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Euclid was the one ruining it. If he had, say, drowned when he was a kid, space would have had two large circular dimensions, and one short linear one.
And understanding string theory would have been much easier.
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It was one of the early forms of DoubleThink.
You had to believe and say that the Earth was flat as that was part of the one true infallible word of the State Religion.
But you would also know that it was incorrect.
See also 'The Emperors new clothes'.
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I think you are confusing that with the Sun going around the Earth. (That's what got Galileo in trouble).
But that was based on religious belief, not misapplied science.
Truth,
James
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den2k88 wrote: Bloodlettings were known to be healthy...
Yes, but that was before we found the limit of our universe. Nowadays you'd need to be very convincing and stuff.
It is also not limited to what we know, but what we can observe - has there ever been a particle observed that moved faster?
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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Have we the technology to observe faster particles?
CALL APOGEE, SAY AARDWOLF
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
Never pay more than 20 bucks for a computer game.
I'm a puny punmaker.
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For those that can collide with existing particles, yes. We'd have no way to determine their speed if they existed, but if they did and could collide with matter - then yes, one would notice an impact.
..what about all those planets that should have intelligent life? Any aliens passed by recently?
Bastard Programmer from Hell
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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Heh. I'll cheat here.
Some particles can travel faster than light, under centain conditions (see cherenkov radiation - Wikipedia[^]).
I believe the limit we are all talking about here, is the speed of light in vacuo. Supposedly, the speed of light in vacuo is the fastest speed any information can travel. However that too has been debunked under certain conditions (EPR paradox - Wikipedia[^]).
We've yet to observe any tachyons, that's true. But we'd yet to observe any gravitational waves up to last year as well (and we did). And the theory we have describing the world around us is just that: a theory. When it stops corresponding to reality, we don't (shouldn't, at least) try to change reality, we change (should, at least) the theory. The same way that the theory of relativity and it's imposed limit that no massive object can travel faster than the speed of light in vacuo, was a better approximation of Newtonian physics in the limit of very large speeds (i.e. it described phenomena that Newtonian physics couldn't), there may be some other theory that describes some exotic (yet unobserved) phenomena that occur in extremely large speeds, and where the limit of the speed of light is no longer applicable (though I can't think of any phenomenon that this has been observed so far) and that degenerates to relativistic theory for large speeds and to Newtonian theory for small speeds.
Physics was in a similar position at the turn of the 20th century - there were just a handful of phenomena that had yet to be interpreted adequately by classical physics - one of them was the photoelectric phenomenon, and another one was the linear emission spectrum of gases. Yet these two gave birth to quantum physics, and a whole lot of new areas of research for more than a century.
Relativity theory still has a few things not very well defined (naked singularities comes to mind). And the universe is a very big place, so we can't really say we have looked everywhere and there's nothing more to observe. I, for one, believe that we are still in for quite a few surprises in terms of exotic physical phenomena in the future.
Φευ! Εδόμεθα υπό ρηννοσχήμων λύκων!
(Alas! We're devoured by lamb-guised wolves!)
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yiangos wrote: Some particles can travel faster than light, under centain conditions
Nice cheating; we were assuming a near-vacuum like space, not the oceans.
yiangos wrote: We've yet to observe any tachyons, that's true
We're not limited to using light to observe stuff - if it is a particle then it surely has mass. Any particle (regardless of speed) would also interact on collision (with say, lots o' static, dense particles). And yes, I hope they exist, because that would mean that we could actually test what happens when the laws of causality are violated - might be a big bang for us 
yiangos wrote: But we'd yet to observe any gravitational waves up to last year as well (and we did).
Yes, but observing simply brings knowledge - it does not change the way things work. We may dream of teleporting a human (and a fly) from one pod to the other, but that doesn't mean it has to become reality.
yiangos wrote: I, for one, believe that we are still in for quite a few surprises in terms of exotic physical phenomena in the future.
Given the current state, yes, there would have to be. Were currently stuck with a set of theories that are a bit conflicting, and that are predicting some really weird things.
..and thanks for showing that the constant isn't 
Bastard Programmer from Hell
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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But light does not travel at a constant speed, so the number assigned to it is all but arbitrary.
Who knows if it can go a lot faster, under the right conditions?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Well, it's defined according to the speed of light in a vacuum.
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What kind of vacuum? No real vacuum has been actually observed, only approximations of it.
CALL APOGEE, SAY AARDWOLF
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
Never pay more than 20 bucks for a computer game.
I'm a puny punmaker.
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A perfect, theoretical one. As far as actually measuring it goes, the vacuums we can generate are probably good enough. After all, vacuum quality is just one source of uncertainty.
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Under what gravity?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Sounds like it's time for a "your momma" joke.
Jeremy Falcon
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Yo momma so fat that her gravity gradient is so steep that light can't escape her orbit, so she has effectively transformed into a black hole?
