Large Hardon Collider

[Woozie]

Alright, I have a question about a homework problem of mine. I think I have the answer, but for some reason it seems that it shouldn't be this easy. Anyway, the question is:



As I think about it, you would see exactly the same image of yourself as you would as if you were standing still. You and the mirror share a reference frame, so there is no length contraction/time dilation between the mirror and yourself (assuming you could hold the mirror still while running that fast, and be able to run that fast!). Am I thinking about this correctly, or am I way off and missing something important?

It's been so long since I've done any SR related problems.

But in this situation, your intuition seems correct. If you're standing still, the mirror is at rest to you and the light reflecting is traveling at C relative to your frame

If you're moving at.99c....the mirror is still at rest to you and the light is still moving at C with respect to your frame. It shouldn't change anything.

Just out of curiosity, who is the author if the book you're class is using and which edition?

Radiation is as much a part of our everyday lives as is breathing.

So basically, if I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying we could all end up with superpowers? Because that's definitely what I'm getting from your post.

[Eliseos]

The book is Tipler and Llewellyn, Modern Physics, 5th Edition

Amazon.com: Modern Physics (9780716775508): Paul A. Tipler, Ralph Llewellyn: Books

I tried searching for a free solutions manual, but I couldn't find anything.

Also, thanks for the confirmation. I did fairly poorly on the first assignment so I'm trying to make sure every problem is correct now lol.

[Woozie]

Like I said, I haven't touched SR in years, so I may not be the best confirmation.

Also, Tipler is an awesome author. I used his book to teach myself elementary classical physics. I've never read his modern physics book though.

[Neosutra]

Alright, I have a question about a homework problem of mine. I think I have the answer, but for some reason it seems that it shouldn't be this easy. Anyway, the question is:



As I think about it, you would see exactly the same image of yourself as you would as if you were standing still. You and the mirror share a reference frame, so there is no length contraction/time dilation between the mirror and yourself (assuming you could hold the mirror still while running that fast, and be able to run that fast!). Am I thinking about this correctly, or am I way off and missing something important?

You are correct. The entire point of SR is that light has the same velocity in all reference frames, so the image would remain the same to you regardless of your velocity.

[Kryssan]

That's awesome lol. And yet, people still are afraid of nuclear power, like it's going to deform their hands or something.

You know, I was catching up on the thread and ran across this and had a history rebuke, lol. Back in the 60s or 70s, in order to prove the safety of nuclear energy, Admiral Rickover (the guy who is pretty much wholly responsible for the military nuclear power program) drank a glass of primary coolant taken directly from a sample line and cooled to prove it was safe to the public. Amusing, considering he was such an angry little man who could care less what other people thought.

[Max™]

By the way, Eliseos, If you need any help in Modern Physics or have any questions about conceptual or mathematical aspects of QM, post here (assuming this is your first exposure to the mathematics of QM, you're bound to have a lot of questions to ask. No one gets it their first time). We'd all be happy to help.

And you might end up sparking a huge debate over why Max is wrong about hidden variables. (Max and I used to argue about this in spam all the time. I don't believe there are hidden variables, but he does.

No I don't believe there are hidden variables, they are observable dimensions of the event, but the state of an object light enough to fall under the realm of quantum mechanics can not be fully described without information about the both the past states, and the future states... to an extent.

Obscured variables due to the way we observe time, but not hidden unseen states.

No pilot waves, no extra forces.

Under certain restrictions on the variables, QM doesn't necessarily disallow hidden variables, so there's no way to really resolve the question. It's more philosophical than scientific as long as the person arguing for hidden variables allows their variables to be non-local and can formulate their theory to be consistent with QM and any Bell Experiments [like Bohemian's Interpretation].

No, you have to show that your argument involves a loss of locality OR causality in some sense. Don't misrepresent the EPR/Bell results.

No description of the Universe which corresponds with experimental results can be both absolutely local and counterfactual definite.


Moving to non-local effects produces the issues of renormalization, and having to choose where to limit your interactions to avoid ultraviolet loops and such.

Moving to descriptions with extended causal interactions provides a natural point to limit the interactions and avoid runaway catastrophes. The mass of the object considered determines how far you need to take calculations.

If you're new to QM, I don't expect you to understand everything I just said yet, but the people in this topic will make sure you eventually do understand all of this).

Even if you think you understand it, you should probably ask questions anyways. Heck, if this is your first exposure to it, you should be very worried if it doesn't confuse you (or very proud. Who knows, you might be the next Feynman). Your book probably wont go over the real theory behind the measurements and what they mean. I can explain it to you now if you want, or you can wait until you're a little more familiar with the Schrodinger equation (again, assuming this is your first exposure to it. I have no clue if you've studied this before or not). Many of the aspects of measurement are more philosophical or unresolved, but I can at least explain it in terms of the postulates of Quantum Mechanics.

