Science is freaking AWESOME!

[NevadaWolf]

Link to original page on YouTube.

Wow, that is just cool!

[Snake]

That is awesome! I love when scientists can prove the validity of a theory.

[Racer x]

That is awsome

[snot]

Again, this is why I chose a science major.
I love science... or at least I think I do.

[choneofakind]

Awesome. It's something we "know" from our maths and our ability to logic through things, but not something we're typically able to see. I'm going to share this one with a couple profs for kicks.


Also, while I'm here, I'd like to note: CLEVELAND OHIO!!! I think that's the NASA Glenn research center. Go cleveland.

[Worldtraveller]

It cost a little more, but they did the same experiment before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDp1tiUsZw8

[NevadaWolf]

Originally Posted by Worldtraveller

It cost a little more, but they did the same experiment before.

Link to original page on YouTube.

FTFY

[sharky nrk]

Science FTW lol

[Motofool]

Galileo and Newton had no vacuum chambers available; however, both knew it and could see it happening in their powerful minds:

"Something like the equivalence principle emerged in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, when Galileo expressed experimentally that the acceleration of a test mass due to gravitation is independent of the amount of mass being accelerated. These findings led to gravitational theory, in which the inertial and gravitational masses are identical."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivalence_principle

"The Principia was published on 5 July 1687 with encouragement and financial help from Edmond Halley. In this work, Newton stated the three universal laws of motion that contributed to many advances during the Industrial Revolution which soon followed and were not to be improved upon for more than 200 years. Many of these advancements continue to be the underpinnings of non-relativistic technologies in the modern world. He used the Latin word gravitas (weight) for the effect that would become known as gravity, and defined the law of universal gravitation."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%...al_gravitation

[Rifleman]

The reason this seems counter intuitive is that we have lived our entire life in an atmosphere... every time we have dropped a rock and a piece of paper... the rock has hit the ground first...

only under these very specific conditions, conditions that we have never, or rarely observed do we see the "Big G" constant by itself.

we know what we have observed... observing things fall in a vacuum is rare at best.

[LittleRedNinjette]

Very cool.

[250rr]

Love this. Thanks for posting! Also, love the experiment on the moon.

[Motofool]

Originally Posted by Rifleman

The reason this seems counter intuitive is that we have lived our entire life in an atmosphere... every time we have dropped a rock and a piece of paper... the rock has hit the ground first...

only under these very specific conditions, conditions that we have never, or rarely observed do we see the "Big G" constant by itself.

we know what we have observed... observing things fall in a vacuum is rare at best.

Agree.

For the same reason, falling objects reach a terminal velocity, according to the aerodynamic drag dictated by shape and surface type (sky divers for example).

In vacuum conditions, falling velocity would keep increasing until the object hits the ground.

In the same way, all those HP of our machines are consumed just fighting aerodynamic drag, reason for which we reach a specific horizontal max speed.

That max speed can only be increased with many more HP's or better aerodynamics.

[NevadaWolf]

Ok all you smart people,

At the end of the BBC video, he said that Einstein concluded that the ball and feather weren't falling, but staying still.

So if its only the background that gives the illusion of movement, then what's moving the background if the two objects remain fixed in place?

I like science, but I don't understand it. Someone edu-ma-cate me, please?

[Alex]

I don't think he's really saying that the ball and feather aren't moving in any real sense. He's saying that without a relationship to something else, it's just as easy to define them as not moving (because moving always is in relation to something else, right?). Similar questions about when you're standing still in a field, are you moving at zero mph, or 17,000 mph compared to a theoretical point in space while the earth rotates past. Or are we all moving at many times faster than that as the earth moves through its own path.

[misfitsailor]

I was robbed. I wanted to see the ball and feathers dropping in real time, not slow motion.

