of one four-dimensional entity, space-time. In this way the special theory of relativity, dealing with objects that move in straight lines at constant velocities, can be explained in terms of the geometry of a flat, four-dimensional surface. Minkowski also realised that the equations that describe such curious phenomena as, for example, the way moving clocks run slower and moving objects shrink are, in essence, the familiar equations of Pythagoras’s theorem, extended to four dimensions, and with the minor subtlety that the time dimension is measured in a negative direction (see Inside Science, number 49). Minkowski’s geometrical description undoubtedly improved the clarity of the special theory and is still regarded as the best way to understand it.,,, There is a delicious irony in all this. Minkowski had been one of Einstein’s teachers at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich at the end of the 19th century. Just a few years before Einstein came up with the special theory, Minkowski had described him as a ‘lazy dog’ who ‘never bothered about mathematics at all’. The lazy dog himself (Einstein) was not, at first, impressed by the imposition of geometry on special relativity, and took some time to appreciate the significance for his future work. Indeed, it was only when prodded by his friend and colleague Marcel Grossman that he realised Minkowski’s insight provided him with the mathematical tools he needed to develop his new theory of gravity, and in particular to describe the notion of curved space-time.,,, ‘Everybody knows’ that Einstein was the first person to describe the curvature of space in this way – but ‘everybody’ is wrong. Einstein was not even the second person to think about the possibility of space in our Universe being curved, and he had to be pushed along the path by others, including Grossman. He persuaded Einstein that the multidimensional geometry developed by 19th-century mathematicians might explain how light could be affected by gravity.,,, ,,, it was Bernhard Riemann, a pupil of Gauss, who realised the possibility of yet another variation on the theme, the geometry that applies on the closed surface of a sphere (including the surface of the Earth). In spherical geometry, the angles of a triangle always add up to more than 180 degree, and although all ‘lines of longitude’ cross the equator at right angles, and must therefore be parallel to one another, they do not stay same distance apart and all cross each other at the poles.,,, https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13718543-900-pay-attention-albert-einstein/ Spacetime Excerpt: In 1908, Hermann Minkowski—once one of the math professors of a young Einstein in Zurich—presented a geometric interpretation of special relativity that fused time and the three spatial dimensions of space into a single four-dimensional continuum now known as Minkowski space. A key feature of this interpretation is the definition of a spacetime interval that combines distance and time. Although measurements of distance and time between events differ for measurements made in different reference frames, the spacetime interval is independent of the inertial frame of reference in which they are recorded. Minkowski’s geometric interpretation of relativity was to prove vital to Einstein’s development of his 1915 general theory of relativity, wherein he showed that spacetime becomes curved in the presence of mass or energy.,,, Einstein, for his part, was initially dismissive of Minkowski’s geometric interpretation of special relativity, regarding it as überflüssige Gelehrsamkeit (superfluous learnedness). However, in order to complete his search for general relativity that started in 1907, the geometric interpretation of relativity proved to be vital, and in 1916, Einstein fully acknowledged his indebtedness to Minkowski, whose interpretation greatly facilitated the transition to general relativity.[10]:151–152 Since there are other types of spacetime, such as the curved spacetime of general relativity, the spacetime of special relativity is today known as Minkowski spacetime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime The Mathematics Of Higher Dimensionality - Gauss & Riemann https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxy3JhPRlV0

bornagain77

And just to add a dash of chaos to the pot... You do know that we have never measured the one way speed of light. Maybe it's infinitely fast in one direction and you're seeing that galaxy as it is now. Furtively leaves....stage left. Latemarch

I agree with PM1 at 6. Even if you were travelling at the speed of light, your experience would only be of light rays that were travelling with you: light rays all over the rest of the universe would not be part of your experience. Also, if you looked behind you, as soon as you saw whatever lights rays were impinging on you at that time, the world would be black because no more light rays could catch up with you. I think Caspian didn't get this thought experiment right. Viola Lee

