Not just Mars, but also the trip there. To not mention the huge distance as compared to what any manned mission has ever tried before. To not mention the huge (presumably, because again nothing even similar has ever been done) costs and problems associated with all the supply/logistics (terraforming?! I don't think that they are seriously expecting to do such a thing. Something on the lines of a couple of buildings within quite a few years seems the only possible scenario to dream). To not mention many other "small" details.
There will certainly not be any manned trip to Mars within the next many years, for multiple reasons. The Moon option might be acceptable, but the process would be very slow (perhaps in our lifetimes?) and by bearing in mind that various funding miracles would have to occur.
It seems that Mars can easily trigger much more attention (money, hopes and similar) than the Moon. This is, in my opinion, its only advantage: plainly looking cooler.
This whole thread includes some of the funniest comments which I have read in a while. You can say whatever you want about Elon outside Slashdot, but he is really killing it here!
Why do you keep insisting on doing this over light years
Because this is what you used in your original example; the one which I said that was completely unrealistic.
A dental tool at 300k rpm and a mirror can easily sweep a dot faster than light at 10 km
I am afraid that nothing can go faster than light (well... my ideas on this front are a bit more complex than that. If you read my comments to the other person in this subthread, you would understand why I don't want to go deeper in that direction).
Feynman used where a person tries to get out of a speeding ticket for going 60 mph in a 30 mph zone, because it is impossible for them to go 60 mph if they have been traveling less than an hour.
Not sure what this joke (?!) has to do with trying to apply the conclusions from an impossible-to-be-reproduced example to another situation which is different by lots of orders of magnitudes (the expression orders of magnitude seems to have virtually no meaning here; talking about extrapolating light-years conclusions to what a dental tool can deliver). Are you aware about the surprisingly limited applicability of all our physical knowledge? Do you know that a model built on "particular numbers" is only applicable for numbers not too far away from that range? That all our theories aren't more than very simplistic summaries of what our limited understanding can guess under very specific conditions?
Anyway, I don't see the point of continuing with all this. We clearly see things in very different ways and this discussion will not change that fact. Thanks for being so nice and sorry if any of my comments bothered you.
Then perhaps you should just keep quiet instead of starting arguments if you have no intention of concluding them.
My intention wasn't starting anything (not outside the theoretical/practical applicability of QM), but I see the problem now. Sorry (I do understand that my attitude of not wanting to discuss further isn't precisely ideal), I will try to avoid these situations in the future.
Gah! Once again, it is not about practical applicability. The OP was trying to give an example, a thought experiment, to help you understand. But you seem hell-bent on throwing his helpfulness in his face.
OK. Sorry, this wasn't my intention, neither being pedantic. I apologise for the misunderstanding. All clear now.
First of all, thanks for self-identifying (sometimes, it is quite difficult to keep track of the AC you are talking to).
Sorry about that but I am afraid that you misunderstood my message; I was kind of sarcastically pointing out some of the problems I see here. Ironically and right before writing this message, I did write another one showing my honest intention of reducing the sarcasm content in my online contributions (what can I say? I couldn't refrain myself:)).
I am sure that other readers will appreciate your nice clarifications, but certainly not me (I mean... I appreciate you being so nice; I always appreciate people trying to help others, that's why I am feeling a bit bad about the misunderstood sarcasm). I do have a quite solid mathematics and physics knowledge (mainly about on the practical engineering versions); difficulty hasn't ever scared me (I am an engineering/science/going-always-beyond kind of person for whom the only goal is actually knowing more; not the kind of person who is afraid of difficulties); and, although I am always ready to learn more (a proud constant learner), I certainly don't want to know more about QM.
Again, sorry for the misunderstanding and thanks for having tried to be helpful.
So, you are saying that it is possible to keep track of a specific event spread through a years-light distance?! It seems quite difficult to me to do such a thing (extremely unlikely to be even possible; and unpractically complex to be actually performed). But this isn't even the whole story in your example, the really big deal there is to perform certain action (laser hitting a wall) at such a distance?! We are talking about targeting a specific spot (no matter how big it is) which is so far away that it will take us years to see if it was actually hit?! And on top of all that, we have still to measure what is happening at such a distance, at the microscopic level!
