Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion Physics Forum Back to the question of photons and time!

Laughing? Are you frigging kidding me? What are you, 12 years old?

If you can’t be respectful to people and you need to laugh at those are helping you then you will never get any help from me again – ever. Life is to short for your childish nonsense and behaviour. I also have to patiece for people who think that they can defeat th elaws of physics by playing with definitions.

You had a expert in relatvity here and Orac's childish laughing made him realise this is a bad place to try to help people. Good by little boy.

"...as I felt I could learn more from being privy to discussions between you and Pete than I would from wrestling with your explanations alone."


Bill S,

How is that working for you?

I'm sure you're learning something!

Sorry what I am laughing at is the way you are dealing with the issue, hey I know you are right and I know you are an expert but you aren't explaining why you are right you just saying I am an expert believe me which is Bill S complaint in the first place.

Is it only me that see's that as funny?

What you haven't done is explain the sanity you had to put under your answer because to you it is natural you learned all that when becoming an expert but it's not obvious to the layman and the problem is shooting over his head.

Bill S happily believes a tachyon might exist and to it time would go backward as just one example. To you or I time going backward and retro causality are a drop dead no go but not to Bill S he has no basis to know why that is.

I am not laughing at you personally PMB, I am laughing because the basis you and Bill S are working in are totally different.

My comment about string theorists I am sorry is very true they extend the laws of physics into domains and universe that are very different to ours and so under the way you are answering they must be treated the same way which I also find amusing.

I am very respectful of your knowledge I am however very critical of your teaching ability to date ... explain to him why you need sanity under time, distance and forces and the answer becomes obvious rather than berating me.

The only difference between Bill S and a string theorist in reality is the string theorist realizes the universe he is describing is not ours and Bill S can't see that, he is not trying to directly violate the laws of physics he violates the sanity under it.

If you don't want to discuss the sanity we are forced to put in place because it is "beneath you" or "too silly" don't beat me up about it that's the reality layman see. Yes this would be filtered off a real good science forum but it isn't here so either deal with it or not and that is outside my control much as I would prefer we could get rid of this sort of rubbish. At the moment I am feeling a bit of a case of the messenger getting shot, I am clarifying the argument and getting abused for doing so.

Orac,
You are descending into the depths of murky firmament. Please try to elevate your discussions to the professional level, and quit trying to deliberately antagonize people. It is childish to play games with people like you seem to enjoy. It is even more childish to brag about it. This forum is here to consider serious questions by people who are sincere in their curiosity, not for you to lord it over them and make fun of them. It is a bad reflection on the forum, and I have had complaints from persons who object to your brinksmanship and teasing. Cut the crap, or I will delete your posts. I may not be a physicist, but I recognize a bully when I see one. Please mend your ways. I'd hate to lose you as you have some good insights and have made good posts in the past. But this form of behavior will not be tolerated.

Amaranth

I was definitely not trying to even incite or tease PMB I actually rather like the guy but I was having a bit of a chuckle at the way he was handling the discussion which he obviously took the wrong way and caught me by surprise. Clearly he didn't see the situation as I did and took offense and if PMB was offended I sincerely apologize it was not intended, I have a lot of respect for him.

One of the problems I have and I am often told is my English is brutal it does not necessarily come out the way it is intended.

I will leave Bill S and PMB to it but I am perplexed how I became the bad guy in all that, and it was so bad it was clearly obviously to you AR2. I have re-read the exchanges a number of times and I was even trying to pacify PMB at the end but it wasn't working. Hey I am used to being the SAGG bad boy so I guess I will have to grin and bear it even though I am completely puzzled.

Personally I doubt the forum could get more bad reputation, you know my view that there should be a hell of a lot more moderation and that is not intended to be antagonistic to you either (I am worried how that translates, I have had 4 goes at it)... I am on record for that many times as you know so it is not a response to your rebuke to me. Does that make sense and come out without antagonism?????.

If you want to enforce more moderation and that includes my comments I am all for it.

As for playing childish games what can I say the forum allows childish posts not moderated out that should be and I am sure the complaints you had were from people playing every bit as childish a game as I was. I know for example Newton and Paul will has issues with me because 99% of their posts are childish junk that shouldn't be on the forum and I am happy to play their silly games.

I post here under an Avatar for a reason because I will happily discuss anything and everything that is allowed on the forum without worrying about the politics and norms involved in such discussions. In taking the Avatar I claim no authority or expertise of anything and in fact when asked I usually go for janitor as my profession because I want people to take my arguments at face value. I am completely comfortable I can prove whatever I want to off first principles.

You said the forum guideline is

=>This forum is here to consider serious questions by people who are sincere in their curiosity

The ones who no doubt have issues with me will be Newton, Paul because I don't consider they meet the guidelines on 99% of there posts because they aren't serious questions. I could choose to ignore them but I tried that for a while and it didn't slow down the only thing that seems to keep the stupidity to a reasonable level is out and out confrontation. Confrontation and bullying is a slippery slope and I may from time to time overstep the mark and you may indeed need to pull me up on it from time to time, I have no issue when you feel that.

