I studied Physics.
Doing so, we had to study Mathematics, as that is the language used to express the models of Physics. (*)
IMHO, Mathematicians are beyond nuts, they are certifiable. Anal retentive factorial, not just exponential.
Mathematicians are useful, just as sheepherders are useful. Every civilized society needs sheepherders and mathematicians... but, in the case of sheepherders you can let them be, they seem to be very sensible people. Mathematicians? Well... there ought to be a place to keep them safe and away from the rest of us. Maybe put mathematicians, lawyers, politicians and assorted gangsters in a nice safe enclosed place?
(*) Actually, physicists use a dialect of Mathematics... I like to think of it as Mathematics For Sane People.
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Hyperboloid... it brings me back to the final test for Riemannian Geometry, a two semester 480/481 level course taught as a Physics course, naturally. We don't much cotton to discontinuities... those require splines and numerical solutions. Engineers are used for that kind of work.
The Professor drew something on the blackboard and we were supposed to describe it in 2 hours. Fully an hour and a quarter later, and about 22 pages of equations I realized I had put a ' - ' instead of a ' + ' in the second equation of the first page. Consequently I was describing a hyperboloid, not an ellipsoid.
Stop for a second. Deep breath. Hold off the Panic. Think.... OK.
On Page 23 in BOLD GIGANTIC LETTERS I wrote.... " AW ****! Equation (2) is wrong, should be .... "
On Page 24 I started to frantically redo all the work. I ended up at the 2 hour limit with something like 65 pages.
I got an A+ in the class. The Professor said I had done quite well describing the hyperboloid as well and he was thinking of giving me a B until he came upon page 22... then he read the rest of the work and gave me an A+ for the entire course year!
Note: I went to a fine private school. Only six of us in my graduating undergraduate Physics class, so our paper work all got graded by the Professors who knew us pretty well since to do a BS in Physics in 4 years you must declare when applying to the school and start the course work from your first semester. So our advisors were all in the Physics Dept. Fysikz is Phun... for real. ;-)
So to go faster than light, you must tunnel through an unstable 2 time dimension and 2 space dimension, which is unstable and then appear in a 3 time, 1 space dimensional field... interesting. So, as you travel in a straight line, you bounce in three different times.
Which begs the question, is there a limit on space in a tachyons space? A bounded size of the Multiverses but with no time constraints?
if the universe is infinite,wouldnt a molecule be the same or is there a starting point for infinity?
Beats me, tonyEE!
Perhaps Steve knows the answer.
After all, he's the resident mathematician (physicist, chemist and engineer) around here! 😛
Perhaps Steve knows the answer.
After all, he's the resident mathematician (physicist, chemist and engineer) around here! 😛
If the universe is infinitely big, it has always been infinitely big.
At the Big Bang, it was infinitely dense. Since then it has just been getting less dense as space has expanded.
I'm not sure what you are getting at by comparing a molecule to the universe. Perhaps you could elaborate?
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For the non-physicists out there, tachyons are hypothetical particles that move faster than the speed of light and backwards through time.
Earlier, I explained that all of physical reality exists inside the light cone of a spacetime diagram.
Events in the past light cone cause events in the future light cone, e.g., your parents' past actions link with your future actions.
The region outside the lightcone ("elsewhere") is inaccessible because one would have to travel faster than light to reach it.
However, a faster than light tachyon could travel through this inaccessible region and link an event in the future with one in the past.
This would make the tachyon appear as if it had travelled backwards in time!
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Correction:
However, a faster than light tachyon could travel through this inaccessible region and send a signal from the future into the past.
benb is a obviously a mathematician.
The only mathematics joke I understand is: Q. Why should you never argue with decimals? A. Because decimals always have a point.
We shouldn't regard infinity as a number. We can't count up to it.
Look at the integers (all the whole numbers: ..., -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, ...). The integers don't have a smallest number, so what is a sensible starting point?
The only mathematics joke I understand is: Q. Why should you never argue with decimals? A. Because decimals always have a point.
We shouldn't regard infinity as a number. We can't count up to it.
Look at the integers (all the whole numbers: ..., -2, -1, 0, 1, 2, 3, ...). The integers don't have a smallest number, so what is a sensible starting point?
Actually, if tachyon space is made up of three time and one space dimension, then the tachyon could travel backwards in time in our 3Space/1Time dimension.
The trick, of course, is how do the dimensions match to each other. How do the 3 time dimensions in Tachyon Space match to the single time dimension in our Space?
Are the time dimensions different then?
Imagine if they get swapped. So that our time becomes their space and our space becomes their time.
They would be Time Lords. Maybe the Tardis is a projection machine?
BTW, the light cone is only valid in our space. And, for all intents and purposes, only valid within the current model of general relativity. Now then, being a model, I follow it today, but I am aware that it could be false and that achieving faster than light speed is not necessarily impossible.
What if mass does get turned into energy and back?
Perhaps those ethereal beings made up entire of energy, as in the real Star Trek. are spinning around in their own Private Idahos at the speed of light!
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What about a Physical Chemist? 🙂
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_chemistry
I did two terms of the subject in first year.
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