[Snake]

Originally Posted by Alex

I don't think he's really saying that the ball and feather aren't moving in any real sense. He's saying that without a relationship to something else, it's just as easy to define them as not moving (because moving always is in relation to something else, right?). Similar questions about when you're standing still in a field, are you moving at zero mph, or 17,000 mph compared to a theoretical point in space while the earth rotates past. Or are we all moving at many times faster than that as the earth moves through its own path.

Wow! You just blew my mind.

[Klondike1020]

I was thinking about how Galileo and Issac Newton were so far ahead of their times.

Even Tesla was brilliant and so far ahead of the rest of our civilization.

The few brilliant geniuses that are alive today who are 100 years ahead of their time? what are they dreaming up and hypothesizing about?

[NevadaWolf]

Ok, wasn't sure if I was missing something on a deeper level.

Levels upon levels upon levels, it never ends when looking out beyond our immediate sphere.

Back to my little bubble.

[choneofakind]

Look to the guy who jumped out the balloon from the upper reaches of the atmosphere. Without air (practically, because it's so thin up there) and because he was so far from the earth that it didn't appear to be moving, he felt like he was stationary and the balloon was rocketing away from him. He had no reference point to tell if he was moving or not. Just pure weightlessness. Obviously after some time he got back into "normal" atmosphere and was close enough to the earth that it started moving towards him rapidly again, but the point still stands.

[Ninjinsky]

Sitting still in curved spacetime. The background would also be 'falling' at the same rate if it didn't have the ground resisting it.

Put it this way:
If you could have dropped the whole chamber from 200 feet at the same time as you released the ball and feather you would see nothing "move" at all on the film until the chamber met the ground

[CC Cowboy]

First of all that Brian Cox guy doesn't sound like he is from Cleveland. He's probably from outer-space (al-lew-min-e-um).

Second, I wonder how much that place cost to build and I hope they have another use for it now that they did the feather bowling ball experiment.

Third and most important. The experiment is flawed because they never weighed the feather and bowling ball before hand, so who knows if they didn't weigh the same and the entire experiment was rigged (like the moon landing).

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Klondike1020

The few brilliant geniuses that are alive today who are 100 years ahead of their time? what are they dreaming up and hypothesizing about?

I think about motorcycles, mostly. Thanks for asking.

[Ninjinsky]

Originally Posted by CC Cowboy

First of all that Brian Cox guy doesn't sound like he is from Cleveland. He's probably from outer-space (al-lew-min-e-um).

He's one of ours, hence he pronounces aluminium correctly.
A Professor (in a country where the word still means something) and pop star. Quite the renaissance man.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Cox_%28physicist%29

[CC Cowboy]

Originally Posted by Ninjinsky

He's one of ours, hence he pronounces aluminium correctly.
A Professor (in a country where the word still means something) and pop star. Quite the renaissance man.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Cox_%28physicist%29

Really, you guys need to learn English.

He is also a snappy dresser.

[Rifleman]

Alright NevadaWolf, I'll add one more log to the fire that is roasting your brain.

the others have touched on the "ball is not falling"

but a ball dropping is not the only thing "moving" in that system...

F (force) = G m1 m2 /r *squared* m1 is the mass of the bowling ball, however m2 is the mass... of the earth.

in actuality the ball isn't falling to the earth. The earth and the ball are "coming together" earth rising toward the ball, ball lowering toward the earth. only thing is because the earth has soooo much more mass then the ball, the movement of the earth is imperceptible...

brain roast redux...

soooo when the crane was going up, lifting the ball... the supports of the crane were pushing down on the earth, pushing it ever so slightly to a different location... and when the ball was released...

the earth moved back to its original location as the ball was moving to its original location...


I think what Einstein is saying is that everything is relative. what are we calling the "start" positions, what are we calling the "end". One could say that I've moved many miles in my life... However I was born in Geneva, Illinois... and I'm currently about 40 miles from the hospital I was born in... I suppose that means I've only moved 40 miles in my entire life... though I've been to the north pole... and back.

[CC Cowboy]

Originally Posted by Rifleman

Alright NevadaWolf, I'll add one more log to the fire that is roasting your brain.

the others have touched on the "ball is not falling"

but a ball dropping is not the only thing "moving" in that system...