You have to build a laser capable of targeting an object which is years-light away and also a device able to send you back information about the effects of the laser on that object?! Even by assuming that building such a technology is possible, we would be talking about each single attempt taking quite a few years to be performed! You have to send your analysis device many years before shooting the laser (whatever you will be using to send it would be much slower than the speed of light); or do you prefer to start building a device able to accurately measure what is happening light-years away, at the microscopic level?! Then, you would have to shoot the laser (the one you have built to hit a spot which is light-years far away). Then, you would have to wait more years for your device to send back the information. Even in the virtually impossible scenario of getting everything right on the first attempt, it would take you loooots of years to do just one of these experiments by assuming that you have access to what seems sci-fi technology. How can you say that this is practically doable?
As said in my other message, I am not trying to be pedantic but a so extremely-unrealistic example should never be used to support practical applicability. It is a theoretical scenario, built over theoretical ideas which merely have theoretical applicability. Eventually, you can draw some abstract conclusions which might be somehow useful in a real scenario; but expecting a very specific result to happen by taking it as the sole reference is very naive, faulty, non-scientific, etc.
If you could do what he suggested, then the consequences would indeed be as he suggested
Why should I believe you? Based upon what? Upon you saying so or other person saying so? How can anyone be sure about the exact outputs under so uncertain conditions?
You can continue in the theoretical world for as long as you wish, but claiming that your theory has practical applicability is a different story.
I don't agree with your statements. I do fully agree with your underlying "causality may not be broken", but you are assuming many things which don't involve causality (just some old theoretical ideas. Only these old theories would break in case of finding faster-than-light anything; in fact, they are pretty fragile and can be broken in many different ways). Despite having a quite strong opinion on this specific front, I don't want to discuss about any of this. I am not trying to be rude or to assume anything about your particular behaviour, it is just not seeing the point in continuing (some past experiences together with the reality of "I don't really care/need to convince anyone").
By the way, I am perfectly aware about the speed of light value, as you can see in https://github.com/varocarbas/... (it is C#, but anyone should be able to understand this part of the code regardless of his programming background).
PS: the speed of light is the fastest thing we know. Although it might be possible to go faster than that (why not? There is no solid justification for this being the absolute limit, other than our restricted perception and some old "I tell you so"s), no physical theory might defend such a thing (only an actual measurement could do it).
I guess that you agree with the fact that doing anything from a years-light away position is (and will continue being for very long) impossible, immeasurable, invalidatable, etc., equivalently to what happens with other premises of that example. You might build a whole theory from it, but it would be a non-validated theory, a theory built on top of another theory. All the subsequent conclusions will have the same essence.
You might certainly draw conclusions from a non-validated theory, and more conclusions from those conclusions, etc. until reaching a point which you might actually validate. If you get there and you get proper results, assuming that the whole theory is fine might even be acceptable. But you have to actually validate it at some point, what means against the practically-measurable reality rather other part of the same theory.
I don't think that this experiment (or similar ones) represents this kind of validation. In any case, this wasn't my point; my point was: why relying on impossible examples to explain how practically useful a theory is? Can you use more realistic examples? Go ahead. Were the assumptions in your more-realistic examples drawn from elucubrations in other extremely-unrealistic examples? Same problem, then.
powerful laser aimed at a wall a few light-years away
or
sweep the laser beam along the wall's length
or
changes at several times the speed of light. But this is not information transfer
All this is clearly impossible (to accomplish, to validate, to even dream about being part of), but I get that you are using it as a way to facilitate the understanding.
On the other hand, I honestly don't see the practical implications (because this article deals precisely with the upcoming practical application of this theory) of anything you said. How could I? Your whole example cannot be validated, it happens what you say only because you say it.
You can create a theory to explain why a ball bounces up to certain height and then crosscheck your conclusions against a real scenario. The calculations might be a bit off, but at least they should show an acceptably good agreement with the real behaviour. Otherwise, what would be the point of the theory? Proving me that the ball actually has a different behaviour than the one I am seeing? Based on what? Shall I blindly trust a theory merely based on "I tell you so"?
Call me too practical if you wish, but I don't see too much value in a theory explaining something which I cannot crosscheck; a theory which seems to be mostly focused on solving problems created by itself. Remaining in the pure theoretical world forever is certainly an option, but should such a theory claim its practical applicability?
