Isn't the answer to that: You can try and accelerate continuously but as your speed approaches "c" you end up having to use too much energy that it becomes impractical.
"Light is frame-dependent in PF, but constant in SR"
- Thread starter Maxila
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Motor Daddy
Valued Senior Member
RJ, This is a measuring system. Don't confuse that with how objects travel in reality.
If you are traveling at a constant rate of c you are traveling 299,792,458 m/s, and not accelerating. If you are accelerating, then your velocity is less than 299,792,458 m/s but increasing (or decreasing). Acceleration is the rate of change of velocity. Do you understand the difference between torque and power? This is not a trivial question, as in order to increase the power you either have to increase the RPM or increase the torque. Surely you understand that the faster something is rotating the harder it is to maintain the same acceleration, ie, the more time you accelerate (increase velocity) the greater your velocity and the harder it is to increase it. This is not a trivial issue!
Flawed reasoning.
Firstly if you lack the necessary education/knowledge to grasp the mainstream model or even do rudimentary vector stuff (which is taught to high schoolers) then you have no way of properly evaluating the mainstream model or even your own ideas. If you have not been able to formalise your ideas then you have little or no reason to think your conclusions follow from your initial assumptions. Furthermore you have no experimental data to work with so you have no idea whether or not reality works as you claim. Furthermore you asserted that reality must work in the way you claim, that it couldn't be anything else. This goes because knowing a bit of science, it is an assertion about fundamental logic, as you're implying there is absolutely no way Nature could possibly have been any other way but your way.
People like Farsight like to say things like "I'm an ideas man, someone else can fill in the maths details". That isn't how it works. If you cannot formalise your ideas you have no idea if you are reaching sound conclusions. That's just one of the many reasons people laugh at Farsight. I really don't think you should be emulating him.
Even if you could construct a mathematically formal model of what your ideas are that doesn't imply reality works that way. Both Newtonian and Einsteinian mechanics are mathematically sound but they cannot both be true. This is why experimental data is essential, you need it to determine which of the infinitely many different logically sound mathematical constructs actually describes reality.
Since you admit you cannot prove your claims I'm going to ask you nicely to please stop asserting you're right. You are welcome to say "I have an alternative idea" or "I don't entirely agree with the mainstream model", that's all fair and good, but statements like "Reality works like this!" and "I know I'm right" are, by your own admission, unjustified. If you lapse back into saying such things then I'll view it as deliberate dishonesty and act accordingly. Open and honest discussion is what science is about and while there are few actual scientists on this forum everyone should try to emulate that particular part of science even if they disagree with individual models within it.
/edit
Having just read through the 2 pages since the post I'm replying to I can see it has gone down hill quite a lot. If people can wind down the high frequency back and fore baiting then I'll leave the thread alone. If it continues then I'll either lock it or do some rather clumsy thread surgery.
Hmm well let's say that I happen to be in rocket moving at an absolute velocity of 299,000,000 m/s; I would not be able to discern this fact in your world, correct? I could consider, from my perspective, that I was sitting still (although someone in the theoretical absolute frame would know better). For your proposal to be true, one of the following things must be true:
1) It would be harder for me to throw a baseball at 1,000,000 m/s toward the front of my ship than the back of my ship, which means I could discern my absolute velocity
2) It would be just as easy to throw the baseball in either direction, which means the baseball could now have an absolute velocity > c if thrown in the right direction
Am I missing something?
Motor Daddy
Valued Senior Member
Since you put it that way, and I am forced to agree that you do in fact catch more bees with honey, then consider it done. Sometimes I get a little carried away due to all the excitement.
Motor Daddy
Valued Senior Member
Holding the ball means it is traveling 299,000,000 m/s in the absolute frame. In order to accelerate the ball you must accelerate the ball from 299,000,000 to 299,792,458 m/s. Like I said, RJ, this is no trivial matter. If you want to we can play a little game where we jack up the front of my car so that the wheel spins freely. It starts at 0 RPM. Your job is to accelerate the wheel. You are going to have to do some work here. Question: Do you think it will be just as easy for you to increase the rotational velocity of the wheel from 0-100 RPM as it will be for you to increase the rotational velocity of the wheel from 1,000-1,100 RPM?
I understand your analogy to torque, and I suspect you're a mechanic with that name, but the difference here is that you're asking me to accelerate the wheel while I'm not also spinning with the shaft. If I were, then increasing RPMs would be seemingly just as easy as neither I nor the shaft were rotating. You cannot say that "holding the ball" moving that fast would feel any different because if it did then Motor Daddy's world is no longer invisible: we could simply measure which direction it is more difficult to accelerate objects in to determine absolute velocity...and the absence of this effect has been proven thousands of times over. The only other conclusion that is obvious to me is to allow for absolute velocities > c, which has all kinds of problems which will need addressing.
To give Motor Daddy his due, his posts aren't bullshit. They simple do not describe the real world correctly.
The problem is not that he is wrong, but that he won't investigate the evidence that shows he is wrong, and he does not think that it is necessary to check his ideas against the real world before proclaiming they are correct.
There's also some arrogance there ("I am the first person in the world to think of this." etc.), but arrogance, as you know Tach, is by no means restricted to Motor Daddy.
Motor Daddy
Valued Senior Member
All you are going to do is spin the front tire on my car. We are going to measure the rotational velocity and time. In other words, we are going to count the rotations per interval of time. Your only job is to change the rotational velocity of the wheel from one rotational velocity to another. You are going to accelerate the wheel!
There is no difference in feel, because force is force. The difference is that the velocity is measured in the absolute frame. So if you throw the ball, you are going to have to throw the ball in such a fashion that you threw the ball at the speed of light. We are not talking about measuring the distance the ball traveled in the ship, we are measuring the distance the ball travels in SPACE per interval of time.
It is refreshing to see that you are in agreement with Motor Daddy and that you find his posts not to be BS
I read a quote from Bertrand Russell today which made me think of such people, particularly Farsight. "One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important". Anecdotally there definitely seems to be a heavy skewing towards middle aged men in the "I've got true understanding!" demographic. Some men buy a fast car, some men get a divorce and then marry a woman 30 years their junior and some mean have an existential crisis so decide to 'revolutionise' science to give their life meaning.
In fact I wouldn't mind doing all 3 of those choices. Does that show I'm really due for a breakdown? lol
It is refreshing to see that you are in agreement with Motor Daddy and that you find his posts not to be BS
What's wrong with you? Can't you read?
You started it by calling me arrogant out of the blue. You should apologise and remove the gratuitous insult.
You're humble and self-effacing then, are you?
You have no reason to call me names. What you preach and what you do are contradictory and unbecoming for a moderator.
You should apologize and you should remove the offending remark.
Actually, I only stated that people other than Motor Daddy are arrogant. You took my comment and decided to own it, applying it to yourself.
I certainly won't be removing this exchange between us, Tach. To do so when I am involved would potentially invite accusations that I am misusing my powers as an administrator.
I suggest you report the offensive post in the usual way and allow the moderator of this subforum to deal with your complaint.