Orbis non sufficit
Friday, March 07, 2008
Brain...melting...
The speed of light is the same in all directions in all inertial frames
Man that's messed up. Conceptually, I think special relativity is more screwed up than the general theory. Or at least the "new" parts of GR.
E.g. If you can somehow travel faster than the speed of light, you can go backwards in time (according to some observers). The two things are in fact equivalent. If you can send signals faster than the speed of light, you can set up situations in which you receive a reply to your message before you send it. Goodbye causality. Of course this is why it may not be possible to do such things. Nuts.
The speed of light is the same in all directions in all inertial frames
Man that's messed up. Conceptually, I think special relativity is more screwed up than the general theory. Or at least the "new" parts of GR.
E.g. If you can somehow travel faster than the speed of light, you can go backwards in time (according to some observers). The two things are in fact equivalent. If you can send signals faster than the speed of light, you can set up situations in which you receive a reply to your message before you send it. Goodbye causality. Of course this is why it may not be possible to do such things. Nuts.
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