Also perhaps I am a bit weird, but shouldn't a theory meant to help understand a given phenomenon to be easy to understand itself? I get that the more complex is the phenomenon, the more difficult to understand even the easiest theory; but isn't this kind of bragging about the complexity of a theory a bit pointless? Shouldn't it be the contrary? Feeling a bit ashamed about not having been able to come up with a clearer approach?
A mistrustful person might even say that too/unnecessarily complex approaches are the typical outputs of either ignorance or dishonesty. On the other hand, you have religions, where the difficulty to understand is quite common ("only god knows") and a blind trust is usually required ("trust in god").
Not sure about what is the current glory of classical mechanics, but I am quite sure about its actual applicability: everywhere with eventual corrections (although virtually any theory has to be corrected for real-life applications; reality is still too complex for us). Logically, I cannot say anything about the glory of modern physics, much less to someone relying on so solid arguments like "some smart people think that it is right".
FYI and just in case you don't have a mirror at hand, you are also an AC (not sure if a random one though).
I was sarcastically highlighting how childish (on the sense of stupidly predictable) was the behaviour of this AC by trying to attract the interest of some conspiracy-theorists how a 9 yo would have done, despite probably being much older than this (if this is truly a 8-9 yo, I do apologise for having made fun of him, but what is making a 8-9 yo here writing a so sadly pointless post?!). In fact, my post included a sample much more likely to deliver a positive result on such a pathetic expectation (teaching via examples):)
Please, if you (random anyone with quite poor understanding capabilities) find problems to understand any of my posts here or anywhere else, feel completely free to ask me for clarifications. See, it is better to be proven stupid right away than thinking otherwise, making really stupid decisions and being proven stupid afterwards (+ all the associated responsibility; because I am afraid that stupidity isn't an exculpatory circumstance. On the other hand, stupids are rarely aware about the fact that there is responsibility associated with each single action they perform), don't you think?
Anyway, I am making serious efforts to minimise my sarcastic or not-too-clear-to-anyone remarks (+ deleted quite a few old ones) and you will not see many of these in the future.
Sorry for sounding a bit too hard, but it appears that you have never been in Atacama. Otherwise, you would have included the secret key; both my comment and hey!'s one include it, yours doesn't. Although kids usually don't lie (what are you? 8, 9 years old?), I am afraid that you aren't being honest.
Spot on. I visited the Atacama desert quite a few years ago and these pictures are very similar to what I saw there.
In fact, I recall one day when I walked away from the asphalted road various kilometres into the desert; it was a quite isolated area (around 30 km to the nearest village). The first picture starting from the top shows a landscape which is surprisingly similar to the one I remember there.
I don't know too much but about rockets, not even about Rei (relatively new here). Although I have seen quite a few of Rei's contributions and they are always quite elaborate. Sometimes, there might contain some mistakes or the post might be plainly wrong (according to my opinion). In any case, I don't think that so generous contributions (because writing this kind of stuff in this way, unlikely your comment, isn’t easy) should be rewarded with a comment like the one your wrote.
In my opinion, if you want to insult someone as generically as you did, you should say it to this person directly; ideally, in a non-anonymous-coward way. In any case, these generic hurtful statements (+ with an underlying essence of authority, on the lines of “I know a lot, trust me, this person is whatever”) seem quite censorable; even worse, by bearing in mind the aforementioned generous contributions.
An example to understand my position (you seem the kind of person who needs lots of examples to properly understand any idea): I think that you are an idiot. More specifically, I think that you are part of the unfortunately-too-common wave of aggressive ignorants who are provoking the quality of some theoretically-knowledge-oriented sites to drop down; the kind of person who doesn't know much about almost anything, but criticises as soon as possible; the kind of person whose net contribution to a site like this one is negative; the kind of leech-like person with a wrong self-perception (the leech being the most important part of the leech-host relationship?!); etc. See? This is how I think that you should insult someone in a generic way (a quite censorable behaviour, although somehow recommendable in certain situations) without showing a coward, dishonest and pathetic behaviour.
