Superluminal Travel, does it exist?

It was just an example. You can have "Gamma anything," but it is not "Gamma * anything." In the case you are looking at, it is showing how one transforms an interval of time or distance to a another frame of reference.

I would like to mention that if the assumptions on which we base our speculations are wrong then the speculations themselves can be fanciful and estranged from reality.

Like in this case, because of a misinterpretation of the notation, we get this idea that t = 1, which is nonsense. Not that the theory of relativity is correct... I don't know, and it probably isn't.
 
In algebra you can have Gamma = anything, but I'm pretty sure it is Gamma * t

I agree with the assumptions bit, just look at the field of theoretical physics today :P

The result wasn't t = 1, it was Gamma = 1, which only works if the velocity = 0 otherwise the theory is inconsistant.

And this is just what I got, I could be wrong as far as I know, But I could also be right as far as I know ;)
 
Chickenmales said:
I think it's possible to travel faster than the speed of light in conventional terms. I came across the idea that Einstein's special theory was flawed while reading on the internet, and upon looking at the geometry I found that x' = x + dx/dt or something, but t' = t then they go on to show that t' = Gamma * t or something which means that Gamma = 1 or the theory is inconsistant.
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The above does not make much sense to me. Please quote the sources from which you are drawing the conclusions so if anyone here is interested, they can take a look.

[quote author=Chickenmales]
Continuing on I found that matter can travel faster that the speed of light just by accelerating itself (if that makes sence, particle accelerators work the way they do because the magnetic field as 'observed' by the particle is weaker because F = B x v + q or something, so the acceleration on the particle is getting weaker as the particle gets faster). And that it MIGHT be possible to observe particles travelling faster than light if you look (with your space sensors) at them at just the right angle.
[/quote]

The equation provided above is wrong. If you are using an equation to prove your point, please take care that it is accurate. Otherwise, the credibility of your point gets seriously hurt. This is not a chat forum and people take what is written seriously.
 
Chickenmales said:
And this is just what I got, I could be wrong as far as I know, But I could also be right as far as I know ;)
Click to expand...

So you don't actually know. Please back up your posts with data, otherwise they are nothing but noise. And posting noise is against the forum guidelines.
 
There is a terrible and tragic disease in the world of students of math and physics :P of which I am one. I had it last night. I call it "Greek letter dyslexia." And you get it when you stay up later than normal one night and find that you are transposing different Greek letters! So for clarity...

I was thinking of delta when I wrote.

For example, "delta x" is very often used to mean the difference between two values of x. If x_i = 20 (i for initial) is the number of pork chops in my refrigerator just after I go to the grocery store and x_f = 0 (f for final) is the number of pork chops in my refrigerator a week later just before I go back to the grocery store, then in this case we could write

delta x = x_f - x_i = -20

Since the number is negative, we see that the net number of pork chops in my refrigerator decreased over the course of that week. It is not, however, delta * x. We can use delta as a variable, but it is not usually used in this way.

Then in intro relativity, gamma is a factor used to transform time and distance from one frame of reference to another. We do multiply it like you said. And sometimes gamma does have a value of one... Special relativity is not necessary when we are doing calculations with the speeds cars can drive for instance as they are far below the speed of light. So then what you were saying was someone thinks that they have a logical argument that forces gamma = 1 all of the time.

OK... Since we can not see this argument, I can say nothing.

I confused gamma and delta in my head, and in doing so, I essentially illustrated my own argument about nonsense assumptions being the foundation of nonsense thoughts. I confused gamma and delta, trusted my incorrect assumption completely, and wrote a post that was nonsense.
 
OK I think I've thought it through...

The equation I was thinking of was F = qv x B where F is the force on the charged particle, q is it's charge, v is it's velocity and B is the magnetic field. This has nothing to with what I was trying to say... sorry. What I was thinking of has to do with the magnetic field of a moving electric field, for some reason I thought that the electric field was weaker if it was moving and generated a magnetic field proportional to it's velocity. The only thing I can find resembling that though is the magnetic field of a moving point charge, which is B = (u/4*pi)(qv x r/r^2) where u = permeability of free space, q is the charge, v is the velocity, r is the is the unit vector pointing form the particle to where the magnetic field is created, and r^2 is the scalar or r squared.

With the relativity stuff what I was trying to say is that they start off the transformations:

x' = x + vt, where v = dx/dt
y' = y
z' = z
t' = t

Then they follow through and show that:

t' = Gamma * t

But they've already stated that t' = t so:

t' = Gamma * t = t

Therefore Gamma = 1. This means that the special theory, as it is, only works when v = 0.

Sorry for being confusing, I'll try to be more patient when posting, but I'm having so much fun :)
 
Hello Chickenmales,
You may seek a good book on special relativity. The question of a moving charged particle in an electromagnetic field is usually extensively discussed. You can search for "Lorentz transformation" for instance and it's easy to understand. Visibly you are not familiarized with dealing with basic motion equations, and you need to go back to the basics. Please do not post whatever goes through your head, it's a forum, not your personal blog.
 
I've gone through the books, I dunno why I thought that a moving electric charge creates a magnetic field and reduces the electric field. I feel I'm acquainted with the basic motion equations, and I've been over this stuff quite a few times. For some reason, however, people REALLY don't like it when I tell them I think it's possible to travel faster than the speed of light in conventional terms. My dad tells me that relativity is not intuitutional, but I've think the reason for that is because it's not consistant with itself. I find that a intuitional theory makes more sense and is mathematically consistant.
 
In that theory, whether it is correct or not (something I can not comment on), t' simply is not always equal to t. If you think you are on to something, then type it up and post it on a blog or something, where others can see it. But as has already been mentioned, this is not the forum for making claims with no support.
 
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