I am sure a number of people on the forum would prefer I not act the way I do but it is in response to their actions. The question they then need to address is I am willing to change and act better on the forum are they.

What?? Are you serious?? What a load of crap. I already explained exactly why I'm right, i.e. the non-existence of a photon rest frame is implied by the fact that the speed of light is the same in all inertial frames of reference. You don't think I've proved it because you're understanding of physics is just too poor to understand even that simple argument. That you can't understand a simple explanation is your problem, not mine. For cripes sake, I even had to explain to you the when I wrote "Let v = speed of light" that this didn't mean that the “v” was the velocity. Until your skill level increases to the point where you can understand even the most basic logical reasoning I will never respond to such nonsense posted by you ever again. You simply don’t have what it takes to understand it. When you grasp the fact that semantics and word games don’t count as physics arguments I’ll never respond to anything you ever post again because you keep proving to me that you’re unable to grasp it.

PMB you need to decide if you want to discuss it or not ... make a choice?

I said to AR2 I would leave the issue alone because I was being a bully and taunting you which was obvious to even her apparently, and that wasn't my intention I am sorry it came out like that, now look carefully at your response.

The issue is dead as far as I am concerned each to his own, you are an expert and I am a janitor and I claim no right or authority lets both be happy in that and move along I am not interested in an ego bashing contest. I was hoping to get a different result and discussion about some background going but it isn't going to happen and if Bill S is still interested I can peel the discussion a different way without offending you.

It is only a semi science discussion so you don't have to worry but it will teach Bill S a very important thing about the consequences of background choices you make and it will depend if Bill S is still interested, he may accept your answer and think I am just plain stupid as you maintain.

I am so stupid I am not even going to give him the answer he will have to choose his own answer and live with the consequences.

If anyone here recalls how Einstein came to create the special theory of relativity then you'll recall that he once contemplated what it would be like to ride along next to a beam of light, i.e. to be at rest in a frame where there was an electromagnetic wave.

Einstein realized that in that frame there'd be a spatially oscillating magnetic field at right angle to a spatially oscillating magnetic field. He realized that in that frame the fields would violate the laws of electromagnetism. As Einstein recalled


Einstein realized that if he were to chase and catch up with the wave and be moving with it He would see a frozen light wave that violates Maxwell’s equations. Since the first postulate requires the laws of physics be the same in all frames of reference then there can be no frame in which light is at rest. This is therefore another proof that light has no rest frame. It follows directly that a photon has no rest frame since photons are merely particles of light. Therefore any claim that there is a need of yet another postulate requiring that there be no rest frame of light is preposterous. Only someone who doesn’t know relativity could come to such a bogus conclusion.

Woot there you go and see that doesn't involve what the speed of light ACTUALLY IS it is what happens at the speed of light that is important in my opinion and I am going to be careful here that it is my view, you can peel away all the mathematics and definitions.

That's all I was trying to drag out of you PMB to show Bill S that there is things far far more important than mathematics or definitions really strange things happen if it was real, he won't understand of that implication is so spell it out for him.

The point I was trying to make to him is decisions have consequences that are real and problematic and you can't just use mathematics or definitions to object or try and talk your way around them.

I don't know what the whole fight was about to be honest as I said you were right I just objected to how you explained it to a layman and with that answer in place I now totally agree with you. In your mind and science world the initial answer and that answer are the same and I fully accept that which is why I was trying to not offend you, but layman don't live in your world.

You disappoint me Orac. I am very doubtful about the existence of tachyons, and I certainly do not believe they travel backwards in time. Time was you would have read my posts carefully enough to have realised that. The same goes for retro causality. If I have ever said anything that might have given the impression I believed in that (and I would interested if someone could find such a post), it would have been a case of “devil’s advocate”.



Could it be that the reality the layman sees is the readiness of “experts” to berate one another.



Is it worth looking again at the OP and telling me where I violate the laws of physics, or the underlying sanity?

I like to think of everything as a potential learning situation. I’ll leave it to you to work out what I learned from:

“To me it's a bit of harmless light relief playing in the lunatic sandpit.”

Quite illuminating, wouldn’t you say?

You did it a couple of times sorry in previous discussions and sorry I didn't pick it as devil's advocate.

Sorry I am reading that again and it is probably coming across offensive and it wasn't intended you won't realize why you violate the sanity because we have just got there. I did however agree and say to PMB you were not violating the laws it was just the underneath sanity that was an issue.

As per PMB's post from Einstein everything at the speed of light is not like we see the world, EM waves can't oscillate because they would be in a standing wave and there are a number of other problems I am sure PMB will also give you as he tries to explain the consequences.

The sanity problem becomes if you really were traveling at the speed of light the universe looks a hell of a lot different to what our universe looks so much so it probably causes issues with the definition of "experience".

See in the above example from Einstein he shows great insight you can't just follow mathematics or your own logic of how you experience things now and assume you can infer things at every speed, speed causes observational issues not just with order of events but with what the universe looks like.

So to answer your question you need to fill in sanity underneath it because "experience time" requires a basis.