Give me warp speed, Scottie........ chuckdarwin

If we could imagine moving at the speed of light (which is not actually possible for material objects), we would be decoupled from the time experienced in this physical universe. All events in the physical universe would seem to us to be happening simultaneously–we would effectively be outside of time

The second sentence is a sheer non sequitur from the first. If we could experience the universe at the speed of light, we would not experience time as we currently do -- but that does not mean that we would experience all events as simultaneous. The speed of light still takes place within time -- that's the very point of "light-year" as a measure of distance. PyrrhoManiac1

This piece makes a big deal out of the delays in "seeing" nearby objects due to the speed of light, and how that supposedly affects how we experience reality. However, the difference in time between a photon from two metres away and another from say, ten meters away is a mere 27 ns or 0.027 us or 0.000027 ms. Given that humans have a hard time distinguishing visual events even 1 ms apart, this means that, for humans, these two arrivals are for all practical purpose, simultaneous. Thus, for normal, everyday purposes, the speed of light does not impact our reality, at least not in the visual terms discussed in this piece. Moreover, there is a significant delay between photons impinging on the retina and nerve signals reaching the brain, another delay as the visual cortex decodes and combines the signals, and a further one as the brain presents the interpreted image to the mind. Those delays are all measured in milliseconds, making the nanosecond delays from object to eye meaningless. The "reality" you observe therefore happened many milliseconds ago, making the effect of the speed of light negligible to our reality for almost all normal day-to-day activities. Not to be too mean to Adam Frank, but doesn't he have more profound things to write about? Fasteddious

And as the newly minted, (Oct. 2022), Nobel Laureate Anton Zeilinger stated, “what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure. Which is a very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe. We are not just passive observers.”

“The Kochen-Speckter Theorem talks about properties of one system only. So we know that we cannot assume – to put it precisely, we know that it is wrong to assume that the features of a system, which we observe in a measurement exist prior to measurement. Not always. I mean in certain cases. So in a sense, what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure. Which is a very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe. We are not just passive observers.” Anton Zeilinger – Quantum Physics Debunks Materialism – video (7:17 minute mark) https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=4C5pq7W5yRM#t=437

Thus from multiple lines of experimental evidence, (i.e. Wheeler’s delayed choice experiment with atoms, the violation of Leggett’s inequality, Quantum entanglement in time, and quantum contextuality, not to mention the Quantum Zeno effect and Quantum information theory), Einstein’s belief that “The experience of ‘the now’ cannot be turned into an object of physical measurement, it can never be a part of physics” has been thoroughly, and impressively, falsified. In fact, I hold that it would now be much more appropriate to rephrase Einstein’s answer to the philosopher Rudolph Carnap in this way; “It is impossible for “the experience of ‘the now’” to ever be divorced from physical measurement, it will always be a part of physics.” Verse:

1 Thessalonians 5:21 Test all things; hold fast what is good.

Supplemental note:

Sept. 2022 - Thus in conclusion Einstein himself may not have personally believed in life after death, (nor in a personal God), but Special Relativity itself contradicts Einstein and offers stunning confirmation that Near Death Testimonies are accurate ‘physical’ descriptions of what happens after death, i.e. going to a ‘higher timeless/eternal dimension’, i.e. heavenly dimension, that exists above this temporal realm. https://uncommondescent.com/cosmology/from-iai-news-how-infinity-threatens-cosmology/#comment-765987

bornagain77

Several years after Einstein’s heated exchange with Bergson, which resulted in Einstein failing to ever receive a Nobel prize for his work on relativity, Einstein had another encounter with another prominent philosopher,, Rudolf Carnap. In particular, and around 1935, (and on a train no less), Einstein was specifically asked by Rudolf Carnap, “Can physics demonstrate the existence of ‘the now’ in order to make the notion of ‘now’ into a scientifically valid term?”

