Layman asks - speed of light - read at your own peril.

The Diabolical Monocle

This regards light speed. Speed of light.

Im not so well versed in the sciences so please do excuse.

In a nutshell - I think there is a speed much greater than the speed of light.

I believe this speed to be what I have called speed of transition.
(in my own terms - if not already invented)

It may have been studied before, it may have been dismissed.
So here is my 'speed of transition'.

- It is the speed of change from one rule of physics to the next -

It may be hard to conceive. It may well be a flawed idea but Ill try an example anyway.

An electro magnet holds a metal ball suspended.

There is the force of magnetism holding the ball above the earth.
There is the force of gravity pulling the ball towards the earth.

The electro-magnet is switched off.

The situation changes instantly. Not even at the laughably slow speed of light, but instantly, absolute zero delay.

Its not the function of the magnet losing power and the time from pressing the off button til the time the ball begins its descent. Its not about the mechanism.

-The (new) rules of physics are brought into effect in what must be zero time-

It is the speed with which reality changes - from situation a to situation b.

From ball at zero velocity - to ball at x velocity.

Another illustration in more silly human terms.

In human terms - Security guard A 'Mr Magnetism' is met by security guard B 'Mr Gravity' - they greet each other, give a summary, say bye bye, Mr A goes home and Mr Gravity is now on duty. Their change over/transition took 5 minutes.

At transition speed however Mr A is walking out the gate at the exact moment that Mr B is walking in. Their shoulders brush.
As one crosses the line on his way in, the other is crossing the line on the way out. There was never an absence of a guard, not for one microsecond - yet there has been a change.

Its works less like this. Which we are accustomed to.
Step1 (delay) step2 (delay) step3.
Light particle/wave leaves point A -delay- light particle/wave reaches point B


And more like this step1step2step3.

Force1force2

or

Force1(zero delay)Force2.

Magnetinchargegravityincharge.


Magneticforcechangenowgravity.



Les opinions ?

IrishKnight

I'm no physicist but from I understanding of what you say, it is a kin to turning on a light switch. It only appears to be instantly to a human, but I bet it isn't. Anything tends to resist change, so while you switched off the power unit I'd imagine that the electromagnet would have some little time before it become fully demagnetised, however slight that might be.

The only transition I know off which is truly instant is the transfer of the crown when a King or Queen dies. The Crawn instantly transfers to the next in line :P

dlouth15

The Diabolical Monocle wrote: »

This regards light speed. Speed of light.



It may have been studied before, it may have been dismissed.
So here is my 'speed of transition'.

- It is the speed of change from one rule of physics to the next -

It may be hard to conceive. It may well be a flawed idea but Ill try an example anyway.

An electro magnet holds a metal ball suspended.

There is the force of magnetism holding the ball above the earth.
There is the force of gravity pulling the ball towards the earth.

The electro-magnet is switched off.

The situation changes instantly. Not even at the laughably slow speed of light, but instantly, absolute zero delay.

Unfortunately reality doesn't change everywhere instantly. If an electromagnet is switched off at one point, it will take time for this change in the field to propagate out to where the object happens to be. The speed at which this happens is the speed of light. This is predicted by Maxwell's equations. Since the electromagnet itself isn't a point in space, time will be needed for the different parts of the magnet to affect the object. Even if it were possible to halt the electrons instantly in the magnet, the effect on the object wouldn’t be instant.

papu

yes this^
The scientific consensus is that faster-than-light communication is not possible and to date superluminal communication has not been achieved in any experiment.

Unless you're quantum entangled, but even then there are serious doubts that information can be sent via QE because of the No-communication theorem.

If you feel like bending your brain some more read up on the underlined

Morbert

papu wrote: »

yes this^
The scientific consensus is that faster-than-light communication is not possible and to date superluminal communication has not been achieved in any experiment.

Unless you're quantum entangled, but even then there are serious doubts that information can be sent via QE because of the No-communication theorem.

A few comments on quantum entanglement:

Quantum entanglement is the the quantum mechanical version of correlation. It is a far stronger correlation than what classical physics permits, but still just a correlation, and so there is no signalling between entangled particles, just as there is no signalling between your matching socks.

There are some interpretations of quantum mechanics which assert the collapse of the wavefunction as physical, and these would involve nonlocal signalling (even if the signalling cannot be used for communication). But the mainstream interpretations (Copenhagen, Many Worlds, Ensemble) don't.