F (force) = G m1 m2 /r *squared* m1 is the mass of the bowling ball, however m2 is the mass... of the earth.

in actuality the ball isn't falling to the earth. The earth and the ball are "coming together" earth rising toward the ball, ball lowering toward the earth. only thing is because the earth has soooo much more mass then the ball, the movement of the earth is imperceptible...

brain roast redux...

soooo when the crane was going up, lifting the ball... the supports of the crane were pushing down on the earth, pushing it ever so slightly to a different location... and when the ball was released...

the earth moved back to its original location as the ball was moving to its original location...


I think what Einstein is saying is that everything is relative. what are we calling the "start" positions, what are we calling the "end". One could say that I've moved many miles in my life... However I was born in Geneva, Illinois... and I'm currently about 40 miles from the hospital I was born in... I suppose that means I've only moved 40 miles in my entire life... though I've been to the north pole... and back.

but what if there was another crane on the other side of the earth lifting another ball at the same time? Would that compensate for the earth movement?

[subxero]

but the real question is, if you are driving at the speed of light and you turn your headlights on, do they do anything?

[LittleRedNinjette]

My brain hurts now....

[Worldtraveller]

Originally Posted by CC Cowboy

but what if there was another crane on the other side of the earth lifting another ball at the same time? Would that compensate for the earth movement?

Yes. At that point, you could treat the entire 'system' as a single object with a shifting center of gravity (CG). The cg shift from one crane would offset the cg shift from the other.

On, and don't forget, when it comes to relative motion, that the sun is also zooming around the milky way, and milky way is zooming (even 'faster') through the universe (local cluster, technically...)

Brain Hertz.

Originally Posted by subxero

but the real question is, if you are driving at the speed of light and you turn your headlights on, do they do anything?

Technically, you can't drive at the speed of light, C, as our best understanding of relativity works now. You can go very close to C, but not at. So yes, if you are travelling at 99.9999% the speed of light, if you turn a light on, it will appear, to you, to project away from you ...at the speed of light. Also, to someone else in a stationary reference frame, relative to you, when you turn the light on, it will only move ahead of you a tiny bit faster. There is also a time dilation effect that occurs near the speed of light. The person moving near the speed of light experiences time at a different rate.

There was a great episode of Cosmos (Ok let's face it, they were all great) where Carl Sagan explained it all very clearly, as if the speed of light was 40 mph (or in that ballpark).

Here ya go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPoGVP-wZv8

[motorbikerx]

HEAVY stuff...............Id think weight would come into the equation..but..well there ya saw it folks!

[Rifleman]

weight is the measure of gravitational force generated between two things

mass is a measurement of the amount of matter in an object.

If one of the two things in a weight measurement is 1. much more massive then the other, and 2. the more massive object is used in every measurement... then weight and mass can be measured in the same way

we know that 6.022 X E23 atoms of Silicon - 28 is exactly one Kilogram when subjected to the gravitational field of the Earth... thus the mass of that object is called 1 kilo as well as its weight is called 1 kilo.

this is because with very few exceptions, all mass measurements taken so far have been done exclusively using the earths gravitational field.

this may get some what weird if we were to take a sample of Mars soil and weigh it on a balance that was calibrated on earth. If we use those numbers to do further calculations we would have error carried forward through the entire calculation.

once again... we know what we observe... and in only very rare instances have we taken mass measurements with anything other then the earths gravitational field.

[Ninjinsky]

Originally Posted by subxero

but the real question is, if you are driving at the speed of light and you turn your headlights on, do they do anything?

To you they work fine,
To us you are invisible, zero inches long and frozen in time. Same as at the event horizon of a black hole.

Einstein posited that if he were on a tram moving away from the town clock at the speed of light, to him, it would always read the time he left at.
To put it simply, the speed of light is the speed of time.