“Can physics demonstrate the existence of ‘the now’ in order to make the notion of ‘now’ into a scientifically valid term?” – Rudolf Carnap

According to Stanely Jaki, Einstein’s answer to Carnap was ‘categorical’, he said: “The experience of ‘the now’ cannot be turned into an object of physical measurement, it can never be a part of physics.”

“The experience of ‘the now’ cannot be turned into an object of physical measurement, it can never be a part of physics.” – Albert Einstein Carnap and Einstein quotes are taken from the last few minutes of this video: Stanley L. Jaki: “The Mind and Its Now” https://vimeo.com/10588094

Einstein’s 'categorical. denial that ‘the experience of the now’ can be a part of physical measurement was a very interesting claim for Einstein to make since “The experience of ‘the now’ has, from many recent experiments in quantum mechanics, established itself as very much being a defining part of our physical measurements in quantum mechanics. For instance, the following delayed choice experiment, (that was dome with atoms instead of photons) demonstrated that, “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,”

Reality doesn’t exist until we measure it, (Delayed Choice) quantum experiment confirms – Mind = blown. – FIONA MACDONALD – 1 JUN 2015 Excerpt: “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,” lead researcher and physicist Andrew Truscott said in a press release. http://www.sciencealert.com/reality-doesn-t-exist-until-we-measure-it-quantum-experiment-confirms

Likewise, the following violation of Leggett’s inequality stressed the quantum-mechanical assertion “that reality does not exist when we’re not observing it.”

Quantum physics says goodbye to reality – Apr 20, 2007 Excerpt: They found that, just as in the realizations of Bell’s thought experiment, Leggett’s inequality is violated – thus stressing the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we’re not observing it. “Our study shows that ‘just’ giving up the concept of locality would not be enough to obtain a more complete description of quantum mechanics,” Aspelmeyer told Physics Web. “You would also have to give up certain intuitive features of realism.” http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/27640

The Mind First and/or Theistic implications of quantum experiments such as the preceding are fairly obvious. As Professor Scott Aaronson of MIT once quipped, “Look, we all have fun ridiculing the creationists,,, But if we accept the usual picture of quantum mechanics, then in a certain sense the situation is far worse: the world (as you experience it) might as well not have existed 10^-43 seconds ago!”

“Look, we all have fun ridiculing the creationists who think the world sprang into existence on October 23, 4004 BC at 9AM (presumably Babylonian time), with the fossils already in the ground, light from distant stars heading toward us, etc. But if we accept the usual picture of quantum mechanics, then in a certain sense the situation is far worse: the world (as you experience it) might as well not have existed 10^-43 seconds ago!” – Scott Aaronson – MIT associate Professor quantum computation – Lecture 11: Decoherence and Hidden Variables

Moreover, advances in quantum mechanics even goes one step further and show us, via "quantum entanglement in time", that “a decision made in the present can influence something in the past.” and, “Quantum correlations come first, space-time later.”

Physicists provide support for retrocausal quantum theory, in which the future influences the past July 5, 2017 by Lisa Zyga Excerpt: retrocausality means that, when an experimenter chooses the measurement setting with which to measure a particle, that decision can influence the properties of that particle (or another particle) in the past, even before the experimenter made their choice. In other words, a decision made in the present can influence something in the past. https://phys.org/news/2017-07-physicists-retrocausal-quantum-theory-future.html Quantum Weirdness Now a Matter of Time – 2016 Bizarre quantum bonds connect distinct moments in time, suggesting that quantum links — not space-time — constitute the fundamental structure of the universe. Excerpt: Not only can two events be correlated, linking the earlier one to the later one, but two events can become correlated such that it becomes impossible to say which is earlier and which is later.,,, “If you have space-time, you have a well-defined causal order,” said Caslav Brukner, a physicist at the University of Vienna who studies quantum information. But “if you don’t have a well-defined causal order,” he said — as is the case in experiments he has proposed — then “you don’t have space-time.”,,, Quantum correlations come first, space-time later. Exactly how does space-time emerge out of the quantum world? Bruner said he is still unsure. https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160119-time-entanglement/

And in regards to quantum entanglement in time, Professor Elise Crullis draws out the implications and provocatively states that “entanglement can occur across two quantum systems that never coexisted,,, it implies that the measurements carried out by your eye upon starlight falling through your telescope this winter somehow dictated the polarity of photons more than 9 billion years old.”

