Comments on: Weekend Word Wrap: Einstein’s words

By: Pointy-Hatted Geek

Pointy-Hatted Geek — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 22:31:23 +0000

“Oranges to orangs”? If you say so.

By: Pierre M Laberge

Pierre M Laberge — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 23:08:53 +0000

Note that Einstein did NOT say it was not possible to travel at the speed of light or faster.

After all, there are some elementary particles that he knew the theory of that travel only faster, never slower.

And light itself does travel at the speed of light.

What he said was that if se tried to accelerate something to travel to light speed – a physical object like a spaceship – it would take infinite energy, and the object would aquire infinite mass…. It would also be infinitely thin. It could also approach lightspeed, but never reach it… At least not in our universe.

If we are going to quote Eisntein’s ideas, let us at least get them right.
I think he deserves that much.

As for your warp drive spaceship, Eisntein was talking about the laws of physics as they fit the facts and technology, and knowledge and understanding them available.

He did not say that no one could ever do it under a different set of rules and assumptions. And he also noted that the entire thing was conditional on lightspeed being a constant, and gravity being a constant. There were several other constants and other such, but it has been years since I took a physics class.

So if someone does make a packet of photons tunnel through the space-time faster than light, you have not “made Einstein wrong, or stupid, or invalid”… You have merely set-up what he would have called a “special circumstance” that fits the rules of the event. But a packet of photons tunelling through the universe is a far cry from invalidating Einstein or the”Special Theory of Relativity”.

Let us compare apples to apples, and oranges to orangs. I think Einstein would want us to. No?

By: BAFox

BAFox — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 01:19:23 +0000

Plus, he loved Graham Crackers.

By: Richiemagoo

Richiemagoo — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 17:52:45 +0000

Einstein beleived that time travel would be possible if one fly faster than the speed of light.
While he may have been brilliant….he missed the mark on this one. he apparently did not consider that the relative positions of the earth and the sun do not constitute time, but are merely the device which we use to mark it.

By: ajadoniz

ajadoniz — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 08:23:32 +0000

I’m reading all those quotes and I have to agree with #17. Einstein would not like complacency. He wouldn’t have been where he was if he just accepted what he would initially resolve and/or what other scientists were doing.

By: Tdave

Tdave — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 07:44:44 +0000

Einstein didn’t know his own phone number. He said he never had to call home, it was trivial information and he kept his mind open for more important thoughts. Einstein didn’t drive, when he needed a substitute driver to drive him home, the sub would have to ask someone other than Einstein for directions. Einstein could only point in the general direction and say, “It’s a blue house.” That doesn’t distract from him being a genius.

By: Iris

Iris — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 00:54:47 +0000

Einstein was certainly a genius, but it is dangerous to assume that he was infallible. He was never very comfortable with quantum mechanics, and yet without our reliance on it, much of today’s technology would never have been created. In fact, looking over some of the above quotes, it seems that Einstein would find it abhorrent if we just blindly accept his theories as canon.

By: Mike D

Mike D — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 19:41:53 +0000

“A question that sometimes makes me hazy: Am I or are the others crazy”

Last line in an episode of “Criminal Minds” that was on last night.

How fortuitous that you would broach the topic today while it is still fresh in my mind.

By: Sonya

Sonya — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 18:39:54 +0000

I have this one on my outgoing emails:

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”

By: Eric

Eric — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 18:16:17 +0000

Quantum tunneling, and therefore “faster than light travel” occurs every moment within your body, but over much smaller distances. As explained above with the hill example, the ball is traveling through (or tunneling through) the hill instead of going over it.