...and I can explain why the postulates of Quantum Mechanics emerge from the changes I suggest in General Relativity.

[Woozie]

No I don't believe there are hidden variables, they are observable dimensions of the event, but the state of an object light enough to fall under the realm of quantum mechanics can not be fully described without information about the both the past states, and the future states... to an extent.

Obscured variables due to the way we observe time, but not hidden unseen states.

No pilot waves, no extra forces.

My bad. I could have swore that's what you were arguing hidden variables in spam when we had our discussion about measurements and interpretations in QM. You even brought up Bohmian mechanics once.

It sounds to me like you're saying there are more variables in QM that affect the outcome of measurement, but these variables are hidden? You're that the reason we don't see them is not because they are hidden, but because they manifest in another dimension or something? Do you think QM is an incomplete theory (what I'm asking is, do you think the measurement problems QM have arise out of the fact that there are more variables to consider than QM is capable of describing? Or do you believe that QM is as powerful as can be, and that these variables QM is missing out on are just beyond science [or at least beyond current QM]?)

No, you have to show that your argument involves a loss of locality OR causality in some sense. Don't misrepresent the EPR/Bell results.

Well, technically you're right, but I can't imagine someone would be okay with a loss of causality in a situation where this can be avoided. From it philosophical standpoint, it's bad enough that I can't have both causality and locality, but if I'm going to choose one, I'm going to keep causality.

Moving to non-local effects produces the issues of renormalization, and having to choose where to limit your interactions to avoid ultraviolet loops and such.

Moving to descriptions with extended causal interactions provides a natural point to limit the interactions and avoid runaway catastrophes. The mass of the object considered determines how far you need to take calculations.

What theory produced renormalization problems that are due to non-local effects? I'm not that far into field theory yet, but the normalization problems I've seen do not result from non-local effects of entangled wave functions, or any of the non-local effects used to describe any sort of wave function or the measure of it.

[Kuya]

Actually, if christianity never existed, Europe would have probably taken even longer to get out of the dark ages, because it was the fact that Europe was christian and had a hate boner for Islam, that they attacked the Muslim empire and were exposed to its intellectual activity at that point in time.

[Woozie]

Wrong topic? They were talking about something similar in another topic. Something about a family guy episode.

[Kuya]

I was commenting on something that was said on another page. In that family guy episode.

[Woozie]

I was commenting on something that was said on another page. In that family guy episode.

Was that in this thread? I thought I read that somewhere else. My bad.

[Kuya]

Was that in this thread? I thought I read that somewhere else. My bad.

This is probably WAY out of context (i'm working through this thread and am only on page 22 atm ><) but I had to comment on this because reading this reminded me of the family guy episode that was on this past week and needed to share.

stewie invented a multi dimensional transporter and takes brian to a dimension that he describes as: "same year same time but in this universe christianity never existed which means the dark ages of scientific repression never occurred and thus humanity is 1000 years more advanced"

aaaand I don't have 10 posts yet but just google "family guy road to multiverse" for the whole episode it's hilarious!

Yea lol.

[oldoldman]

I wrote a 3-issue comic series wherein Little Blue Super Jew travels back in time to keep Jesus from being born. He's stopped by the Crimson Christian, but then travels to the crucifixion and keeps Jesus from dying by bringing him into the future, preventing Christianity's arrival. They return to present time to find that with no Christianity, the Roman Empire conquered the world. After battling their Roman counterparts (The Red Roman and Little Blue Super Jupiter), LBSJ grudgingly concedes that Christianity does have a place in the world, and they return Jesus to face his fate.

There's also an epilogue wherein LBSJ concocts a plan to turn Judaism into a communicable disease called the Jewbonic Plague.

The ultimate Jewish Conundrum:

Spoiler: show

A free ham sandwich

[Pirian]

The ultimate Jewish Conundrum:

Spoiler: show

A free ham sandwich

Psssh the only Jews that don't eat pork now days are the uptight ones.

[Pirian]

Or the ones who, you know, adhere to the very least of our dietary laws.

How many Christians do you know that don't eat shellfish?

[Kilhart]

So... what stance do you guys hold in the most recent legal case against the LHC in regards to a violation of the right to life? I personally feel that it's worth discussing. The foreseen risk of a catastrophic event has been stated to be 1 in 50 million (on a related note, I'd be interested to read the documentation on how this number was reached), but if any of the scenarios does happen, over six billion lives will be lost and the human race will become extinct. 1 in 50 million is a very small probability, but when you consider what's at stake here and the fact that the vast majority of the world has no choice in the matter, I think it's far from negligible.