You thought quantum mechanics was weird: check out entangled time – Feb. 2018 Excerpt: Just when you thought quantum mechanics couldn’t get any weirder, a team of physicists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem reported in 2013 that they had successfully entangled photons that never coexisted. Previous experiments involving a technique called ‘entanglement swapping’ had already showed quantum correlations across time, by delaying the measurement of one of the coexisting entangled particles; but Eli Megidish and his collaborators were the first to show entanglement between photons whose lifespans did not overlap at all.,,, Up to today, most experiments have tested entanglement over spatial gaps. The assumption is that the ‘nonlocal’ part of quantum nonlocality refers to the entanglement of properties across space. But what if entanglement also occurs across time? Is there such a thing as temporal nonlocality?,,, The data revealed the existence of quantum correlations between ‘temporally nonlocal’ photons 1 and 4. That is, entanglement can occur across two quantum systems that never coexisted. What on Earth can this mean? Prima facie, it seems as troubling as saying that the polarity of starlight in the far-distant past – say, greater than twice Earth’s lifetime – nevertheless influenced the polarity of starlight falling through your amateur telescope this winter. Even more bizarrely: maybe it implies that the measurements carried out by your eye upon starlight falling through your telescope this winter somehow dictated the polarity of photons more than 9 billion years old. Elise Crullis assistant professor in history and philosophy of science at the City College of New York.,,, https://aeon.co/ideas/you-thought-quantum-mechanics-was-weird-check-out-entangled-time

Moroever, as if that was not provocative enough, with "quantum contextuality", (which is integral for quantum computing), we find that “In the quantum world, the property that you discover through measurement is not the property that the system actually had prior to the measurement process. What you observe necessarily depends on how you carried out the observation”

Contextuality is ‘magic ingredient’ for quantum computing – June 11, 2012 Excerpt: Contextuality was first recognized as a feature of quantum theory almost 50 years ago. The theory showed that it was impossible to explain measurements on quantum systems in the same way as classical systems. In the classical world, measurements simply reveal properties that the system had, such as colour, prior to the measurement. In the quantum world, the property that you discover through measurement is not the property that the system actually had prior to the measurement process. What you observe necessarily depends on how you carried out the observation. Imagine turning over a playing card. It will be either a red suit or a black suit – a two-outcome measurement. Now imagine nine playing cards laid out in a grid with three rows and three columns. Quantum mechanics predicts something that seems contradictory – there must be an even number of red cards in every row and an odd number of red cards in every column. Try to draw a grid that obeys these rules and you will find it impossible. It’s because quantum measurements cannot be interpreted as merely revealing a pre-existing property in the same way that flipping a card reveals a red or black suit. Measurement outcomes depend on all the other measurements that are performed – the full context of the experiment. Contextuality means that quantum measurements can not be thought of as simply revealing some pre-existing properties of the system under study. That’s part of the weirdness of quantum mechanics. http://phys.org/news/2014-06-weird-magic-ingredient-quantum.html Quantum contextuality Quantum contextuality is a feature of the phenomenology of quantum mechanics whereby measurements of quantum observables cannot simply be thought of as revealing pre-existing values. ,,, Contextuality was first demonstrated to be a feature of quantum phenomenology by the Bell–Kochen–Specker theorem.[1],,, 1. S. Kochen and E.P. Specker, “The problem of hidden variables in quantum mechanics”, Journal of Mathematics and Mechanics 17, 59–87 (1967) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_contextuality

bornagain77

First, from the point of view of the photon, time never passes for them. i.e. There is no 'past' for the photon, it is always 'now' from the point of view of the photon

