Thread: Special Relativity misconceptions

Originally Posted by cmind

Well, to a massless particle like the photon, the universe would be timeless. But being a matter-borne object yourself, you need not worry about that

You are assuming that I am a matter-borne object and I take offense, you damned hyooman!

Originally Posted by cmind

But the information about what's happening to the light in the vicinity of the black hole must necessarily exit that curved space to get to you. So when it gets to you it's behaving normally. I think your problem is that in your mind there's some "objective" observer, and you're not realizing that all observers are correct...

But it seems to me that if all observers are correct, that this, by definition, makes it relative. I'm sorry if I sound repetitious and stupid. Perhaps my definition of "relative" is incorrect", or maybe I have unlocked a secret of physics that science has yet to unravel. I shall call it "sloth's law", and it will be way cooler than anything that silly ol' Einstein came up with.

Originally Posted by cmind

Actually a while back I read about a serious cosmological hypothesis that the universe itself is the interior of an event horizon, and the big bang is the singularity. Weird stuff.

I like this.

Originally Posted by cmind

You don't travel at the speed of light, so don't worry about it. Although I can say that as you approach the speed of light relative to a specific observer, your space and time dimensions start to 'mix', so that instead of travelling forward in space at a certain speed and forward in time at 1 second per second, your space speed increases less than normal and your time speed increases to more than 1 second per second.

However, you don't observe this. Only an outsider would observe this, which would make this relative.
...right?

Originally Posted by cmind

Not all questions have answers.

I know! Like, when I try to pull out of a parking lot, and suddenly a convoy of vehicles appears out of nowhere to slow me down! Where do they come from!? What are they doing when they are not impeding my passage onto the road?

Originally Posted by sloth

But it seems to me that if all observers are correct, that this, by definition, makes it relative. I'm sorry if I sound repetitious and stupid. Perhaps my definition of "relative" is incorrect", or maybe I have unlocked a secret of physics that science has yet to unravel. I shall call it "sloth's law", and it will be way cooler than anything that silly ol' Einstein came up with.

Your definition is wrong.

Originally Posted by sloth

However, you don't observe this. Only an outsider would observe this, which would make this relative.
...right?

Correct. Your use of the word "relative" here is very different from above, when you were talking about looking at black holes from far away.

Originally Posted by sloth

I know! Like, when I try to pull out of a parking lot, and suddenly a convoy of vehicles appears out of nowhere to slow me down! Where do they come from!? What are they doing when they are not impeding my passage onto the road?

They wait...they wait.