As said, I haven't been reading Slashdot for too long, but have already a quite good impression of (most of) this community; mainly thanks to contributions like Rei's. They aren't just relevant by themselves, but also because of what they trigger: meaningful critics which help to get a truly good understanding about the given issue (i.e., the ideal output for everyone, except for fanatics looking for a regular dose of absolute and easy-to-digest-and-repeat truths).
The point I was trying to make was that unnecessarily over-complicating things was the origin of your wrong approach; that you should go one step back, apply the basic ideas properly and understand why what you proposed doesn't make sense.
If you rely on an over-simplified example (a few billiard balls performing quite simplistic moves), you should stick to your starting assumptions and don’t arbitrarily mess things up. Bringing a triangle into picture represents an increase in the complexity which you aren't accounting for properly; it is a more complex shape outputting more complex movements. Hitting certain wall with certain angle would provoke certain movement, different than the one under different conditions. In any case, this fact doesn’t have any effect on what is being discussed here, as you would have understood in case of analysing the situation properly.
One ball moving linearly hitting another ball in its same direction provokes certain output; hitting a ball moving perpendicularly, a different one; hitting one of the edges of a static triangle, a different one; hitting a rotating triangle, a different one; etc. All of them apply "conservation of movement" ideas. To know the exact outputs in each situation you would have to perform the corresponding kinematic/dynamic analysis by bringing into picture trigonometry together with velocities, accelerations, forces, etc. But trust me in this one, there is no single scenario where one of the most basic principles of mechanics doesn’t hold when performing a mechanics calculation (BTW, such an idea applies to pretty much every properly-built theory).
Logically, I am not willing to give step-by-step lessons about how to face the analysis of these situations (if you like it, you can find lots of resources to help you get everything right), but here you have some preliminary ideas. When the ball hits the edge of the triangle it has certain velocity (and, consequently, momentum modelled via m*v; what is a way to account for the fact that a given mass moving at certain velocity will keep doing it or, eventually, transmit it); after hitting the triangle, by assuming ideal conditions (no friction or loss of energy in the impact), it would bounce with the same velocity and a direction defined by the incidence and edge angles (as said, you need trigonometry here). You can even face the problem in a different way: if you consider the impact point in the exact moment of the impact, you might convert the acceleration+mass of the ball into a force, opposed to the resistance offered by the triangle (+ its weight + friction of the table); after performing all calculations among the involved forces, you will be able to determine the final positions of both objects. But again, no movement/energy/force will magically disappear/be created; everything will remain exactly as it was at the start. In this second more realistic scenario, an external watcher would see an initial velocity much higher than the final one, what is justified by the interactions at the microscopic level, like friction and other energy losses (usually converted into heat).
Your original idea came from a wrong understanding of the situation. Trying to go further in this direction will not help you understand it properly. I re-insist in my initial advise: do things step by step and understand everything perfectly at each step. Over-complicating what isn’t properly understood is a quite bad idea.
Keeping things as simple as possible is usually a good idea when trying to understand anything properly. For example: if you have just 2 balls in your table, there are only two ways to move any of them: either by an external-to-the-two-ball-system force (your hand or the table surface being irregular) or if one, already moving, pushes the other. In space, the most logical set up is moving forwards as a reaction to the force exerted backwards (propulsion). In that case, the given object is accelerated as much as the difference between the backwards force minus the offered resistance which, in the vacuum, is pretty much its own weight.
Moving something by violating the principle of conservation of momentum/energy (I prefer movement, it is more generic) is plainly impossible according to all the human knowledge since hundreds of years ago. It seems that it might be an error in the measurements. On the other hand, it might also be possible (although highly unlikely) that they found a new type of force which we cannot see yet. It is even possible (although still much more unlikely) that they found a way to circumvent the conservation principles which so far have been proven 100% reliable; perhaps, applying a force in the direction of the movement isn't always required!
IMHO, they did make some mistakes. But even if I am wrong and they did actually find something new, this would be still very far away from being called a scientific discovery. Science isn't based upon random interpretations of obscure punctual events.
Slashdot Mirror
Iñigo Montoya
Excellent immortal reference + FTFY.
However, Mars is covered in poison.