Michael Strauss PhD in Particle Physics – Virtual Particles and Special Relativity https://youtu.be/l3kt-DKhlwc?t=96

Second, there was actually a heated argument between Albert Einstein and Henri Bergson, (who was a prominent philosopher), over what the proper definition of time should be. Einstein bluntly stated, to an audience of prominent philosophers that he was invited to speak to, that, “The time of the philosophers did not exist”. And in fact, that disagreement with those philosophers, and with Henri Bergson in particular, over what the proper definition of time should actually be was one of the primary reasons that Einstein failed to ever receive a Nobel prize for his work on relativity:

Einstein vs Bergson, science vs philosophy and the meaning of time – Wednesday 24 June 2015 Excerpt: The meeting of April 6 was supposed to be a cordial affair, though it ended up being anything but. ‘I have to say that day exploded and it was referenced over and over again in the 20th century,’ says Canales. ‘The key sentence was something that Einstein said: “The time of the philosophers did not exist.”’ It’s hard to know whether Bergson was expecting such a sharp jab. In just one sentence, Bergson’s notion of duration—a major part of his thesis on time—was dealt a mortal blow. As Canales reads it, the line was carefully crafted for maximum impact. ‘What he meant was that philosophers frequently based their stories on a psychological approach and [new] physical knowledge showed that these philosophical approaches were nothing more than errors of the mind.’ The night would only get worse. ‘This was extremely scandalous,’ says Canales. ‘Einstein had been invited by philosophers to speak at their society, and you had this physicist say very clearly that their time did not exist.’ Bergson was outraged, but the philosopher did not take it lying down. A few months later Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the law of photoelectric effect, an area of science that Canales noted, ‘hardly jolted the public’s imagination’. In truth, Einstein coveted recognition for his work on relativity. Bergson inflicted some return humiliation of his own. By casting doubt on Einstein’s theoretical trajectory, Bergson dissuaded the committee from awarding the prize for relativity. In 1922, the jury was still out on the correct interpretation of time. So began a dispute that festered for years and played into the larger rift between physics and philosophy, science and the humanities. Bergson was fond of saying that time was the experience of waiting for a lump of sugar to dissolve in a glass of water. It was a declaration that one could not talk about time without reference to human consciousness and human perception. Einstein would say that time is what clocks measure. Bergson would no doubt ask why we build clocks in the first place. ‘He argued that if we didn’t have a prior sense of time we wouldn’t have been led to build clocks and we wouldn’t even use them … unless we wanted to go places and to events that mattered,’ says Canales. ‘You can see that their points of view were very different.’ In a theoretical nutshell this, (disagreement between Einstein and Bergson), expressed perfectly the division between lived time and spacetime: subjective experience versus objective reality.,,, Just when Einstein thought he had it worked out, along came the discovery of quantum theory and with it the possibility of a Bergsonian universe of indeterminacy and change. God did, it seems, play dice with the universe, contra to Einstein’s famous aphorism. Some supporters went as far as to say that Bergson’s earlier work anticipated the quantum revolution of Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg by four decades or more. Canales quotes the literary critic Andre Rousseaux, writing at the time of Bergson’s death. ‘The Bergson revolution will be doubled by a scientific revolution that, on its own, would have demanded the philosophical revolution that Bergson led, even if he had not done it.’ Was Bergson right after all? Time will tell. http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/philosopherszone/science-vs-philosophy-and-the-meaning-of-time/6539568

Henri Bergson, as the preceding article pointed out, championed the primacy of ‘lived time’ over and above Einstein’s ‘spacetime’, Which is to say that Bergson championed ‘subjective experience’ over and above ‘objective reality’ in providing the proper definition of time. As the preceding article stated, the subjective experience of “duration”, was “a major part of his (Bergson’s) thesis on time”. In support of Bergson’s main thesis, and as Dr. Egnor has pointed out, “Duration, and/or “persistence of self identity”, is one of the main defining attributes of the immaterial mind that is irreducible to the reductive materialistic explanations of Darwinian atheists.