So if I was going to be non dogmatic a photon experiences something but it is so far from what we see the universe it would make no sense and be meaningless and it's pointless to speculate.

Does that explain by what I mean about the underlying sanity?

My more brutal answer to you is basically this is not a science question because you would have to define "experience time" and the answer revolves around that. Thus any answer is correct and believe what you want because there is no way to put an agreed or sane universe we could all agree on under the answer.

I am comfortable with a photon experiences no time, it experiences all time, it experiences time as pink frilly rabbits, it thinks it's in Rio on a sunny day or any and all of these answers at the same time.

The question has an underlying sanity issue which doesn't involve science

I managed to offend both of you and get told off by AR2 thanks for the question

Lest anyone should think I am arguing against Miles Mathis, let me be clear that I have no vested interest in whether or not photons travel through time in what might be considered as their frame of reference, if they had one. All I am really interested in is why people believe what they do. I am perfectly content to say “I don’t know”, but doesn’t stop from speculating, then I want to know how reasonable my speculations are.

Just a couple of thoughts arising from the Mathis article.



The photon has no F of R in which to have a clock. Trying to reason from what a non-existent clock, in a non-existent F of R might show is, surely, pure speculation, whichever side of the argument it is applied to.



Does this mean that the “rules” of relative motion apply to light, but the equations do not?

I am going to leave that one to PMB as an expert to have a final say on what GR/SR says.

From my point it all gets a bit tricky because of that same issue of sanity what do the equations really mean. Inferring physics from maths is dangerous as is inferring maths from physics dangerous there is no right answer and as we saw thru Einstein's insight neither may even be close to what really exists.

For me if you go back to first principles I would say it is unsafe to assume the equations hold.

There is a classic infamous example of this which is quite topical at the moment. Here is the mathematics in question

1+2+3+4+5+ .... infinity = -1/12

The answer seems so stupidly wrong but it's not

Here is the lecture 1 by Carl Bender there is a series of 12 in it you can follow the rest



It was topical because back in 2007 Lubos used it as an example with string theory and someone tried to attack him on it and he has a detailed background nicely done on it on his blog.

http://motls.blogspot.com.au/2014/01/sum-of-integers-and-oversold-common.html

So whats going on well if you try to make physics and mathematics equal each other be prepared for some very ugly results for maths.

So the point to that was I can't rely on the mathematics to mean anything, all my actual physics equations are invalid so it's best I not try and tell you anything !!!!

So the message in that example is the same as the Einstein example I need you to fill in some more detail we all agree on sanity rules before I can say anything meaningful

Orac,
Could you refrain from calling people's sanity into question? It is demeaning and insulting, and not called for. It is degrading to the forum, and not very nice. Grow up from name calling and accusations to people's mental states. I doubt you know what true insanity really is, or you wouldn't bandy it about so broadly. I am reasonably sure that none of our posters is currently confined in a mental institution, and your use of questions of insanity is not at all appropriate.

Umm I am not sure how to answer that .... all I can suggest is you re-read it all again.

At the moment there is only one person's sanity I am questioning ... and that is a joke.

Let me put it clearly there are many things that have sanity and many of them are not humans. If you look carefully at the context the sanity I am talking about has nothing to do with any human

I think you totally got the wrong end of the stick.

I don't know what other word to use but I am open to suggestions because clearly sanity has one very distinct meaning to you which is not as it is in the dictionary and I don't wish to offend you either.

Here are the two possible definitions of sanity

(http://www.thefreedictionary.com/sanity)
1. The quality or condition of being sane; soundness of mind.
2. Soundness of judgment or reason.

Try substituting number 2 into where I use it in posts and see if what I say makes more sense to you then, I am pretty sure I haven't used definition 1 anywhere in the entire thread except my gentle joke at you right above no offense intended.

You may begin to understand why I am stunned by your comment ... if I was sensitive I would think I was being picked on about now.

Bill S or anyone else is there an issue with my phrasing and translation or has AR2 completely misunderstood and is there possibly a better word a could use?

I asked the translation service and they have offered "sound logic" might have been a good substitution but they can understand clearly what I said with the choice of "sanity".

So I am sorry AR2 I think the issue is with you unless others have problems.

Dear Orac before You want to speak aout problem

please study below post

http://www.scienceagogo.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=50899#Post50899

The moderator doesn't need to read it again. He/she knows exactly what they're talking about. It's inappropriate to use issues of mental health when making jokes. It's never appreciated and always very unwelcome. Don't you get it you get it yet? Nobody here appreciates at all what you think of as a "sense of humor." You laugh when it's never clear what the hell you're laughing at. Nobody wants to sit around trying to figure out if you're laughing at them or with them. If you'd simple grow up a little and stop all this nonsense then you wouldn't be pissing people off as much as you have been. You claim it's because of your English. Fine. We're telling you quite clearly that you’re not funny at all. Nobody gets your sense of humor Orac. And we don’t want to. This isn’t a comedy club. It’s a science forum.

Now please stop using mental health as a point of laughter. It’s like making fun of people with no legs. Don’t you get that? It’s not funny to make fun using an illness to do it. Now stop it!