Not just Mars, but also the trip there. To not mention the huge distance as compared to what any manned mission has ever tried before. To not mention the huge (presumably, because again nothing even similar has ever been done) costs and problems associated with all the supply/logistics (terraforming?! I don't think that they are seriously expecting to do such a thing. Something on the lines of a couple of buildings within quite a few years seems the only possible scenario to dream). To not mention many other "small" details.
There will certainly not be any manned trip to Mars within the next many years, for multiple reasons. The Moon option might be acceptable, but the process would be very slow (perhaps in our lifetimes?) and by bearing in mind that various funding miracles would have to occur.
It seems that Mars can easily trigger much more attention (money, hopes and similar) than the Moon. This is, in my opinion, its only advantage: plainly looking cooler.
Very funny.
This whole thread includes some of the funniest comments which I have read in a while. You can say whatever you want about Elon outside Slashdot, but he is really killing it here!
Very, very funny (it is just me or getting mod points is becoming more difficult lately?).
Tremendously funny (where are my mod points when I need them!!).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I don't agree with most of what you say, but again I don't see the point of continuing this discussion. So, better stopping it here.
Why do you keep insisting on doing this over light years
Because this is what you used in your original example; the one which I said that was completely unrealistic.
A dental tool at 300k rpm and a mirror can easily sweep a dot faster than light at 10 km
I am afraid that nothing can go faster than light (well... my ideas on this front are a bit more complex than that. If you read my comments to the other person in this subthread, you would understand why I don't want to go deeper in that direction).
Feynman used where a person tries to get out of a speeding ticket for going 60 mph in a 30 mph zone, because it is impossible for them to go 60 mph if they have been traveling less than an hour.
Not sure what this joke (?!) has to do with trying to apply the conclusions from an impossible-to-be-reproduced example to another situation which is different by lots of orders of magnitudes (the expression orders of magnitude seems to have virtually no meaning here; talking about extrapolating light-years conclusions to what a dental tool can deliver). Are you aware about the surprisingly limited applicability of all our physical knowledge? Do you know that a model built on "particular numbers" is only applicable for numbers not too far away from that range? That all our theories aren't more than very simplistic summaries of what our limited understanding can guess under very specific conditions?
Anyway, I don't see the point of continuing with all this. We clearly see things in very different ways and this discussion will not change that fact. Thanks for being so nice and sorry if any of my comments bothered you.
Then perhaps you should just keep quiet instead of starting arguments if you have no intention of concluding them.
My intention wasn't starting anything (not outside the theoretical/practical applicability of QM), but I see the problem now. Sorry (I do understand that my attitude of not wanting to discuss further isn't precisely ideal), I will try to avoid these situations in the future.
Gah! Once again, it is not about practical applicability. The OP was trying to give an example, a thought experiment, to help you understand. But you seem hell-bent on throwing his helpfulness in his face.
OK. Sorry, this wasn't my intention, neither being pedantic. I apologise for the misunderstanding. All clear now.
First of all, thanks for self-identifying (sometimes, it is quite difficult to keep track of the AC you are talking to).
:)).
Sorry about that but I am afraid that you misunderstood my message; I was kind of sarcastically pointing out some of the problems I see here. Ironically and right before writing this message, I did write another one showing my honest intention of reducing the sarcasm content in my online contributions (what can I say? I couldn't refrain myself
I am sure that other readers will appreciate your nice clarifications, but certainly not me (I mean... I appreciate you being so nice; I always appreciate people trying to help others, that's why I am feeling a bit bad about the misunderstood sarcasm). I do have a quite solid mathematics and physics knowledge (mainly about on the practical engineering versions); difficulty hasn't ever scared me (I am an engineering/science/going-always-beyond kind of person for whom the only goal is actually knowing more; not the kind of person who is afraid of difficulties); and, although I am always ready to learn more (a proud constant learner), I certainly don't want to know more about QM.
Again, sorry for the misunderstanding and thanks for having tried to be helpful.
So, you are saying that it is possible to keep track of a specific event spread through a years-light distance?! It seems quite difficult to me to do such a thing (extremely unlikely to be even possible; and unpractically complex to be actually performed). But this isn't even the whole story in your example, the really big deal there is to perform certain action (laser hitting a wall) at such a distance?! We are talking about targeting a specific spot (no matter how big it is) which is so far away that it will take us years to see if it was actually hit?! And on top of all that, we have still to measure what is happening at such a distance, at the microscopic level!