The Mind and Materialist Superstition – Michael Egnor – 2008 Six “conditions of mind” that are irreconcilable with materialism: – Excerpt: Intentionality,,, Qualia,,, Persistence of Self-Identity,,, Restricted Access,,, Incorrigibility,,, Free Will,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/11/the_mind_and_materialist_super013961.html

Likewise, J. Warner Wallace also lists “Persistent self-identity through time”, i.e. ‘duration’, as a property of the immaterial mind that is irreducible to the reductive materialistic explanations of Darwinian atheists.

Six reasons why you should believe in non-physical minds – 01/30/2014 1) First-person access to mental properties 2) Our experience of consciousness implies that we are not our bodies 3) Persistent self-identity through time 4) Mental properties cannot be measured like physical objects 5) Intentionality or About-ness 6) Free will and personal responsibility http://winteryknight.com/2014/01/30/six-reasons-why-you-should-believe-in-non-physical-minds/

In more clearly defining what Henri Bergson actually meant by ‘duration’, and/or “persistence of self identity through time”, it is important to note that we each have a unique perspective of being outside of time. In fact we each seemingly watch from some mysterious 'outside of time' perspective as time seemingly passes us by. Simply put, we very much seem to be standing on a ‘tiny’ island of ‘now’ as the river of time continually flows past us. In the following video, Dr. Suarez states that the irresolvable dilemma for reductive materialists as such, “it is impossible for us to be ‘persons’ experiencing ‘now’ if we are nothing but particles flowing in space time. Moreover, for us to refer to ourselves as ‘persons’ (experiencing now), we cannot refer to space-time as the ultimate substratum upon which everything exists, but must refer to a "Person" who is not bound by space time. (In other words) We must refer to God!”

Nothing: God’s new Name – Antoine Suarez – video Paraphrased quote: (“it is impossible for us to be ‘persons’ experiencing ‘now’ if we are nothing but particles flowing in space time. Moreover, for us to refer to ourselves as ‘persons’, we cannot refer to space-time as the ultimate substratum upon which everything exists, but must refer to a Person who is not bound by space time. i.e. We must refer to God!”) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOr9QqyaLlA

In further defining the immaterial mind’s attribute of ‘the experience of the now’, in the following article Stanley Jaki states that “There can be no active mind without its sensing its existence in the moment called now.,,, ,,,There is no physical parallel to the mind’s ability to extend from its position in the momentary present to its past moments, or in its ability to imagine its future. The mind remains identical with itself while it lives through its momentary nows.”

The Mind and Its Now – Stanley L. Jaki, May 2008 Excerpts: There can be no active mind without its sensing its existence in the moment called now.,,, Three quarters of a century ago Charles Sherrington, the greatest modern student of the brain, spoke memorably on the mind’s baffling independence of the brain. The mind lives in a self-continued now or rather in the now continued in the self. This life involves the entire brain, some parts of which overlap, others do not. ,,,There is no physical parallel to the mind’s ability to extend from its position in the momentary present to its past moments, or in its ability to imagine its future. The mind remains identical with itself while it lives through its momentary nows. ,,, the now is immensely richer an experience than any marvelous set of numbers, even if science could give an account of the set of numbers, in terms of energy levels. The now is not a number. It is rather a word, the most decisive of all words. It is through experiencing that word that the mind comes alive and registers all existence around and well beyond. ,,, All our moments, all our nows, flow into a personal continuum, of which the supreme form is the NOW which is uncreated, because it simply IS. http://metanexus.net/essay/mind-and-its-now

bornagain77

In one of Fred Hoyle's SF novels - I think it's October The First Is Too Late - he uses the analogy of a piece of music like a Beethoven symphony. If you played all the notes in the composition at once, all you'd get a a massive jarring chord. If you play them in the right order, you get a beautiful piece of music. In other words, time is an essential part of making sense of this Universe, at least for life-forms such as us. Seversky