On a related note, I understand there were similar concerns for the RHIC, but not nearly as strong. What was the perceived probability of the RHIC creating a doomsday scenario, and what makes the LHC alarm the general public much moreso than the RHIC, aside from higher energies/speeds? Does it cross a certain threshold where these risks become more apparent?

[Seraph]

So... what stance do you guys hold in the most recent legal case against the LHC in regards to a violation of the right to life? I personally feel that it's worth discussing. The foreseen risk of a catastrophic event has been stated to be 1 in 50 million (on a related note, I'd be interested to read the documentation on how this number was reached), but if any of the scenarios does happen, over six billion lives will be lost and the human race will become extinct. 1 in 50 million is a very small probability, but when you consider what's at stake here and the fact that the vast majority of the world has no choice in the matter, I think it's far from negligible.

On a related note, I understand there were similar concerns for the RHIC, but not nearly as strong. What was the perceived probability of the RHIC creating a doomsday scenario, and what makes the LHC alarm the general public much moreso than the RHIC, aside from higher energies/speeds? Does it cross a certain threshold where these risks become more apparent?

Last I checked, particle collisions several orders of magnitude higher than what the LHC can produce are happening all the time in the very upper atmosphere of our planet. The single biggest important difference here is that the LHC is performing these (much smaller and 'safer') collisions in a controlled observable environment, as opposed to miles up in the sky.

This shit has been happening for billions of years naturally, and we have yet to be consumed by a black hole or evil portal to the great beyond. The most dangerous thing that would happen in the LHC is some sort of hardware/software malfunction which could potentially be dangerous to the technicians working there.

It's not a bomb. It's not a weapon. It's much weaker than cosmic radiation smashing against our planet continuously. Where is the actual danger to life here? Definitely a case of 'people fear what they do not understand', and honestly 20 minutes on Wikipedia would teach you more than you need to know to understand it at a basic level. There is no cure for stupid.

[Kilhart]

Last I checked, particle collisions several orders of magnitude higher than what the LHC can produce are happening all the time in the very upper atmosphere of our planet. The single biggest important difference here is that the LHC is performing these (much smaller and 'safer') collisions in a controlled observable environment, as opposed to miles up in the sky.

This shit has been happening for billions of years naturally, and we have yet to be consumed by a black hole or evil portal to the great beyond. The most dangerous thing that would happen in the LHC is some sort of hardware/software malfunction which could potentially be dangerous to the technicians working there.

It's not a bomb. It's not a weapon. It's much weaker than cosmic radiation smashing against our planet continuously. Where is the actual danger to life here? Definitely a case of 'people fear what they do not understand', and honestly 20 minutes on Wikipedia would teach you more than you need to know to understand it at a basic level. There is no cure for stupid.

Well, the thing is, as far as I've read, the perceived risk was 1 in 50 million of a global catastrophe, not of dissipating, harmless black holes. The scientists who came up with this number hopefully put some thought and calculation into it, so it should at least be put under consideration, no?

[Mizango]

First off regarding thought on the LHC and the "right to life" I think its stupid. This is what happens when you get people with NO scientific background whatsoever stirring the pot and getting everyone worked into a fever pitch of nothing. I personally hope that a lot of people follow the lead of the young girl from India that drank pesticide so that she would die before the LHC killed her. This was a year ago and to that I say good riddance to stupid fucking people. Call it Darwinism, call it God's will or call it whatever you want to call it to make yourself feel better about killing yourself, just get to it already. This chaps my ass like nobody's business if it isn't already obvious.


But on the topic of Death and the RHIC, iirc the RHIC is completely unable to produce a true "doomsday scenario" mainly due to the fact that it gives off a particular type of thermal particles that are much akin to Hawking radiation (I know some here don't like that idea :D ) which would cause this hypothetical black hole to be non-existent.

There will be no such "Doomsday" scenario regarding the RHIC. Aside from it blowing up just like any building could there should be nothing Earth shattering on the foreseeable horizon. With both the LHC and the RHIC you are talking about time frames no miniscule that it should even be an issue. When something is existing for 10 -25 second or 10 -30 second tops I don't see why "OMG!!11 WErE GOnNA DIE!!" even creeps into the psyche of the illiterate.

Goddamn I hate you for making me rage right after lunch. >;(

[Mizango]

Well, the thing is, as far as I've read, the perceived risk was 1 in 50 million of a global catastrophe, not of dissipating, harmless black holes. The scientists who came up with this number hopefully put some thought and calculation into it, so it should at least be put under consideration, no?

Do you even know how particle colliders work or are you spewing shit that you read on Yahoo this morning?