You have to build a laser capable of targeting an object which is years-light away and also a device able to send you back information about the effects of the laser on that object?! Even by assuming that building such a technology is possible, we would be talking about each single attempt taking quite a few years to be performed! You have to send your analysis device many years before shooting the laser (whatever you will be using to send it would be much slower than the speed of light); or do you prefer to start building a device able to accurately measure what is happening light-years away, at the microscopic level?! Then, you would have to shoot the laser (the one you have built to hit a spot which is light-years far away). Then, you would have to wait more years for your device to send back the information. Even in the virtually impossible scenario of getting everything right on the first attempt, it would take you loooots of years to do just one of these experiments by assuming that you have access to what seems sci-fi technology. How can you say that this is practically doable?
As said in my other message, I am not trying to be pedantic but a so extremely-unrealistic example should never be used to support practical applicability. It is a theoretical scenario, built over theoretical ideas which merely have theoretical applicability. Eventually, you can draw some abstract conclusions which might be somehow useful in a real scenario; but expecting a very specific result to happen by taking it as the sole reference is very naive, faulty, non-scientific, etc.
If you could do what he suggested, then the consequences would indeed be as he suggested
Why should I believe you? Based upon what? Upon you saying so or other person saying so? How can anyone be sure about the exact outputs under so uncertain conditions?
You can continue in the theoretical world for as long as you wish, but claiming that your theory has practical applicability is a different story.
I don't agree with your statements. I do fully agree with your underlying "causality may not be broken", but you are assuming many things which don't involve causality (just some old theoretical ideas. Only these old theories would break in case of finding faster-than-light anything; in fact, they are pretty fragile and can be broken in many different ways). Despite having a quite strong opinion on this specific front, I don't want to discuss about any of this. I am not trying to be rude or to assume anything about your particular behaviour, it is just not seeing the point in continuing (some past experiences together with the reality of "I don't really care/need to convince anyone").
By the way, I am perfectly aware about the speed of light value, as you can see in https://github.com/varocarbas/... (it is C#, but anyone should be able to understand this part of the code regardless of his programming background).
PS: the speed of light is the fastest thing we know. Although it might be possible to go faster than that (why not? There is no solid justification for this being the absolute limit, other than our restricted perception and some old "I tell you so"s), no physical theory might defend such a thing (only an actual measurement could do it).
I guess that you agree with the fact that doing anything from a years-light away position is (and will continue being for very long) impossible, immeasurable, invalidatable, etc., equivalently to what happens with other premises of that example. You might build a whole theory from it, but it would be a non-validated theory, a theory built on top of another theory. All the subsequent conclusions will have the same essence.
You might certainly draw conclusions from a non-validated theory, and more conclusions from those conclusions, etc. until reaching a point which you might actually validate. If you get there and you get proper results, assuming that the whole theory is fine might even be acceptable. But you have to actually validate it at some point, what means against the practically-measurable reality rather other part of the same theory.
I don't think that this experiment (or similar ones) represents this kind of validation. In any case, this wasn't my point; my point was: why relying on impossible examples to explain how practically useful a theory is? Can you use more realistic examples? Go ahead. Were the assumptions in your more-realistic examples drawn from elucubrations in other extremely-unrealistic examples? Same problem, then.
powerful laser aimed at a wall a few light-years away
or
sweep the laser beam along the wall's length
or
changes at several times the speed of light. But this is not information transfer
All this is clearly impossible (to accomplish, to validate, to even dream about being part of), but I get that you are using it as a way to facilitate the understanding.
On the other hand, I honestly don't see the practical implications (because this article deals precisely with the upcoming practical application of this theory) of anything you said. How could I? Your whole example cannot be validated, it happens what you say only because you say it.
You can create a theory to explain why a ball bounces up to certain height and then crosscheck your conclusions against a real scenario. The calculations might be a bit off, but at least they should show an acceptably good agreement with the real behaviour. Otherwise, what would be the point of the theory? Proving me that the ball actually has a different behaviour than the one I am seeing? Based on what? Shall I blindly trust a theory merely based on "I tell you so"?