Get your head around that and you are half way to understanding relativity

[Rifleman]

Originally Posted by CC Cowboy

but what if there was another crane on the other side of the earth lifting another ball at the same time? Would that compensate for the earth movement?

Yes of course, every action has an equal and opposite reaction...

if you could find two identical actions occuring at the same moment but in opposite directions... they would cancel each other out.

if you jump into the air, you have pushed the earth out of its orbit by some insanely small amount, as you and the earth come back together (you fall) your gravitational field will pull the earth back into its original orbit. The entire earth is a single system. It's just that the earth moving out of it's orbit is immeasurably small... it just doesn't matter... it happens, it just can't be measured... it can be calculated though, if that was your thing.

In only very rare instances have we successfully "pushed" the earth to a new orbit... launching of the Voyager probes, sending stuff to the moon or other planets, or in orbit around something other then the earth... those were a push that will not be undone, the earths orbit was changed slightly.

all great theory, but doesn't matter a tiny hill of beans.

[Rifleman]

*hands out advanced degrees in physics*

congratulations... ya'll have earned them.

[Motofool]

Originally Posted by NevadaWolf

Ok all you smart people,

At the end of the BBC video, he said that Einstein concluded that the ball and feather weren't falling, but staying still.

So if its only the background that gives the illusion of movement, then what's moving the background if the two objects remain fixed in place?

I like science, but I don't understand it. Someone edu-ma-cate me, please?

The sensationalist statement at he end is misleading due to over-simplification, IMHO.

As Earth and the bodies eventually collide, both are moving toward each other at a measurable relative speed that increases at a rate of 32.2 ft/second after each second (measurable relative acceleration).

Please read about Equivalence Principle by clicking on the first link of post #9 above.

[subxero]

Originally Posted by Ninjinsky

To you they work fine,
To us you are invisible, zero inches long and frozen in time. Same as at the event horizon of a black hole.

Einstein posited that if he were on a tram moving away from the town clock at the speed of light, to him, it would always read the time he left at.
To put it simply, the speed of light is the speed of time.

Get your head around that and you are half way to understanding relativity

The speed of light is the speed of visual time keeping while you are in motion and the time keeping device is stationary. What if Einstein was blind? And he was limited to perceiving time as the ticking sound of a clock? Using that sense as opposed to sight the speed of sound then would be the speed of time no?

So basically we are back at if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one around to hear it does it make a sound? Or if you can't see the clock does it still move?

[Alex]

Originally Posted by subxero

So basically we are back at if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one around to hear it does it make a sound?

If we're going there....

[Ninjinsky]

Originally Posted by subxero

The speed of light is the speed of visual time keeping while you are in motion and the time keeping device is stationary. What if Einstein was blind? And he was limited to perceiving time as the ticking sound of a clock? Using that sense as opposed to sight the speed of sound then would be the speed of time no?

So basically we are back at if a tree falls in the forest and there is no one around to hear it does it make a sound? Or if you can't see the clock does it still move?

There is no motion relative the his ticking clock in the tram so no relativistic effect. Both he and his ticker are in the same reference frame.
"The speed of light is the speed of visual time keeping" Good try and I can understand that but that is not quite where the time dilation thing is going. Time dilation is not a simple linear effect. For instance a 20 light year journey at 80% of lightspeed will take you in your space ship 15 years (but 25 years viewed from earth). and (this is the tricky bit) 15 years coming back. This is the basis of the "twins paradox". When you get back your twin has aged 50 years but you have only aged 30, and that is what happens.

If you want a good book to explain your questions (including as it happens, the headlight one ) and the ones you were going to ask next, try this.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Simply-Einst.../dp/0393325075

[subxero]

Originally Posted by Ninjinsky

There is no motion relative the his ticking clock in the tram so no relativistic effect. Both he and his ticker are in the same reference frame.

If you want a good book to explain your questions (including as it happens, the headlight one ) and the ones you were going to ask next, try this.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Simply-Einst.../dp/0393325075

I supposed I should have been more precise, I thought it was understood that the ticking clock was not on the tram with him