Did I get the parlance right?
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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What is gravity? The whole thing about not traveling faster than the speed of light is special relativity which is consistent from cosmological scales down to the quantum. Gravity bending spacetime and thus light was general relativity and falls apart at quantum levels. It's one of the least understood things in physics.
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But that still doesn't completely rule out the Alcubierre drive[^]. We just need to find some exotic matter with a negative energy density.
If everyone here could have a look down the back of their sofas, I'm sure we'd be able to find some.
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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I'm searching. Sofa so good.
Getting my coat
CALL APOGEE, SAY AARDWOLF
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
Never pay more than 20 bucks for a computer game.
I'm a puny punmaker.
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Almost as good as the "Sofa King" slogan - "They're Sofa King good". 
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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Ok, that is an unreachable standard! 
CALL APOGEE, SAY AARDWOLF
GCS d--- s-/++ a- C++++ U+++ P- L- E-- W++ N++ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t++ 5? X R++ tv-- b+ DI+++ D++ G e++>+++ h--- ++>+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
Never pay more than 20 bucks for a computer game.
I'm a puny punmaker.
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Eddy Vluggen wrote: The speed of light is a known physical limit of the universe.
That's not entirely accurate, depending on your point of view. The speed of light is a known limit to our understanding of the universe. Until someone explains why energy cannot go any faster without relying on 45 layers of other people's mathematical theories, I will still say that it is possible to go faster then light and that is our understanding of physics that is, well, incomplete.
I know that with e = mc2 accelerating anything with more mass then a single elementary particle would need all of the energy of the universe but if you rethink what that equation implies, you begin to see that it might just be possible if we knew more.
if (Object.DividedByZero == true) { Universe.Implode(); }
Meus ratio ex fortis machina. Simplicitatis de formae ac munus. -Foothill, 2016
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Foothill wrote: That's not entirely accurate, depending on your point of view. The speed of light is a known limit to our understanding of the universe. Until someone explains why energy cannot go any faster without relying on 45 layers of other people's mathematical theories, I will still say that it is possible to go faster then light and that is our understanding of physics that is, well, incomplete.
AFAIK, it does not require any additional layers. Now, do come up with a theory were light goes faster and prove it with a repeatable experiment, and we'll talk
Foothill wrote: I know that with e = mc2 accelerating anything with more mass then a single elementary particle would need all of the energy of the universe but if you rethink what that equation implies, you begin to see that it might just be possible if we knew more.
No, it wouldn't, because all matter is still slower than light.
Bastard Programmer from Hell
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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Let me see if I can explain this little theory I've been mulling over in my head since back when I was taking physics at my local university.
First, I will start with your statement
Eddy Vluggen wrote: come up with a theory where light goes faster
One of the central tenants of my idea is not to find examples of light deviating from it's set speed but to answer why does it always want move at that speed. What is it about the constant that makes it this way not just for light but all energy. So I started pondering the meaning of Einstein's famous equation and it's implications.
e = mc2 implies that energy is a function of an interaction between mass and the constant. It implies that energy is irrelevant and only mass and C matter. Most of the widely accepted theories are rooted in this. If we switch things up, the equation takes on a whole new meaning.
m = e/c2 implies that mass is a function of an interaction between energy and the constant. It implies that mass is irrelevant on only energy and C matter. More to the point, since energy is in a constant state of acceleration, the mass of a particle is a direct result of energy shedding velocity due to the C. The caveat is that if we could figure out what the universal principal is that causes all energy to shed velocity to make mass, we could figure out how to negate it, thus making faster-than-light travel possible.
I may be off my marks but I've asked several physicists about this without a straight answer; even emails to NASA and FermiLab got me nowhere. The answer was always make up a mathematical model and prove it. It's the same exact model they have now just a different way of looking at it. Never did get anywhere with it so far. The only nice thing is that it offers an explanation for electron quantum jumping. I've got theories on gravity too but I can never get any help from physicists on that one either. Not even a suggestion on where to start.
if (Object.DividedByZero == true) { Universe.Implode(); }
Meus ratio ex fortis machina. Simplicitatis de formae ac munus. -Foothill, 2016
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The longer one practices physics, the more entrenched prevailing thought becomes. The "trap" of science is that eventually it becomes its very antithesis: a religion, one based upon perceived facts. The word "perceived" escapes notice, however, and the physicists become the acolytes of the "church" of science. Those acolytes then defend their religion to the death.
Your new idea is heresy.
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It seems that perception is the key thought there. As I read about special and general relativity, one point was clear: everything you measure is based on your frame of reference. It seems like a lot of scientists took that and ran with it while they forgot that perception makes the measurement and not the other way around.
if (Object.DividedByZero == true) { Universe.Implode(); }
Meus ratio ex fortis machina. Simplicitatis de formae ac munus. -Foothill, 2016
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