Call me too practical if you wish, but I don't see too much value in a theory explaining something which I cannot crosscheck; a theory which seems to be mostly focused on solving problems created by itself. Remaining in the pure theoretical world forever is certainly an option, but should such a theory claim its practical applicability?
Also perhaps I am a bit weird, but shouldn't a theory meant to help understand a given phenomenon to be easy to understand itself? I get that the more complex is the phenomenon, the more difficult to understand even the easiest theory; but isn't this kind of bragging about the complexity of a theory a bit pointless? Shouldn't it be the contrary? Feeling a bit ashamed about not having been able to come up with a clearer approach?
A mistrustful person might even say that too/unnecessarily complex approaches are the typical outputs of either ignorance or dishonesty. On the other hand, you have religions, where the difficulty to understand is quite common ("only god knows") and a blind trust is usually required ("trust in god").
Not sure about what is the current glory of classical mechanics, but I am quite sure about its actual applicability: everywhere with eventual corrections (although virtually any theory has to be corrected for real-life applications; reality is still too complex for us). Logically, I cannot say anything about the glory of modern physics, much less to someone relying on so solid arguments like "some smart people think that it is right".
FYI and just in case you don't have a mirror at hand, you are also an AC (not sure if a random one though).
(Lots-of-stupids-in-internet-better-avoiding-not-too-simple-anything fix)
:)
I was sarcastically highlighting how childish (on the sense of stupidly predictable) was the behaviour of this AC by trying to attract the interest of some conspiracy-theorists how a 9 yo would have done, despite probably being much older than this (if this is truly a 8-9 yo, I do apologise for having made fun of him, but what is making a 8-9 yo here writing a so sadly pointless post?!). In fact, my post included a sample much more likely to deliver a positive result on such a pathetic expectation (teaching via examples)
Please, if you (random anyone with quite poor understanding capabilities) find problems to understand any of my posts here or anywhere else, feel completely free to ask me for clarifications. See, it is better to be proven stupid right away than thinking otherwise, making really stupid decisions and being proven stupid afterwards (+ all the associated responsibility; because I am afraid that stupidity isn't an exculpatory circumstance. On the other hand, stupids are rarely aware about the fact that there is responsibility associated with each single action they perform), don't you think?
Anyway, I am making serious efforts to minimise my sarcastic or not-too-clear-to-anyone remarks (+ deleted quite a few old ones) and you will not see many of these in the future.
Sorry for sounding a bit too hard, but it appears that you have never been in Atacama. Otherwise, you would have included the secret key; both my comment and hey!'s one include it, yours doesn't. Although kids usually don't lie (what are you? 8, 9 years old?), I am afraid that you aren't being honest.
Spot on. I visited the Atacama desert quite a few years ago and these pictures are very similar to what I saw there.
In fact, I recall one day when I walked away from the asphalted road various kilometres into the desert; it was a quite isolated area (around 30 km to the nearest village). The first picture starting from the top shows a landscape which is surprisingly similar to the one I remember there.
I don't know too much but about rockets, not even about Rei (relatively new here). Although I have seen quite a few of Rei's contributions and they are always quite elaborate. Sometimes, there might contain some mistakes or the post might be plainly wrong (according to my opinion). In any case, I don't think that so generous contributions (because writing this kind of stuff in this way, unlikely your comment, isn’t easy) should be rewarded with a comment like the one your wrote.
In my opinion, if you want to insult someone as generically as you did, you should say it to this person directly; ideally, in a non-anonymous-coward way. In any case, these generic hurtful statements (+ with an underlying essence of authority, on the lines of “I know a lot, trust me, this person is whatever”) seem quite censorable; even worse, by bearing in mind the aforementioned generous contributions.
An example to understand my position (you seem the kind of person who needs lots of examples to properly understand any idea): I think that you are an idiot. More specifically, I think that you are part of the unfortunately-too-common wave of aggressive ignorants who are provoking the quality of some theoretically-knowledge-oriented sites to drop down; the kind of person who doesn't know much about almost anything, but criticises as soon as possible; the kind of person whose net contribution to a site like this one is negative; the kind of leech-like person with a wrong self-perception (the leech being the most important part of the leech-host relationship?!); etc. See? This is how I think that you should insult someone in a generic way (a quite censorable behaviour, although somehow recommendable in certain situations) without showing a coward, dishonest and pathetic behaviour.
