Re: TIB: Re: Fw: Ponder These


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Re: TIB: Re: Fw: Ponder These




At 03:27 AM 6/1/98 EDT, TGaArdvark wrote:
>
>Some more I thought of:
>
>How do you plant a seedless orange tree if they have no seeds?

The simple answer is: You don't.

The seedless orange tree is a mutant. At some point, the DNA in a seed
produced by a normal orange tree mutated such that the new tree had no
seeds in its fruit. Somebody noticed this, and since then it has been kept
alive by grafting the limbs from seedless orange trees to regular orange
trees.

>...  Then where does boneless chicken come from?

Uhm...I dunno. Probably they remove the bones somehow.

>And how about this (more serious) question:
>
>(neglecting relativity)
>If you traveled away from Earth at an infinant velocity for one
>second, you would be infinantly far away from Earth.  Where
>would you be if you turned around and traveled back at an
>infinant velocity for one second?  Would you be where you
>started (on Earth)?

Of course, you cannot neglect relativity. If a particle traveled at
infinite velocity, its position would become infinitely uncertain. It would
become a huge probability cloud encompassing the entire universe. It would
be present at all points simultaneously. See the sci.physics FAQ for
details (under "tachyons").

Another assumption being made is that the universe is infinite. The
prevalent view among scientists, however, is that the universe is finite
and boundless -- i.e., that it is the surface of some extra-dimensional
closed curve such as a hypersphere.

You could also use relativity to your advantage. If you traveled at exactly
the speed of light, external time would be stretched to infinity. An
infinite amount of time will have passed, and you will have traveled an
infinite distance.... But by this time, the universe will have either
expanded to infinity, or fallen back on itself and collapsed to a point.
And besides, to be able to travel at light speed, you'd have to be an
electromagnetic wave. To make sure that no subjective time passed, you'd
have to avoid obstacles so that you wouldn't be absorbed by stray particles
of matter. But since infinite time would pass in an instant, you wouldn't
have any time to maneuver anyway.

But neglecting all this, let's move on... :-)

>My conclusion: you would be an unknown finite distance
>from Earth as long as both travel times were perfectly
>identical.  If the times differed at all, regardless of how
>much, you would still be infinantly far from Earth since
>you traveled an infinant distance regardless.  Obviously,
>this level of time precision is totally 100% impossible.
>Traveling at an infinant velocity is currently impossible
>as well.  This is based on the fact that infinity - infinity
>is undefined.

This hinges upon the assumption that infinity minus infinity is a finite
indeterminate quantity. But this is not necessarily true. Here's the "proof":

   ("oo" symbolizes infinity)

          2 * oo = oo

          2x - x = x

   (substitute "oo" for "x")

     2 * oo - oo = oo

 (substitute "oo" for "2 * oo")

         oo - oo = oo

So, once you'd traveled at an infinite velocity for *any* nonzero amount of
time, you'd be stuck at an infinite distance from your original position.
There'd be no way to get back to a finite distance from your original
position, in a finite amount of time, without different technology.


---
David Ellsworth
davidell@earthling.net
IRC: eXocomp
ICQ: 2300673


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