As said, I haven't been reading Slashdot for too long, but have already a quite good impression of (most of) this community; mainly thanks to contributions like Rei's. They aren't just relevant by themselves, but also because of what they trigger: meaningful critics which help to get a truly good understanding about the given issue (i.e., the ideal output for everyone, except for fanatics looking for a regular dose of absolute and easy-to-digest-and-repeat truths).
The point I was trying to make was that unnecessarily over-complicating things was the origin of your wrong approach; that you should go one step back, apply the basic ideas properly and understand why what you proposed doesn't make sense.
If you rely on an over-simplified example (a few billiard balls performing quite simplistic moves), you should stick to your starting assumptions and don’t arbitrarily mess things up. Bringing a triangle into picture represents an increase in the complexity which you aren't accounting for properly; it is a more complex shape outputting more complex movements. Hitting certain wall with certain angle would provoke certain movement, different than the one under different conditions. In any case, this fact doesn’t have any effect on what is being discussed here, as you would have understood in case of analysing the situation properly.
One ball moving linearly hitting another ball in its same direction provokes certain output; hitting a ball moving perpendicularly, a different one; hitting one of the edges of a static triangle, a different one; hitting a rotating triangle, a different one; etc. All of them apply "conservation of movement" ideas. To know the exact outputs in each situation you would have to perform the corresponding kinematic/dynamic analysis by bringing into picture trigonometry together with velocities, accelerations, forces, etc. But trust me in this one, there is no single scenario where one of the most basic principles of mechanics doesn’t hold when performing a mechanics calculation (BTW, such an idea applies to pretty much every properly-built theory).
Logically, I am not willing to give step-by-step lessons about how to face the analysis of these situations (if you like it, you can find lots of resources to help you get everything right), but here you have some preliminary ideas. When the ball hits the edge of the triangle it has certain velocity (and, consequently, momentum modelled via m*v; what is a way to account for the fact that a given mass moving at certain velocity will keep doing it or, eventually, transmit it); after hitting the triangle, by assuming ideal conditions (no friction or loss of energy in the impact), it would bounce with the same velocity and a direction defined by the incidence and edge angles (as said, you need trigonometry here). You can even face the problem in a different way: if you consider the impact point in the exact moment of the impact, you might convert the acceleration+mass of the ball into a force, opposed to the resistance offered by the triangle (+ its weight + friction of the table); after performing all calculations among the involved forces, you will be able to determine the final positions of both objects. But again, no movement/energy/force will magically disappear/be created; everything will remain exactly as it was at the start. In this second more realistic scenario, an external watcher would see an initial velocity much higher than the final one, what is justified by the interactions at the microscopic level, like friction and other energy losses (usually converted into heat).
Your original idea came from a wrong understanding of the situation. Trying to go further in this direction will not help you understand it properly. I re-insist in my initial advise: do things step by step and understand everything perfectly at each step. Over-complicating what isn’t properly understood is a quite bad idea.
Keeping things as simple as possible is usually a good idea when trying to understand anything properly. For example: if you have just 2 balls in your table, there are only two ways to move any of them: either by an external-to-the-two-ball-system force (your hand or the table surface being irregular) or if one, already moving, pushes the other. In space, the most logical set up is moving forwards as a reaction to the force exerted backwards (propulsion). In that case, the given object is accelerated as much as the difference between the backwards force minus the offered resistance which, in the vacuum, is pretty much its own weight.
Moving something by violating the principle of conservation of momentum/energy (I prefer movement, it is more generic) is plainly impossible according to all the human knowledge since hundreds of years ago. It seems that it might be an error in the measurements. On the other hand, it might also be possible (although highly unlikely) that they found a new type of force which we cannot see yet. It is even possible (although still much more unlikely) that they found a way to circumvent the conservation principles which so far have been proven 100% reliable; perhaps, applying a force in the direction of the movement isn't always required!
IMHO, they did make some mistakes. But even if I am wrong and they did actually find something new, this would be still very far away from being called a scientific discovery. Science isn't based upon random interpretations of obscure punctual events.